News from SVN — X3D multi-texturing, cube maps and more

Hi! I didn't post a message here since some time, but rest assured that the development of next engine version continues :) Things already implemented in the SVN include:

• X3D multi-texturing.
• X3D cube map nodes.
• This also means that DDS file format (for ImageCubeMapTexture) is implemented (both reading and writing, you can even use glViewImage as a simple DDS editor).
• This includes generating textures on the fly (for GeneratedCubeMapTexture).
• As extensions, I added texture generation modes "WORLDSPACEREFLECTIONVECTOR" and "WORLDSPACENORMAL" (analogous to X3D standard modes in CAMERA space) to make simulating real reflections trivial.
• There is also quite cool new feature in view3dscene to catch a "screenshot" of 3D world around you as a cube map (DDS, or six separate normal images).
• Passing almost all possible VRML types to GLSL shaders is implemented.
• ..and a lot of other cool features are already implemented :)

The plan for the next release (view3dscene 3.4, engine 1.8) is to polish implementation of all above (yes, there are some known problems, also GeneratedCubeMapTexture implementation is severely unoptimal now), and add related texturing and GLSL features:

• 3D texturing (that's easy since we already have DDS).
• Basic implementation of RenderedTexture from InstantReality (that's easy since it's internally simpler than GeneratedCubeMapTexture).
• Finish GLSL stuff by supporting X3D attributes nodes.

For the impatient: nightly builds of all binaries (including view3dscene) are available. They are build automatically every night using current SVN code. Use at your own risk, of course — they do contain some known bugs. For now, they are made for Linux and Windows (32-bit).