Wednesday 5 November 2014

Moviestorm 1.7 is now available!

After some frustrating delays, we are thrilled to announce that version 1.7 is now fully live for Mac and PC.
Users downloading from our website will now get a brand spanking new 1.7 installer, featuring the much improved Launcher ...

Grab of the new Launcher
Add to that a whole host of fundamental improvements that move Moviestorm to a new level of performance, and user functionality.
Here is a full list of what you can expect ...
  • Launcher re-designed - a cleaned up look, and a more intuitive layout
    • Drop down menus for Install a File, and My Moviestorm
    • Important messages are now displayed using a ticker-tape, with a button for More Details
  • Modder's Workshop
    • The re-texture wizard now allows re-texturing of parts based objects - select a part in the master browser and right click and select re-texture.
    • Updated door templates from TownBuildings.
    • Updated Cartoon Tree template.
  • Core functionality
    • Moviestorm now has a memory monitor in the top right, which shows what proportion of available heap space is being used, and if garbage collection is happening frequently - very useful for tracking whether your film is pushing your system resources too far!
    • More fundamental performance improvements attended to - we think we are getting close to getting them all!
    • Moviestorm should now function on case sensitive file systems.
    • Dialogue lines and Play Sound activities now show the filename for the audio file.
    • The viewpoint position when looking at a scene is now kept after going to the Cutting Room and back.
    • The viewpoint position when looking at a scene is now kept after saving and reloading your movie. It is also saved with a stock set.
    • The default viewpoint for looking at a scene now works the same as centering the viewpoint.
    • Content pack names now sorted when shown in the requirements for loading a movie, on the Load Movie screen.
  • Movie admin
    • Load backup versions of a movie now has a tick box rather than a separate load button, and works for movies not stored in the default place.
    • The settings Graphics panel now lets one choose how many lights can affect any object. Previously only 4 lights (three plus the sun) could illuminate something. Using a high value all the time can slow your framerate down - you might want to just turn it up for rendering.
  • UI improvements
    • When inserting time on the timeline, extra time can be added to held prop containers or gesture containers, to extend future gestures too.
    • Time can now be removed from the timeline if nothing is happening.
    • Dragging part of the timeline that does not have any activities will change which part of the timeline is visible- without changing the time.
    • Using the mousewheel over the timeline now zooms the timeline in or out.
    • When selecting 'Gesture' with an existing gesture sequence that is unfinished, open the existing gesture sequence rather than creating a new one.
    • When adding a filter in the Cutting Room, you can now choose a preset when applying the filter to all clips.
  • Set direction enhancements
    • A Facial Expression customiser has been added - an alternative to using a Mood Change, which allows you to change the facial expression only.
    • Motion Path activities now have an option to change between constant speed, and having a smooth start and stop - the previous default.
  • Resolved issues
    • File browsers remember recent folders, even if you cancelled the browsing.
    • Addons from the pre-1.0 version of Moviestorm now work when installed in the user Addon folder.
    • Walk cycle names are shown in sorted order.
    • Fix for a problem where videos could not be added to the clip bin in the Director's View (after they had been added in the Cutting Room view)
    • Trying to create a plain black image to add to the timeline (in the Cutting Room) now produces a black image rather than a white one.
    • Memory leak relating to buttons in the clip bins in the Cutting Room fixed.
    • Memory leaks relating to the script editor have been fixed.
    • Better removal of old movies from memory.
    • Warning message when old movies have not been removed from memory correctly to advise a restart.
    • The camera lens slider now shows the lens length based on selected real world camera details.
    • Sliders with numbers on should be easier to read now.
    • Fix for some look-at animation snapping that was occurring during improvised looking at the person who was talking.
    • Taking a camera snapshot now works even if the movie name includes an apostrophe.
    • Fix for an issue which changed the texture border of a screen when playing video on a different, similar, screen
    • Scrubbing is a lot faster in some situations.
    • Deleting clips (video and audio) from the Cutting Room, now also deletes the related files from your saved movie - if you save it!
    • When displaying the amount of time available to delete, always round it down so that typing in that amount always works.
    • Fix for a bug that can prevent the Cutting Room from loading, if an image was previously taken from a drive that is no longer available.
    • The recent folders list (after choosing a file) no saves properly.
    • Fixed some issues caused by converting filenames to lowercase in languages with different uppercase/lowercase mappings to English, such as Turkish.
    • Sorted the different templates when displaying lots of templates for a prop (doors needed this most).
    • When determining which content packs are used by a character, it is now correctly determining which pack any decals that are used are in, rather than just including all packs that had decals.
    • The prop browser can be hidden by clicking it's button again.
    • Images on the Load Movie screen are now reduced to the size shown on the buttons, rather than kept in memory at full size. This could use up a lot of memory if one had a lot of saved movies in the default save folder.
    • Changing the gait of a character that was walking through a door no longer fails depending on where the timeline marker is.
  • Content Pack improvements and fixes
    • TownBuildings - The doors matching those for the Town Buildings now have tintable architraves.
    • Filters01 - Changed some filter presets. The Red Cutout and Night Time filters have better named presets with more usable values.
    • CartoonWorld - Cartoon Tree is now scalable.
We would like to thank the Moviestorm team for all their hard work, and of course the Moviestorm users that helped us with testing the new version - we could not do it without you!