SpaceEngine News

Todays update - build 1690 - is in the beta branch. It features Chinese and Japanese support! Read more about it in the blog-post.

Build 0.990.37.1690

• While exporting planet textures, clouds transparency is not saved into a separate file
  
• Ability to specify custom subfolder to save video file/frames in the video capture dialog
  
• Fixed bug when some terrain node textures didn't generated
  
• Fixed bug with terrain not generating while recording video
  
• Opposition effect on planetary rings; parameters are added to planet scripts and editor
  
• Unicode support:
  
• - All localizations updated to UTF-8 encoding
  
• - Texture fonts replaced with ttf fonts
  
• - Added traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and Japanese localizations
  
• - In language selection menu, country flags and full names of localizations are displayed
  
• Apollo 11 'Eagle' Lunar module model on the Moon surface
  
• Fixed bug with UI window stuck in moving mode when was closed by hotkey before releasing the left mouse button
  
• Fixed selecting of stars in star clusters and nebulae
  
• Mouse click in the text input field moves cursor to the nearest character
  
• Fixed arrow button of volumetrics resolution sliders
  

So today is 50th anniversary of the historical Apollo-11 mission landing on the Moon. We made a small update - adding the Eagle model to the Moon. Go to the Locations dialog in SE, find "The Eagle has landed" location, and check it out!



Read the full story and see more screenshots on our website: http://spaceengine.org/news/blog190720/

Great news for Chinese users: next update will support Chinese! Implementation is almost ready, so you will lose nothing by buying SE now!

Todays update - build 1665 - is in the beta branch (UPDATE: it is in public branch now). Read more about it in the blog-post.

Build 0.990.36.1665 (beta)
- Some fixes in catalogs
- Multithreaded saving of screenshot (no lag on saving to png)
- Multithreaded saving of video frame images
- Updated video saving tool:
-- Option for automatically run a script simultaneously with start of video capture
-- Video capture is stopping automatically once script is complete
-- Options to minimize or close SpaceEngine once script is complete
- Planet emission textures are stored with color textures in the same array to save video memory
- Planet thermal textures are stored with hight textures in the same array to save video memory [experimental]
- Reduced tiling of some terrain textures
- Fixed bug with non-saving of database file of user names and descriptions
- Fixed bug with change of planet atmosphere color after restart
- Improved appearance of red giants
- Improved color variety of planet atmospheres [experimental]
- In HDR photo mode, aurora faded out with distance to not spoil appearance of a planet from space [experimental]
- Fixed dry lacustrine planets
- Fixed missing terraced mountains
- Released new version of the CubeMap tool - 1.15

Todays update - build 1660, it is merged with previous beta build 1655.

Build 0.990.35.1660
- Automatic saturation of stellar illumination
- Fixed star corona color bug
- Fixed toggle of the fullscreen mode when "Configure codec" is pressed in the video capture dialog
- VR/3D mode can be toggled by a hotkey / in the main menu
- In VR help about VR controller buttons bindings is displayed on the main menu background (Oculus and Vive, text is in English)
- In VR Solar system browser automatically hides itself after clicking "fly to" button
- In main menu script, buttons, labels and edit can have internal name; if not specified, data from the Text field is used
- Option to make planet hidden by default in the sc file - visible false
- Changed atmosphere model/color assignment rules
- Some fixes in catalogs
- Fixed bug with clusters/nebulae particles always rendered even if clusters/nebulae were disabled
- Reduced star particle wobbling effect of a very distant catalog stars
- Increased lens flare visibility range for very bright star systems
- Changed location preview file name generation method

Build 0.990.35.1655
- Fixed huge lag at startup and on switching graphics quality presets
- Limited paste text buffer size
- Some fixes in catalogs
- Updated exoplanet catalog to June 21, 2019 (Teegarden's star and other updates)
- Fixed abrupt scarps on terrestrial planets
- Fixed high-frequency "penitentes" on icy worlds
- Fixed depth of rayed craters
- Added timeout to the loading screen to prevent getting stuck on it for too long of a time
- Adjusted coefficients in the mass-radius equation for more a precise result [pending for 0.991]
- Updated localizations
- Fixed procedural galaxy/quasar seed change bug
- Disabled loading indicator in VR
- Fixed broken export of planet textures after landing on a planet

Hello everybody! Almost two weeks have passed since release, and we can say that the launch was successful! We have collected many bug reports from the community on Steam, Discord, and the SE forum. The most important bugs must be fixed as soon as possible, and I am working hard to achieve this. Today's patch includes a major performance fix, which is most noticeable at program startup: there is no large delay anymore after the main SE window is opened. For some users during that delay the whole system lags, and may even crash with a BSOD! Switching between graphics quality preset triggered the same issue, so that is also fixed now.

This update has not been fully tested yet, but we want to release is ASAP, so I suggest that users join the free public beta. To do this, open the Steam client, navigate to SpaceEngine in your Steam library, right-click on it and select Properties. In the Properties window, switch to the BETAS tab, and select the "beta - public beta branch". The patch will start downloading immediately, you don't need to enter a beta access code.



Please note that the beta could be unstable and have many bugs, some of which may be caused by compatibility issues with installed mods. So before joining the beta, move the entire contents of the addons folder to a safe place (except SolarSystemHD, if you have it). After testing without addons, you may try to copy them back (copy, not move - this will be safer).

To exit the beta, just select "NONE - Opt out of all beta programs" in the BETAS tab of the Properties window.

Other changes includes fixed glitchy landscape features, added newly discovered exoplanets, and fixing a bug with galaxy/quasar seed change (which sometimes destroyed saved locations).

The full changelog of today's patch:

Build 0.990.35.1655 (public beta)

• Fixed huge lag at startup and on switching graphics quality presets
  
• Limited paste text buffer size
  
• Some fixes in catalogs
  
• Updated exoplanet catalog to June 21, 2019 (Teegarden's star and other updates)
  
• Fixed abrupt scarps on terrestrial planets
  
• Fixed high-frequency "penitentes" on icy worlds
  
• Fixed depth of rayed craters
  
• Added timeout to the loading screen to prevent getting stuck on it for too long of a time
  
• Adjusted coefficients in the mass-radius equation for more a precise result [pending for 0.991]
  
• Updated localizations
  
• Fixed procedural galaxy/quasar seed change bug
  
• Disabled loading indicator in VR
  
• Fixed broken export of planet textures after landing on a planet