Tuesday 15 September 2009

Moviestorm 1.1.7

We're currently getting ready for the release of Moviestorm version 1.1.7. This is quite a major upgrade, with a lot of stuff going on under the hood. In many ways, it's a preparation for an even bigger upgrade to be shipped in the fall, Moviestorm 1.2.

The most obvious thing you'll see is the new user interface, designed by no less than our multi-talented CEO, Jeff "Babyface" Zie. Out with the old icons, and in with a whole bunch of stylish black and white ones. Moviestorm feels like a completely new app, more professional, and more finished.

You'll also notice much better performance. As we've been promising for a while, we've massively speeded up the load times, and Moviestorm also runs at a considerably better framerate on some hardware.

More subtly, we've made huge changes to the underlying animation system. This should eliminate the ugly "popping" that you get when blending animations, and result in much smoother character motion. We've also got new walk code in there, which gives much more natural and controllable movement around the set. We'll tell you more about that later in the week, as it's a huge, huge change.

We'll also post some more about some of the other new features over the next few days, including the new catalog and asset structure.

1.1.7 will be shipped in two stages. In a week or so, maybe less if all goes well, we'll let the pioneers get their hands on it and give us early feedback. We've been testing the bejesus out of it for a while, but there are still only a few of us, and it's a surefire bet that you lot will find a whole mess of stuff we missed. This may not contain absolutely everything in the final release, but it'll be close, and it'll include the most important things. Then, when we've fixed whatever howlers you find (or taken out the bits we can't fix fast enough), we'll put it out to everyone else, probably at the very end of September or the beginning of October.

13 comments:

Overman said...

Really looking forward to this!

Fulkster said...

I always love updates!

Matt Kelland said...

Especially Windows updates. Oh, no, hang on...

Will Shetterly said...

Wahoo! It's been too long since I made a movie. I'll make something with the pioneers' release.

Matt Kelland said...

I keep saying that too, Will!

Jorge said...

I am gitty with pure happiness! Tee-hee! :)
Can't wait!

KV said...

Whoa, I really cannot wait for this release, particularly the smoothed out animation, extra performance and any other goodies!!

Unknown said...

Woot! This is going to be awsome!

SBMartin said...

I'm so excited! It's like Christmas! :)

Chat Noir Studios said...

This is great news! Can't wait.

Unknown said...

Wow! Good think I havent released my ASM movie yet!!! This will make the characters even more lively!!!

Will Shetterly said...

Will we be able to load old movies and see the improvements? Or will this only work with new movies?

Matt Kelland said...

Old movies should work fine. That said, we'll doubtless find a few hiccups in the pioneer phase.