Latch,
There were some other minor changes that were done with DBC before I got involved. I'm not sure what caused the font size differences, but it happened before I got involved. There is some migration info that was written by Shawn from Starwraith for making the switch to 1.2 from the "official" 1.13. It was posted in the newsletter.
Quote: "Question, with the new light response commands, when loading a model as a D3D file, will the DirectX object material settings including emissive, specular, and diffuse affect how the object is displayed in 3d? Will the Alpha control in the material have any affect?"
The model is just loaded with default parameters. It doesn't pull any of rhat info from the .x file. Shawn also wrote up some info on the commands in his migration list:
Quote: "To introduce the enhanced and required functionality, certain changes are inevitable. Shawn of Starwraith 3D Games has shared his experiences of migrating to the new version of the language. His experience is invaluable to anyone making the same transition.
DBC is now compatible with Vista's UAC, so you no longer have to expect your users to run your program in admin mode.
DBC no longer requires the \windows\temp folder. It uses a folder named \dbTemp on the root, which Vista allows. It is recommended that you clear this folder and delete it when your application closes, just as a cleanup operation. The following code can be used to do this when your application closes:
sdir$=left$(windir$(),3)+"dbTemp\"
if file exist(sdir$+"_virtual.bmp")=1 then delete file sdir$+"_virtual.bmp"
if file exist(sdir$+"_virtual.dat")=1 then delete file sdir$+"_virtual.dat"
if file exist(sdir$+"_virtual.jpg")=1 then delete file sdir$+"_virtual.jpg"
if path exist(sdir$)=1 then delete directory sdir$
Font sizes are very different. What was size 12 in 1.13 is about 7 in the new version. It's about the same scaling difference for other sizes as well. You'll need to adjust all text size commands in your programs to the lower values.
Ambient lighting is no longer global for the scene. This is because every object now has it's own unique material to work with. To align objects with whatever ambient scene lighting you need, use the SET OBJECT AMBIENT command to apply the desired level to each object. A little work might be involved here if your project has a lot of objects (the project in question has thousands and it was possible to include new ambient commands in about an hour), but the trade off is much greater flexibility for the visual effects of every object in your scene.
Setting the ambient lighting value alone won't match up with the original 'brightness' appearance of your objects (especially below 255,255,255), so you'll also need to apply 'SET OBJECT DIFFUSE objnumber,rgb(255,255,255)'
The update has implications for the POINT(x,y) command. On most systems, it works fine. But on some systems, using the command causes a program to close back to the desktop. This usually occurs on systems with Nvidia 3D cards using certain driver versions, but it can also occur on systems with ATI cards. It is recommended that you not use the POINT(x,y) command at all to avoid any potential reliability problems and instead, use a memblock to retrieve pixel color data if needed. These commands are inherently faster in any case.
Following these pointers should ensure a smooth transition and open up the new functionality to enhance your games. "
a.k.a WOLF!
