RenderMonkey 1.6 has been released.

  • Article

This kinda went under my radar but on March 3rd, ATI release a new and improved version of RenderMonkey. Below is an overview of the new features taken from the ATI website.

  • Shader Editor

    • Now contains “IntelliSense”, making struct or vector component selection much quicker and easier.
    • Improved syntax highlighting for all shader models.
    • An improved constant editor (for DX9 assembler shaders).

  • Workspace Editor

    • Small texture thumbnails for both color and alpha channels displayed right in tree view. Texture thumbnails in the tree view context menus also now contain both the color and alpha channels (when appropriate).
    • Thumbnails for all color variables are displayed, showing both the color and alpha components.
    • Error conditions in nodes are now better visualized by node text being displayed red, as well as the appropriate icon error overlay.
    • The workspace tree view now supports multiple node drag and drop operations. Node selection is done while pressing the control or shift buttons, or the user can also select a group of nodes in the workspace tree by defining a rectangular region.

  • Texture Viewer

    • This release contains a new texture viewer plug-in. This plug-in allows the user to view the contents of a texture (2D, 3D, and cubemap), and change the associated properties. The user is able to view all available mip-map levels, and is also able to zoom into the displayed texture contents. 

  • Fur Generator

    • This release contains a new fur generator plug-in. This plug-in allows the user to create fur textures (for shell and fin rendering) based on a set of parameters, and will also create an example workspace that shows how to use the various features encoded into the generated textures. 

  • Fur Fin Generator

    • To accompany the fur generator, this release contains a new fur fin geometry generator plug-in. This plug-in will take a model, and generate a new model that contains degenerate fin geometry based on the original model. Users can use this model directly with the fur generator, or in their own applications. 

  • Artist Editor

    • This release contains the first revision of a new artist editor. This interface supports the editing of all artist-editable variables within RenderMonkey, including dynamic variables, matrices, and textures. 

  • DirectX / OpenGL Preview Window

    • Added additional runtime error checking and reporting for shader constant types, sampler types, supported texture formats, etc. 

  • DirectX Preview Window

    • Improved support for shader models 2.a, 2.b, and 3.0.
    • Now outputs compilation warnings.

To download RenderMonkey or for more information, CLICK HERE.