Sparky March 2016 Release Notes

SparkyMarch2016ReleaseNotes.txt

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  Sparky March 2016 Release Notes
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Major New Features:
- Sparky now supports Physically-Based Rendering (PBR)
- Sparky now supports rendering in both OpenGL and Direct3D 11
- Custom 3D model format (SPM - Sparky Model)
- Build tool for converting from Autodesk FBX to SPM
- Custom memory allocation and control
- Matrix maths is now row-major


The following is the full list of changes included in this month's release:
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- Sparky now supports OpenGL and Direct3D 11 as rendering APIs
- Refactored entire graphics engine to support multiple rendering APIs
- Changed FreeType-GL to provide pixel data rather than OpenGL textures, so that it could be used with DX
- Fixed window sometimes not closing when the close button was pressed (Win32)
- Fixed mouse release events getting lost because the window was not capturing mouse clicks properly (Win32)
- Added window focus and resize events (Win32)
- Fixed window resizing not propagating to appropriate renderers
- Changed font rendering to work with OpenGL and Direct3D
- Sparky now supports Physically-Based Rendering (PBR)
- Added normal mapping support for PBR
- Added Disney diffuse model and GGX specular model for PBR lighting (mostly taken from Frostbite's PBR paper)
- Added Image-Based Lighting (IBL) for PBR (similar to Frostbite's model)
- Added Depth Textures and basic shadow rendering (now obsolete after render API changes)
- Added basic deferred rendering support (now obsolete after render API changes)
- Sparky now uses a custom 3D model format (SPM - Sparky Model) for meshes
- Added SPMBuild tool for FBX-to-SPM conversion
- Created PBRMaterial class for convenience
- Added cubemap texture support (TextureCube) (GL and DX)
- Added Material render flags
- Fixed uniform struct alignment to work with DX (16-byte aligned, MSVC only)
- Created Renderer class for render API specific states (eg. depth-testing, blend modes, etc.)
- Added FreeImage to Solution. Sparky now compiles FreeImage as a static library, along with selected FreeImage utilities
- Created render API independent blend modes and buffer types
- BufferLayouts now work with GL and DX
- Rewrote Shader class
- Converted Forward Renderer to use system uniforms
- Added booleans to debug menu
- Added first-person camera (FPSCamera)
- Added custom Allocator class for future development
- Added spnew and spdel macros for memory management
- Added MemoryManager for tracking memory allocations
- Added dynamic shader reloading (GL only)
- Added Debug Renderer (currently broken due to API changes)
- Added plenty of resources to Sandbox (PBR materials, cubemaps, models)
- Added signed and unsigned integer typedefs (int8, int16, int32, etc.)
- Fixed MSVC compiler warnings
- Organised Visual Studio filters for Sparky-core project
- Removed ChernoCraft
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Known Issues:
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See Github issues.