Neos VR News

A few more tweaks and small additions and bugfixes! Working on the facets now, so build is smaller! ^^;

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
- Added ability for locomotion modules to set the context menu background color, in addition to the icon
-- Simply change the "Color" property to set your own color!

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- Updated the laser cursor icons visuals for better visibility (done by @Coffee | Programmer)
- Tweaked the locomotion mode icons and item colors (done by @Coffee | Programmer)
- Tweaked the texture variant alternatives for BCnm (DXTnm), excluding BC3 versions as potential alternatives
-- This fixes edge case where normal maps with transparency in the alpha channel look wrong due to normal map encoding (reported by @Aegis_Wolf | Artist 3D/2D, @Rue Shejn | Artist 3D, @Shifty | Quality Control Lead)
- Added "Reset Laser Settings" button to the settings dialog (requested by @Reiko9)

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Fixed email verification not working correctly (reported by @Nexulan, @Shifty | Quality Control Lead, @Rue Shejn | Artist 3D and other users)
- Fixed DetailNormalMap on PBS and PBS Slice not being marked as normal map, showing up as the un-decoded red version (reported by @ohzee)
- Skipped Azure Kinect SDK initialization on Windows versions older than Windows 10, preventing startup crash on Windows 7 and 8.x (reported by @Drayce the Dragon)

Sorry for no builds in last few days, I was taking a bit of a break as I was going crazy from the UI update. I'm designing the facet system now, first pieces should start coming soon. In the meanwhile here's a whole bunch of goodies from the backlog!

There's new way to enable/disable lasers, will change it into a facet later and tweak, hopefully it helps a bit in the meanwhile. A whole bunch of tweaks and fixes for avatar anchors, the new normal map compression, laser and other stuff.

Also this build introduces experimental support for Azure Kinect full body tracking (it tracks everything, feet, knees, hips, chest, elbows, so it's like having 8 tracker setup currently)! Note that viability of this isn't proven yet, so don't go buying the device yet! It's very heavy on the GPU and you might need two for stable tracking, we'll see more.

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
- Extended Neos' general tracking input system to support multiple tracking spaces that can be aligned to the "root" VR tracking space

- Added experimental native support for Azure Kinect full body tracking (requested by @Reactant)
-- IMPORTANT: This is not fully tested for viability for realtime VR tracking yet. It requires significant GPU processing power (requiring a second GPU to run smoothly) and has potential high latency issues.
-- You can configure the Depth Mode, Tracking FPS, Temporal Smoothing and GPU used for calculations using the AzureKinectConfig.json file next to Neos.exe
- Reworked Neos initialization routine to run asynchronously on a separate thread
-- This allows for rendering frames during the initialization phase and providing info about the current stage
-- This also helps in cases of the database needing repair and causing long startup, making users shut down Neos before the repair is finished (previously reported by @SHFR_H)

- Added Laser Enabled/Disabled option to the context menu to allow temporarily disabling the laser (unless context menu or private UI is intereacted with) (based on feedback by @DeliriousJax, @ProbablePrime, @Shifty | Quality Control Lead, @Hayden (PolyLogiX - ZyroDesign), @GearBell and others)
-- I'm putting this option here temporarily. This should help with some usecases, later will be moved to a facet
-- I'm also thinking of other mechanisms to cover other scenarios (e.g. forcing the lasers off for a certain user)
-- Also currently it's independent for each hand, let me know if this is good or not, I can make it shared for both hands

- Added new default Locomotion Module icons (created by @Coffee | Programmer)
- Added "Solid Color Texture" procedural texture
- Added "PreserveUpOnExit" to AvatarAnchor, which will align the user with the upwards axis when they exit the avatar anchor (requested by @H3BO3)

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- AvatarAnchorTouchTrigger will now use the context menu to confirm enter/exit when clicked (similarly to avatars), to give users better feedback and prevent accidental entering
- Compressed normal maps will now show in their decoded form in the inspector and when pulled out from the inspector, rather than in their red-looking raw form
-- Note that this is just material configuration, the underlying texture is still red-looking and will show as such in certain places. This is normal. (pun intended again). However if some material inspectors don't show it correctly, let me know.
- Tweaked fog volume material default render queue (2540) to fix most cases of the fog rendering through certain materials (Unlit, Reflection and so on)
- Added "UseUserSpaceForDistance" property to TipTouchSource. This will make the distance units be relative to the user's space, rather than the slot the TipTouch source is on
-- This is set on by default, fixing unreliable physical touch on variety of avatars (reported by @Lewi-bean | Audio Designer, sample avatar provided by @Shifty | Quality Control Lead )
- Added cleanup to asset provider reference tracking on disposal, fixing another potential source of memory leaks
- Added "OnReset" impulse passthrough to ElapsedTime node (requested by @H3BO3)
- Renamed "PreserveUp" on AvatarAnchor to "PreserveUpOnEnter" (existing instances are auto-upgraded)
- Recategorized TextEditor components under Common UI/Editors
- Clicking email verification link will now show that the email has been verified rather than "Invalid Verification Token" if the account has already been verified (to avoid confusion due to multiple clicks) (based on recent issue by @Shammy and several other users in the past)
- Lost Password request will now show an error message when an incorrect email is typed

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Fixed missing transparent variants of the PBS Slice shaders (reported by @Shifty | Quality Control Lead)
- Fixed "You don't have permission to equip this." not appearing when trying to equip a tooltip from the item shelf (reported by @Turk)
- Fixed Constant Slerp being incorrectly overloaded as Constant Lerp
- Fixed Constant Slerp not working correctly and getting stuck (reported by @H3BO3)
- ValueCopy with WriteBack enabled will now immediatelly update the driven field when it's changed, avoiding the modifying source reading back the old value immediatelly after it's modified
-- This fixes odd cursor behavior with TextEditor in combination with ValueCopy (reported by @Anomalous) and potentially other similar odd behaviors
- Fixed user scaling themselves when grip-equipping a tool while gripping with the other hand (based on report by @Turk)
- Fixed the new physical touch system not providing haptic feedback (reported by @H3BO3)
- Fixed incorrect scaled normal decoding on PBS Color Splat materials (reported by @Enverex)

A few more bugfixes because I can't sleep. I've tried updating Assimp library from the source as well (about 500 new commits since the build we're using), but unfortunatelly animation import on FBX files is currently severely broken, so it will have to wait.

Compatible with last build.

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Fixed normal maps not working with PBS Color Splat (reported by @Enverex)
- Fixed user getting respawned when sliding a non-parented grabbable object with laser towards the hand (reported by @Coffee | Programmer, @GearBell, @Christioni and @Shifty | Quality Control Lead)
-- This also fixes the userspace avatar proxy becoming corrupted, breaking private UI interactions
- Fixed common root search returning parent object when the other object matches the first one, rather than returning the first
-- This fixes avatar creator breaking and deleting users when the user and avatar creator is in a non-root slot (reported by @Shifty | Quality Control Lead, @Enverex, @Purple Juice, @Max The Hybrid, @Lewi-bean | Audio Designer and others)

A few more bugfixes for the laser and some other things (like "the mop"). Compatible with last build.

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Fixed laser getting corrupted with certain settings, causing the user to be continually respawned (reported by unknown in-game through @Shifty | Quality Control Lead)
- Fixed the interaction laser breaking and causing the user to respawn when running context menu actions on some held items in cases where the interaction target component is destroyed but the object is not (reported by @Rue Shejn | Artist 3D and @Aegis_Wolf | Artist 3D/2D)
- Added sanitization for TRS matrices coming to Neos from the model importer, to prevent odd behaviors where bounding box and actual object visual would mismatch (reported by @ProbablePrime on behalf of @SHFR_H)
- Made TRS matrix decomposition more robust for rotations
-- This fixes some rare cases where some parts of imported 3D models import with a wrong rotation (e.g. the mop 3D model reported by @ProbablePrime on behalf of @SHFR_H)

Some more tweaking and polish for the new laser system and its interactions with to oltips, avatars and such. Fixed and added a few other things as well.

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
- Reimplemented ability to swap any tools on the item shelf, even if the tool doesn't use laser (the laser will automatically come on when pointed at the item shelf with a tool)
-- This fixes not being able to place brushes on the item shelf (reported by Anomalous#0699)
- Added a system for laser interaction target overriding color and to provide interaction target priorities, allowing interaction targets higher in the hierarchy to take precedence
-- This is used for item shelf to always take precedence and to color the laser blue similarly to the old system
- Added "First Person Offset" to camera positioning setting, which allows adjusting forward/backward offset of the camera in smooth POV mode (requested by @ProbablePrime)
- Added "Shadow Map Resolution" property to Light, which allows changing the resolution of the shadowmaps (setting this to 0 will use default resolution) (requested by @Jolzu Groxxy Zyar the Avali)

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- Equipping in-world avatar is now done through the context menu to prevent accidental equips on click (the context menu is opened by clicking on the avatar as before) (based on feedback by @Nexulan)
- Added automatic user respawn when some crucial components (like CommonTool) become corrupted

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Added filtering for the new laser sometimes hitting the tooltip that it's shooting from, making the tooltips interact with themselves
- Made locomotion selection option appear in the context menu when there's currently no active locomotion module, but the user has ability to choose one (based on report by @ProbablePrime)
- Fixed model importer generating capsule colliders for rigged meshes even when the "Generate Colliders" option is disabled (reported by @H3BO3)
- Fixed broken circle segment shader (used for voice switcher and importer visual) (reported by @GalexY and @H3BO3)
- Fixed audio buffer leaking data from other sources with video playback, causing odd behavior in some components like VolumeMeter (reported by @LeonClement)