• 3d smoke fx ripped from pyromancer is now much faster. Instead of computing a full screen picture each frame (one 3D simplex noise call for each subcell, 30 times per second => 480 000 calls per second), I compute it only 4 times per second and linearly interpolate the pictures (=> 64 000 calls per second). At 30 fps, this leaves a lot of free CPU, which brings me to the second improvement…
• the lengthy world generation (around 7 seconds on my Athlon Phenom 9650) is now computed by a background thread during the title screen. If you spend a few seconds staring at it, you can almost switch to the school selection screen without any delay. And I have plans to make you stare at it not only the first time you run the game …

[edit]erratum : in fact the renderer is OpenGL, not SDL.[/edit]

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlivQdkktdH3cHFDaGFFMUYzdnlEbk1ZZWwwUF9pY1E&hl=en

This survey was plagued by a 16% “other” category. Fortunately, google tools have evolved and we can now discover what’s hiding behind those 16% (and also if there’s an evolution in the main languages usage) with this new survey :

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEdmcTFTTTJ6amVWV29NZjJIWGI0NkE6MA

Results will be available here :
https://spreadsheets.google.com/gform?key=tGfq1SM2zjeVWoMf2HXb46A&gridId=0#chart

Thanks for your participation.

[edit] Google’s summary page doesn’t seem to work. You can consult the results here :
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlivQdkktdH3dEdmcTFTTTJ6amVWV29NZjJIWGI0NkE&hl=en

Antagonist’s GLSL renderer has been succesfully integrated in libtcod 1.5.1 svn trunk. While I consider it currently highly unoptimized (in both the libtcod “client” part and the critical fragment shader), it already skyrocketed the true color sample to the unknown and mysterious world of 4 digits frames per seconds…. It’s only available if you have an OpenGL 1.4 compatible video card (it requires the GL_ARB_shader_objects OpenGL extension). If something goes wrong with openGL, libtcod will hopefully fall back to the default SDL renderer. You can also completely disable the OpenGL renderer by compiling libtcod with -DNO_OPENGL make option, or by uncommenting this option in libtcod.h.

Wrapping frenzy !

Paul Sexton’s common lisp wrapper cl-tcod should be compatible with libtcod 1.5.0 since there are no API changes between 1.5.0rc1 and 1.5.0. Get it there.

Other news on the wrapping side of the force are an ongoing community brainstorming leaded by Jotaf about refactoring the python wrapper. There’s a poll here. Be sure to check it if you’re using the python wrapper for libtcod.  Altefcat also started to work on a epydoc standalone documentation for python that will hopefully be available in the 1.5.1 release.

Umbrarum dokumentum…

Last but not least, Mingos started the documentation reskinning sisyphal work. The new look will be more user friendly and more “library documentation”-esque .

You can get it here.

D is a really interesting language with all the nifty features you might dream of.

• fixed python waitForKeypress
• improved random number generator when you delete the default RNG (a new one is generated instead of crashing)
• fix ASCII code returned for AltGr+0-9 key combinations
• new sample to show how to achieve blazing fast console filling in python (courtesy of Jotaf). Use python 2.6 + numpy to get the best experience

Main changes since 1.4.2 :

• for C and C++, debug versions of the libraries with hardened console module
• unicode support
• subcell resolution blitting
• approximated Gaussian distribution
• Dijkstra pathfinding
• Name generator
• Now RNG module supports several algorithms : Mersenne twister and Complementary Multiply With Carry (the later is better)
• New video tutorials by Mingos here.

Detailed changelog is here.

Download the library here.

Check the documentation here.

A big thank to Mingos and Jotaf for their huge contributions on this version, and for their “overall achievement” ! libtcod wouldn’t be the same without them

• new random number generator (Complementary Multiply With Carry) courtesy of Mingos. This one is 2 to 3 times faster than Mersenne twister and has a much longer period. It’s the default RNG in libtcod 1.5 but you can still use Mersenne twister by explicitely selecting it. It breaks the RNG api btw…
• Dijkstra pathfinding if now official and documented.
• added a new sample for C and C++ showing how to use the SDL callback for eye-candy
• added integer version of the gaussian distribution RNG function
• noise samples now use subcell resolution
• added helpers for fast console coloring in python

Check the changelog for more details.

Grab the library here while it’s hot

[update] libtcod.net 1.5.0rc1 is also available. Now Chris is so fast that I don’t even have to announce libtcod and libtcod.net in different posts