Science Case

031218

* Improved cloud shadow implementation (cloud shadows now appear less "grey")

031225

* More than 64k stars can now be rendered.

* New encoding for planets as pixel blocks. Colours are now correct in 16bit

modes. "Blockiness" is reduced.

031229

* Bug fix: Crash on selecting "ignore joystick throttle setting on launch" for

joysticks without throttle control.

* Bug fix: surface bases are now rendered below cloud cover.

040109

* Nonspherical planet shapes can now be considered in the calculation of the

gravitational potential (but the shape must be symmetric w.r.t. its axis of

rotation). At the moment, perturbation terms up to the 4th order harmonic

(coefficients J2-J4) are used. Perturbation terms for the major planets are

included.

040113

* New feature: shadows projected from vessels onto planetary surfaces.

* Mesh files now support "FLAG" group entry to specify bit-flags. Bit 0 in

vessel meshes indicates "exclude from shadow projection", to improve render

efficiency of shadows.

040116

* Bug fix: Launchpad freezing when selecting a fullscreen-only video mode.

* Bug fix: Video modes erraneously registered as fullscreen-only.

040121

* Directories in the Launchpad scenario list are now sorted alphabetically.

* Scenarios can now be launched by double-clicking in the list.

* Orbit MJD: Orbital elements can now be displayed in equatorial reference

frame, in addition to ecliptic frame. New button ("FRM") added to switch

between frames.

Target elements are now displayed even if the reference body is not the

target's primary gravitational field source.

040122

* DG: Reduced wheel brake effect.

* Modified meshes for DG, Atlantis (+SRB and tank) for efficient shadow rendering

(added "FLAG 1" entries). Reduced Atlantis mesh by 1300 vertices.

040125

* Mesh base objects can now cast shadows (must specify the "SHADOW" flag in their

base config entry).

* Mesh base object elevations are now corrected for Earth curvature when

"MapObjectsToSphere" flag is specified in the config file. ATTENTION SURFACE

BASE ADDON DEVELOPERS: manual y-offsets for mesh objects (defined in the

POS entry of the config file or directly in the mesh) should be removed.

040126

* Specular reflection from water surfaces now depends on reflection angle and

atmospheric colour, to correct for the excessively yellow reflection hue.

040127

* Added more tiles to KSC.

040131

* Modified the brightness fall-off with distance for planets rendered as pixel

blocks. Planet brightnesses compare now better with star brightnesses when

viewed from Earth, but it remains a compromise due to limited dynamic range.

* Adjusted planet AlbedoRGB for Venus and Mercury.

* Modified darkening of sky during dusk/dawn: sky remains brighter, stars come

on later. Sky also darkens less rapidly with altitude.

* Ground observer camera dialog: Locations can now be entered manually (longitude,

latitude, altitude) instead of selecting from the predefined locations.

Added new button "Current" to set the current camera location to ground observer

mode. This now also provides a kind of flyby mode: move the camera in target-

relative mode ahead of the vessel, then click "Current" to fix the camera and

see the vessel fly by.

* Added stencil buffer support to remove the shadow rendering artefacts arising

from overlapping projected polygons. Reduced shadow darkness. Launchpad dialog

now has an option to enable/disable stencil buffers in the video tab. If

disabled, or if video mode doesn't support stencil buffers, shadows are rendered

black.

* Diffuse particle streams can now also generate ground shadows.

040202

* API: Added oapiGetPlanetJCoeffCount, oapiGetPlanetJCoeff,

VESSEL::OrbitStabilised, VESSEL::NonsphericalGravityEnabled.

* DG: Reduced hover thrust rating. VTOL is now just about possible on Mars, but no

longer on Earth.

040205

* Bug fix: wrong signs in Surface HUD pitch ladder labels.

* Added signs to Orbit HUD pitch ladder labels.

040206

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