The new environment variables FXVIZ_SHADOW_TEXTURE_UNIT0 and FXVIZ_SHADOW_TEXTURE_UNIT1 allow you to specify the texture units used internally by FXViz.
If redefined this affects all the SoShadowGroup derived nodes.
No new feature was added. See the fixed bugs section.
No new feature was added. See the fixed bugs section.
No new feature was added. See the fixed bugs section.
No new feature was added. See the fixed bugs section.
No new feature was added. See the fixed bugs section.
No new feature was added. See the fixed bugs section.
Starting with Open Inventor 5.0, FXViz no longer requires a separate license string. The FXViz features are included with your base Open Inventor license.
No new feature was added.
Bump mapping is a way of simulating bumps or wrinkles in a surface by modifying the surface normals. Bump maps can be used to simulate features that would otherwise take very many polygons to model. The basic idea of bump mapping is that, instead of using a texture to modify the color of a surface, we apply a texture, called a Normal Map or Bump Map, to modify the surface normal.
The following shapes support bump mapping:
- SoFaceSet,
- SoQuadMesh, and
- SoTriangleStripSet.
The SoTextureUnit node specifies if an SoTexture2 texture is a "classical" texture or a bump map.
SoBumpMapProperties allows you to specify bump map attributes.
Using the new appearance preserving simplification feature, you can create more realistic looking shapes with fewer triangles.
Starting with a complex model, the first step is to create a simplified (i.e., lower polygon count) version of the model using the existing simplification tools (SoSimplifyAction, etc.). The next step is to pass the two models to the new SoAppearancePreserver class which computes a normal map that attempts to reproduce the appearance of the complex model on the simplified model. The final step is to apply the resulting bump maps to the simple model.
See SoAppearancePreserver for details.
The SoParticleAnimation::goalFramesPerSecond field now accepts 0 as a value. This requests that particles be refreshed as often as possible.
The following enhancements were made to SoShadowGroup:
- Better accuracy and performance using the OpenGL DepthTexture and Shadow extensions (standard with OpenGL 1.4).
- Better performance and image quality using PBuffers for accelerated off-screen rendering.
- It is now possible to specify a "visibility radius" for shadows. Shadows are only computed within this distance from the camera. This can improve performance for scene walk-throughs.
- Performance improvement for animated scenes and/or when lights change.
- Support for spotlights.
NOTE: Inventor files that contain the new fields "visibilityRadius" or "visibilityFlag" will not be readable by older versions of Open Inventor. See the Compatibility topic for more details.
NOTE: Performance issues and incorrect images have been observed with some OpenGL drivers due to the TextureBorderClamp OpenGL extension (standard in OpenGL 1.3). Setting the OIV_TEXTURE_BORDER_CLAMP_ENABLE environment variable to 0 may be necessary.
NOTE: With some older graphics boards, like GeForce2, it may also be necessary to set OIV_FORCE_DUAL_TEX_SHADOW to 1.
The new SoShadowStyle node allows you to specify if the objects under a SoShadowGroup cast a shadow or not, and if they can be shadowed or not. Disabling shadow casting for some objects, for example the floor in a walkthrough scene, can improve performance.
The f16ParticleAnimationDemo program now supports shadow casting. Also, now that Open Inventor supports sound (Win32 only), the graphics are accompanied by nifty sound effects.