v1.4.3

Engine

• Fixed morph shapes not rendering in WebGL.
• Added ETC2 and BC compressed texture support to Metal backend.
• Rendering a SAMPLER_EXTERNAL texture before setting an external image no longer results in GPU errors.
• Fixed a normals issue when skinning without a normal map or anisotropy.
• Fixed an issue where transparent views couldn't be used with post-processing.
• Always use higher quality 3-bands SH for indirect lighting, even on mobile.
• Added support for the Metal backend to bind individual planes of YUV external images.
• Added support for depth buffer when post-processing is turned off.
• Improved performance on GPUs that use tile-based rendering.

Materials

• Fixed an assertion when a parameter array occurs last in a material definition.

Libraries

• gltfio: fixed blackness seen with default material.

Language Bindings

• Added support for the latest version of Emscripten.

v1.4.2

Engine

• Cleaned up the validation strategy in Engine (checks for use-after-destroy etc).
• OpenGL: Fixed ES 3.0 support on iOS.
• OpenGL: Added support for KHR_debug in debug builds.

Libraries

• gltfio: Java clients should no longer call Filament#init. ⚠️
• gltfio: Added Java / Kotlin bindings for Animator.
• gltfio: Fixed panic with the Android gltf-bloom demo.

v1.4.1

Engine and API

• Added missing API documentation.
• Fixed crash for sandboxed macOS apps using Filament.
• Fixed an issue that limited the camera near plane to ~1mm.
• Added Android sample for Camera Stream.
• Fixed an Xcode assertion when rendering skinned meshes using the Metal backend.
• Added support for Core Animation / Metal frame synchronization with Metal backend.
• Fixed an issue with culling in MaterialInstance.

Tools, Builds, and Infrastructure

• Fix additional compatibility issues with MSVC, including the Vulkan backend.
• matdbg: fixed missing symbol issue when linking against debug builds.
• filamat: fixed crash when using the "lite" version of the library.
• matinfo: Fix a crash with on Windows.
• gltfio: fixed an animation loop bug.
• gltfio: added support for sparse accessors.

Language Bindings and Utilities

• Add JS binding to unary Camera::setExposure.

v1.4.0

Engine and API

• API Breakage: Simplified public-facing Fence API.
• Face direction is now reversed when transforms have negative scale.
• Minimum API level on Android is now API 19 instead of API 21.
• Added missing API documentation.
• Improved existing API documentation.
• Added Camera::setExposure(float) to directly control the camera's exposure.

Materials Enhancements

• Added the ability to modify clip space coordinates in the vertex shader.
• Backface culling can now be toggled on material instances.
• Dielectrics now behave properly under a white furnace (energy preserving and conserving).
• Clear coat roughness now remains in the 0..1 (previously remapped to the 0..0.6 range).

Tools, Builds, and Infrastructure

• Filament can now be built with msvc 2019.
• Windows: Fixed linker error in debug builds.
• gltfio: Fixed several limitations with ubershader mode.
• gltfio: Fixed a transforms issue with non-uniform scale.
• matdbg: Web server must now be enabled with an environment variable.
• matdbg: Added support for editing GLSL and MSL code.

Language Bindings and Utilities

• webgl: Fixed an issue with JPEG textures.

v1.3.2

Engine

• Added an internal texture cache for render targets.
• Fix bad normal mapping with skinning.
• Added basic #include support in material files.

Tools and Infrastructure

• Improved diagnostic output in matc and matinfo.
• Added a web server for real-time inspection of shader code.

Language Bindings and Utilities

• Java clients can now call getNativeObject().
• Fixed intermittent memory overflow with JavaScript clients.

Backends

• Fixed potential Metal memory leak.

v1.3.1

Engine

• IndirectLight can now be queried for dominant direction and color.
• Introduced custom attributes, accessible from the vertex shader.
• Added support for vertex morphing.

Tools and Infrastructure

• Improved cmgen SH with HDR images. (:warning: makes brighter IBL's)
• Unified release labels for Sceneform and npm.

Language Bindings and Utilities

• Added Java / Kotlin bindings for KtxLoader.
• Added JavaScript / Typescript bindings for the new RenderTarget class.
• Added base path to glTF loadResources method for JavaScript.

Backends

• Added support for iOS CVPixelBuffer external images with the OpenGL backend.

v1.3.0

Our npm package was last updated in April. Some of the changes since then:

⚠️ this version breaks compiled materials, use matc to recompile
⚠️ this version breaks IBL cubemaps, use cmgen to recreate them

Enhancements

Engine

• Added support for RGB_11_11_10
• Removed support for RGBM (:warning: source compatibility breakage)
• IBL cubemap can now be of any size
• Texture::generatePrefilterMipmap can be used for runtime generation of a reflection cubemap
• Introduced RenderTarget API that allows View to reference an offscreen render target.
• Added Screen Space Ambient Occlusion support (SAO)
• Implemented hard fences for the Metal backend, enabling dynamic resolution support.
• Stable mode for shadows
• Improve shadows depth resolution for large scenes
• Add support for polygon offset in shadow map parameters
• Bake the constant bias into the shadow-map
• Better clamping for dot(N, V) (#1106)
• Decouple tone-mapping, FXAA, MSAA and dynamic resolution
• MSAA is now disabled when post-processing is disabled

Materials

• Added specular ambient occlusion to compute a new AO term applied to specular reflections
  (see specularAmbientOcclusion property in materials)
• Added multi-bounce ambient occlusion to brighten AO and preserve local color
  (see multiBounceAmbientOcclusion property in materials)
• Micro-shadowing is now applied to material ambient occlusion
• Use a smaller 64x64 DFG LUT on mobile to reduce binary size
• The material property curvatureToRoughness has been replaced with specularAntiAliasing.
  This new specular anti-aliasing solution offers more control via two new properties:
  specularAntiAliasingVariance and specularAntiAliasingThreshold. They can also be set on
  material instances if needed
• New blending modes: multiply and screen
• Add postLightingColor property to materials (#1057)
• Add new shading model to Filament for specularGlossiness. (#1083)
• Allow dynamic two-sided lighting and materialThreshold

Language Bindings

• Added getMaterialInstanceAt to the Java version of RenderableManager.
• Fix JNI bindings for setting values in parameter arrays.
• Added JNI bindings for the gltfio library.
• JavaScript MaterialInstance now supports vec4 colors.

Samples

• Added lucy_bloom desktop C++ sample to demonstrate the new RenderTarget API.
• Added gltf_bloom Android Kotlin sample to show gltfio and the RenderTarget API.

Tools, Libraries and Infrastructure

• Created a RELEASE_NOTES.md file, to be updated with significant PRs.
• Fix support for parameter arrays in .mat files.
• Added a distance field generator to libimage.
• Further reduced filamat binary size by removing reliance on stdlib.
• Added a new, smaller, version of the filamat library, filamat_lite. Material optimization and
  compiling for non-OpenGL backends have been removed in favor of a smaller binary size.
• Improved SurfaceOrientation robustness.

Bug fixes

• Fix FBO leak when using MSAA in some cases
• Honor clear color, fixes #1125
• Better frustum/box intersection, make code more robust
• Fix the calculation of the shadow constant bias
• Fix LISPSM warping frustum computation
• Actually set the IBL rotation from the builder
• Don't flip the normals (#1060)
• Fix min/max calls in Box::unionSelf (#984)
• Fixed an issue when sorting blended objects with different blending modes

sceneform-1.9pr4

This release of Filament is a check point release towards Sceneform 1.9.

List of relevant changes since sceneform-1.9pr3:

⚠️ this version breaks compiled materials, use matc to recompile
⚠️ this version breaks IBL cubemaps, use cmgen to recreate them

Enhancements

Engine

• Added gltf_bloom Android sample to show gltfio and the RenderTarget API.
• Added getMaterialInstanceAt to the Java version of RenderableManager.
• Fix JNI bindings for setting values in parameter arrays.
• Added JNI bindings for the gltfio library.
• Added support for RGB_11_11_10
• Removed support for RGBM (:warning: source compatibility breakage)
• IBL cubemap can now be of any size
• Texture::generatePrefilterMipmap can be used for runtime generation of a reflection cubemap

Tools

• Fix support for parameter arrays in .mat files.

sceneform-1.9pr3

This release of Filament is a check point release towards Sceneform 1.9.

List of relevant changes since sceneform-1.9pr2:

Enhancements

Engine

• Introduced RenderTarget API that allows View to reference an offscreen render target.
• Added lucy_bloom sample to demonstrate the new RenderTarget API.
• Added Screen Space Ambient Occlusion support (SAO)
• New blending modes: multiply and screen
• Fixed an issue when sorting blended objects with different blending modes
• The material property curvatureToRoughness has been replaced with specularAntiAliasing.
  This new specular anti-aliasing solution offers more control via two new properties:
  specularAntiAliasingVariance and specularAntiAliasingThreshold. They can also be set on
  material instances if needed
• Added specular ambient occlusion to compute a new AO term applied to specular reflections
  (see specularAmbientOcclusion property in materials)
• Added multi-bounce ambient occlusion to brighten AO and preserve local color
  (see multiBounceAmbientOcclusion property in materials)
• Micro-shadowing is now applied to material ambient occlusion
• Use a smaller 64x64 DFG LUT on mobile to reduce binary size
• JavaScript MaterialInstance now supports vec4 colors.
• Implemented hard fences for the Metal backend, enabling dynamic resolution support.
• Created a RELEASE_NOTES.md file, to be updated with significant PRs.

Tools

• Improved robustness in the tangents utility for meshes that have tangents and normals.
• Added a distance field generator to libimage.
• Further reduced filamat binary size by removing reliance on stdlib.
• Added a new, smaller, version of the filamat library, filamat_lite. Material optimization and
  compiling for non-OpenGL backends have been removed in favor of a smaller binary size.
• Improved SurfaceOrientation robustness when using UVs to generate tangents.

sceneform-1.9pr2

This release of Filament is a check point release towards Sceneform 1.9.

List of relevant changes since sceneform-1.9pr1:

⚠️ This version breaks older Materials

Enhancements

Engine

• Add postLightingColor property to materials (#1057)
• Add new shading model to Filament for specularGlossiness. (#1083)
• Allow dynamic doubleSided and materialThreshold
• Stable mode for shadows
• Improve shadows depth resolution for large scenes
• Add support for polygon offset in shadow map parameters
• Bake the constant bias into the shadow-map
• Better clamping for dot(N, V) (#1106)
• Decouple tone-mapping, FXAA, MSAA and dynamic resolution
• MSAA is now disabled when post-processing is disabled

Compatibility

• Use ASharedMemory on Android when available
• Don't call EGL during static initialization
• Workaround a UBO/glFlush interaction on some GPUs

Documentation

• Add Filamat documentation (#1103)

Tools

Refactoring

• Separate src/driver into its own library, libbackend
• Rename namespace filament::driver -> filament::backend
• Make all subclasses of Platform private, except OpenGLPlatform

libmath

• Conversion between vec and vec are now implicit
• Added vec{2|3|4}
• Remove vector comparison operators

Bug fixes

• Fix FBO leak when using MSAA in some cases
• Honor clear color, fixes #1125
• Better frustum/box intersection, make code more robust
• Fix the calculation of the shadow constant bias
• Fix LISPSM warping frustum computation
• Actually set the IBL rotation from the builder
• Don't flip the normals (#1060 -)
• Fix min/max calls in Box::unionSelf (#984)