An update of the source code is now available in the downloads section. It includes the following changes...

• Index lists in Cipher are now shorts instead of ints.
• Ciphertool now produces a single triangle strip and Cipher dispatches it to the hardware in a single call for better performance.
• Back end renderer will now use glDrawRangeElements for improved performance. Also took out the legacy support for rendering with basic glVertex that probably hasn't worked for some time now (never used).
• Fixed serious bug in Ciphertool that meant that all the triangle strips being made were never actually saved (Doh!). Model rendering should be much improved with the new build.
• Triangle strips stored in mdl files are now loaded and used. MDL files are up to version 6 now (header tag changed to MDL6).
• MDL6 files only store a single frame of animation data in the shadow mesh, as the animation is remapped anyway.
• The landscape system now set up the scale of the heightmap correctly so that you can use height images of different sizes. This means you no longer need to provide a 1025x1025 image for height data, but can use a 257x257, 513x513, 2049x2049 etc.
• Stopped the wireframe mode from using vertex buffers. Might help solve some of the odd slowdowns people have seen when switching modes.
• Vertex Buffer code now uses a faster code path.
• Fixed a possible crash bug in ciphertool when no texture coordinates were provided.
• Changed the network protocol so that the client ID is sent over the network, making multi-player game management easier. This data is now passed into cgame as a parameter of cgInit().
• Changed the display resolution flag so that window positions are restored after running in fullscreen mode.

Thanks to everyone that contributed these fixes and updates.

There is now a new tool in the downloads section that lets you load in MDL files and edit the ranges over which each level of detail (LOD) of the model will be used.

This tool has been kindly provided by Rcortada and Victor Carretero.

A new update of Cipher is now available in the downloads section. It includes many new features that have been contributed by developers since the last release. The highlights of the new features are...

• Shadow volumes are much improved. Ciphertool now generates a separate model specifically for shadow rendering (ending in _s). All the previous shadow errors that people have been seeing are fixed by this update. It is recommended that you rebuild all models using the updated ciphertool if you use shadows. Cipher will automatically load the shadow version of the model if it is available and use it. If there is no shadow version of the model, it will use the regular model, which may still cause errors in the shadows.
• Ogg Vorbis support for streaming music and sound effects has been added. This can optionally be compiled into the engine using a #define. There is no additional API's for using this - just load a .ogg file instead of a .wav file and everything else will work.
• Ciphertool now uses NVTriStrip from NVidia to produce its triangle strips, as this is much faster than the system Ciphertool was using before.
• Cipher now has support for rendering landscapes. This uses a continuous level of detail system that always produces the optimal mesh for the landscape given a target quality. The system allows you design your landscapes from many material layers and has good control over lighting. More screenshots of the landscape system can be seen here.

As usual, Licensed Developers can go and get the new update for free. If you haven't already licensed Cipher, now might be a good time...

JTilo has contributed a new Max 6 exporter that outputs a modified version of .ase files that include vertex alpha data. The readme file includes instructions on modifying Ciphertool to process the vertex alpha.

You can download it from the usual place.

Bahlswede has written two new tools to help manipulate your .skl files while preparing animations.

The first allows you to load in the .skl file and strip out the bones that are not actually used by your model (for example, bones that you had added to aid with construction inside max). The second tool allows you to load in multiple .skl files and merge them together to form a new .skl file with the all the animations from the source files. This is great if you prefer to model your animations in separate max files and combine them later as part of your build process.

In both cases, the tools export a new .skl file that you can use to create your Cipher models using ciphertool. Both tools can now be downloaded by licensed developers from the normal location.

Armin Burger has also contributed an updated version of ciphertool and modelconvert that can support .3ds files directly, which will simplify the model convertion process by removing the need to first export to .ase. Again, this can be downloaded by licensed developers from the download page.

Miguel Melo has kindly made his Blender exporter available to other Cipher developers. You can download the current beta version from the download page now. The download includes the exporter and a readme with instructions on how to set it up and use it, as well as a link to a pay pal donation account if you want say thank you to him.

I have also posted a new version of ciphertool in the downloads page that includes a couple of fixes that Miguel had spotted. These mostly effect people that are working with vertex animation models.

the_cX has kindly provided the community with a new version of the New Game Wizard that will generate a C++ skeleton project. If you are pefer to work in C++, then this tool will help you create a new empty game project that uses his C++ wrapper classes.

You can download the tool from the downloads page and read his tutorial on using it here.

A new update has been posted that adds support for attaching animations from one model to another model. This has been designed to be used in cases where you have a lot of models that share the same skeleton and use the same set of animations. For example, all the people in your game might use a common skeleton and all use the same walk, run etc animations. This function allows you put all the animations into one model, and leave all the other characters with just a single reference frame. You can then attach the full animation set to each model after loading them, saving a load of memory and making model exports easier.

This release also fixes a couple of issues with the previous release.

Licensed developers can download the update from the usual place.

Below is a list of all the changes...

• Fixed lighting issue in Shader Designer (models are brighter again)
• Added new function to attach animations from one model to another model (r_AttachAnimation).
• Exposed r_AttachAnimation to cgame, via cipher_r_AttachAnimation.
• Updated New Game Wizard to support the new function.
• Ciphertool was always regenerating normals on models. This is now off by default, using the normals in the .ase file. You can enable it by using the ciphertool command RegenerateNormals 1. Execute ciphertool +listcmds for more info.
• Defaulted VBO to off. If you are using ATI hardware on your dev machine, set r_arb_vertex_buffer_object to 1 for a big speed boost. If you are using Nvidia hardware, leave it off for now, as there are driver issues.

Update: Build 2791 released. This fixes the bounding box bug when attaching new animations to a model.

Cipher now supports a new OpenGL extension that can result in up to 50% higher frame rates. The extension is supported in current drivers for ATI and Nvidia on most of their product range.

The extension provide functionality similar to Vertex Buffers in DirectX. The performance increase was so dramatic that I thought it would be best to make an update available as soon as possible. The new extension is enabled by default, but if it seems to be causing you problems, you can switch it off by setting r_arb_vertex_buffer_object to zero.

I would also be really interested to know what kind of frame rates people are seeing on the new CCC demo, especially on nVidia hardware. If you have the old version of CCC, run it and see what frame rate you are getting on the starting grid. Download the new version (that uses the new renderer and has had a couple of other tweaks) and try again. Let us know your set-up and frame rates. On my dev machine CCC ran at 55fps prior to the update. The current release runs at about 120fps.

Below is a full break down of what's new.

• Updated Icons (thanks to Toby Allen for this)
• Added support for ARB_vertex_buffer_object extension.
• Added cvar r_arb_vertex_buffer_object to control the use of the extension.
• Increased the default heap size to something more reasonable.
• Removed DirectX headers and libs from the downloads. You will now need to make sure that DirectX is in your include path to build the source.
• Shader Designer now has an option to view models with shadows. You must be running in a 32bpp desktop mode for this to work though.
• Added support for recursive materials in Max 5.1.
• Wizard projects now try to load a map to help get things going.
• Renderer now auto selects a decent refresh rate (thanks Monty)
• Fixed some casting warnings in Mingw.
• Added extra lines to stop Linux compilers complaining.
• All the changes from the previous beta update...

As usual, licensed developers can download the new version and its source code from the download page.

Dan has provided updates of his exporters for Milkshape 3D and Anim8or. These updates include some bug fixes and several new features. The Milkshape exporter updates adds more support for level layouts and both tools will now export a batch file script that Ciphertool can process.

Both updates are available in the downloads section.