Beta versions are not as thoroughly tested as stable

Beta versions are not as thoroughly tested as stable

Beta branch

Construct 3 r345

New File System plugin; 3D image points; usability improvements; faster Text objects & more

05 June, 2023 ()

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Notes

It's the start of a new release cycle and we have a big release for you today! First up is a brand new File System plugin which allows reading and writing files and even entire folders on disk. This relies on the File System Access API which is only supported in Chromium-based browsers like Chrome and Edge, and only on desktop systems (Android is not yet supported), for the time being. However it works in the NW.js and Windows WebView2 exporters with no permission prompts. Previously this kind of file access was only possible with the NW.js plugin and export option, but the new File System plugin allows using these features in browsers (including preview) and other export options too. See the new Text editor example to see it in action.

This release also includes some rendering improvements. First of all there is now support for WebGPU in exported projects for the Web, Arcade, NW.js and Windows WebView2 exporters (it remains disabled for other export options for the time being). This means you can now publish projects that make use of WebGPU! Please note WebGPU remains off by default and we're still working through some remaining issues before we enable it by default. Construct now also applies a default anisotropic filtering mode of 4x even for 2D projects, as it also helps improve the visual quality of objects resized in extreme ways, and should have a low performance impact. Finally we've found a way to significantly improve the performance of scaling Text objects - so now you should get a much better framerate in both the editor and runtime if you zoom a layout with Text objects.

There's also support for 3D image points - the 3D shape object has expressions to retrieve image points for each of the shape's faces, and even Sprite now has an ImagePointZ expression which takes in to account 3D mesh distortion. There's also a few usability improvements, various other changes and improvements, and as ever a batch of bug fixes. Happy testing!

Please note: due to staff time off, there will not be a beta release next week (12-16th June). The next beta release will be the following week (19-23rd June).

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42
Launch r345

New Features

24 favourites
New File System plugin

New Additions

16 favourites
3D shape: expressions to retrieve image point positions in 3D for each face
15 favourites
Sprite: ImagePointZ expression, taking in to account 3D mesh distortion
11 favourites
New examples 'Text editor', 'Exfiltration', 'Portals', 'Volcano jumper'
15 favourites
Properties bar: allow showing common family instance variables, behavior and effect properties when multi-selecting instances from different object types
12 favourites
WebGPU now supported for web, arcade, NW.js and Windows WebView2 exporters
14 favourites
Add anisotropic filtering modes 8x and 16x

Changes

5 favourites
NW.js plugin: deprecate clipboard features as now superseded by Clipboard plugin
6 favourites
Anisotropic filtering mode 'Auto' now always uses 4x for better 2D rendering quality
7 favourites
Project Bar: click search result to keep it expanded after clearing search
8 favourites
Project Bar: scroll to any remaining selected item after clearing search
4 favourites
Windows WebView2 export: update WebView2 SDK to v1.0.1774.30
7 favourites
Rename 'Form controls' category to 'HTML elements'

Bug Fixes

8 favourites
Scene graph: ensure mirror/flip of top parent affects whole hierarchy
4 favourites
Text editor: context menu appeared in wrong window when opened as a popup
4 favourites
Text editor: search toolbar displayed incorrectly when opened as a popup
5 favourites
Properties bar: focusing color in "multiple" mode and unfocusing incorrectly counted as change to black
5 favourites
Animations editor: work around Safari bug causing crash previewing animation
5 favourites
Tilemap: did not always correctly handle collisions across parallax layers
6 favourites
Event sheet view: 'Replace object' did not check for compatible custom actions
4 favourites
Event sheet view: 'Replace object' did not replace the object for a custom action block
5 favourites
Event sheet view: editing custom action object could allow creating duplicate names
9 favourites
OR blocks did not always process 'Pick by comparison' the same way as other conditions
5 favourites
Timeline bar: crash undoing pasting timelines which also required to create new sound/music files
6 favourites
Timeline bar: 'Scale X' & 'Scale Y' resize mode not working as expected in some occasions
6 favourites
Timeline bar: crash undoing while making a selection of multiple keyframes
6 favourites
Timeline bar: crash deleting a timeline while it is decoding an audio file
5 favourites
Animations editor: could become unresponsive after using a keyboard shortcut while dragging frames or animations
5 favourites
Tilemap bar: possible inconsistent state when the pane is docked that could lead to crashes

Performance Improvements

16 favourites
Significantly improve performance of zooming Text objects
6 favourites
Timeline bar: improve performance displaying feedback for large audio files

Scripting updates

8 favourites
3D shape: add getFaceImagePointCount(), getFaceImagePoint/X/Y/Z()
7 favourites
Sprite: add Z component to getImagePoint(); add getImagePointZ()

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  • If I've understood correctly, you can now read and write files directly to disk, no need to use import or NWJS?

    If so, it's quite simply the best update in years. You can't imagine how excited I am right now! Thank you so much!

  • I can't wait to check out the 3D image point stuff!

  • Wow this file system plugin came at the perfect time, was about to decide on a mechanism to store "mods" for a web game, and this plugin is definitely ideal for this!

    Thanks again for the hard work that's put into C3!

  • Text zooming perf improvement!! Nice!

  • Mind. Blown. These 3D features make me VERY happy.

  • Love the Properties Bar quality of life stuff and Filesystem plugin. I don't personally have much use for 3D image points right now, but it's great seeing user suggestions implemented! Thanks for the great update.

  • importing 3d models will be a good update

  • Great update!

    Did Google talk about the C3 editor when they talked about the file system API or did they know about the work being done on the File System plugin?

    Anyways, that's a powerful new feature for web apps and browser games.

    Love the 3D image points, makes 3D in C3 more consistent with 2D.

    Please also consider adding expressions to get the position of mesh points from objects with a mesh.

    Something like MeshPointX/Y/Z( column, row )

    I could also manually set image points for every mesh point now, but that's very tedious and has a lot of potential for confusing errors.

  • plz import 3d models update

  • I feel like the default for anti aliasing should take the screen size / ppi into account instead of always defaulting to 4x. I‘m using a lot of 4k sprites and the performance difference on mobile is between 5-10%, so quite noticeable. Great updates!

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