panda3d/doc/ReleaseNotes

------------------------  RELEASE 1.10.2  -----------------------

This release fixes several more bugs, including a few regressions
in 1.10.1.  Upgrading is highly recommended.

* Fix regression on Windows causing freezes and instability
* Fix a memory leak issue in Python applications
* Fix crash reading unaligned float4 column in GeomVertexReader
* Fixes for switching to fullscreen at runtime on Windows and Linux
* Fix incorrect display mode listing in some Linux distributions
* Fix threading crash on Linux when using get_keyboard_map()
* Support "from __future__ import division" for Panda types
* Support building with Visual Studio 2019 in makepanda
* Work around Assimp crash when loading multiple .ply models
* On Windows, a Python 3-compatible version of Pmw is included
* Fix ParticlePanel spam when hovering over File menu items
* TexMemWatcher has been fixed for Python 3
* Prevent macOS window getting stuck after base.destroy()
* Fix assertion setting mass before shape with Bullet debug build
* Don't error if DirectScrolledFrame is destroyed twice
* Fix reference count corruption accessing task.__dict__
* Fix writing to SequenceNode frame_rate property
* Fix collider sort not copied when copying CollisionNode
* Add OpenCollective backer file

------------------------  RELEASE 1.10.1  -----------------------

This is a bugfix release intended to fix several issues in 1.10.0.

* Fix crashes when gamepad is plugged in on 32-bit Windows
* Fix deploy-ng error regarding 'exist_ok' on Python 2
* Fix Linux install from pip not working with some mesa drivers
* Fix compatibility issues with upcoming Python 3.8
* Fix regression with Audio3DManager.setSoundVelocityAuto()
* Fix issues when awaiting loader.loadModel in Python 3.7
* Audio3DManager accepts tuple in setSoundVelocity/setListenerVelocity
* Fix lighting being disabled when only an AmbientLight is active
* Fix an error saving from Particle Panel in Python 3
* Depth buffer now defaults to 24-bit on macOS (fixes flickering)
* Fix no devices being detected on Windows with threading-model
* Implement collision tests from Capsule and Box into InvSphere
* Fix odd behavior and occasional crash in QuatInterval
* Fix SpriteAnim error in particle system
* Fix ShaderGenerator error when using too many shadowing lights
* Fix interrogate crash in Python 3 with optional wstring args
* Fix compilation errors for x86 Android platform
* Fix permissions of directories created by installpanda
* Improvements to API reference documentation
* Fix incorrect features printed out when printing an InputDevice
* Support cross-compiling for Android platforms in makepanda
* Work around various bugs when compiling with OS X 10.7's libc++
* Fix wrong error sometimes being reported when loading plug-in
* Allow getting NodePath from CullTraverserData object
* Add config options to Assimp loader for generating normals
* Fix multisampling in floating-point framebuffers on OpenGL
* Parse egg files with 4-component tangents (must be 1 or -1)
* StencilAttrib.make() write_mask argument is now optional

------------------------  RELEASE 1.10.0  -----------------------

This is a major release with significant changes.  Please review the
changes when upgrading.  The list below is by no means exhaustive, but
should contain the most important changes.

General
* Experimental ability to build for Android
* New input framework to natively support gamepads, joysticks, etc.
* Multi-threaded render pipeline is a lot more stable now
* New setuptools-based deployment pipeline
* Improvements to mouselook smoothness
* Cache is now at $XDG_CACHE_HOME/panda3d (~/.cache/panda3d), not ~/.panda3d
* Addition of unit test suite
* Many improvements to thread safety
* Many performance improvements
* Tons of bugfixes
* Big style cleanup of C++ source code

Python API
* Complete support for Python 3
* Support for coroutines and async/await
* Property interfaces have been added for many settings
* More flexible handling for keyboard arguments in C++ APIs
* Python bindings are completely separated out of the C++ libraries.
* Interrogate binding generator has many improvements.
* Use of pandac.PandaModules is discouraged, use panda3d.core et al
* Use of libRocket is discouraged due to lack of Python 3 support
* Tasks are now sorted in addition order when lacking a sort value
* Fixes iris/fade transitions for extreme aspect ratios
* WeakNodePath is now exposed to Python
* WindowProperties.size(x, y) deprecated; use WindowProperties(size=(x, y))
* Calling bare run() is deprecated, use base.run() instead
* downcastTo*() methods have been removed, they were already no-ops

Rendering
* Add new shader-based terrain rendering method (ShaderTerrainMesh)
* The default ColorAttrib mode is now T_vertex
* The ColorAttrib T_off mode now properly disables vertex colors entirely
* Make handling of color attributes more consistent between renderers
* Ability to create an OpenGL core profile context; set "gl-version 3 2"
* Experimental support for reverse-Z rendering for best depth precision
* sRGB framebuffers supported more widely
* Support for infinite near/far clip in lens
* Add some PBR material parameters to material class
* Addition of more built-in GLSL shader inputs; see manual.
* Add p3d_FragData[] GLSL output for MRT in GLSL 1.30
* Add flag enabling vertex shader control over point size
* Support signed ints and double-precision floats in vertex data with GLSL
* Support unsigned 11/10/10-bit floating-point textures and vertex data
* Support for SSBOs via ShaderBuffer class
* Support OpenGL FBO buffers without any attachments
* Support passing uint variables to GLSL shader
* Allow rendering objects with empty vertex data (for vertex pulling)
* Add LogicOpAttrib, for supporting logical operator blending
* Improvements to OpenGL ES support
* Support for geometry with adjacency information
* Change default alpha blending to improve blending rendered result
* New method for obtaining native OpenGL texture object
* Support windowless offscreen rendering on macOS
* Panda resets OpenGL state better before and after draw callbacks
* OpenGL renderer better supports debugging tools like apitrace
* Support fixed-depth billboards, useful for 2D tags that don't change size

Shader generator
* Significant performance improvements
* Support for point light shadows
* Hardware skinning support
* Changes to match fixed-function pipeline better
* Fixes for normal vector normalization
* Support multiple normal maps (uses Reoriented Normal Mapping)
* Tracks modifications to materials and texture stages automatically

Lighting
* Allow specifying light color based on color temperature
* Setting specular color of a light separately is deprecated
* New GLSL inputs to make implementing lighting in shaders much easier
* Add representation for sphere light and rectangle light
* Efficiency improvements for passing light information to shader
* Interocular distance for shadow cameras now always defaults to 0
* Add low-level lighting module from RenderPipeline

Textures
* Support cube map arrays
* Support buffer textures
* Many more texture formats supported
* BC4 and BC5 compression modes supported
* Proper depth textures supported in DirectX 9 renderer
* set_ram_image(_as) directly supports buffer protocol
* TexturePeeker supports more formats and component types

Text
* Dramatic improvements to text rendering performance
* Support for HarfBuzz for higher-quality text shaping and kerning
* Support for right-to-left text
* Support for signed-distance-field rendering in egg-mkfont

Audio/video
* The default unit for audio is now 1 meter for each Panda unit.
* Native .flac loader
* Support videos with alpha channel in ffmpeg
* OpenAL stability improvements, especially on macOS
* Support loading .opus files with libopusfile
* Fix various memory leaks

Physics / collisions
* CollisionTube is renamed to CollisionCapsule.
* Box-box collision test is improved to work well with the Pusher
* More box tests for collision system: box-into-plane, box-into-poly
* Capsule (tube) can be used as "from" shape into plane, sphere, capsule, box
* Bullet objects are serializable to .bam files.
* Bullet bindings are now thread safe.
* Bullet debug drawer is more efficient; no longer inherits GeomNode.
* Various fixes to bullet vehicle wheel synchronization
* PhysX bindings are deprecated.

Pipeline / loading
* Support for Assimp library to load a broad variety of model formats
* Ability to specify min-lod, max-lod, lod-bias in .egg file
* Egg file materials support PBR-style material parameterization
* Support loading more DDS files, including DX10-style ones
* Add support for OpenEXR and HDR textures
* Support line/point thickness in bam2egg
* bam2egg no longer inserts a vestigial ModelNode at the top
* bam2egg supports depth test, offset, cull bin attributes
* Accept a .gz file wherever a .pz file is accepted
* egg-palettize supports mirror and border-color wrap modes
* More robust checks against memory corruptions when loading bad .bam files
* Support for Maya 2017 and 2018
* Support preprocessing GLSL shaders created with Shader.make

Build
* We now require using MSVC 2015 or 2017 to compile on Windows.
* At least GCC 4.8 is now required.
* With GCC/clang, enabling C++11 is now required.
* Allow building with more recent ffmpeg versions
* Support for old FFMpeg versions (before 1.1) dropped.
* The ppremake build system has been removed.
* Support for OpenSSL versions before 0.9.7 has been dropped.

C++
* Use of NULL is replaced with nullptr
* WeakPointerTo now requires use of lock() method for thread safety
* Mutex et al now satisfy C++11 Lockable constraints
* Panda headers no longer contain `using namespace std;`
* PN_int32 et al have been removed, use stdint.h types instead
* The need to link with pystub and add Python include dirs is removed.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.9.4  ------------------------

One of the bugfixes in the last 1.9.3 release introduced a regression,
therefore it was decided to make another 1.9.x release.

* Fix 1.9.3 regression with generating geometry in threaded pipeline
* Various compile warning fixes
* Fix occasional crash in PNMImage::quick_filter_from()
* Fix issue taking screenshots from an OpenGL FBO buffer
* Fix various issues with MeshDrawer
* Fix issue with collision sphere generation in bam2egg
* Fix compile errors with more obscure Python configurations
* Fix assert when using Texture.load_sub_image to load whole image
* Fix fsm FourState

------------------------  RELEASE 1.9.3  ------------------------

This issue fixes several bugs that were still found in 1.9.2.

* Fix crash when using homebrew Python on Mac OS X
* Fix crash when running in Steam on Linux when using OpenAL
* Fix crash using wx/tkinter on Mac as long as want-wx/tk is set
* Fix loading models from 'models' package with models/ prefix
* Fix random crashes in task system
* Fix various race conditions causing threading issues
* Fix memory leaks in BulletTriangleMesh
* Fix loading old models with MovingPart<LMatrix4f>
* Improve performance of CPU vertex animation somewhat
* Show framebuffer properties when fbprop request fails
* Show error instead of crash on use of object before __init__
* Fix hang on exit when using Python task on threaded task chain
* Fix inability to get RGBA renderbuffer in certain cases
* Work around GLSL issue with #pragma and certain Intel drivers
* Improve performance of texture load and store operations
* Fix crashes with pbuffers on Intel cards on Windows
* Support for Autodesk Maya 2016.5
* Add shadow-depth-bits config var to control shadow map depth
* Fix cull issue when rendering cube map (or any multi-lens setup)
* Fix crash rendering with the same camera to different contexts
* Fix compile error when making static build with DX9 renderer
* Fix assertion when using aux render targets in DX9
* Work around Cg bug generating invalid ASM for saturated tex loads
* Fix issues with certain Cg shader inputs in DX9
* Support uint8 index buffers in DX9
* Fix occasional frame lag when loading a big model asynchronously
* Fix interrogate parsing issue with "const static"
* Add back missing libp3pystub.a to Mac OS X SDK
* Fix RAM caching of 2D texture arrays
* Fix Ctrl+C interrupt propagation to runtime applications
* Support for InvSphere, Box and Tube solids in bam2egg
* Preserve "intangible" and "level" collide flags in bam2egg
* Add normalized() method to vectors
* asyncFlattenStrong with inPlace=True caused node to disappear
* Fix asyncFlattenStrong called on nodes without parent
* Fix is_playing() check when playing an animation backwards
* Windows installer no longer clears %PATH% if longer than 1024 chars
* Fix inoperative -tbn/-tbnall/-tbnauto options in egg-optchar
* Fix tinydisplay texture errors on shutdown
* Fix mipmap filtering issues in tinydisplay renderer
* Fix exception when creating intervals before ShowBase is started
* Fix rare X11 .ico cursor bug; also now supports PNG-compressed icons
* Add keyword argument support to make() methods such as Shader.make()
* Fix compilation errors with Bullet 2.84
* Fix exception when trying to pickle NodePathCollection objects
* Fix error when trying to raise vectors to a power
* GLSL: fix error when legacy matrix generator inputs are mat3
* Now tries to preserve refresh rate when switching fullscreen on Windows
* Fix back-to-front sorting when gl-coordinate-system is changed
* Now also compiles on older Linux distros (eg. CentOS 5 / manylinux1)
* get_keyboard_map now includes keys on layouts with special characters
* Fix crash due to incorrect alignment when compiling Eigen with AVX
* Fix crash when writing 16-bit .tif file (now silently downsamples)

------------------------  RELEASE 1.9.2  ------------------------

This is a minor bugfix release, fixing a few minor issues that
remained in the 1.9.1 release, including:

* Fix compile errors with more recent versions of ffmpeg
* Include .lib files for pyd modules in Windows SDK
* packp3d now recognizes default egg-object-type definitions
* Fix issues with sphere-into-box and box-into-sphere collisions
* Texture VRAM usage is now correctly reported by pstats
* Support for reading BMP files with alpha channel
* Fix OpenGL crashes in very ancient OpenGL versions
* Fix rare compile issues and crashes with esoteric Python set-ups
* Fix crash when extracting texture that's not a multiple of 4 bytes
* Work around buggy NVIDIA driver that reports _main_* shader inputs
* Add version of transform_vertices that accepts a SparseArray
* Clamp shininess to 0 to avoid GL error when shininess < 0
* Fix various bugs in RopeNode and NurbsCurveEvaluator
* Fix clock-mode Config.prc settings
* NodePath render_mode setters no longer reset wireframe color
* Fix constant reloading of texture when gl-ignore-mipmaps is set
* BamReader now releases the GIL (so it can be used threaded)
* Fix AttributeError in direct.stdpy.threading module

------------------------  RELEASE 1.9.1  ------------------------

This minor release fixes some important regressions and bugs found
in 1.9.0, but also introduces a few minor features.

It also reintroduces the deployment tools that were absent from
the previous release.

The following issues were fixed:
* SDK now properly installs in Mac OS X 10.11 "El Capitan"
* Windows 8.1+ no longer applies DPI virtualization to Panda window
* Fix ffmpeg library load issue on Mac OS X
* Fix issues running maya2egg on Mac OS X
* Fix compiler errors on different platforms
* Fix various rare crashes
* Fix crashes on shutdown in threaded pipeline
* Fix low-level threading crash on ARM machines
* More reliably and robustly handle failures opening OpenAL device
* Textures were not being scaled to power-of-2 in some cases
* Correct scaling of normal vectors with flatten operation
* Correct positioning of viewing axis when showing lens frustum
* Add dpi-window-resize option to auto-resize window on DPI change
* Fix assertions when alpha-file-channel references unknown channel
* Use OpenGL-style vertex colors by default on non-Windows systems
* Default vertex column alignment is now 4 bytes
* Add PNMImage premultiply/unpremultiply methods.
* Fix incorrect parsing of numbers with exponents in Config.prc
* Fix for reading URLs mounted via the virtual file system
* Fix shader generator memory leaks and runtime performance
* Fix shader generator scaling of binormals and tangents
* Expose _NET_WM_PID to window managers in X11
* Fix a range of bugs in tinydisplay renderer.
* Don't error when setting lens far distance to infinity
* Allow passing custom lens to saveCubeMap/saveSphereMap
* Fix errors in saveCubeMap/saveSphereMap in threaded pipeline
* Fix DynamicTextFont.makeCopy()
* Make Texture memory size estimation more accurate
* Fix various window resizing issues
* Fix PandaSystem.getCompiler() value for clang (it reported gcc)
* x2egg no longer replaces face normals with vertex normals
* Include Eigen headers in Mac and Windows SDK
* Added geomipterrain-incorrect-normals setting, default=true
* DisplayInformation resolution list was missing on Windows
* Upgrade FMOD and Bullet versions on Windows and Mac OS X
* Various performance optimizations
* Fixed various other bugs not listed here.

Fixes and improvements for the runtime:
* Fix splash screen freezing in the X11 web plug-in
* pdeploy will now handle extracted files (eg. .ico and .cur)
* Added more options for customizing splash screen
* Fix missing xml and ast modules from morepy package
* Certificate dialog is now localized to various languages
* Fix packp3d error when Python file is not in a package
* Pass on failing exit status from packaged application
* Remove annoying ":Packager(warning): No such file" warning
* Fix issue installing pdeploy-generated .pkg on OS X 10.11

Fixes for the Python API:
* Fix mysterious and rare crash in tp_traverse
* Bullet step function accidentally defaulted to step size of 0
* Fix overflow of file offsets (eg. when seeking in huge files)
* Fix regression with memoryviews
* Fix hasattr/getattr of vector classes for invalid attributes
* Allow passing a long to methods accepting an int
* Fix crash when passing None to Filename constructor
* MouseWatcherGroup was erroneously not exposed in 1.9.0
* ShowBase no longer unmounts VFS when shutting down
* No longer requires setting PATH to import panda3d.*
* DirectDialog default geom is once again respected
* DirectDialog no longer overrides custom frameSize
* Fix WebcamVideo/MicrophoneAudio.getOptions() methods

Changes relating to the OpenGL renderer:
* Various performance improvements
* Fix point/line thickness setting
* Improve GLSL error reporting
* Fix Intel driver issues, particularly with geometry shaders
* Add more error checking for parameter types
* Integer shader inputs were not being converted to float properly
* Fix crash passing an undersized array to a GLSL shader input
* p3d_ColorScale et al may now be declared as vec3
* Fix flickering when using trans_model_to_apiview in Cg
* Support wireframe and point rendering modes in OpenGL ES
* Fix issue with model disappearing in rare cases with GLSL
* Fix ColorWriteAttrib not working as it should
* Allow deactivating PStats collectors for GPU timers
* Memory residency of graphics buffers now tracked by PStats
* Allow changing OpenGL coordinate system with gl-coordinate-system

Fixes for libRocket integration:
* libRocket did not work on Mac OS X in 1.9.0
* Fix inconsistent behavior with non-power-of-2 textures in rocket
* Use model-path for finding libRocket assets
* Add missing keys to libRocket keymap
* libRocket elements showed up white in tinydisplay

New features:
* Add -L (lighting) and -P (graphics pipe) pview options
* Add M_confined mouse mode that keeps cursor in window
* Add sample program demonstrating mouse modes
* bam2egg supports collision sphere and plane solids
* p3d_TransformTable GLSL input backported from 1.10 branch
* Add openal-device setting for selecting OpenAL audio output
* Add limited modification timestamp tracking for Ramdisk mounts
* Support for Autodesk Maya 2016

------------------------  RELEASE 1.9.0  ------------------------

This is a major release with many exciting new features!
Beware of bugs.

The list below contains a subset of the changes introduced:

* We now offer 64-bit Windows and Mac OS X builds.
* Switch to MSVC 2010; no more assembly manifests.
* Cocoa port for better Mac OS X support, esp. newer versions.
* We now compile the Python modules into panda3d/*.pyd modules;
  no more imp.load_dynamic hackery needed.
* Support for GPU profiling in OpenGL, see pstats-gpu-timing
* sRGB framebuffers, see framebuffer-srgb
* sRGB texture support, see Texture::F_srgb et al.
* Integer vector support, including passing to shaders
* Native .ogg vorbis and .wav loader (does not require ffmpeg)
* FFmpeg support is a separate plug-in module now, libp3ffmpeg.
* Sample programs are now part of the source code repository
* Can be built with Python 3 (highly experimental)
* Improvements to Windows installer
* M_filled_wireframe rendering mode
* Support specifying sampler state separate from textures
* Support for bindless texture clearing
* Texture LOD bias and min/max LOD settings
* Framebuffer properties allows separate red/green/blue bits
* Explicit float color and float depth specification in fbprops
* Coverage samples settable via FrameBufferProperties
* Stereo buffer implementation in OpenGL via FBOs
* Support enumeration of pixel formats in WebcamVideo
* Frame rate meter can be configured to show milliseconds
* Changes to improve font crispness with default settings
* Fix assertion error when using more than one GraphicsEngine
* raw-w, raw-a, etc. keyboard events for layout-independent input
* Allow querying active keyboard layout via win.get_keyboard_map()
* Distinguish between lmeta and rmeta keys on Mac OS X
* Floating-point image manipulation API, support float tiffs
* Various new 16-bit and 32-bit and int texture formats
* Man pages are now available for the majority of utilities

Pipeline:
* Fix bugs with <Collide> group transformations in .egg
* Don't create unnecessary intermediate node when loading .egg
* bam2egg supports materials, and correctly converts animations
* dae2egg has some skeletal animation support
* Support Maya versions up to 2015

OpenGL renderer changes:
* Error checking is now OFF by default for performance reasons,
    set gl-check-errors or gl-debug to true to enable.
* GL 4.2 shader_image_load_store support (incl. multi-bind)
* Layered render-to-texture (using geometry shaders)
* Seamless cube maps (on by default), see gl-cube-map-seamless
* Added gl-debug for improved debug output support
* Added GL object labels when gl-debug is enabled
* gl-dump-compiled-shaders can be used to dump program binaries
* Direct3D-style NT_packed_dabc vertex arrays now directly supported
* Native rendering of line strips, using primitive restart
* Immutable texture storage support (disabled by default)
* Bindless texture support (disabled by default)
* Specular component is now computed separately in FFP

Shader system:
* Support for tessellation shaders
* Support for compute shaders via ComputeNode
* GLSL preprocessor with "#pragma include" support
* Much better coverage of shader inputs in GLSL
* GLSL error messages now show source filename
* Fixes apiclip_of_x shader inputs
* Matrices can be passed directly to setShaderInput
* Support binding images to shaders
* Viewport array support

Optimizations and performance improvements:
* Use of C++11 move semantics to reduce refcounting overhead
* Build with Eigen by default for faster linear math
* Dramatic overhead reduction of generated bindings
* Streamline culling process
* Tighter bounding volume generation
* Take advantage of CPU features for bit operations
* Circumvent bounding volume generation when not required
* Optimizations for interned strings
* Use of GCC atomics should improve 64-bit Linux performance

API features:
* Buffer protocol support for textures and arrays
* Interrogate supports various C++11 features
* Expose TextGlyph interfaces for making custom text renderers
* Better handling of default arguments for many functions
* Cyclic references can sometimes be tracked through tasks
* ShowBase clean teardown possible
* API documentation is more accurate
* Improve interfaces for interop with other applications

Deprecated features:
* Use of pandac.PandaModules is discouraged; use panda3d.core
* Deprecate DirectStart and global run() function; use ShowBase
* Remove old decal system
* Remove Direct3D 8 renderer
* Remove M_light_vector tex gen mode and FFP-based bump mapping

Bug fixes:
* Various point rendering issues are fixed now
* Fix pview issue with 1-frame and/or multiple animations
* Fixes for multisampling in FBOs
* Fix aspect ratio of frame rate meter
* Support NaN and infinity values in Config.prc variables
* Fixes for webcams on Linux that do not output Huffman tables
* Better support for non-basic Cg shaders on non-NVIDIA cards
* Many others

------------------------  RELEASE 1.8.1  ------------------------

This is a bugfix release, fixing many issues in 1.8.0.
However, there may still be some (minor) bugs.

* Fix a host of issues related to GLSL shaders
* Fix incorrect registry entry for Python in Windows installer
* pdeploy generated binaries with wrong architecture on Linux
* Fix runtime error in pdeploy when building for Windows
* Support for Maya 2013
* ARToolKit now also works on Mac OS X
* WM_CLASS can be set using x-wm-class and x-wm-class-name
* No longer crashes when Xrandr is not supported
* Aux normals are now also normalized when no lights are applied
* Fix hidden cursor when switching fullscreen on Mac OS X
* PackageInstaller didn't add packages to system paths
* Allow disabling custom cursor on Windows
* Fix incorrect panning of 3D audio
* Fix omission of textures of non-standard format in ShaderGenerator
* Fix compile issue with newer gcc versions
* Fix circular reference held by ActorNode
* Window is now correctly centered on Windows
* Fix confusion with depth range of Lens::project()
* Now successfully compiles against recent SSL versions on Windows
* Fix incorrect Cg TEXUNIT0 binding during the first frame
* TextNode::set_text_scale now correctly scales spaces as well
* Expose AudioLoadRequest to Python (for async audio loading)
* Support for the libRocket debugger
* Fix newline entry in libRocket

------------------------  RELEASE 1.8.0  ------------------------

This is a major release, with several big new features.  As such,
it is likely to contain bugs.

* True threading support now enabled in the default build
* Pipelined rendering: app, cull, and draw can run in parallel, each
  in their own thread
* Web plugin is more robust, and better supports Safari and Chrome
* Plugin runs properly when the username contains non-ASCII characters on Windows
* Added appRunner.p3dFilename and appRunner.p3dUrl to provide p3d
  location
* Multifiles (and p3d files) now make a distinction between binary and
  text files
* OccluderNode added for explicit occlusion culling
* Ambient occlusion generation for terrain
* Fixed bug where Windows installer wipes %PATH% when it's too long
* Added fog support to the shader generator
* Added normal_gloss texture mode
* Added a custom color option to the cartoon filter
* Support for texture arrays in shaders
* Better shader support in pandadx9
* Fix some issues with cube map buffers
* Can be compiled to use double-precision floats throughout, instead
  of the default of single-precision floats.  (Graphics drivers still
  use single-precision floats, of course.)
* Can be compiled with the optional Eigen library to provide SSE2 support
* Can be compiled with SpeedTree support
* Can be compiled on MSVS2010, and/or Win64.  (These builds not
  provided by default.)
* Support for the Bullet physics engine
* Support for the libRocket GUI library
* Support for stereo/multiview textures
* Substantial performance improvements to movie textures
* TGA files with alpha channel now load correctly
* New "Ramdisk" mount type available for the VFS
* The VFS is now writable for ramdisk files and true on-disk files
* pdeploy -i generates a custom icon for the installed game
* wx and tk work better on OSX
* Panda windows can be embedded within wxPython windows on all
  platforms (including OSX) with the new WxPandaWindow class
* Added base.pixel2d for pixel-based 2-D coordinates
* Python-based swizzling of Panda vectors, e.g. vec2.xyxy
* Python programmers can now optionally use the original unmangled C++
  name for methods and classes, e.g. model.set_pos(LPoint3f(1, 2, 3)).
* Command-line filename globbing now supported on Win32, e.g. egg-texture-cards *.png
* DirectGui works with nonstandard coordinate-system in effect
* Egg loader handles double-sided polygons a little differently by
  default now, for better render performance but more memory usage
  (use "egg-emulate-bface 0" to restore the old behavior if needed).

------------------------  RELEASE 1.7.2  ------------------------

This release fixes several bugs that were found in 1.7.1.

* Fix crash on GLX implementations that have no FBConfig support
* Fix trouble with buffers on Mac OS X
* Un-break shadow samplers in Cg shaders
* Fixes for relative mouse mode on OSX
* Pdeployed apps on Windows no longer show a console window
* Fix relative file paths for license files in pdeploy
* Ppatcher no longer writes out faulty checksums
* Fix plugin failure to read from cache
* Include missing X11 extension libs in runtime distribution
* Fix disappearing windows with CEGUI's OpenGL renderer
* Fixes for makepanda on FreeBSD
* Fix LightRampAttrib crash
* Fix bug with two-parameter Lens::set_fov

------------------------  RELEASE 1.7.1  ------------------------

This release introduces several significant bugfixes,
but also introduces various minor new features. Although
it is a minor release, it may also introduce new bugs.

* Many improvements and bugfixes to pdeploy
* Vectors now support swizzle/write masks (e.g vec.xz)
* Fixes for depth buffer instabilities on Windows
* Better webcam support on Linux using Video4Linux
* Custom cursor support in X11
* Static functions that return a list are now properly wrapped
* ODE objects now have getId() exposed to Python
* NodePath.findMaterial now works properly
* Remove unnecessary dependency on GLU
* Arithmetic operators to PNMImage
* Various OpenGL ES-related bugfixes
* Support for EGL and OpenGL ES in makepanda
* Fix a crash with the Maya converters
* Include missing p3d tools on Windows
* Include tinyxml as part of the source
* Updates to PandAI
* Compile issues with latest OpenSSL fixed
* Fix static-init ordering issues with OpenSSL
* Several other bugfixes and features not listed here

------------------------  RELEASE 1.7.0  ------------------------

This major release introduces tons of cool new features. As it
is highly experimental, it is not recommended for production use.

* Support for running Panda3D apps in a browser via web plugin
* Fully automatic shadow mapping
* Easy to use distribution and packaging framework
* Integrated support for NVIDIA PhysX
* Support for GLSL shaders
* Geometry shaders, both in Cg and GLSL
* Improved Cg support
* Hardware geometry instancing support
* Runtime fullscreen toggle
* Unix/X11 resolution querying/switching support
* Experimental Unix/X11 support for relative mouse mode (via xf86dga)
* New, cleaner import conventions, replacing PandaModules
* Parallax mapping
* Support for OpenGL ES 1 and 2
* Experimental Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
* New collision solid: box
* Working FreeBSD support
* Blur / Sharpen postprocessing filter
* Many improvements to the Shader Generator
* Fixes and improvements to DistributedObject network system
* New AI libraries
* Added MeshDrawer2D
* Most Panda objects now work with the pickle/cPickle and copy modules.
* Windows build now compiled for Python 2.6
* Tons of new features and bugfixes

------------------------  RELEASE 1.6.2  ------------------------

This is mainly a bugfix release. Also fixes some bugs that
were accidentally introduced in 1.6.1.

* Fixed a static-init issue in ptloader on Windows
* Fixed texture scaling issue when using buffers
* x2egg is no longer broken
* Threading in OSX build fixed
* Fixed issue with flickering colors in Shader Generator
* Eggcacher now uses less RAM
* Missing 'models' dirs in packpanda games fixed
* Eggcacher step in Panda3D installer is now optional
* Fixes broken shortcut links in Start Menu on Windows
* Shader Generator now supports clip planes
* Bug with combine modes in Shader Generator fixed
* Fixed bug with Texture::make_copy()
* Bug with Actor LOD fixed
* Fixed bug with missing geometry in Collada converter
* OdeUtil.collide instability fixed
* OdeBody setData/getData methods exposed to Python

------------------------  RELEASE 1.6.1  ------------------------

This release fixes some bugs found in 1.6.0, and adds some
minor features as well.

* Threading layer is now enabled by default
* cTrav.showCollisions fixed
* Fixed broken MovieTexture
* OpenAL is now stable on Linux, too
* OpenAL now supports dynamic playrate changing
* MayaPandaTool now handles NURBS correctly
* Fixed particle panel and directtools bugs
* Fix crash with collada exporter on Windows
* ARToolkit jittering fixed
* Now possible to override shader vertex/fragment profiles
* Maya exporter fixed on OSX
* Fixed depth texture crash for padded textures
* Fixed bug that made OdeUtil.collide return empty geoms
* Fixed crash with render.flattenStrong() when using trackball
* Several improvements to the ODE layer
* Performance improvements to GeoMipTerrain
* GeoMipTerrain.setBorderStitching to fix seams between terrains
* installpanda.py for installing Panda on Linux without deb/rpm
* Several other minor bugfixes

------------------------  RELEASE 1.6.0  ------------------------

This release introduces several major new features and
significant bugfixes. It is likely to be buggy, like most
x.x.0 releases.

* Lightweight threading framework without runtime overhead
* Makepanda now fully supports OSX
* DDS textures are now supported
* COLLADA->egg converter added
* New C++-based Task system, which includes async threading support
* Support for asynchronous on-demand loading of textures and/or animations
* New software-based renderer "tinydisplay"
* More pythonic features: iterable methods, implicit parameter casting
* Packpanda now also supports Linux
* Added libsquish support for DXT compression
* New MeshDrawer class for realtime mesh manipulation
* Infamous FBO bug fixed
* Preliminary support for Volumetric Lighting
* Shader k-parameters can now contain underscores
* Fixed OpenCVTexture and ARToolKit on Linux
* GeoMipTerrain now supports multi-channel heightmaps
* GeoMipTerrain features new near/far LOD system
* GeoMipTerrain performance improved
* CallbackNode added to support low-level drawing callbacks from Python
* Fixed some minor but annoying OpenAL/FFMpeg issues
* Fixed bug with lcontrol and rcontrol on Linux
* Fixed bug regarding icon filenames
* Multisampling fixed on Linux and OSX
* Left and right scrolling events now available
* Several improvements to API reference
* ShaderGenerator now supports several more blend modes and color scale
* .x converter now supports AnimTicksPerSecond
* vfs-mount-url can load models directly off the web
* Smoother transitions in FadeLodNode
* Dynamically-generated outline on fonts: loader.loadFont(outlineWidth = xxx)
* Texture.getRamImageAs()
* base.toggleTexMem()
* Text generation performance optimization
* Various performance optimizations
* Several more minor bugs fixed

------------------------  RELEASE 1.5.4  ------------------------

This is a bugfix release, fixing the problems found in 1.5.3.

* Fixes packpanda crash
* Linux build accidentally got configured for OpenAL
* EggTexture now writes wrap modes and types correctly.
* Fixes an occasional crash in TextureAttrib
* DirectEntry no longer crashes when moving cursor in a full box
* Several bugs in RigidBodyCombiner fixed
* Normals generated by GeoMipTerrain are now correct
* Bugs fixed in DirectGrid
* Linux users can now use WindowProperties.setParentWindow
* Fmod now compiles on 64-bits
* Fixed several bugs in the API reference generator
* EggNurbsSurface is now exposed to Python
* Fixes a bug in PGButton
* GeoMipTerrain set_heightfield fixed
* Several bugs in the Max exporter:
  - Now generates binormals and tangents
  - Pview output fixed
  - Overwrite confirmation fixed
  - Export type 'Both' now works correctly
* Several other bugs not listed above.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.5.3  ------------------------

This release fixes most of the remaining bugs, but it adds
some new features as well.

* License changed to BSD
* Fixes x-file parser for real, this time.
* Fixes serious bug in shader generator
* Adds MSVCR71 and MSVCP71 back to the distro (for python)
* Fixed a bug in GeoMipTerrain
* Adds support for .egg.pz to packpanda --bam
* Turns on libpandaode support
* Mayapandatool fixed
* Added support for 3dsmax 2009
* Max exporter overhauled
* Improved support for 64-bits, gcc 4.3 and OSX

------------------------  RELEASE 1.5.2  ------------------------

This fixes just one serious bug: release 1.5.1 accidentally
reversed the TextureStage sort order.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.5.1  ------------------------

Mostly a bugfix release, but adds some minor features too.

- The x-file parser now is back to being case-insensitive, as it should be.
- Panda plugins now use an explicit plugin-path.
- Better DLL-hell protection under windows.
- Added GeoMipTerrain (but no docs yet)
- Using python -E in the start menu - really, this time.
- Linmath classes now initialized when using python.
- ConfigVariableSearch
- Implicit sort order for texture attribs.
- OpenAL audio manager now gives control over streaming vs preloaded sounds.
- Preliminary support for 64-bit linux (but thirdparty libs missing).
- Fixes a dozen or so assorted bugs.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.5.0  ------------------------

* Shader Generator means advanced rendering without
  having to manually write shaders.  Includes:
    - Per-Pixel Lighting
    - Normal Maps
    - Gloss Maps
    - Glow (Self-Illumination) Maps
    - HDR tone mapping
    - Cartoon shading
* Class 'CommonFilters' makes it easy to do image postprocessing:
    - Bloom Filter
    - Cartoon Inking
    - More coming soon.
* Maya exporter now supports normal maps, gloss maps, glow maps.
* Now compiled for Python 2.5
* Adds support for Maya 2008 export.
* Lots of small tweaks, bugfixes, performance improvements, etc.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.4.2  ------------------------

* Added code for mouse-trail logging.
* Fixed a minor bug in the new OpenAL code.
* The installer now uses less memory.
* Now easier to compile with recent versions of SSL.
* Minor bugfix in exposeJoint
* Added config variable: basic-shaders-only
* graphicsEngine.removeWindow() and graphicsOutput.setOneShot() fixed.
* Roaming ralph sample now uses collision detection correctly.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.4.1  ------------------------

This release:

* fixes a couple of small bugs
* adds support for the new OpenAL/FFMpeg unified sound/video system.
* renames the sample programs in a more sensible way

------------------------  RELEASE 1.4.0  ------------------------

This release incorporates lots of small, incremental
improvements.

* Model-cache enabled by default in prepackaged release.
* Now compiling with visual studio 2005.
* Plugin installation now slightly harder --- see instructions in plugins dir.
* Improved OSX support: mouselook, fmod fixes, icon filename.
* Better memory usage tracking from pstats.
* Removed dependencies on NSPR.
* New default-model-extension prc variable (instead of old implicit-extension behavior)
* New arc emitter in particle system.
* Multiple different Actors can be flattened into one node.
* Texture compression in DX8, DX9.
* New features to support low-memory platforms.
* ParametricCurveDrawer etc. officially deprecated in favor of RopeNode.
* DynamicTextFont::RenderMode allows generating geometric fonts (instead of always using texture-based fonts).
* Some integrated support for ODE (not yet polished and ready)
* New RigidBodyCombiner unifies independently moving bodies into a single Geom as a rendering optimization.
* Support for depth-stencil textures.
* Better support for fullscreen mode on Linux.
* Panda GL/DX windows can be subordinate to other windows (Win32 only).
* Better multithreaded protection.
* Interrogate correctly handles "const" vs. non-const objects.
* PlaneNode::set_clip_effect allows user-defined cull planes (in addition to clip planes).
* Several low-level rendering optimizations.
* Simple occlusion culling with PipeOcclusionCullTraverser.
* Optional bounding boxes (instead of spheres): "bounds-type box", "bounds-type best"
* Addition of eggcacher utility to preload model-cache.
* In source tree, added 'skel' directory to make it easier for newcomers to extend panda.
* The obsolete config variable framebuffer-mode has been removed.

I have no doubt that there will be a few significant bugs in this release, like all X.X.0 releases. - Josh

------------------------  RELEASE 1.3.2  ------------------------
Bugfix release. This fixes a few problems in 1.3.1

* Sound system won't initialize properly under linux: Fixed.
* Panda DLL names now all start with "libp3" or "libpanda"
* Normals reversed in heightfield tesselator: fixed.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.3.1  ------------------------
Bugfix release. This fixes a few problems in 1.3.0

* Sound system won't initialize properly under linux: Fixed.(Update: Not fixed)
* Panda not compatible with SElinux: mostly fixed, except fmod.
* Max exporter and importer broken: Fixed.
* Minor problem involving gsg handling in showbase: Fixed.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.3.0  ------------------------

This release contains several new features, and as such, it might be
buggy.  However, we've been testing it internally for a couple weeks,
and it seems to be okay.  It contains the following new features:

* Stencil buffers and stencil operations now supported.
* Sound API now supports DSP and better support for large MP3s.
* Video uses FFMPEG instead of DirectShow - no more codec issues.
* Heightfield terrain.
* Support for intra-frame animation interpolation.
* Use of 'import *' now only imports correct symbols.
* Various minor improvements to the particle system.
* Scene editor at least partially operational (alpha level)
* Removed most of the 65,536 vertex-per-mesh limits.
* Various low-level optimizations.
* Support for threaded model loads (only in CVS, not in distro).
* Support for 'model-cache-dir', which caches a BAM each time you load an EGG.
* OnscreenText/DirectLabel can contain embedded 3D models inside the text.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.2.3  ------------------------

The last release was a disaster:

* I failed to fix packpanda.
* I broke the tcl/tk stuff.
* I added ppythonw, and it wasn't reliable.

So basically, this release fixes packpanda and tcl/tk.  It doesn't
fix ppythonw yet (I don't know what's wrong), but it does disable
it temporarily.  It keeps the few things from 1.2.2 that were worth
keeping.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.2.2  ------------------------

This is a minor bugfix release.

* Adds 'ppythonw', a version of ppython that doesn't
  open a console window.
* If you have a bad fmod DLL in your windows folder,
  this version compensates.
* Fixes a small bug in the VRML-to-egg converter.
* Small stylistic improvements in some sample programs.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.2.1  ------------------------

This release is likely to be much more stable than its predecessors.
It contains many new features:

* lots of performance optimizations
* a preliminary OSX port
* new modes for animation blending
* easier partial-body animations
* more powerful shader-to-engine interface
* better support for rotating bodies in physics engine
* support for compressed model files
* multiple render targets (ie, glDrawBuffers)
* support for stereo rendering
* more complete API reference manual
* ability to control mipmaps explicitly
* better tools for debugging offscreen buffers
* new sample programs
* a number of packpanda repairs

------------------------  RELEASE 1.1.0  ------------------------

This is a BETA release.  It's pretty reliable, but there are still a
few quirks here and there.  Over the summer, Panda3D was overhauled
top to bottom.  The new code is dramatically improved, but it needs a
little bit of testing.  The new features are:

* Much faster rendering of high-poly models.
* Dramatically improved vertex and pixel shader support.
* New demo programs using shaders and render-to-texture.
* Play movies by using an AVI as a texture (windows only).
* Python scripting uses much faster python to C++ interface.
* Support for procedurally-created geometry (eg, fractals, etc).
* Cleaner, simpler internal data structures.
* Comes with Python 2.4 support built-in.
* A lot more.

The new demo programs are:

* Render to Texture Demo
* Cartoon Shader Demo
* Motion Trails Demo
* Procedural Geometry (Fractals) Demo
* Normal Mapping Demo

However, a caution: this is a BETA release: reasonably stable, but
not quite perfect.  Please send us your bug reports.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.0.5  ------------------------

UPDATE: this release broke support for visual studio. Use
panda3d 1.0.4 if you wish to compile panda from scratch using
visual studio.

This release consists mainly of compatibility improvements.

  * Now compiles under MS Visual Toolkit (makefile changes)

  * Now compiles under Mandrake 10.1 (a fix in the makefile)

  * Now compiles under Debian Sarge (a fix in the VRML lexer)

  * Now compiles under Ubuntu HH (same as DEBIAN SARGE)

  * Add code for building debian 'deb' archives.

  * Fix scene editor and particle panel so they work on linux.

  * Add support for --no-python to makepanda.

  * Tidied up makepanda a bit.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.0.4  ------------------------

  * This version includes the new Max exporter and the new Maya
    export panel.

  * We have added the --genman option to makepanda (to
    regenerate the API reference manual).  This uses the epydoc
    documentation-generation system.

  * Several bugs in the new tutorials have been repaired.

  * A bug in fmod positional audio has been fixed.

  * Makepanda now puts the maya and max plugins in a
    separate 'plugins' directory, for convenience.

  * The 'libpandaegg' library has been exported to python.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.0.3  ------------------------

  * The binary release contains a brand new collection of
    sample programs.  The new sample programs are much better.

  * If you install the windows binary release, the
    sample programs can now be run from the start menu.

  * Lighting under DirectX was broken. This has been repaired.

  * The binary release has been compiled with support for pstats.
    (Previously, it was compiled with pstats disabled).

  * Various changes to make panda3d more compatible with
    the 'epydoc' documentation-generation system.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.0.2  ------------------------

This is a bugfix release.

  * makepanda contained a bug: it was compiling maya2egg6
    against the Maya 5.0 libraries, making it largely useless.
    This is fixed.

  * Maya2egg65 has been added, for Maya 6.5 users.

  * The configuration combo "want-tk=false, want-directtools=true"
    used to confuse panda, because directtools uses Tk.  Now
    it's smart enough to do the right thing.

  * When you ask controlJoint to create a control node for
    you, it initializes the control node to the joint's initial
    position.

  * The scene editor supposedly works now.  We'll see.

  * The models directory was missing the animation 'panda-walk4',
    which is necessary for the tutorial.

  * A new directory 'win-extras' has been added to the
    thirdparty tree.  This contains some miscellaneous python
    libraries needed at the Entertainment Technology Center.
    The script that builds the windows installer will include
    these libraries in the distribution.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.0.1  ------------------------

This is a bugfix release.

  * In the previous binary release, Config.prc did not contain a
    load-display line.  This confuses pview.  Pview is being fixed,
    but until then, the load-display line has been restored.

  * The Max and Maya plugins were inadvertently omitted from the
    previous binary release.  This has been corrected.

  * An error in the distributed object networking layer has
    been fixed.  The error only affected those who were trying to
    write LAN games using the CMU LAN server and p2p messages.

  * An error in the physics code has been corrected.

  * Python Megawidgets (pmw), which is required for "directtools",
    was not supplied in the previous release.  We are now including
    pmw.  In the Linux RPMs, to avoid overwriting any
    distribution-supplied pmw package, we put this package
    into /usr/share/panda3d.

  * To be consistent, we moved all the other python code into
    /usr/share/panda3d as well.  This requires a file 'panda.pth'
    in the python lib directory.

  * In the binary RPMs, the file permissions of the python
    source files have been changed to 555, so that even if root
    runs panda, the '.pyc' files will not be modified or regenerated.

------------------------  RELEASE 1.0.0  ------------------------

Configuration, installation, and execution environments:

  * This is the introduction of the new Panda version numbering
    system.  The Panda version will be represented with three
    dot-separated numbers.  The first number, the major version, will
    change only very rarely.  The second number, the minor version,
    will increment frequently, with each new feature release.  The
    third number will increment as needed to indicate bugfix releases
    on the minor version.

  * Use PandaSystem::get_version_string() (or
    PandaSystem.getVersionString() in Python) to return the version
    number of the currently-running Panda.

  * New runtime config system allows for dynamic loading of prc files
    and supports querying of available variable names.  Use
    ConfigVariableString, ConfigVariableBool, etc. to get a value from
    the prc file(s); use the ConfigVariableManager and
    ConfigPageManager classes (or the cvMgr and cpMgr global objects
    in Python) to make general queries.

  * The ppremake build system now properly detects intra-tree
    dependencies, but only if each tree is fully built and installed
    before ppremake is run within the next dependent tree.  Requires
    using ppremake version 1.18 or higher.

Miscellaneous:

  * New support for encrypted streams, including encrypted subfiles
    within a multifile, using the OpenSSL encryption library.  Adds
    pencrypt and pdecrypt programs.

  * The default port for PStats is now 5185, to avoid a conflict with
    Instant Messenger.

  * New "smooth" checkbox on PStats graphs provides a better sense of
    overall trends when graphs are noisy.

  * The meaning of the three components of HPR angles has been
    officially changed, in particular the meaning of the R component.
    This change was introduced to make the three components more
    consistent with each other, and to make P and R work together in a
    more sensible way.  Existing code which used hard-coded HPR angles
    may be invalidated by this change.  To convert existing code, you
    should use the global function old_to_new_hpr() to determine what
    new HPR triple that corresponds to an old HPR triple.  As a
    temporary stopgap, you may define temp-hpr-fix 0 in your prc file.

  * Add support for weak reference counts using the WeakPointerTo
    class.

  * Add optional support for STL's semistandard hashing containers,
    e.g. hash_map and hash_set.

  * Panda no longer requires any registry keys or environment
    variables. This means it is now possible to run panda directly
    from a CD, install multiple copies of panda on a single machine,
    or install panda by copying the tree from another computer.
    Note that the installer does add the panda 'bin' directory to
    your PATH, and it does store an uninstall key in the registry,
    but neither of these is needed for panda to function.

  * The 'makepanda' build system is now capable of building
    prepackaged games for Windows.  These prepackaged games are simply
    copies of panda with the game code included, some of the
    unnecessary stuff stripped out, and some changes to the start
    menu.  See "Airblade - Installer" on the panda downloads page
    for an example.

  * This is the first release to include not just a binary installer
    for windows, but also binary RPMs for fedora 2, fedora 3, and
    redhat 9.

  * All of the sample programs have been tested.  The ones that didn't
    work have been removed, the ones that do work have been (lightly)
    documented.

  * In the Win32 binary release, the 'config.prc' file has been moved
    to the 'etc' directory.  This is to make it consistent with the
    Linux version.

Rendering system:

  * Multitexture support is now part of Panda.  This introduces the
    TextureStage and TexCoordName classes, as well as new interfaces
    like NodePath::add_texture().  As of the present release,
    multitexture is only supported when using the OpenGL renderer.

  * Support for programmable shaders is now possible using the Cg
    shader language.  Assign a CgShaderAttrib to a node to apply a
    programmable shader.

  * New support for the Helix library allows playing of a streaming
    movie in a Panda texture.  Presently only supported on Windows.

  * Deprecated the old "win-origin-x" and "win-origin-y" prc variables
    in favor of "win-origin", which takes two numbers separated by a
    space.  Similarly with "win-width" and "win-height", in favor of
    "win-size".

  * Deprecated the old Camera::set_scene() interface; now a Camera
    implicitly renders whatever scene graph it is parented to.

  * Removed the old GraphicsLayer and GraphicsChannel classes.
    Instead of using these interfaces, you can now create any number
    of DisplayRegions directly on the window.

  * Offscreen render-to-a-texture will now be properly oriented under
    DirectX (previously, it would render the texture image upside-down
    and backward).

  * Support for automatic keystone correction caused by an off-axis
    physical projector using Lens::set_keystone().

  * New framebuffer-mode prc variable allows explicit control over the
    default framebuffer properties requested by Panda, including
    whether software or hardware rendering is required.

  * Added "multisample" transparency mode (alpha keyword "ms" in an
    egg file), which allows good-quality transparency (especially for
    alpha cutouts) without requiring back-to-front sorting, and
    without artifacts from improper sorting.  This does require
    special multisample hardware capabilities, however.  Presently
    supported in OpenGL mode only.  Automatic fallback to "binary"
    transparency mode if multisample is not supported on a given
    platform.

  * New cursor-filename and icon-filename config variables replace the
    old win32-mono-cursor and win32-window-icon variables.  Also,
    runtime control over these properties is now provided by the
    WindowProperties class.

  * Better management of potential memory leaks due to cyclic
    reference counts in the RenderState and TransformState caches.
    Now cycles are automatically detected and broken.

Scene graph:

  * GeomNodes now have a CollideMask, just like CollisionNodes, which
    deprecates the old set_collide_geom() interface to detect
    collisions with visible geometry.  There is a new NodePath
    interface for querying and setting the collide masks for single
    nodes or for entire subgraphs.

  * New NodePath interfaces to control lighting eliminate the need to
    create an explicit LightAttrib.  The new lighting interfaces are
    designed to be similar to the new multitexture interfaces.

  * New NodePath interfaces to control the texture matrix, including a
    new project_texture() method to enable hardware-assisted
    projective texturing.

  * New NodePath::flatten_multitex() interface to bake in certain
    kinds of multitexture effects into a single texture, generated
    on-the-fly.

  * New options for ColorBlendAttrib and RenderModeAttrib.

  * NodePath::set_transparancy() now accepts a
    TransparencyAttrib::Mode parameter to specify exactly what kind of
    transparency you'd like.

  * New NodePath::set_render_mode() interface accepts a
    RenderModeAttrib::Mode parameter, deprecating
    set_render_mode_filled() and set_render_mode_wireframe().

  * LerpQuatInterval can be used as a drop-in replacement for
    LerpHprInterval; it performs spherical lerps in quaternion space,
    rather than lerping each component of a HPR individually.
    LerpHprInterval is not deprecated; it remains useful within its
    limitations.

  * New DirectSliderBar gui object implements a standard slider bar
    with a thumb (like a window scroll bar).

  * Lighting normals are now automatically counterscaled properly when
    lighting is enabled in the presence of a scale, uniform or
    nonuniform, in the scene graph.  You can also use
    RescaleNormalAttrib for explicit control over this behavior.

  * Improvements to RopeNode for rendering splines in various
    representations.

Collisions and physics systems:

  * New CollisionSegment and CollisionInvSphere collision solids.

  * The collision system now reports normals for intersections
    detected from collision rays, segments, and lines.

  * Several improvements to the physics system.

Model converters:

  * x2egg and egg2x added to converters, as well as to inline
    conversion supported via ptloader.  This adds support for
    DirectX's native so-called "retained-mode" file format.  This file
    format supports animation and joint hierarchies as well as basic
    polygonal models.

  * vrml2egg added to converters, as well as to inline conversion
    supported via ptloader.  This adds support for VRML 2.0 model
    files only.

  * Added -noabs option to many model converters, to help detect
    problems with unintended absolute path references.

  * Added egg2bam -flatten and -combine-geoms.

  * We now have working exporters for Max5, Max6, Max7, Maya5, Maya6.
    (Update: these were accidentally omitted from the binary release)

  * The Max exporter is dramatically improved: it now includes support
    for character studio, and the polygon winding bug has been fixed.


------------------------  RELEASE 2004-07-27  ------------------------

Configuration, installation, and execution environments:

  * We have moved to a new, more explicit naming convention for our
    import statements.  Rather than installing all Python files into
    one big flat namespace, we now import them from their appropriate
    directories, e.g. "from direct.actor import Actor".

  * "from ShowBaseGlobal import *" is replaced with "import
    direct.directbase.DirectStart" and/or "from pandac.PandaModules
    import *".

  * The old "generatePythonCode" script has been replaced with a new
    "genPyCode" script that automates the Python wrapper generation
    process without requiring any special parameters.

  * The old dependencies on environment variables have been removed.
    There are no longer requirements for any environment variables to
    be set in either the build process or the runtime environment
    (although a few optional environment variables remain to allow
    custom configuration).

  * INSTALL document greatly enhanced for clarity.

  * An automatic build script is now provided to further simplify
    building Panda3D for Unix and Cygwin users.

  * The old "Configrc" filename to identify runtime configuration
    files is deprecated; configuration files should now be named
    Config.prc, or in general, *.prc.  The system-default
    configuration files are auto-generated as 20_panda.prc,
    30_pandatool.prc, and 40_direct.prc (the numeric prefixes control
    the order in which these are loaded at runtime).

Rendering system:

  * Some deprecated methods of CollisionEntry have been flagged to
    raise an exception now; these are replaced with the newer
    interfaces that can return a collision point in an arbitrary
    coordinate system.

  * Camera::set_cull_center() can be used for debugging culling by
    setting the effective point of visibility culling different from
    the actual point.  From Python, use base.oobeCull() to examine
    this effect.

  * Alt-Enter in pview toggles between fullscreen and windowed modes.

  * Added experimental support for GL display lists.

Scene graph:

  * Exposed methods to directly retrieve and set the individual
    vertices of a GeomNode from Python code.

  * The new PortalNode defines the interface for Panda's new
    cell-portal visibility system; each PortalNode is a window into
    another zone, or a separate subgraph; the PortalNode can hide or
    show the subset of its zone's geometry visible through its
    "portal".

  * The new PolylightNode applies a simple lighting-like effect
    without actually using lighting; objects will brighten or darken
    as a whole according to their proximity to the light.  Use
    PolylightEffect to enable this effect.

  * The new FadeLODNode works like ordinary LODNode, but the switches
    are alpha-blended in over a short period of time rather than
    popping immediately.

Text display:

  * Text now supports embedded mode changes--special characters to
    switch fonts, colors, scale, etc. within a line or within a
    paragraph.

  * Windows IME is better supported by Panda/Direct widgets
    (e.g. PGEntry and/or DirectEntry) in fullscreen mode as well as in
    windowed mode.

Model converters:

  * dxf2egg and egg2dxf added to converters, as well as to inline
    conversion supported via ptloader.



------------------------  RELEASE 2004-03-29  ------------------------

Miscellaneous:

  * We once again support the Microsoft VC6 compiler.

  * The "pstats" program is now provided in the Windows environment as
    part of pandatool.  It is similar to "gtk-stats" on a Unix
    environment, and can be used to view a real-time graph of
    performance timing in a running Panda process.  See
    panda/src/doc/howto.use_pstats.

  * New session recording and playback support allows capturing user
    and network input to a disk file, for replaying later, offline.
    Use "record-session filename.boo" and "playback-session
    filename.boo" in your Configrc file.

  * The genPyCode script now uses PythonWare's SqueezeTool to
    "squeeze" the large number of generated .py files into a single
    shared library, for substantially improved startup times on
    Windows.

  * The Task system now has substantially reduced overhead when many
    doLater's are waiting in the system.

  * The png image file type is now supported.


Rendering system:

  * Introducing native DirectX9 graphics support, although we do not
    yet support any features specific to DirectX9, such as
    programmable shaders.

  * DirectX7 and DirectX8 modules are now somewhat more robust.

  * New support for offscreen rendering and render-to-a-texture, which
    will become part of a general multipass-rendering interface.
    Presently supported in OpenGL, with limited DirectX support.  Use
    GraphicsWindow::make_texture_buffer() to make a buffer you can
    render into and apply the result as a texture map to objects in
    your scene.  The NonlinearImager in the distort directory is a
    complex example of using this interface.

  * Explicit support for the Mesa 3D library's software-based
    offscreen rendering, allowing a Panda program to generate
    offscreen images as a background process, independently of any
    graphics card or desktop environment.

  * GraphicsLayer and GraphicsWindow render order can now be easily
    adjusted dynamically with set_sort() methods.

  * Built-in frame rate meter can be activated by setting
    "show-frame-rate-meter 1" in your Configrc file.


Scene graph:

  * New tag system on PandaNodes allows storing of arbitrary string
    data on nodes, keyed by a string dictionary.  The
    NodePath::get_net_tag() interface retrieves the data value for a
    particular tag on a node or the nearest ancestor of the node.
    NodePath::find() can search for a node in the scene graph with a
    given tag or tag/value pair.

  * Explicit shear transforms are now supported on nodes, as well as
    in character animation tables.

  * Characters now have an interface to control joint and slider
    values dynamically, instead of strictly from an animation file.
    Use Actor.exposeJoint() and/or Actor.controlJoint().

  * Nurbs surfaces and curves can now be rendered directly by Panda,
    which will tesselate them on the fly at some CPU cost.  This is a
    modeling convenience only; it is not intended to be used for
    production code.  Triangle strips are still the fastest way to
    render complex surfaces.

  * However, Rope.py is now provided as a high-level wrapper around
    Panda's runtime NURBS curve evaluator; it can render dynamic
    curves in a variety of ways.

  * The egg library is now published to Python, allowing construction
    of geometry on-the-fly by show code for convenience.  This is also
    intended as a developer's convenience more than a production
    feature.


Text display:

  * The special character \3 (ASCII 0x03) embedded in a text string
    indicates the position of a soft hyphen when wordwrap mode is in
    effect.  The character \4 (ASCII 0x04) serves as a hyphenless
    invisible break point.

  * A default font is compiled in even if the FreeType library is not
    available.

  * pnmtext library added for rendering text directly into an image.

  * New egg-mkfont utility uses FreeType to generate static font
    models that Panda clients without FreeType can use to render text.


Collision and physics system:

  * More robust collision interface, supporting NodePaths properly so
    that collisions detected into (and from) particular instances of
    nodes can be differentiated.  CollisionEntry has a much simpler
    mechanism for getting the intersection point and normal in an
    arbitrary coordinate space defined by a NodePath, instead of the
    user having to convert the coordinate space by hand.

  * New CollisionVisualizer object to visually show collisions as they
    are tested and detected, useful for optimizing collision
    performance.  Activate this with
    base.cTrav.showCollisions(render).

  * Implicit velocity system is now integrated with scene graph; the
    relative velocity of moving nodes is automatically considered when
    testing for most kinds of collisions.  Use
    NodePath::set_fluid_pos() to indicate that a node is moving
    fluidly to its new position and should test for collisions along
    the way (as opposed to the more traditional NodePath::set_pos(),
    which unconditionally sets the node to its new position).

  * Introduction of "tube" collision shapes, sometimes called
    "capsules" in other libraries.  It is a cylinder capped with
    hemispheres.

  * CollisionSolid::set_effective_normal() provides a way to define a
    sloping surface with an apparently vertical normal, to prevent
    characters standing on the surface from sliding down.

  * Collision polygons now respect clipping planes.

  * Many changes to physics system.


HTTPClient and net systems:

  * More verbose error reporting.

  * Better support for proxy servers, including SOCKS5 proxies.


Model converters:

  * maya2egg converter now supports skeleton/morph animation files
    fully, including soft-skinning, hard-skinning, and morphs (blend
    shapes).  NURBS and polygon meshes are both supported.

  * A new Maya plugin called libmayapview allows opening a Panda
    window from within Maya to view how the scene will look once it
    has been converted to Panda.

  * New soft2egg converter supports models and animation stored in
    SoftImage 4.3 files.  (Newer versions of SoftImage are not
    supported.)

  * New egg2flt program more or less reverses flt2egg.

  * The ptloader Panda loader allows direct loading into Panda of most
    model file types defined within pandatool: Maya, flt, and lwo.
    Specify load-file-type ptloader in your Configrc file.

  * New egg-optchar preprocessor improves character animation runtime
    performance by eliminating unneeded joints.  It can also
    reorganize a skeleton and/or expose joints for the show code's
    convenience.

  * New egg-qtess utility converts NURBS egg files to polygon egg
    files with either a trivial interface for quick conversions or a
    sophisticated parameter file for more precise control.  It
    preserves soft-skinning and animation information.

  * New visibility flag in egg format allows model files to define
    invisible subtrees which will be initially stashed when loaded.

  * The egg library now allows implicit forward references to vertex
    pools, making it much easier to generate a valid egg file from a
    third-party model format.