xNormal 3.16.12

xNormal 3.16.12 has been relesed:



- Added support Maya 2010
- Fixed a problem rendering tiled/wrapped maps. The UVs no longer need to be in range [0.0f,1.0f].
- Improved the sampling quality of ambient occlusion, bent normals and radiosity normal maps.
- Fixed a problem importing SBM files into 3dsmax ( Projection modifier deformation )
- Now it's possible to specify a background color for each map type.
- Added an option to ignore backface hit computing the AO.
- Improved compatibility with Windows 7
- Solved a lot of bugs

xNormal 4.0 pre-alpha 0 videos

Here is a small video showing the upcoming xNormal 4 Alpha. I recorded it using MacOSX 10.5



You can see a bit of the new interface. It currently runs on MacOSX, Windows, linux and OpenSolaris. It's not yet very funcitonal... but the basis is there and it's growing exponentially each day!

On the left there is the scene tree with the highpoly, lowpoly, lights, textures and materials. On the right there is the 3D viewport. On top there is the main menu. On bottom there is the status bar. A very simple but effective layout.

Here is the Windows version ( so you can see the UI is OS-native-look-and-feel ):


Here is the Ubuntu linux's one:




The idea is to implement these things for the Alpha 1:

1. A basic 3D viewport with GLSL shading ( yes, you'll be able to program your own realtime shaders ) and multiple lights.

2. The HM2NM tool ( to test multithreading ).

3. A simple map generator. I'll allow you also to write your own offline shaders ( using LUA/python ). The alpha 1 will include a basic normal mapping shader so you can generate normal maps.

4. Basic automation via scripting ( for example: use the HM2NM script command to generate a normal map from a height map ).

I'll upload the alpha 1 executable ( for Windows, MacOSX 10.4/5/6, Ubuntu linux and OpenSolaris 2009 ) once these things are fully functional.

More videos are coming!