Babylon.js/what's new - 2.1 - proposal.md

- 2.1.0:

• Major updates
• Collisions can now be offloaded on webworkers (raananw)
• SIMD.js support for math library. See demo (deltakosh)
• Unity 5 scene exporter. More info here (davrous, deltakosh)
• New Mesh.CreateDecal() function to create decals. See demo. More info here (deltakosh)
• New tool for debugLayer: You can now dump renderTargets to see their content (deltakosh)
• Complete shadows code rework: New bias property for ShadowGenerator, new orthogonal shadows for directional shadows, automatic projection size for directional lights, new BlurVarianceShadowMap filter. See demo. Documentation updated here (deltakosh)
• New lens effects rendering pipeline. More info here (jahow)
• New basic mesh type: Ribbons. See demo. More info here (jbousquie)
• New BABYLON.Mesh.ExtrudeShape and BABYLON.Mesh.ExtrudeShapeCustom. More info here (jbousquie)
• New Loaders folder with a first additionnal plugin: STL (raananw, deltakosh)
• Gulp building process revamped, updated and simplified and now includes a config.json (raananw)
• Updates
• VR cameras can disable distortion postprocess to get more performance (deltakosh)
• New MultiMaterial.clone() function (deltakosh)
• Faster mesh.computeNormals() function (jbousquie)
• Added the ability to dynamically update or to morph an mesh instance (jbousquie)
• Allow static Mesh.MergeMeshes to work with clones & Mesh subclasses (Palmer-JC)
• Added mesh.freezeWorldMatrix() for static meshes (deltakosh)
• Added mesh.freezeNormals() for parametric mesh updates (jbousquie)
• Added Vector3.RotationFromAxis() to get Euler rotation angles from a target system (jbousquie)
• Added mesh.alwaysSelectAsActiveMesh to disable frustum clipping for a specific mesh (deltakosh)
• Added updateMeshPositions method (jbousquie)
• Callbacks for geometry changes (raananw)
• Allow Engine to run for CocoonJS with standard html, including devices where the hardware scaling != 1 (Palmer-JC)
• Material onBind callback improvement (jahow)
• New front/back/double side feature for meshes (jbousquie)
• New basic mesh type: Disc (jbousquie)
• New basic mesh type: Tube. More info here (jbousquie)
• Allow ComputeNormals to work with Typed Arrays & the Typescript Level (Palmer-JC)
• Added uniqueId for nodes (raananw)
• Added Mesh.onLODLevelSelection(distance: number, mesh: Mesh, selectedLevel: Mesh) callback (deltakosh)
• Added Material.zOffset to help reducing z-fighting (deltakosh)
• Added excludeWithLayerMask to lights (Palmer-JC)
• Added includeOnlyWithLayerMask for filtering meshes (Palmer-JC)
• Mesh Default layerMask changed to allow more "special cameras filtering" (Palmer-JC)
• Sprite can now have .width and .height properties (deltakosh)
• Ability to register events based on mesh/camera/light addition and deletion (raananw)
• New Curve object (jbousquie) More info here
• New Path3D object (jbousquie) More info here
• New 'color correction' post process (jahow)
• Added sampling mode as a parameter for SpriteManager (jahow)
• RenderTexture can now be saved to a file (deltakosh)
• Better attributes management (deltakosh)
• Source conform to typescript 1.4 (raananw)
• Adding subMeshId property in PickingInfo structure (deltakosh)
• No more error when a manifest is not found (deltakosh)
• Bug fixes
• Initial quaternion fix for OIMO plugin (raananw)
• ArcRotateCamera pinch zoom debug (vousk)
• Fixing animatable bug when animation is over (temechon)
• useCameraPostProcess whenever there is a special camera in use (m0ppers)
• delta in BoundingBox's intersectsPoint is now calculated correctly (raananw)
• textures cache fixed (deltakosh)
• Breaking changes
• OculusCamera was removed (deltakosh)
• VRDeviceOrientationCamera was renamed to VRDeviceOrientationFreeCamera (deltakosh)
• WebVRCamera was renamed to WebVRFreeCamera (deltakosh)