CGI Studio 3.0.2

• Candera V3.0.2
• Candera Engine Base
• Candera Engine 3D
• Candera Engine 2D
• Candera System
• Candera Device
• Candera AssetLoader
• TextEngine
• Migration Guide
• CGI-Studio CMake Configuration
• Courier V3.0.2
• FeatStd V3.0.2
• FeatStd CMake
• FeatStd Diagnostics
• FeatStd Util
• SceneComposer V3.0.2
• Restructuring Sources
• SceneComposer Usability Improvements

Candera V3.0.2

Candera Engine Base

Resource Objects.

Large data buffers that need to be uploaded or that are rarely used are not longer directly stored in DeviceObject objects. Instead, a ResourceDataHandle structure is stored, which can consist of one of :

ResourceObjects are objects that guarantee that during their lifetime, data referenced by a ResourceDataHandle is available.

Bitmap Resource Objects.

The pixel buffer is stored in the new ResourceDataHandle structure. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

Introduce C++ keyword override in Candera

In a method declaration, override specifies that the function must be overriding a base class method.

The keyword override is part of C++ 11 standard and supported by MSVC 11 and gcc 4.7. It helps to prevent unintentional newly created functions, e.g. due to typos, that are intended to override virtual base function.

---

Candera Engine 3D

Shader: Support for precompiled shaders on all enabled platforms.

Uploading shader programs using Shader::Upload can now be done in a more flexible way. Until now it was only possible to upload either shader source or pre-compiled binaries, through a target-specific implementation of RenderDevice::CompileAndLoadShaderPair.

Now it is possible to upload (and compile if necessary) either shader source or shader binary objects. It is even possible to upload complete shader programs in order to avoid shader linking. How shader upload is done depends on the kind of data that is available in the asset and the capabilities of the target platform, however at runtime this is done completely transparent to the user.

Advantage is that the more flexible way of runtime created shader source code (as used in Candera2D implementations over OpenGL ES) is supported as well as using pre-compiled shaders to save execution time for compiling them. While using pre-compiled shaders on enabled platform is recommended due to performance reasons, still backward compatibility to existing solutions using uncompiled shaders is given.

OpenGL ES 2 Reference Shaders relocated

The Candera OpenGL ES 2.0 Shader language reference Shaders have been moved from
    <cgi_studio_candera>/src/Candera/Engine3D/ReferenceShaders
to <cgi_studio_candera>/src/Candera/Engine3D/RefShaders/ESSL1

OpenGL ES 3 Reference Shaders

Candera now contains a set of reference Shaders for the OpenGL ES 3.0 Shader language.
<cgi_studio_candera>/src/Candera/Engine3D/RefShaders/ESSL3

Shader Resource Objects.

Fragment and vertex shader data or access information is stored in the new ResourceDataHandle structure. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

VertexGeometry Resource Objects.

The vertex, index and element format arrays are stored in the new ResourceDataHandle structure. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

VertexBuffer primitive iteration.

Iteration over triangles is replaced by primitive iteration using a forward iterator, which is more performant, allows iteration over point and line primitives and supports multiple parallel iterations. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

VertexBuffer vertex access.

Vertex access interface is moved from the VertexBuffer to a separate class for better performance in case of vertex data accessed from assets. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

8/16/32 bit indexed array buffers.

VertexGeometry accepts index buffers that consist of 8, 16 or 32 bit indexes. The configuration of index size can be set through the new values of BufferType enumeration: UInt8IndexedArrayBuffer, UInt16IndexedArrayBuffer and UInt32IndexedArrayBuffer.

VertexElementFormat access.

VertexElementFormat access interface is moved from the VertexGeometry to a separate class for better performance in case of vertex data accessed from assets. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

VertexGeometryBuilder support for 8/16/32 bit index buffers.

VertexGeometryBuilder can create index buffers with values on 8, 16 or 32 bit, depending on the number of vetices, or on the configured format if explicitly set.

BlendEquation Min/Max support.

Min/Max options were added to the RenderMode BlendEquation, which specifies how a new pixel is combined with previously rendered pixels in the frame buffer.

---

Candera Engine 2D

Node2D Listener support.

Node2DListener defines hooks that are called when certain Node functions are triggered, e.g. when a Node's transformation changes.

Auto Arrangement for GridLayouter

Two new methods available for GridLayouter:

---

Candera System

Different namespace than 'Candera' for EnumDataTypes

#define ENUM_DATA_TYPE_NAMESPACE MyNamespace        // <-- new!

#define ENUM_DATA_TYPE \
    ENUM_DATA_TYPE_BEGIN(SomeEnum) \
        ENUM_DATA_TYPE_ITEM(SomeItem0) \
        ENUM_DATA_TYPE_ITEM_VALUE(SomeItem1, 4) \
        ENUM_DATA_TYPE_ITEM(SomeItem2) \
        ENUM_DATA_TYPE_ITEM_INVISIBLE(InvisibleItem) \
        ENUM_DATA_TYPE_ITEM_VALUE(SomeItem3, 7) \
    ENUM_DATA_TYPE_END(SomeEnum)

#include <Candera/System/MetaInfo/EnumDataType.h>

If ENUM_DATA_TYPE_NAMESPACE is defined before including EnumDataType.h, the enum 'SomeEnum' will be placed into MyNamespace. Without that (ENUM_DATA_TYPE_NAMESPACE is not defined), SomeEnum is placed automatically into namespace Candera.

---

Candera Device

Uniform Location Caching

Introduced Uniform Caching for Auto uniforms to increase performance. Calls to GetUniformLocation now pass semantic instead of names as parameter, which speeds up comparison within cache.

Maximum Element Index capability

RenderDeviceCapabilities structure contains a new field for the maximum value of vertex index that is supported by the device.

RenderDevice::DrawVertexBuffer

RenderDevice::DrawVertexBuffer handles drawing of a VertexBuffer, regadless of its configuration (primitive types, index formats, upload location).

Added formats on DirectTextureImage

Additional formats have been added to DirectTextureImage::Format, unpacked RGBA and BGRA texture format.

Shader Upload functions now support Upload of precompiled binary shaders.

The function RenderDevice::CompileAndLoadShaderPair only supports the fixed Upload of text or binary shader objects. In order to provide a more flexible handling of shader Upload, this function has been split up into RenderDevice::UploadShaderSource, RenderDevice::UploadShaderBinary and RenderDevice::UploadShaderBinaryProgram. Additionally the function RenderDevice::UploadShader has been added which calls the appropriate shader upload function transparently to the user. This interface enables the user to choose whether shader shall be available as binary or source shader objects.

---

Candera AssetLoader

Resource Objects.

The font and raw resources are stored in the new ResourceDataHandle structure. See migration guide for an example on how it can be used.

Dispose after upload.

The dispose after upload feature of DefaultAssetProvider has become deprecated with the introduction of resource objects. The data is no longer attached to the device objects, but rather it is loaded from the asset upon necessity.

---

TextEngine

Glyph Spacing

Glyph Spacing is available on TextBrush, and LayoutingOptions. This allows a user to correct the spacing between glyphs, by adding a specified number of pixels to the spaces between glyphs.

BitmapFont Engine

BitmapFont Engine is available for usage inside Candera-based applications. A bitmap font is essentially an image file which consists of several characters images and a header that depicts the size and location of each character inside the image. Each bitmap font might contain several fonts - mainly one font face with multiple sizes. One advantage of utilizing bitmap fonts is that the rendering to the screen requires very little resources and since each character is represented as a sub-texture, they can be reused without requiring additional memory on the GPU.

In order to use BitmapFonts, the CMake variable CANDERA_FONTENGINE should be changed to BitmapFont.

Harbuzz Text Shaper cannot be used with BitmapFont, either ComplexScriptLib or NoShaping should be chosen.

This font engine uses a proprietary format to describe glyph bitmaps and glyph meta info. In order to use a bitmap font, provide an implementation for Candera::TextRendering::FontStore.

Bitmap fonts require memory mapped assets. So, when the faces are loaded in be sure the storageType is set correctly:

TextRendering::FontResourceDescriptor descriptor.storageType = TextRendering::FontResourceDescriptor::MemoryResource;

Generating Bitmap Fonts

The following steps need to be considered:

Open the application. From the Options menu:

Convert the resulted XML and PNG files to binary format using the internal tool BmFontCreator using the following command:

A bitmap font should be used at its native pixel size. However, they are scalable because of the use of bitmaps, but only scaling down is recommended. In case of up scaling, the visual quality will be reduced. Including separate font sizes for bitmap fonts is possible in order to achieve the best looking results.

Glyph Substitution

A substitution character may be set within the style with the interface Style::SetDefaultCodepoint. This character is used by the text engine in any of the following situations:

Character Glyph Mapping

GlyphBitmap now contains information about the position within the text from where the glyphs originated, and the location of the glyph within the font.

Glyph Order

The order in which glyphs are generated may be controlled by setting a property within the TextRenderContext. See TextRenderContext::GlyphOrder for details. This is most relevant when doing preprocessing. OriginalGlyphOrder is intended for use when intermediate measurements of the text are required, for instance when truncating texts. OrigitnalChunkOrder is more performant then RenderOrder, and is intende for measurements, where the order of the chunk is not important, for instance instance when computing layout rectangles. RenderOrder shall be used when rendering.

Text Preprocessing

The text engine allows text to be preprocessed by providing utility the class PreprocessingContext. This interface is satisfied by two concrete instances.

---

Migration Guide

Following an overview about interface changes between Candera V3.0.1 and Candera V3.0.2.

---

CGI-Studio CMake Configuration

---

Courier V3.0.2

3.0.0-1 Message Processing

1. New Courier::Component::PostProcess method has been added. This method is called after a component has been processed. A custom component is able to react on each process of a component.

2. New Courier::MessageReceiver::Deactivate method has been added. This method deactivates the message receiver in the system. After calling this method the message router stops serving this receiver with appropriate messages (means the method Receive() is called). If a custom message receiver is used this method should be called before destroying the custom message receiver instance.

3.0.0-2 Input Handling

New methods where added for setting custom names for GenericConsoleListener and PosixTerminalListener. These are:

Corresponding getter methods were also provided.

3.0.0-3 Camera Groups

Activation and enable /disable rendering for views have been reworked to fix different aspects related to handling views together with camera groups.

For this the following modifications have been made:

3.0.0-4 Render Configuration

A new option Courier::RenderConfiguration::ClearRenderTargetOnUpload was added for configurating the rendering.

This option enables / disables the automatic clearing of the render targets on the next upload. By default, to keep backwards compatibility, this option is set to false.

The interface of Courier::Gdu class has also been modified to support the above change. Therefore Courier::Gdu::Upload and Courier::Gdu::Unload now have a renderer parameter which is a pointer to Courier::Renderer.

Also Courier::Renderer::DeleteRenderJobs method has been made public, so it can be used by Courier::Gdu class.

3.0.0-5 Visualization

1. A new Courier::ViewAction::ClearCameraViewports is added to the Courier::ViewReqMsg. This new Courier::ViewAction::ClearCameraViewports will only clear the areas that are rendered by the cameras of the view.

For this, the following changes have been made:

2. New Courier::Renderer::SetIs2DRequest method has been added to Courier::Renderer, which sets a flag for determining if load/unload on a certain layer is requested by a 2D View. Corresponding getter method was also provided.

---

FeatStd V3.0.2

FeatStd CMake

Location of generated files

Automatically generated configuration headers are generated into CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR/gensrc/FeatStd (i.e in most cases CMAKE_BINARY_DIR/FeatStd/gensrc/FeatStd) instead of CMAKE_BINARY_DIR/gensrc/FeatStd. Automatic CGI-Studio includes paths have been adapted to accommodate this change.

Add custom config header file

New build setting FEATSTD_CUSTOM_CONFIG to specifiy a custom config header file that gets included on top of generated file CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR/gensrc/FeatStd/Config.h. This allows to add or override global CGI system settings (e.g. macros).

Example:

FEATSTD_CUSTOM_CONFIG="path/to/MyConfig.h"

MyConfig.h

#define FEATSTD_DEBUG_ASSERT(condition) \
    if (!(condition)) { \
        FeatStd::Internal::Generic::assert((#condition), __FILE__, __LINE__, false); \
    }

---

FeatStd Diagnostics

Debug Macros

The following macros can get overridden for custom needs:

If these macros are not defined in custom header file the default implementation is taken, e.g. (code as in FeatStd/Diagnostics/Debug.h)

#if !defined(FEATSTD_DEBUG_ASSERT)              // <-- allows to override in custom header file
    #if defined(FEATSTD_DEBUG)

        FEATSTD_LINT_MACRO_WHILEFALSE(FEATSTD_DEBUG_ASSERT)
        #define FEATSTD_DEBUG_ASSERT(condition) \
                do { \
                    if (!(condition)) { \
                        if (FeatStd::Diagnostics::DebugControl::Assert((#condition), \
                                                                      __FILE__, __LINE__)) { \
                            FEATSTD_OS_BREAK(); \
                                       } \
                                } \
                            FEATSTD_SUPPRESS_MSC_WARNING_FOR_NEXT_EXPRESSION(4127, while (false) accepted) \
                        } while (false)
    #else
        #define FEATSTD_DEBUG_ASSERT(condition)
    #endif
#endif

---

FeatStd Util

UTF8 String Constructor

The String class constructor now has an optional parameter, to specify whether the length of a non-null-terminated UTF8 string with multi-byte characters is given in bytes or in code-points.

---

SceneComposer V3.0.2

Restructuring Sources

There were 2 major changes in source code organization:

 

SceneComposer Usability Improvements

Clear Mode Palette

A ClearMode Palette View was added in Solution Options. By using it ("File" > "Solution Options"), it is possible to create different clear mode items which can be saved and later reused.

Delete Items

In the ImportView of the "New Solution Wizard", it is now possible to delete selected items before they are imported.

Delete Perspective

The option "Delete Current Perspective" inside "View->New Perspective" is available (at the same level with "New Perspective").

Search Option for Hot-Keys Panel

Due to the huge number of available hot-keys (shortcuts), it could be difficult to find a specific hot-key. In order to solve this issue, a search option was made available in the upper side of the Hot Key panel ("Help" > "Hot Keys").

Export Only Used Translatable Texts

In the previous versions of SC, the unreferenced text ids were not exported into the asset. To allow the export of all the text ids even if they are not used, a special option was added. Entitled "Export Only Used Translatable Texts" this option is available as a check box in the "File" > "Preferences" > "Plugins" > "Cgi-Studio Translator" panel.

If the option is used there will be exported just the referenced text ids. If the option is left as default, all the text ids will be exported into the asset.

The plugin does not work in order to receive the notifications if the "Enable Plugin Notification" is not used when the asset is generated.

Tab Size Configuration

Tab size configuration was added for the Shader Editor panel ("View" > "Editors" > "Shader Editor"). The user can change the tab size and decide if tabs should be changed to spaces from "File" > "Preferences" > "Environment". (Mantis issue 3724)

FTC Command Wildcard Support

If there are many files (i.e. images) which must be imported, an improvement - wildcard support - can help us to import them simultaneously. For instance, if in a folder we have many graphic files named "img1.png", "img2.png", "img3.png" ..., and if it is necessary to import all of them we can do this by specifying through the wildcard (*) that we need to import simultaneously the files which respect the rule "img*.png".

To use the FTCCmd extension for wildcard image import with option to set bitmap attributes, following option is available:

FTCCmd ... /BitmapProfile <bitmap_profile_full_name>

Composites with Widgets

Created composites will include widgets with the observation that the widgets will be included only if are binded to a node from the created composite.

Minor Improvements

---