GP4 Builder 2017

Posted by Lo2k

GP4 Builder 2017
Date: January 03, 2017 07:35PM
Posted by: Lo2k

Registered: 20 years ago

Hi everyone,

I promised I would release a last version of GP4 Builder and what a better time than a new year to release it ?
More over, I discovered GP4 Builder 2015 was released the exact same day, 2 years ago, so it's somewhat an anniversary

So here it is, you can now grab this 2017 revision in the download section.

It's a major revision as I worked a lot on it during 2015 and it was close to a release version on january 2016 :
Better performances, mouse picking precision, new features like slice tool and global shading, a lot of bugfixes and improvements and so much more...
But life is changing and I sadly left it untouched for about a year. Anyhow, I promised I would release it for you all and so I finaly found the time to do it.

As usual, I prepared the changelog and as you can see, it's quite long. I hope you will like the changes.
Be warned anyhow : I havn't touched it for a year, so it's basicaly the unreleased 2016 version. It means there are surely bugs, things that could be better, things that are still missing, even after the almost 15 years I'm working on it (15? wow!)

I hope this tool will be of great help and somewhat bring you some pleasure in building some new tracks and content for GP4.

Best regards,

Laurent aka Lo2k

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GP4 Builder 2017

Here are all the changes made to GP4 Builder since last 2015 (2.164) release.

>interface
New : Show/Hide jip Mappings
New : Search textures by name
New : Cutter cursor for slice operation
New : Add texture button in New Object window
New : New object position Copy/paste button
New : Confirmation message before refreshing all textures
New : Origin move effect while an object/part is snapped
Enhanced : show ccline/directions/HD sectors icons didn't work in graphics tab
Enhanced : Add and Del Jip buttons replaced by a link to Jip Editor in initial sector
Enhanced : Reworked Parts window
Enhanced : Reworked New Object window
Enhanced : enlarged Object class and Name fields
Fixed : mouse selection no more selects objects behind view camera
Fixed : Multiple sector preview stay displayed when window was closed
Fixed : Incorrect Snap toggle button hint label
Fixed : Disable shading option was not working anymore
Fixed : hitting the show sun rays icon didn't immediately show sun rays
Fixed : Zooming in doesn't exceed object position anymore
Fixed : Display was not updated after each operation (since v2.186)
Fixed : prevent manual texture name input in Part texture list
Fixed : Program was not closed after it offered to save before closing
fixed : incoherent .col/.bin/.dat vertice/sector move speed if the .gp4 file is loaded
fixed : "show sun rays" and "show 1 scene" icons were disabled with Search Tab
fixed : if "show 1 scene" was enabled, only objects from selected scene could be selected at level 0 despite they were displayed
Fixed : "Show 1 object" button was kept active at level 0 and 1 and prevented any selection
Fixed : clicking an item in the view or deleting an item was removing the focus from the left list
Fixed : texture loading waiting progress bar could freeze
Fixed : Immediate application closing when using "Open new file" and hit cancel button
Fixed : GP4 Builder was always asking for rebuild textures at startup if bilinear filtering was checked in options
Fixed : sunlight and PVS can't be accessed with double click
Fixed : Error when clicking on global shading color boxes
Fixed : show light rays button not pressed at loading while sun rays were saved as "on"

>controls
New : Use ZQSD or WASD to move/strafe in the view
New : Rotate mode right button now moves item on Z axis
new : use shift to snap a sector straight with past one
Enhanced : Displace/Rotate/scale cursor hotspots were moved to cursor center
Enhanced : Displace/Rotate/scale modes are not disengaged when going up from vertice to object level
Enhanced : Displace/Rotate/scale modes are not disengaged after duplicating an object
Enhanced : slower camera movement speed at low altitude
Enhanced : F1 key has been remapped to toggle Shading on/off
Enhanced : Pixel perfect mouse selection
Enhanced : better mouse selection for overlapped objects
Fixed : Error when attempting to move the view when no .gp4 file was loaded
Fixed : Error when clicking on an object from a non-track .gp4 file
fixed : WASD keys were sometime moving view instead of typing chars in text boxes
Fixed : double click was sometimes uneffective (mostly at face level)

>.bin
New : .bin Normal scale setting when converting .dat to .bin
Fixed : generated pitverge.bin faces were indexing non-existing vertices
Fixed : null faces and unused vertices are no more saved in generated .bin files
Fixed : .bin cover sidelines checkbox was not used when converting .dat to .bin

>.col
new : duplicate .col faces
new : .col vertices and faces snapping

>.dat
Enhanced : reverted ccline color to white
Enhanced : multiple sectors/kerbs/fence are now displayed as wireframes in wireframe mode
Enhanced : Range editing in Track Profiler now works across S/F line
Enhanced : better Concave edge detection
Fixed : .dat pink selected sector
Fixed : HD kerbs grey wireframe
Fixed : greyed .dat right kerbs when .gp4 is open
Fixed : track flag list now checks that first pitlane sector has the same direction as track sector with 86 cmd (prevents jitters in pitlane)
Fixed : Pitlane left fences were not displayed (since 2.164)
Fixed : Error when selecting track then pitlane in Multiple sectors editor
Fixed : Error when using Add Jip button in initial sector
Fixed : Freeze if last sector from Multiple sector editing window doesn't exist
Fixed : direct sector selection buttons were not working correctly in Multiple Sectors editing window
Fixed : No warning before closing after any .dat sector change

>.gp4
new : lighting now perfectly mimics game lighting
new : Sun Position Calculator (Thanks to PrBlanco)
New : Track global shading
New : button to prevent part from receiving global shading
New : Load/save track global shading settings
New : Load/save Sun calculator settings
New : Local axis for Objects, Parts and Faces
new : Part Rotation around part center
New : Part scaling around part center
New : Select coplanar faces
New : Multiple face displacement
New : Undo Multiple face displacement
New : Compute Welded Normals
New : 3ds scene export method choice at scene level
New : Export whole track as a single .3ds file at root level
New : Slice Object/parts/faces along any axis
New : "Shadow max texel size" option
New : shadows texel size info
new : keep shadow texture aspect ratio
new : cancel last slice operation
new : cancel last .gp4 subdivide operation
new : any object with a name starting by "shadow" is now displayed with semi transparency
New : Load/Save Texture Names list
New : Renaming texture name could also rename actual .tga file
New : Renaming texture name could also rename actual .tex file
New : Create ellipsoid prisms (with different X and Y sizes)
New : Option to create box and prism objects without bottom faces
New : paste XY or Z vertex coordinates
New : Paste Vertex xyz coordinates button
New : batch option to delete all searched objects with altitude <=0
Enhanced : Invert X,Y,Z is now based on part center
Enhanced : Restored Invert Normals feature
Enhanced : Shadows are now created 2cm above object base altitude
Enhanced : sliced object kept selected after the slice
Enhanced : after face is sliced, one of the sliced face is selected
Enhanced : removed useless ".tex" from all texture names in Texture browser
Enhanced : Object Position can now be paste to vertice position (and the reverse)
Enhanced : choose vertice or face normals to compute global lighting
Enhanced : Copy vertex position button is not used for paste anymore
Enhanced : object lists are rebuilt at saving (for .gp4 and .gpb)
Enhanced : prism mapping is now wrapped all around the prism
Enhanced : Track from .dat verge and banks uniform mapping are now enabled by default
Fixed : Track from .dat verge mapping checkbox status was not saved
Fixed : Focus lost when editing Object Center position values
Fixed : Object Base coordinates not updated when updating center position
Fixed : GP4B now asks for save after Adding/deleting/changing object texture/material
Fixed : Face subdivision feature was generating 1 useless vertex
Fixed : pink selected .gp4 object wireframe
Fixed : multiple ghost object after duplicating an object if a .dat is loaded (since v2.183)
Fixed : error when displacing a face with snapping on and snap distance >0
fixed : deleting a face could lead to -1 vertex index
fixed : sort car object was always disabled
fixed : error when attempting to sort car object with other single object but a car
fixed : ghost .gp4 untextured shadows were displayed opaque
fixed : Compute welded normals gave incorrect results
fixed : Computed normals were not normalized
Fixed : Moving a part into an object now properly removes vertices from object vertice list
Fixed : deleting a part now deletes useless vertices from object vertice list
Fixed : hang when deleting last face from an object
Fixed : width>0 fences initial cap was invisible ingame
Fixed : if several objects had the same name, exporting one scene was only saving one of them.
Fixed : intermittent error when switching between objects
Fixed : Sun calculator incorrect results
Fixed : A vertex snapped to another no more acquire targeted vertex normal
Fixed : Incorrect local axis for parts and faces
Fixed : infinite error when opening incorrect .gp4 files
Fixed : Eratic move of part center when moving a part on local axis
Fixed : Snapping was not working with upper vertices of tall objects
Fixed : Part center is now recomputed correctly after each edition of this part
Fixed : giggling object when rotating or scaling parts (since 2.252)
Fixed : Repeat Vertex Move was not working if another object was selected
Fixed : no more snap at vertex level with other objects/other scene when buttons to show 1 object/1 scene are enabled
Fixed : GP4Builder did not ask for saving when closed after a .gp4 item was deleted
Fixed : if the first object of the scene was deleted, list was going to scene level
Fixed : Track from .dat always created pitlane tarmac even if tarmac was unchecked
Fixed : Invert X,Y,Z coordinates never worked at part level
Fixed : Disabling shading does not ignore vertex painting anymore
Fixed : Align on object feature was always enabled
Fixed : Error when attempting to delete the last part of an object
Fixed : Impossible to move a part on Y or Z local axis
Fixed : Deleting all selected faces only deleted one face
Fixed : Axis locks were incorrectly used for several functions displacing objects (follow, align, copy coordinates...)
Fixed : Object origin was not updated correctly when moving it on Z in rotate mode
Fixed : Z move speed was slower when moving in rotate mode than in displace mode
Fixed : object Coordinates were not computed for every fence when multiple fences were created at once
Fixed : Vertex coordinate can't be paste if one of them was equal to 0
Fixed : incorrect object number could lead to errors when saving
Fixed : not renamed texture files are no more reported when changing texture names
Fixed : vertex painting was reset to white for objects from imported .gp4 scene
Fixed : batch deletion was not working correctly when altitude <=0 was checked
Fixed : manualy changing object center coordinates didn't move object correctly

>performances
enhanced : wireframe display reverted to single side lighting (better performances since v2.145)
enhanced : better performance for object displacement (since v2.175)
enhanced : better performance for .dat, .bin and .col plain rendering
enhanced : greatly speeded up .bin/.col/.dat items displacement when .gp4 is loaded
Enhanced : faster .gp4 and .dat list refresh
Enhanced : Importing a .gp4 scene no more reload all textures if all its textures were already present in the track texture list
Fixed : greatly reduced memory footprint when hitting F5 to refresh all textures
Fixed : half framerate in wireframe mode

>misc.
enhanced : incremental screenshot names
enhanced : message to prevent overwritting an existing screenshot
Fixed : "File exists" warning at each attempt to save a screen capture
Fixed : saving a .gpb as .gp4 was asking to save the .dat even if no .dat was in the .gpb
FIxed : Error when any non .gp4 file was loaded and we try to open another file

Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2017 03:54PM by Lo2k.