Subject: New Release of Rend386

From: Bernie Roehl <broehl>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 92 15:16:12 EDT

The latest version of the rend386 package is now available for ftp.

It's on sunee.uwaterloo.ca in the pub/rend386 directory.  Start by getting
demo3.zip; this contains a demo of the package and shows off some of its
new features.

If you wish to do development using the package, get the devel3.zip file
as well.

The current IP address for sunee.uwaterloo.ca is 129.97.128.196; however,
it will be changing soon (probably to 129.97.50.50).  If you're at a site
that has a working nameserver, this shouldn't affect you at all.

If you don't have access to ftp, you can use the ftpmail service; just send
a mail message with the word help in the body (not the subject line!) to
[email-masked], and you'll receive mail back telling you how to use
the service.  (If you have problems using ftpmail, mention them in an
appropriate newsgroup -- not to this list!).

Remember to transfer .zip files in binary mode, both when ftp'ing and when
downloading to your local 386 system.  This is by far the most common mistake
people run into when getting the package.

As before, neither Dave nor I have time to service requests for floppy disks
in the mail, or uuencoded files sent via email, or what have you.  We'd much
rather be working on the software.

New features in this release:

  - Support for sterescopic viewing
  - Support for Sega LCD glasses and Nintendo PowerGlove
  - Fixed bug that caused crashes when number of polys grew too large
  - Comments now allowed in .PLG files
  - Improved control over depth-sorting
  - Polygon depth now passed to user_render_poly() and user_poly_color()
    (for distance-based drawing decisions and "dimly-lit rooms")
  - Segments can now be assigned names and numbers
  - Mapping of colors while loading a PLG file
  - Mapping of colors of segments in a FIG file
  - Joint limits
  - more efficient updating of segmented figures

Note that some of the incompatabilities with different C compilers have
been fixed, but not all.  I'm developing using Turbo C++ version 1.00,
Dave is using a recent version of Borland C.

If you have any questions/problems/etc, please direct them to Dave
([email-masked]) or Bernie ([email-masked])
and we'll try to help.  Please don't post things directly to the
list unless you're sure they'll be of general interest; we're trying
to keep mailing list traffic as light as possible.

The next release probably won't be for a while (Dave's busy working on
his head-mounted display and tracking systems, Bernie's looking at protocols
for shared, multi-user virtual environments).  There may be "maintenance"
releases if any serious bugs are found.

-- 
	Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept
	Mail: [email-masked] OR [email-masked]
	BangPath: uunet!watmath!sunee!broehl
	Voice:  (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]