Version 3 Changes and Features:

New Controls (Short Version):
Right Grip + Right Thumbstick -> Camera

Right Trigger -> Select/Place
Left Trigger -> Back/Delete/Exit
Right Thumbstick -> Scale/Cycle
Left Thumbstick -> File manager
Left Grip + Right Trigger = Shortcut

*Details on the new controls can be found at www.MR-Worlds.com

Worlds and Links - The biggest change is the save file system. Instead of saving each single scene as a separate file, the world system allows unlimited zones to be created in each file. Moving between scenes is done using zone links. For diorama viewing you can set up zone links that go from one diorama to the next. For future projects this allows a playable character to move from zone to zone.

Play Test Mode Preview - I had always intended this to be an in-house tool for creating levels for my future game projects. However I stumbled across a great solution that was easy to implement and pretty much turns Diorama Worlds into a simple "Build your own platformer" game. The play test mode will allow you to drop a simple character into any scene and navigate them around with action and jump buttons. Some basic actions are in place that can be added to a scene such as climbing and horse riding. In a future update this will be expanded on with additional playable characters and mechanics to create different types of gameplay possibilities. Aka Mixed Reality Adventures.

Redesigned Lighting and Backgrounds - Instead of doing custom detailed lighting, I have opted to go with a simple time of day solution that worked beautifully.

New Layer and Lock System - One of the goals was to have the option to toggle layers on or off. This portion of the goal is being differed to another release.

1. Layers and Position locks are now independent of each other.

2. Layer 0 will be the Unlocked Layer. When this layer is selected, any object can be picked up and placed again without changing the layer. New objects will be placed on Layer 0.

3. Layers 1-9 will be Locked Layers. When these layers are selected, only objects that are on Layer 0 or the Currently selected layer can be picked up/dropped. Picking up a Layer 0 object will convert it to the currently selected layer. New objects will be placed on the currently selected layer.

4. Position Locks can be set at any time, regardless the layer. The same position locks are in place. Grid, Rotation Locked, and Unlocked.

Title Screen - Seriously, Version 2 didn't even have a title screen! Not sure what I was thinking to skip out on that bit of polish. Additionally the options mode will be moved to this scene and redesigned. There are only going to be a few options, but the new system is modular for easier updates in the future.

New Menus - There are now 4 menus attached to the left arm, that only show when they are being looked at. Buttons can be activated while holding an object in addition to not holding an object as before. And buttons highlight when they are in the activation range, so you will know what your about to press for sure. The file manager top menu is slightly redesigned to only be used for selecting objects and is only visible when in selection mode. All other menus are visible in all building modes.

Selection Mode Highlighting - The object your about to pick up is now highlighted so you know for sure what your about to pick up. This helps a ton with difficult to pick up objects. I was going to add a cycle mode to move through all objects in case you found one that was difficult to grab, however I don't currently feel this will be needed.

In-Game Keyboard - Right now this is going to be used to name your zones and files. Additionally this will be used to input text for chat bubbles. This feature is planned to be optional. If you prefer to use a standard keyboard for input, that will be an option as well.

Favorites (Lite) - Favorites wasn't planned at all, and got worked in while I was half asleep and tinkering with ideas how to do it. Right now there is one favorite folder and it works. I want to expand this to allow for multiple folders that can be named. And special folders such as "Current scene objects" and "Last used History". Flushing out the details of all the possible features will take some design time. But for now 3.0 will include the one simple folder.

New Viewer Mode - I have converted all current diorama files into the new format. You can find legacy scenes created by myself, Baron and Pigeon in separate sub-folders. Everything else got put into "Other" If you want a scene published and a custom folder feel free to ask! I will be doing a new in-game publishing system in a future update.


Features Removed (For now):

Chat Bubbles (Editable text) - Coming back with update 3.1

Tutorial - The currently tutorial doesn't work well and it will take far too long to rebuild it.

Diorama Publishing - I want sharing scenes to be done in game. But the system I had in place for this needs some more design to work well with the new world files. There are going to be a decent number of prior user created dioramas that will be converted to the new system and view able. Once I implement User Accounts it will help a ton with sorting and organizing user created content and the new publishing design. So viewers will be able to easily locate content by a specific artist or a specific type. Until then if you create a world that you would like to share, I can include them with each patch.

Custom Lights - This one is the big change. I decided to simplify the scene lighting process by removing this feature instead of rebuilding it. I fully intend to go back and find a better way to do this, but for now I am removing lighting options and replacing it with a very simple lighting solution.

Background Selection - Currently in 2.X, you can choose the background you want, load any scene and view it with any background. While this is neat, some scenes just don't look right unless you have the correct background. Ideally I want to put background selection back in for the builder mode so you can build in whatever space you want. But for the viewer mode, I want the artist to have control over how the scene looks.


Enjoy
-Levi

For latest patch notes visit the Discussion forums.


Version 3 is available on a public beta branch with the new controls, UI and mechanics. Still making alot of tweaks. Save files made in the beta version will not be supported at release in a few more weeks. But you can test out alot of the new features if you like!

Controls are available at: http://www.mr-worlds.com/

And I snuck in Hold Left Grip(Shift) when choosing an object to add it to your favorites. Shift click it again to remove it.

-Levi

In about 3 weeks I will be releasing my first major overhaul of Diorama Worlds.

Features:
World Building - Link multiple dioramas together to create worlds instead of single scenes.

Ingame Keyboard - No more blind typing or generic file names

Object highlighting - So you know what your about to pick up for sure! =P

Title Screen - Yup... a real one! =P

Calibration on startup. So scenes don't load in your face.

New viewer mode with better organized player created scenes.

Player set viewpoints - See the world as the author intended!

New control setup - Ingame menus will drive everything. Required controls will just be 1-3 buttons depending on the mode. Menus will activate when looked at and have controls used on the current mode.

3rd Person character sandbox mode. Move, Jump, Action. Simple controls, think "build your own platformer". More actions will be added later.

And more!

-Levi

Wasn't planning a patch this week. Pigeon funded some High Quality gun models thought. So here they are. Modern->Pigeon's War->Weapons

Also I threw in another pack of characters. Characters->Characters->Brutes

Small fix to custom object loading. Also fixed some texture issues. Might be a few more to track down.

Removed the mixed reality comic teaser and the comic builder alpha. They are getting redesigned and don't work currently.

Removed two broken options and added options to turn off shadows, lights and particles. This only affects loading scenes, you can still place lights and add particles if you want while building.

Also found a solution to the clip plane distance. Increased it about 10x what it was, but much more then that and things get weird. Make sure to place large objects and start scaling down, instead of starting with small objects and scaling everything up.

Changed custom objects to break apart on save and load. Temporary solution till I find time to rebuild that system.

Threw in a tilt brush chat bubble example.

Modern -> Pigeon's War -> Soldier has 50+ new soldiers for Pigeon to use.

There are 2 places to find new dragons. They are actually the same, one was just converted to a low poly version. This worked out well and I will be adding more low poly conversions!

PolygonArt->Enemies->Dragons
and
Fantasy->Enemies->Dragons

Also a good chunk of the characters got reskinned so they don't look like plastic barbie dolls anymore. If you liked that look.... well let me know and ill see what I can do. =P

Lastly I put a example of a tilt brush export in the effects folder. Not sure how ill use this.... but its neat! I was thinking custom signatures for claiming your dioramas.

Also, updates will be a bit larger, load time will be a bit shorter for new stuff. Its a trade off, I felt it was worth it.

-Levi

I thought I had the best possible low poly terrain solution in the last patch. I found a better one today. Couldn't wait to patch it in! Enjoy!

Few small changes.

Added some weapons to the fantasy section.

Reorganized all the Polygon Assets and added some color variations on ones that worked well.

I think the custom object bug is still lingering, but I made a change that might help it.

Lastly added some skydomes to the polygon terrain. They look really good and keep the diorama look when zoomed out. I am going to tinker with this concept more in the coming months.

-Levi

Added some fancy water to the effects category. Also added a ton of quick and easy low poly terrain to help get a scene started!

Enjoy
-Levi