v4.0.0.4 (AGS 4.0 Early Alpha 9)

This is AGS 4.0 Early Alpha 9.

Contains updates and fixes from 3.6.1 RC6 (except ones related to backwards compatibility).

Other changes:

Editor:

• Fixed 8-bit images imported and converted for a 32-bit game to not get their colors clamped to a low-precision palette.
• Fixed 8-bit rooms not being usable in the new Editor version (regression in AGS 4).
  NOTE: 8-bit backgrounds are still not working fully correct in this version, new imported bgs do not have their palette remapped.
• Fixed Room Editor can crash when working with non-32bit rooms (regression in AGS 4).

Script API:

• Added VideoPlayer struct, which provides means of playing non-blocking videos rendered onto a sprite that may be displayed on any game object.

Engine:

• Camera will not follow a disabled player character.
• Fixed error occuring when trying to make a screenshot while running Direct3D renderer (regression in AGS 4).
• Fixed sprites leaving traces on background while running Software renderer (regression in AGS 4).

v3.6.1 - RC6

This update fixes a number of regressions found in 3.6.1, and few more minor things.

Editor:

• Fixed Log Panel could not be shown again using menu command if it was closed by pressing "x" button.

Engine:

• Removed "supersampling" option from OpenGL renderer for now, as it's not consistent with the other renderers and not maintained properly.
• Allow game to call DynamicSprite.CreateFromDrawingSurface() and CreateFromBackground() with zero or negative size, clamping it to 1x1, in consistency with Create().
• Fixed Software render crashes if rendering in "game_start" script (for instance, if there's a call to Display).
• Fixed some TextBox keys were still tested while interface is disabled.
• Fixed old-style InventoryScreen dialog not letting to select an item.
• Fixed mouse cursor being visible during fade-out and fade-in transitions (this applies to texture-based renderers, Software renderer historically displays a cursor during fade-out, and that cannot be fixed easily at the moment).
• Fixed room objects and characters not drawn in correct positions if FadeIn() command was called in "room load" event.
• Fixed Crossfade and Dissolve transitions not rendering correctly in old-style letterboxed games.
• Fixed one extra frame drawn before Crossfade or Dissolve fade-in starts, causing a room to "blink".
• Fixed couple of potential crashes occuring during render after RunAGSGame() command.
• Fixed unnecessary warning about "dynamic sprite not deleted" displayed on exit for sprites generated by textual overlays.
• Fixed IAGSEngine.SimulateMouseClick() in plugin api causing stack overflow due to infinite recursion.
• Fixed old-style letterbox viewport getting broken after loading an old pre-3.5.0 save.

Android:

• In AGS Player removed currently unused "Super sampling" and "Drop video frames" preference settings.

Winsetup:

• Added config option to disable fullscreen mode selection.
• Fixed "graphics filter" option not displaying a correct initial selection.

v4.0.0.3 (AGS 4.0 Early Alpha 8)

This is AGS 4.0 Early Alpha 8.

Contains updates and fixes from 3.6.1 Beta 16 to RC5 (except ones related to backwards compatibility).

Other changes:

Editor:

• Added Enabled and Visible properties to Characters, Enabled property to Room Objects.
• Added FaceDirectionRatio property to General Settings, Room and Walkable Areas.

Script API:

• Added WalkableArea and Walkbehind structs which let work with these region types in OO-style.
• Added Character.Enabled and Visible properties, added Object.Enabled property, Character.on is deprecated.
• Added Game.FaceDirectionRatio, Room.FaceDirectionRatio, WalkableArea.FaceDirectionRatio and Character.FaceDirectionRatio.
• Added File.Rename().
• ListBox.FillSaveGameList(), RestoreGameDialog() and SaveGameDialog() now let define a range of save slots for display.
• Added MoveSaveSlot() which renames a savegame.
• Added "walkarea[]" and "walkbehind[]" global arrays.
• Global arrays of game objects (Characters, GUIs, etc) are now declared as arrays of object pointers. From the user's perspective this is a mere formality, as working with these arrays will be syntactically same, but this makes it easier for the engine to handle these arrays and objects internally.
• Removed Object.MergeIntoBackground() function as redundant, and complicating Object's logic.

Engine:

• AudioChannel.Position and PositionMs no longer return a very large value while skipping cutscene.
• DeleteSaveSlot() no longer causes highest save to be renamed to fill a gap in saves.

v3.6.1 - RC5

Updated to have all fixes from v3.6.0 - P10.

Other changes:

Editor:

• Fixed in room editor character and object sprites drawn without transparency.

Engine:

• Fixed a crash when trying to initialize OpenGL renderer, specific to systems with AMD/ATI video cards.

v3.6.0 - P10 (3.6.0.57)

Editor:

• Fixed a warning condition for copying 32-bit bitmaps to a desktop clipboard of less color depth.
• Fixed keyboard shortcuts for GUI Editor's Copy and Paste commands.
• Fixed a rare exception when scrolling the room in the editor.
• Fixed "Auto-number speech lines" and "Create voice acting script" operations failing if a Character's name contains underscore.

Compiler:

• Fixed escaped character literals not being parsed correctly. This makes character literals like '\n' and '\t' actually work in script.

Engine:

• Updated SDL_Sound library to 2.0.3.
• Improved OpenGL texture management, which should result in less system and video memory spent on sprite textures.
• Fixed Character.AddWaypoint() potentially using wrong walkspeed, if multiple characters or objects are ordered to start a non-blocking move in a mixed order.
• Fixed Character.AddWaypoint() is using incorrect speed if this room has a non 1:1 mask resolution, and "Scale speed with mask resolution" setting is enabled.
• Fixed Overlay.Create() crashing the engine if a non-existing sprite is passed as an argument.
• Fixed Say("...") command get stuck in endless loop if Speech.DisplayPostTimeMs is non-zero.
• Fixed PlayFlic() not working if called second time in game. This is likely a regression since 3.6.0.
• Fixed NumPad keys not handled properly by the engine (in on_key_press, IsKeyPressed, and TextBox control). This is a regression since 3.6.0.
• Fixed OpenGL renderer causing scaled sprites to have colored outlines sometimes while using Linear filter.

v3.6.1 - RC4

Editor:

• Fixed "Auto-number speech lines" and "Create voice acting script" operations failing if a Character's name contains underscore.

Compiler:

• Fixed escaped character literals not being parsed correctly. This makes character literals like '\n' and '\t' actually work in script.

Engine:

• When Texture Cache is comparable in capacity to the Sprite Cache, the engine will skip storing raw sprites in the cache when creating textures from them, in order to avoid meaningless duplicate memory usage.
• Ensure that when Overlays have identical ZOrder they will be sorted in the order of their creation. Besides convenience, this is also meant to restore historical behavior from before Overlay.ZOrder property was introduced.
• Improved OpenGL texture management, which should result in less system and video memory spent on sprite textures.
• Fixed OpenGL renderer causing scaled sprites to have colored outlines sometimes while using Linear filter.

Windows:

• 32-bit Windows engine is now built as "large address aware" program, which will allow it to use up to 3 GB of RAM on 32-bit systems and 4 GB of RAM on 64-bit systems (was 2 GB previously).

WinSetup:

• Added options to disable particular graphic drivers and graphic driver selection.

v3.6.1 - RC3

Engine:

• Updated to SDL 2.28.5 and SDL_Sound 2.0.3+.
• Display critical alerts as message boxes on all platforms that support that (unless engine is run with "--no-message-box" parameter).
• Fixed failing comparison between character[] script array's element and a Character* pointer (regression since the recent 3.6.1 RC).

iOS:

• Fixed some game elements could potentially be rendered incorrectly in "Render in screen resolution" mode.

v3.6.1 - RC2

Editor:

• Adjust sprite's import settings after "Crop sprite edges" command; this would ensure that this sprite is restored from source file keeping the cropped size.
• Fixed "\[" escaped sequence not saved correctly in game properties (GUI Label, etc) (regression since 3.6.1 Beta).
• Fixed a warning condition for copying 32-bit bitmaps to a desktop clipboard of less color depth.
• Fixed keyboard shortcuts for GUI Editor's Copy and Paste commands.

Engine:

• Fixed NumPad keys not handled properly by the engine (in on_key_press, IsKeyPressed, and TextBox control).
  This is a regression since 3.6.0.
• Fixed loading pre-3.* games could lead to a memory corruption (regression in RC1).
• Fixed audio not playing when loaded from the game package (regression in RC1).

v3.6.0 - P9 (3.6.0.56)

This is a emergency hotfix for the recent 3.6.0 Patch 8.

Engine:

• Fixed engine incorrectly reporting a script loading error, which may occur if the total size of script's global variables is bigger than the size of the compiled bytecode.

v3.6.1 - RC1

This is 3.6.1 Release Candidate 1.

No significant changes since v3.6.1 - Beta 16; only updates for the game templates and the manual.

The full changelog for 3.6.1 may be found here:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/blob/v3.6.1.16/Changes.txt