Changelog 3.16.0

This release is a preface to bigger new features to come that require some modifications to the library. It is being released earlier to give you more time to accommodate to the changes and to give us time to fix potential issues while we also work on the new features. Please make sure to read this changelog thoroughly before updating to this release!

Feature highlights

Modules reorganized

To simplify the structure of the library and to allow certain planned features to be implemented, modules had to be reorganized, with a lot of the API being put into the Core module. The Core module now contains all the basics and the rest are modules that add features on top of that.

BBMOD DLL in the core

BBMOD DLL is now also a part of the Core module and its path in the included files can be controlled only through a new macro BBMOD_DLL_PATH! This is because it could be utilized throughout other parts of the library when possible (e.g. to speed things up or enable features otherwise unsupported on certain platforms).

Vertex texture fetching support

GameMaker supports vertex texture fetching (VTF) on most platforms, known exceptions being PS4, PS5, Xbox and Windows. We would like to utilize VTF on desktop platforms in one of the future updates, so we are adding support for VTF on Windows through the BBMOD DLL. You can now use bbmod_vtf_is_supported to check if VTF is supported on the current platform and bbmod_texture_set_stage_vs to pass a texture to a vertex shader.

Shader variants

Before it was not possible to share a single material between static, animated and dynamically batched models. Instead you had to create a separate copy of the material with a special shader. This issue has been resolved by adding shader variants. Each BBMOD_Shader can now consist of multiple GameMaker shader resources, where each is used with a different vertex format. This means that you can now use BBMOD_MATERIAL_DEFAULT for all three model kinds, without the _ANIMATED or _BATCHED suffix.

Default renderer

To enable us to develop multiple rendering pipelines, BBMOD_Renderer had to be split into BBMOD_BaseRenderer and BBMOD_DefaultRenderer. The former is a new base struct for all renderers and the latter is a replacement for the old renderer. Aditionally, everything regarding the default materials and the default renderer was put into a single folder, so it is easier to find all resources used in the default rendering pipeline.

For the full changelog, please see https://blueburn.cz/bbmod/docs/3/Changelog3.16.0.html.