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

3.0.0:

Core engine

Major updates

• WebGL2 context support. WebGL2 is now used instead of WebGL 1 when available. More info here (deltakosh)
• Complete WebVR 1.1 support including controllers for HTC Vive and Occulus. More info here (raanan)
• Added support for Exponential Shadow maps to replace Variance Shadow maps. Demo (deltakosh)
• Support for Vertex Array Objects (deltakosh)
• Support for multisample render targets. Demo (deltakosh)
• New Unity 5 Editor Toolkit. Complete pipeline integration Doc - (MackeyK24)
• New DebugLayer. Doc - (temechon)
• New VideoTexture.CreateFromWebCam to generate video texture using WebRTC. Demo - (Sebastien Vandenberghe)(https://github.com/sebavanmicrosoft) / (deltakosh)
• New Facet Data feature (jerome)
• babylon.fontTexture.ts was moved from babylon.js to canvas2D (nockawa)
• Multi-platform Compressed Textures for Desktops & Mobile Devices with fall back. Batch (dos) scripts to convert entire directories of .jpg's & .png's (jcpalmer)
• All deprecated functions and properties were removed (deltakosh)

Updates

• Introduced boundingBox.centerWorld and boundingBox.extendSizeWorld (deltakosh)
• Improved FXAA post-process (deltakosh)
• Added Light.customProjectionMatrixBuilder to allow developers to define their own projection matrix for shadows (deltakosh)
• Added set() function to all basic types (deltakosh)
• Added HDRCubeTextureAssetTask to AssetManager (deltakosh)
• Engine now uses range based fog (deltakosh)
• VertexBuffer.updatable is now serialized (deltakosh)
• Added intersectsMeshes to Ray (abow)
• New RayHelper class for easily viewing and attaching a ray to a mesh. Demo - (abow)
• Mesh.applyDisplacementMap now accepts uvScale and uvOffset parameter (deltakosh)
• Added addChild, removeChild, setParent to AbstractMesh (abow)
• Effect.getVertexShaderSource() and Effect.getFragmentShaderSource() now returns the effective shader code (including evaluation of #define) (deltakosh)
• GroundMesh : getHeightAtCoordinates(), getNormalAtCoordinates() and getNormalAtCoordinatesToRef() can now work with rotated grounds (jerome)
  
• GroundMesh, facetData and SolidParticleSystem improvement in normal computations (jerome)
  
• Added AbstractMesh.addRotation() (jerome)
  
• Added Quaternion.RotationQuaternionFromAxis() and Quaternion.RotationQuaternionFromAxisToRef() (jerome, thanks to abow)
  
• Added parameters uvs and colors to MeshBuilder.CreateRibbon() (jerome)
  
• Added Curve3.CreateCatmullRomSpline() (jerome and BitOfGold)
  
• Added the optional parametercolorFilter to CreateGroundFromHeightMap() (jerome)
  
• Improved the internal code of Vector3.RotationFromAxisToRef() (jerome, thanks to abow)
  
• GroundMeshes are now serialized correctly (deltakosh)
• Added mesh.markVerticesDataAsUpdatable() to allow a specific vertexbuffer to become updatable (deltakosh)
• Added POINTERTAP and POINTERDOUBLETAP PointerEventTypes to register new Observer mask. (Demo here)http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/?30
• Added OnDoublePickTrigger for ActionManager (yuccai)
• Added Scene.DoubleClickDelay to set the timing within a double click event like PointerEventTypes.POINTERDOUBLETAP or ActionManager.OnDoublePickTrigger has to be processed (yuccai)
• New material: ShadowOnlyMaterial to display shadows on transparent surfaces (deltakosh)
• Added VertexBuffer.TangentKind to specify tangents in place of shader-calculated tangents (dewadswo, bghgary)

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug with spotlight direction (deltakosh)
• Fixed an issue with Mesh.attachToBone when a mesh is moving and an animation is changed (abow)
• Fixed an issue withaspect ratio when using CreateScreenshot (deltakosh)
• Fixed SPS particle initial status when used as updatable with a positionFunction in addShape() (jerome)
  
• Fixed SPS particle access start index when used with setParticles(start, end) (jerome)
  

API Documentation

- FileabstractMesh.ts` documented (jerome)

• File mesh.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File groundMesh.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File instancedMesh.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File lineMesh.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File vertexData.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File subMesh.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File vertexBuffer.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File math.ts documented (jerome)
• File light.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File directionalLight.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File hemisphericLight.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File pointLight.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File spotLight.ts documented (jerome)
  
• File shadowGenerator.ts documented (jerome)
  

Breaking changes

• WebVRCamera:
  • requestVRFullscreen has been removed. Call attachControl() inside a user-interaction callback to start sending frames to the VR display
  • setPositionOffset has been used to change the position offset. it is now done using camera.position
• Ray :
  • show has been removed. Use new RayHelper.show() instead
  • hide has been removed. Use new RayHelper.hide() instead
• AbstractMesh:
  • onPhysicsCollide has been removed. Use mesh.physicsImpostor.registerOnPhysicsCollide() instead
  • setPhysicsState has been removed. Use new PhysicsImpostor() instead
  • getPhysicsMass has been removed. Use mesh.physicsImpostor.getParam("mass") instead
  • getPhysicsFriction has been removed. Use mesh.physicsImpostor.getParam("friction") instead
  • getPhysicsRestitution has been removed. Use mesh.physicsImpostor.getParam("restitution") instead
  • updatePhysicsBodyPosition has been removed. Changes are synchronized automatically now
• Mesh:
  • updateVerticesDataDirectly has been removed. Use mesh.updateVerticesData() instead
• SsaoRenderingPipeline:
  • getBlurHPostProcess has been removed. Blur post-process is no more required
  • getBlurVPostProcess has been removed. Blur post-process is no more required
• Scene:
  • setGravity has been removed. Use scene.getPhysicsEngine().setGravity() instead
  • createCompoundImpostor has been removed. Use PhysicsImpostor parent/child instead
• ActionManager:
  • LongPressDelay and DragMovementThreshold are now respectively Scene.LongPressDelay and Scene.DragMovementThreshold

Canvas2D

Major Updates

• Added text alignment and word wrap to Text2D (abow)
• Support of Scale9Sprite feature in Sprite2D (nockawa)
• Support of AtlasPicture to store many pictures into a bit one, with the possibility to create one/many Sprite2D out of it. (nockawa)
• Support of BMFont with the BitmaptFontTexture class, Text2D has now a bitmapFontTexture setting in the constructor to display text using a BitmapFontTexture (nockawa)

Minor Updates

• WorldSpaceCanvas: TrackNode feature, a WSC can follow a Scene Node with an optional billboarding feature (always facing the camera)Demo
• WorldSpaceCanvas: new setting unitScaleFactor to generated a bigger canvas than the world space mesh size. If you create a WSC with a size of 200;100 and a uSF of 3, the 3D Plane displaying the canvas will be 200;100 of scene units, the WSC will be 600;300 of pixels units.

Bug Fixing

• Fix Rotation issue when the Parent's Primitive hadn't a identity scale. (nockawa)
• Primitive's position computed from TrackedNode are now hidden when the node is out of the Viewing Frustum (nockawa)
• WorldSpaceCanvas: sideOrientation is finally working, you can try Mesh.DOUBLESIDE to make you Canvas visible on both sides. (nockawa)