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A beta version of Geoscape3D 1.1 has been released with many new features and improvements.

Deliverance Software would like to thank the Geoscape3D users and the Dark Basic community for their feedback on version 1.0. We hope we have incorporated many of your ideas in this latest version, but in addition, we are releasing this beta widely to make our next release the very best possible. We hope that new and existing users will post their feedback on our beta testing forum at: http://www.deliverancesoftware.co.uk/forums/

The following screenshots were taken from a Dark Basic Professional program that is available, with source code and a sample landscape, on the Deliverance Software website.




The program demonstrates a simple “fly around the terrain� to show how Geoscape3D output can be used in Dark Basic Professional. It includes simple collision detection with the terrain and uses .X meshes directly exported from Geoscape3D. More screenshots of the Dark Basic Program in action are available at Deliverance Software’s Geoscape3D gallery at http://www.deliverancesoftware.co.uk/products/Geoscape3D/gallery.htm

We hope people will take this program and develop it further and we look forward to seeing what the Dark Basic Professional community will produce using Geoscape3D.

Installing the beta

If you haven’t already got Geoscape3D installed, please download a trial version of Geoscape3D.

Download the beta.1.1.zip and then the beta can be placed in the install folder.

Existing users can also use the beta, but we wish to notify them that the file format in the beta is NOT backwards compatible with the 1.0.0.x builds, so projects saved in the beta will not work in version 1.0. Please make a backup of any work first before using it in the beta.

Download the trial, beta and sample source code from: http://www.deliverancesoftware.co.uk/download/index.htm

The 1.1 beta contains many new features and improvements over 1.0, including:

New Saved points and Road Tool – allows users create roads on the terrain and then texture them.

Improved DirectX mesh export – the exporter now allows optimisation of the mesh to reduce the complexity of the final output. The exporter provides control over how much detail you wish to maintain in your mesh. It is ideal for creating several different levels of detail for each terrain. If required, the source code available from the Deliverance Software website will also show users how to use the output in Dark Basic. Included is the option to make seamless outputs, which means the world can “wrap� around without any obvious joins.



Multiple Height map editing – allows the user to edit multiple height maps in the main editor and provides Boolean operations on terrains. This provides powerful ways to mask the texture and edit the terrain.

Windowed editing – allows the user to work on a small portion of a terrain at one time, allowing editing of much larger terrains.

Create Seamless Textures – alter scans, digital photographs or existing textures to create seamless textures then use them in your terrain texturing.

Please note the new version, 1.1, will be freely available to existing Geoscape3d users once the testing phase is completed. We look forward to hearing your comments.

Fantastic, sounds like the best feature of the new bunch. I didn't think GS3d was quite worth the money before, but this sounds like an excellent upgrade. I hope the deom will be updated shortly after the new version's release so I can try out the new features .

Good job...

If you install the demo and then get the beta from http://www.deliverancesoftware.co.uk/download/index.htm you can try out all the new features. All that will happen is that "GEOSCAPE3D" will be written across any output until you register.

The mesh exporter is a huge step forward, have you include any of the other features I suggested when you first released this tool?

Looks great m8 A question, are the textures high res enough so that if you are walking around a matrix, they dont look all blurred and such?

I LOVE Seeing that Optimization! One thing that really kept me off buying it was that the landscapes seemed really high poly

Looking at that BUY button

RPGamer

I'm pretty sure the size of the textures is up to the end user .

@Andy Igoe

I'm not sure if I remember all of your points but I do remember you talking about seemless terrains being a problem and it looks like they've got that solved.

" Included is the option to make seamless outputs, which means the world can “wrap� around without any obvious joins."

On the subject of textures, the maximum texture size for a terrain is currently set at 4096x4096 in 1.1, but only because we didn't see any requirement to go larger. We can easily increase the size if people wanted it, it'll just take longer to generate them.

@Andy, glad you liked the mesh exporter and thanks for your comments before that helped focus us on DB Pro users needs. You also mentioned in a previous post:



We weren't sure if you had used the auto-terrain tool inside of Geoscape3D, or whether you have and had some more suggestions about it. We'd certainly like to hear any comments on changes / improvements that you have.