Build 10 is out!

New builds are up and can be downloaded at:

(Patched build 10a fixes issue when loading existing .blend projects on Windows.)

Getting started at:
http://armory3d.org/manual/getting_started/setup.html


Armory is 10 builds old - now with release notes! In case of issues, previous Build 9 is still available on itch.

Changelog:

  • Major improvements to the system of Logic Nodes, currently implementing 145 logic nodes. Will keep rolling out more docs and examples. Nonetheless, the system is still very young and needs more refining - beware of potential breaking changes in the future.

  • Scene 5 tutorial is in the works - a two players tanks game. Tutorial will come with a full manual page and a video, intended as a starting point for creating games using logic nodes in Armory.
    Player 1 controls - WSAD to move, F to fire.
    Player 2 controls - Arrows to move, M to fire.
    Alternatively, the game supports gamepad controls - Up, Down, Left, Right to move, X (or A) to fire.
    https://github.com/armory3d/armory_examples/tree/master/scene5

  • A new input system with support for mouse, keyboard, touch, gamepads and virtual buttons, accessible from logic nodes. (check examples above)

  • Minor live-patch fixes, the player will no longer close when placing new objects into the scene. Editing materials and logic nodes live is not yet supported, but is on the way.

  • More improvements to the animation system - skeletons with more than 50 bones should now work out of the box, improved bone weight calculation. Models pictured below are from ManuelBastioniLAB, unfortunately generated materials do not work yet.

  • Progress on the Virtual Reality support - still early! Selecting ‘VR Low’ rendering path in Properties - Camera Data - Armory Render Path and running the project in WebVR enabled environment should register the device and enable camera controls using the headset. More to come!

  • Progress on the voxel-based global illumination system. Cornell-like box test should now work when running in stand-alone Krom window(F5). Options are not exposed yet, making the look hard to tune - will be fixed. This feature requires a modern GPU with OpenGL 4.5 support. In the future support for more APIs will be added.
    https://github.com/armory3d/armory_calibration/tree/master/cornell

  • Armory now support calculating tangents for normal mapping on the GPU. With this option you may further reduce mesh data sizes. In some cases this may reduce performance, use with care. To enable, uncheck Properties - Armory Player - Export Tangents.

  • ‘.’ character in SDK path should no longer produce errors, Armory should work out of the box when installed from itch.io app.

  • Space corridor scene is now playable in the browser:
    armorbench


Onwards to Build 11:

  • Improving animation system

  • Get closer to Cycles output using voxel GI

  • Working with logic nodes exposes a huge thing missing - no way to reasonably work with the UI. A work on a helper tool to create responsive UI layouts has started. The elements will be accessible from scripts/logic nodes, along with simple event handling.

  • Almost ready with a small archviz demo, will be released as a stand-alone benchmark, similar to the space corridor scene.

  • A basic world streaming is investigated / planned - textures will not be streamed yet, but meshes will.

That is it for now - thank you for support! Will be fixing all the bugs that pop up. While there is still quite some work to do before even dropping the preview tag, releasing 10 builds already feels good. Development is unstoppable and interest in the project is astonishing - essential things to create something great! :slight_smile:

6 Likes

Thank you for your hard work.

Armory build 10 it is not working so smooth for me.

I downloaded the cornell.blend file and tested by myself but unfortunately the result seems to be quite different than the reference image:

Regerence cornellbox:

Also I deleted the sphere and replaced with other geometry, and pressing play in viewport, the player refuses to work at all.

make sure you anable voxel Gl and krom work only f5

Hi @raducoc, is that a MacOS? You need an OpenGL 4.5 capable system to run GI. Apple stopped bothering with OpenGL a while ago so MacOS is unable to do this through OpenGL. The plan is to eventually support it through the Metal backend, but obviously that is not a one day job.

You might be able to access newer OpenGL versions by bootcamping to Windows, even though that is not so convenient… Also, right now you need to run in a stand-alone Krom window (pressing F5), not viewport. This will be resolved too once Blender gets rid of the legacy OpenGL. :slight_smile:

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Great release !
Nodes examples work very well.

Right now i’m testing Armory WebVR with iOS® and Android™ using VR Low.
I have uploaded a demo on the server but the gyroscope headset movements are not recognised and the window is not centered.

@Chris.k Cool, it runs on your machine! The indirect light seems a bit too strong, will investigate. Need to expose all the settings in next build, lots of things can be tweaked to favor performance or quality. You will likely experience lots of issues too - handle with care for now. :slight_smile:

Thanks Andrea! :video_game:

I am out of headset right now, but will get to it tomorrow and report back. If not even movements do work then I will try to fix that as soon as possible.

Yes even movements do not work so headset is not necessary for now :slight_smile:
My mobile devices should work with WebVR as i’m testing WebVR quite often.

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Hi @lubos. Thank you for reply.

Indeed I have a MacBook Pro machine with the latest OS Sierra 10.12.4.

As graphic card I have the GTX 750m that’s soldered on my Mac and also I have a GTX 1060 eGPU. So indeed I think that Apple don’t offer support for OpenGL 4.5, maybe they want to promote theirs own Metal s**t, or I’m thinking that can be also a problem in nVidia side because I’m running the newest beta drivers that has just released some days ago, the first drivers that are allowing me to run the GTX1060.

@Chris.k Thank you for advices, I tried both of them, still the same.

Yeah… they will push their Metal API more and more. Since Apple plans to start building their own GPUs, god knows what happens in a few years on iOS / MacOS - I am not even counting on them to keep OpenGL support in. Anyway, Armory is designed with this in mind, Metal will be supported eventually. Some basic things are already up and running today. :slight_smile:

Yes. And I think that my next machines will be Linuxes ones. I’m tired of the limitations imposed by Apple.

I hate nodes, I’m very much interested to see some code action in Haxe! :D. Impressive release nonetheless. You’re making awesome progress, can’t wait to finish with my stuff and take it for a spin!

Nice work :smile: really impressive, I was wondering if there is a free version of Armory I can download, maybe build 1 or 2?

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Searching for a solution of OpenGL 4.2 on MAC I just discovered a new project that can be a quick fix:

Seems that this project is bringing Vulkan support on the MAC platform but still no OpenGL 4.2?

i will move soon to Linux workstation :wink:

i will move soon to Linux workstation :wink:

Nice one! :wink:

Just made some basic test using the “OpenGL Extensions Viewer”

Thank you @razvanc-r :slight_smile:

The logic nodes are basically Haxe snippets being glued together:

More docs on scripting desperately needed though… Will try to cover both scripting and logic nodes in the upcoming ‘Scene 5’ tanks mini-game.

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Perfect @lubos! Amazing progress, I’m following very closely :P, was already planning to go through the logic nodes implementations to get a feel of how to work with Armory :). Still have to finish my stuff here with the PhD but can’t wait to get my grubby hands on this once I’m done here :smiley:

All the best with your PhD work! :thumbsup:

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