Babylon.js/dist/preview release/what's new.md

3.2.0

Major updates

• Support for GPU particles. Demo here (deltakosh)
• Improved building process: We now run a full visual validation test for each pull request. Furthermore, code comments and what's new updates are now mandatory (sebavan)
• Babylon.js now uses Promises in addition to callbacks. We created several xxxAsync functions all over the framework (SceneLoader.AppendAsync for instance, which returns a Promise). A polyfill is also integrated to support older browsers (deltakosh)
• Introduced texture binding atlas. This optimization allows the engine to reuse texture bindings instead of rebinding textures when they are not on constant sampler indexes (deltakosh)
• New AnimationGroup class to control simultaneously multiple animations with different targets (deltakosh)
• WebVRCamera: added basic support for Daydream and Gear VR (brianzinn)
• Introduced Projection Texture on SpotLight. Demo here (lostink)
• Introduced support for local cubemaps. Demo here (deltakosh)
• Added VideoDome class to easily support 360 videos. Demo here (DavidHGillen)
• Added GlowLayer to easily support glow from emissive materials. Demo here (sebavan)
• New AssetContainer class and loading methods (trevordev)
• Added depth of field, sharpening, MSAA, chromatic aberration and grain effect to the default pipeline (trevordev)
• Added support for animation weights. Demo here (deltakosh)
• Added sub emitters for particle system which will spawn new particle systems when particles dies. Demo here (IbraheemOsama)
• New Babylon.js and glTF exporter for Autodesk Maya (Noalak)
• New glTF serializer. You can now export glTF or glb files directly from a Babylon scene (kcoley)
• New glTF exporter for Autodesk 3dsmax (Noalak)
• Physics - Latest production version of Oimo.js is being used - 1.0.9 (RaananW)
• Introduces PCF and PCSS shadow support in Webgl 2 (sebavan))

Documentation

• Tons of functions and classes received the code comments they deserved (All the community with a special thanks to John King)
• Moved the class API documentation to Typedoc (deltakosh)

Updates

• New particle system emitter shapes: cone and sphere (IbraheemOsama)
• Added support for 16bits TGA (deltakosh)
• New AnimationPropertiesOverride class used to simplify setting animation properties on child animations. Documentation (deltakosh)
• New Texture.UseSerializedUrlIfAny static property to let textures serialize complete URL instead of using side by side loading (deltakosh)
• Added particleSystem.reset() to clear a particle system (deltakosh)
• Added support for all RGBA orders (BGR, RGB, etc..) for the DDS loader (deltakosh)
• Improved SceneOptimizer to provide better adaptability (deltakosh)
• Improved scene.isReady() function which now takes in account shadows and LOD (deltakosh)
• New watcher configuration for VSCode. Now the task only compiles changed files (sebavan)
• Added new draw modes to engine (points, lines, linesloop, linestrip, trianglestrip, trianglefan) (benaadams)
• Added GUI Textblock.lineSpacing setter and getter to configure vertical space between lines in pixels or percentage values when working with text wrapping (carloslanderas)
• VRHelper now has onSelectedMeshUnselected observable that will notify observers when the current selected mesh gets unselected (carloslanderas)
• VRHelper now has onBeforeCameraTeleport and onAfterCameraTeleport observables that will be notified before and after camera teleportation is triggered. (carloslanderas)
• VRHelper now has the public property teleportationEnabled to enable / disable camera teleportation. (carloslanderas)
• VRHelper now exposes onNewMeshPicked observable that will notify a PickingInfo object after meshSelectionPredicate evaluation (carloslanderas)
• AssetsManager will now clear its tasks lsit from all successfully loaded tasks (deltakosh)
• Added documentation to WebVRCamera and VRExperienceHelper (trevordev)
• Introduced isStroke on HighlightLayerOptions which makes the highlight solid (PixelsCommander)
• (Viewer) There is now an option to paste payload instead of a URL for configuration (RaananW)
• (Viewer) Models can be loaded async using JavaScript (RaananW)
• VRHelper will notify now onSelectedMeshUnselected observable to subscribers when the applied ray selection predicate does not produce a hit and a mesh compliant with the meshSelectionPredicate was previously selected (carloslanderas)
• (Viewer) initScene and initEngine can now be extended. onProgress during model loading is implemented as observable. (RaananW)
• glTF loader now supports the KHR_lights extension (MiiBond)
• The observable can now notify observers using promise-based callback chain. (RaananW)
• Added base64 helper functions to Tools (bghgary)
• Added createDefaultCamera and createDefaultLight functions to Scene (bghgary)
• Gulp process now supports multiple outputs when using webpack. (RaananW)
• (Viewer) Scene Optimizer intergrated in viewer. (RaananW)
• (Viewer) The viewer supports custom shaders in the configuration. (RaananW)
• Documented PostProcessRenderEffect, DefaultRenderingPipeline, BlurPostProcess, DepthOfFieldEffect, PostProcess, PostProcessManager, Effect classes (trevordev)
• SPS internal storage of each solid particle rotation matrix (jbousquie)
• SPS particle parenting feature (jbousquie)
• (Viewer) Introducing the viewer labs - testing new features. (RaananW)
• KeepAssets class and AssetContainer.moveAllFromScene (HoloLite trevordev)
• (Viewer) It is now possible to update parts of the configuration without rcreating the objects. Extra configuration can be loaded sync (if provided) (RaananW)
• (Gulp) extra/external declarations can be prepended to final declarations during build. (RaananW)
• (Viewer) Model can be normalized using configuration, camera is dynamically configured. (RaananW)
• (Gulp) extra/external declarations can be prepended to final NPM declarations during build. (RaananW)
• GUI.Line can have its world position set from one end or the other (SvenFrankson)
• Added FOV system to background material for zoom effects in skyboxes without adjusting camera FOV (DavidHGillen)
• Improved glTF loader by using promises for asynchronous operations. (bghgary]
• Improved glTF loader performance by compiling materials in parallel with downloading external resources. (bghgary]
• Added unit tests for the glTF 2.0 loader. (bghgary]
• Added promise-based async functions to the SceneLoader, Scene.whenReadyAsync, and material.forceCompilationAsync. (bghgary]
• Added checks to VertexData.merge to ensure data is valid before merging. (bghgary]
• Ability to set a mesh to customize the webVR gaze tracker (trevordev)
• Added promise-based async functions for initWebVRAsync and useStandingMatrixAsync (trevordev)
• Add stroke (outline) options on GUI text control (SvenFrankson)
• Add isThumbClamped option on GUI slider control (JeanPhilippeKernel)
• Add floating point texture support for RenderTargetCubeTexture (PeapBoy)
• Support for mutli-touch when interacting with multiple gui elements simultaneously (trevordev)
• (Viewer) Declaration file published, ready for npm. (RaananW)
• Added Draco mesh compression support to glTF 2.0 loader. (bghgary)
• Support multiple simultaneous webVR controller gui interactions in WebVRExperienceHelper (trevordev)
• (Viewer) XHR requests not use Tools.LoadFile and are disposed correctly - #3671 (RaananW)
• Added Tools.WorkerPool class for web worker management. (bghgary)
• Support depth maps for multiple active cameras for post processes like depth of field (trevordev)
• Integrates depth texture support in the engine (sebavan)
• NPM package now has a dependency system, updated during build. (RaananW)
• WebVRExperienceHelper will create an empty controller model so that controller interactions can be used while the actual model is still loading (trevordev)
• Default fragment shader will clamp negative values to avoid underflow, webVR post processing will render to eye texture size (trevordev)
• Supports Environment Drag and Drop in Sandbox (sebavan)
• EnvironmentHelper has no an onError observable to handle errors when loading the textures (RaananW)
• (Viewer) Viewer supports model animations and multi-model loading (RaananW)
• Tests for sharpen, chromatic aberration, default pipeline and enable/disable post processes (trevordev)
• onPointer* callbacks have now the event type as a 3rd variable (RaananW)
• Lightmap texture in PBR material follow the gammaSpace Flag of the texture (sebavan)
• Added setTextureFromPostProcessOutput to bind the output of a postprocess into an effect (trevordev)
• Added support for primitive modes to glTF 2.0 loader. (bghgary]
• Updated bloom effect to only bloom areas of the image above a luminance threshold (trevordev)
• Cannon and Oimo are optional dependencies (RaananW)
• Shadows - Introduces Normal Bias (sebavan))
• Earcut is an external, optional dependency. (RaananW)
• Return animation groups when calling SceneLoader.ImportMesh. (bghgary]

Bug fixes

• setPivotMatrix ws not setting pivot correctly. This is now fixed. We also introduced a new setPreTransformMatrix to reproduce the sometimes needed behavior of the previous setPivotMatrix function (deltakosh)
• SPS solid particle .pivot property now also behaves like the standard mesh pivot. Former behavior (particle translation) can be kept with the particle property .translateFromPivot set to true (jbousquie)
• Texture extension detection in Engine.CreateTexture (sebavan)
• SPS internal temporary vector3 instead of Tmp.Vector3 to avoid possible concurrent uses (jbousquie)
• Fixed a bug when calling load on an empty assets manager - #3739 (RaananW)
• Enabling teleportation in the vr helper class caused a redundant post process to be added (trevordev)
• (Viewer) Fixed a bug where loading another mesh positioned it incorrectly (RaananW)
• Scale vr controllers by deviceScale when it is set in VRExperienceHelper (trevordev)
• (Viewer) Disabling templates now work correctly (RaananW)
• AMD "define" declaration is no longer anonymous (RaananW)
• Collision worker didn't initialize instanced meshes correctly - #3819 (RaananW)
• postMessage calls in webworkers were fixed. (RaananW)
• Fixed WebCam Texture on Firefox and Edge - #3825 (sebavan)
• Add onLoadObservable on VideoTexture - #3845 (sebavan)
• beforeRender is now triggered after the camera updated its state - #3873 (RaananW)
• Tools.DeepCopy no longer copying getter-only elements - #3929 (RaananW)

Breaking changes

• Removed the unused PostProcessRenderPass class and extended postProcessingRenderingEffect to support multiple PostProcesses (trevordev)
• VertexData.merge no longer supports merging of data that do not have the same set of attributes. (bghgary]
• glTF 2.0 loader now creates a mesh for each primitive instead of merging the primitives together into one mesh. If a mesh only has one primitive, the behavior is the same as before. This change only affects meshes that have multiple primitives. (bghgary]
• Engine's onCanvasPointerOutObservable will now return a PointerEvent instead of the Engine. (trevordev)
• Removed public references to default rendering pipeline's internal post process (trevordev)