Babylon.js/what's new.md

v3.0

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 & davrous)
• Complete rewrite of PBRMaterial. Introduced two new helper materials: pbrMetallicRoughnessMaterial and pbrSpecularGlossinessMaterial. Demo - More info here (Sebastien Vandenberghe)
• Support for Morph Targets. More info here (deltakosh)
• New Babylon.GUI to create user interface (compatible with WebVR). More info here (deltakosh)
• Added support for Exponential Shadow maps to replace Variance Shadow maps. more info here Demo#1 Demo#2 (deltakosh)
• Support for Vertex Array Objects (deltakosh)
• Support for Uniform Buffer Objects (CraigFeldspar)
  • New SSAO technique, using MultiRenderTargets (CraigFeldspar)
• 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) / (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 Doc (jcpalmer)
• All deprecated functions and properties were removed (deltakosh)
• New build system based on workloads. More info here (deltakosh)
• New Cell Shading material added into Materials Library Demo (Julien Moreau-Mathis)
• New kernel based blur. Demo (deltakosh)
• New highlights postprocess (deltakosh)
• New DefaultRenderingPipeline to enable image processing effect. Demo (deltakosh)
• New image processing postprocess. Doc here (deltakosh)
• Spector.js New WebGL debugger: more info here (Sebastien Vandenberghe)
• New blur mode for mirrors. Demo (deltakosh)

Updates

• Added syncBoneWithImpostor() and syncImpostorWithBone() to PhysicsImpostor to help with creating ragdoll effects. Demo (abow)
• New automatic creation mode for skybox. Doc here (deltakosh)
• New way to force compilation of materials. Doc here (deltakosh)
• Added a Physics tab to the inspector (abow)
• New Debug.PhysicsViewer class for viewing PhysicsImpostors. Demo (abow)
• New ColorPicker for GUI. Demo (abow)
• Added slerp and limits to BoneLookController. Demo (abow)
• new Texture.readPixels() function to read texture content (deltakosh)
• New helpers to use ExtrudePolygon. Demo (Cubees)
• PostProcess can now use alpha blending and share outputs (deltakosh)
• Added ArcRotateCamera.panningInertia to decouple inertia from panning inertia (deltakosh)
• Added FIXED_EQUIRECTANGULAR_MIRRORED_MODE mode for reflection texture. Demo here (deltakosh)
• 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 parameters frontUVs and backUVs to all the methods MeshBuilder.CreateXXX() supporting sideOrientation (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)
• Added material.twoSidedLighting to PBRMaterial and StandardMaterial to enable flipping normals when backfaceCulling is false (BeardedGnome, bghgary)
• Added a HTML page with embedded directions to improve the custom build process. (jcpalmer)
• Added glTF 2.0 loader with versioning support (bghgary, thanks to BeardedGnome for animation updates)
• New Motion Blur effect added into StandardRenderingPipeline Demo (Julien Moreau-Mathis)
• Allow the BlackAndWhite post process to adjust the degree in subsequent frames, for Welcome to Wonderland types of animation (jcpalmer)
• New BABYLON.TextureTools.CreateResizedCopy function to create a copy of a texture and chage its size (deltakosh)

Bug fixes

• Fixed issue with FPS not decreasing when reflections are disabled (abow)
• Fixed disappearing BoneAxesViewer (abow)
• Fixed disappearing SkeletonViewer (abow)
• Fixed billboarding for parented meshes (abow)
• Fixed issue with BoneIKController and left-handed coordinate systems (abow)
• 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)
  
• Fixed SPS billboard mode when used with a parented camera (jerome)

API Documentation

• File abstractMesh.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
• HDRRenderingPipeline:
  • HDRRenderingPipeline has been removed because it is deprecated. It is now replaced by StandardRenderingPipeline which is more advanced. See documentation
• PBRMaterial:
  • Fixed several bugs which could lead to visual changes. More info here
  • Removed all overloadedXXX properties
  • Removed all fresnelXXX properties
  • Removed .babylon.hdr textures: We now use DDS files.