jMonkeyEngine 3.4.0-stable

A production-quality release of JMonkeyEngine with the following changes relative to v3.3.2-stable:

• Upgrade considerations (a.k.a. potential breaking changes):

  • Gamma correction is enabled by default. In apps that default the setting (don't explicitly enable/disable it), scenes may appear brighter or darker than expected. (discussion, 6ade1a0)
  • Vsync is enabled by default. In apps that default the setting (don't explicitly enable/disable it), the frame rate and CPU/GPU usage may be lower than expected. (discussion, f34e660)
  • Maven artifacts aren't available from JCenter. Obtain them from the Maven Central Repository instead. (issue #1468, discussion)
  • The "jme3-bullet", "jme3-bullet-native", and "jme-bullet-native-android" libraries (physics using native Bullet) were removed from the Engine. For 3-D physics, use "jme3-jbullet" or Minie. (PR #1474)
  • The "jme3-blender" library (Blender importer) was removed from the Engine. To import 3-D models from Blender, use glTF as an intermediate format. (discussion, 221acaa)
  • Setters that had previously been deprecated to no-ops were removed. (PR #1510)
  • Utility classes that previously could be instantiated were made non-instantiable. (420b959, 1031e03, 145cc1b)
  • Protected the no-arg constructors for Camera (issue #1461, PR #1464) and InstancedNode (6402aad).
  • Added range checks to IndexBuffer.put() methods. (issue #1427)
  • The "jme3-jogl" library (JOGL backend) was removed from the Engine. If you must use JOGL instead of LWJGL, contact JogAmp. (discussion, PRs #1339 and #1368)
  • The "jme3tools.navigation" package was removed from the "jme3-desktop" library. If you need this package, it's available from the "jMonkeyEngine-Contributions" project. (issue #1430, PR #1450)

• New features:

  • material definitions for physically-based rendering (PBR) of terrain (PR #1478)
  • map keys for non-US keyboard layouts when using LWJGL v3 (issue #942)
  • de-saturation for materials based on "Unshaded.j3md" (PR #1449)
  • embed a JME application in a custom UI design on Android devices (PR #1494)
  • extensions to JoystickCompatibilityMappings (PR #1483)
  • flesh out the new animation system:
    • more getters/setters for Action (PR #1489) and AnimComposer (PR #1376)
    • a factory class to generate animations programmatically (issue #1453, PR #1507)
    • incorporate animations into cinematic cutscenes (PR #1508)
    • more methods to create and manipulate armature masks (issue #1499, PR #1504)
    • capability to remove morph targets from a Mesh (PR #1378)
  • enhance the glTF importer:
    • handle "unlit" materials (PR #1463)
    • handle URIs (PR #1396)
    • handle lights defined using the "KHR_lights_punctual" extension (PR #1443)
  • LWJGL v3 support for Linux-on-ARM and 32-bit Windows (discussion, 6711986)
  • more ways to look up appstates by ID (a79be13)
  • LightControl support for spotlights (PR #1466)
  • combine GlowColor and GlowMap in a single Material (PR #1444)
  • add fromRGBA255() and chainable setters to the ColorRGBA class (a057a6d, 37f1e7f)
  • serialize final fields across a network (PR #1505)
  • more getters/setters for Camera (PR #1492), EnvironmentCamera (issue #1447, PR #1481), and Renderer (PR #1482)
  • pack ambient-occlusion (AO) data into the metallic roughness map of a PBR material (PR #1403)
  • handle named groups when importing 3-D models in OBJ format (PR #1369)
  • a unified mechanism to manage the render targets of a FrameBuffer (PR #1401)
  • depth-only copy of a FrameBuffer (PR #1400)
  • performance profiling of render() and postRender() methods (PR #1485)

• Bugs addressed:

  • no sound on Android devices (issue #1239, PR #1475)
  • inaccurate frame rate when using LWJGL v3 (issue #1455)
  • LWJGL context restart issues (PR #1526, issues #844 and #1445)
  • OGRE importer doesn't set the initial pose (issue #1395)
  • jme3-jbullet depends on unavailable Maven artifacts (PR #1541)
  • cloning a Joint (issue #1469, PR #1470)
  • logic error in Transform.interpolateTransforms() (issue #1394)
  • crashes in TransformTrack.getTranslations() and getRotations() (PR #1532)
  • crashes while compiling shaders (PRs #1456 and #1458)
  • crash while importing from glTF (PR #1442)
  • crash with NegativeArraySizeException (PR #1377)
  • assertion failure in TouchTrigger.touchHash() (PR #1448)
  • wrong center location for a spherical LightProbe (PR #1440)
  • animation uses wrong easing function (PR #1397)
  • material parameter of type IntArray not set (issue #1564, PR #1565)
  • incorrect import of UTF-8 data (issue #1436, PR #1437)
  • unable to locate OpenAL library (issue #1383, PR #1432)
  • multiple issues involving iOS devices (PR #1473)
  • multiple issues involving instanced geometries (PRs #1457 and #1467)
  • gamepad split into 2 input devices (PR #1454)
  • SSAO interferes with transparent unshaded materials (discussion, PR #1512)
  • FXAA filter disables transparency (discussion, PR #1517)
  • can't generate mipmaps for cubemap faces (issue #1222, PR #1409)
  • bounding-sphere merge yields NaN (issue #1459, PR #1465)
  • LOD causes terrain patches to disappear (issue #1382, PR #1418)
  • crash while de-serializing a WireFrustum (issue #1462)
  • crash in LogicalOggStreamImpl (issue #1244, PR #1480)
  • crash while cloning a TerrainPatch (issue #1391)
  • MorphControl doesn't override JmeCloneable/Savable methods (issue #1548, PRs #1549 and #1553)
  • incomplete serialization of TerrainQuad (PR #1476)
  • inaccurate de-serialization of DistanceLodCalculator (issue #1381, PR #1385)
  • checkSetParam() warning while creating sky (issue #1414, PR #1438)

• General improvements:

  • javadoc (issues #1275, #1366, #1370, #1388, #1428; PRs #1373, #1374, #1386, #1429, #1451, #1493, #1511, #1519, #1521, #1522, and #1550)
  • ported "jme3-examples" apps to the new animation system (issue #1452; PRs #1333, #1487, #1500, #1503, and #1515)

• New deprecations:

  • LightNode class (issue #1033, PR #1042)
  • com.jme3.anim.Weights class (PR #1523)
  • 15 methods in the FrameBuffer class (PR #1401)