Version history

Version 1.9.1 (January 1, 2010)

• New methods for setting effect parameters from scripts: actor3d.SetEffectParam(), actor3d.SetEffectParamVector(), actor3d.SetEffectParamColor().
• New script method for retrieving 3D light position: Scene.GetLightPosition().
• When using the "maintain aspect ratio" feature in full-screen, mouse pointer is confined within the visible area and it no longer hides underneath the black borders.
• FIX: Crash when using Game.NumItems before any other inventory-related method.
• FIX: Occasional crash when frequently changing talking sprite of an entity.
• FIX: Black frames briefly displayed in the beginning of theora video playback.

Version 1.9.0 beta (September 26, 2009)

• Support for advanced materials defined by effect files (i.e. shaders).
• New methods: Game.EnableScriptProfiling() and Game.DisableScriptProfiling() for gathering script execution time statistics.
• SceneEdit and ProjectMan are now using DirectX 9.
• FIX: FadeOut methods were changing the color of black bars when using aspect ratio correction.
• FIX: Game.SetMousePos() and actor.CreateParticleEmitterBone() were broken when using aspect ratio correction.

Version 1.8.11 (September 4, 2009) - maintenance release

• New method window.CreateEntityContainer().
• Method entity.PlayTheora() now allows you to specify starting time for video playback.
• FIX: Hidden geometry misplaced in scenes with parallax scrolling.
• FIX: Wrong mouse position when using Game.MouseX / Game.MouseY / Game.LockMouseRect() together with aspect ratio correction.
• FIX: WindowEdit not storing the FadeColor property.
• FIX: Calling Game.EndDlgBranch() when there was no active dialogue branch crashed the engine.
• FIX: Aligning static control content to the bottom edge didn't work.
• FIX: Minor bug in String Table Manager.

Version 1.8.10 (Februrary 14, 2009)

• New property actor3D.AmbientLightColor for overriding ambient lighting for individual actors.

Version 1.8.9 beta (December 20, 2008)

• FIX: Aspect ratio settings were ignored if the settings dialog has been disabled by the user.
• FIX: When searching for "backup resolution" (when the requested full-screen resolution is not available) monitor aspect ratio is taken into consideration.
• FIX: Settings dialog was always showing if optimal or backup resolution has been auto-selected.
• FIX: Rare crash in pathfinding for 3D actors.

Version 1.8.8 beta (November 15, 2008)

• WME now uses nearest higher resolution for full-screen if the originally requested resolution isn't available.
• The "Use desktop resolution" in game settings dialog can be enabled or disabled in project settings.
• Updated Theora video library to version 1.0.
• FIX: Previous beta silently failed if the requested full-screen resolution wasn't available.

Version 1.8.7 beta (October 26, 2008)

• Experimental support for maintaining optimal aspect ratio when running normal resolution game on a widescreen monitor and vice versa.
• New script property Game.SaveDirectory for querying the directory where saved games are stored.
• FIX: 3D actors sometimes briefly displaying wrong pose when transitioning between animations.
• FIX: 3D actors not resetting talking animation when talking on other channel than 0.
• FIX: DropToFloor property incorrectly affecting 3D actor attachments moving them to unexpected positions.
• FIX: Nested GUI windows displaying in wrong position if their parent window is moved.

Version 1.8.6 (April 6, 2008)

• 3D characters now can contain "private blocked regions" for simple collision detection between actors (only works for scenes with 2D parthfinding enabled).
• Added an option to include the D3DX library with compiled game (for games using Direct3D 9).
• The crash reporter is now disabled if WME is being debugged (useful for plugin developers).
• The Game.PlayVideo() method is now marked as deprecated in favor of Game.PlayTheora().
• FIX: The editor control now works in UTF8 mode and with right-to-left languages.
• FIX: Sprite.Reset() method now also stops all sounds being played by the sprite.
• FIX: Playing Theora video inside a GUI window (using an embedded entity) resulted in misplaced video.
• FIX: Some minor bugfixes.

Version 1.8.5 (March 16, 2008)

• New scripting methods (see the documentation for more details):
  • actor3d.GetBonePosition2D(), actor3d.GetBonePosition3D() - for querying 2D and 3D position of a specified bone.
  • actor3d.CreateParticleEmitterBone() - for creating particle emitter connected to a specified bone.
  • actor3d.SetTheoraTexture() - for assigning a Theora video as a texture.
  • actor3d.AddIgnoredLight(), actor3d.RemoveIgnoredLight() - for specifying lights that should/shouldn't affect the 3D actor.
• The CreateParticleEmitter() method of actors and entities now allows you to specify that the particle emitter will follow its owner around.
• SpriteEdit now allows you to enable vertical/horizontal mirroring of animation frames.
• SpriteEdit now provides an option to keep streamed animations in memory after they stream in.
• In WindowEdit you can no longer select hidden controls with mouse in the preview pane.
• WindowEdit now allows you to set the "Caption" property for editors.
• The "compatibility mode" (aka DirectDraw mode) has been dropped. WME games now require 3D accelerated video card.
• New PAINT_WHOLE_CELL property is now available in bitmap font definitions to allow proper character overlapping. The SPACE_WIDTH property is now documented.
• FIX: Particle emitters assigned to 3D actors didn't always work.
• FIX: Crash on terminating script with child threads still running.
• FIX: Images used instead of sprites were needlessly loaded twice from disk.

Version 1.8.4 (February 17, 2008) - internal release

Version 1.8.3 (February 9, 2008) - yet another maintenance release

• Updated libVorbis to the latest version.
• FIX: Response boxes sometime briefly displaying text using system font.
• FIX: Yet another attempt to fix the actor skipping when using certain combinations of GoTo and TurnTo methods.
• FIX: Added a missing "Caption" property to buttons in WindowEdit.
• FIX: Removed forgotten debug log messages in ProjectMan.

Version 1.8.2 (January 13, 2008) - maintenance release

• New Scene.ScrollToAsync() method omitted in previous releases.
• New Game.AutorunDisabled property to enable/disable Windows CD AutoRun feature while the game is running.
• FIX: Random crashes when using custom fonts for dialogue responses.
• FIX: actor3D.GoTo() method causing actor jumping to a target position under certain conditions.
• FIX: The editor control no longer "eats" key presses it cannot handle (such as function keys).

Version 1.8.1 (November 4, 2007) - maintenance release

• WME compiler now recognizes the #region and #endregion directives for better visual script organization. WME Integrator can now add support for these directives (users of UltraEdit/UEStudio please re-generate integration files).
• FIX: WindowEdit was not saving scripts attached to entity containers.
• FIX: Display driver crash in ProjectMan when rapidly changing scene previews.
• FIX: 3D actors sometimes getting stuck in the corner when 2D pathfinding was enabled.
• FIX: Engine crash when the user used = instead of == for comparison.
• FIX: Engine crash when changing scene while GetResponse() was active.
• FIX: Occasional crash in 3D scenes while changing to another scene.
• FIX: Inventory item cursors not animating when "combined cursor" is enabled.
• FIX: Wrong paths generated by SceneEdit immediately after adding a new package to the project.

Version 1.8 (September 23, 2007)

• WME is now available in two versions, Direct3D 8 and Direct3D 9. You can select which version of the runtime should be used in project settings in ProjectMan.
• New option "Hardware T&L" in ProjectMan to enable hardware accelerated transform and lighting for 3D models.
• New WindowEdit tool for editing windows, inventory boxes and response boxes.
• Windows Vista integration support. WME games can now be integrated in Vista's Game Explorer. The changes are too numerous to be listed here. Please see the "Windows Vista support" chapter in the documentation for a detailed description.
• Changes to animation handling for 3D characters:
  • The StopAnim() method now accepts an optional transition time.
  • There is a new actor3D.AnimStopTransitionTime property for specifying the time it takes to transition back to default pose once animation ends.
  • Non-looping animations played using the PlayAnimChannel() method no longer get stuck at final frame.
• New WME crash reporting library which can upload crash details to a database or send it by email. Please upload crash reports so that common crash causes can be analyzed and fixed.
• Optimized rendering speed of tiled images, bitmap fonts and particles.
• New format for 2D actors definition file. It allows you to define any number of named animation sets. The animation sets can be then switched at runtime using the new actor.IdleAnimName, actor.WalkAnimName, actor.TalkAnimName, actor.TurnLeftAnimName and actor.TurnRightAnimName properties. Additionally you can load new animation sets at runtime using the actor.MergeAnims() method and unload them using the actor.UnloadAnim() method. The actor.PlayAnim() method now accepts either a script filename or an animation set name. Basically all this is an effort to make 2D actors handling more flexible and more similar to the 3D actors model.
• Direct keyboard movement for 3D characters now also works for scenes with 2D blocked regions.
• New "Require sound" option in ProjectMan. If enabled the game will not run without a sound card (can be used for games which heavily rely on sound design).
• String tables now accept space as a separator, not only tabs.
• WME Integrator now also supports UEStudio.
• The numpad + and - keys in SceneEdit now also work for adding waypoints, not only region vertices.
• Changed the way method calls are terminated (see this forum thread for a detailed description). Since this is a potentially breaking change, it's possible to restore the previous behavior using the "Compatibility" property in ProjectMan.
• New debugging options in ProjectMan. You can now specify  that you want to include the crash reporting library with the compiled games and that you want the FPS display / debug mode to be enabled for the compiled games. It's useful for building alpha/beta versions of the game.
• New "copy as is" file filter in ProjectMan, which specifies that certain file types aren't included in game packages, but rather copied to the output directory. Useful for TrueType fonts and AVI videos.
• ProjectMan now displays short help for all the project options.
• New property Game.MaxActiveLights which returns the maximum number of lights supported by video card.
• New property Game.HardwareTL to check whether the game is using hardware transform and lighting.
• New property Game.StartupScene and a corresponding setting in ProjectMan. The standard template now takes advantage of this property instead of hardcoding the filename of the scene.
• New Scene event SceneShutdown which is triggered just before the scene is about to be changed.
• New method Scene.GetLightColor() for querying the color of a 3D light.
• New Game.GetFileChecksum() method for calculating a checksum (CRC32) of a specified file (useful for copy protection schemes).
• New scene methods and properties for querying lights and 3D nodes: Scene.NumLights, Scene.GetLightName(), Scene.IsLightEnabled(), Scene.IsNode3DEnabled().
• New method for storing the saved game thumbnail (i.e. you can now specify the exact moment when to take the screenshot if you need to, instead of letting the engine do it automatically) - Game.StoreSaveThumbnail(). Similarly, the Game.DeleteSaveThumbnail() can be used to release the stored thumbnail.
• New 3D actor methods for checking if an animation is playing: actor3D.IsAnimPlaying(), actor3D.IsAnimChannelPlaying().
• New 3D actor methods for specifying animation transition time for various animation pairs: actor3D.SetAnimTransitionTime(), actor3D.GetAnimTransitionTime().
• New 3D actor property for specifying which channel to use for talking animations: actor3D.TalkAnimChannel.
• New global functions for working with the HSL color model (Hue, Saturation, Luminance): MakeHSL(), GetHValue(), GetSValue(), GetLValue() (requested for easier changing of light intensity).
• The video subtitle files (.sub) can now use the "localizable" form of text ("/string_id/actual text") which means you can localize video subtitles using the string table, just like any other in-game text.
• The Game.PlayVideo() and Game.PlayTheora() methods now allow you to explicitly specify a video subtitles file.
• ProjectMan now provides two actions for files: Open and Edit. Double-click defaults to "Open". These actions use the Windows Explorer file associations.
• ProjectMan now allows you to compile a single package, so that you don't need to recompile the entire project after making minor changes. Right-click a package in ProjectMan and choose the "Compile this package" command.
• FIX: Custom scene properties were not reset on scene transitions.
• FIX: Compiled game packages were sometimes referencing more files than how many they actually contained.
• FIX: The check-boxes in the settings dialog no longer disappear when pressing the Alt key in XP/Vista.
• FIX: When using multiple particle sprites the particle emitter was always choosing only one of them.
• FIX: The engine no longer issues absolute path warnings when working with personal saved games stored in "Documents and and Settings" folder.
• FIX: TrueType fonts are now only registered for WME, not for all applications (Win2000/XP/Vista).
• FIX: Fixed many hard-to-replicate crash bugs reported by users using the new crash reporting feature. Keep the reports coming!

Version 1.7.3 (June 2, 2007)

• New methods Scene.EnableFog() and Scene.DisableFog() for enabling fog for 3D characters.
• SceneEdit now displays the hot-spot placement for entities to provide a better visual clue.
• Tweaked handling of 3D geometry for scenes with a custom viewport.
• WME Integrator can now generate GeSHi PHP script.
• Removed the troubleshooting options from the startup dialog.
• Several documentation fixes.
• FIX: StickToRegion() method remained active even after changing into another scene.
• FIX: Volume setting for theora playback. Game.PlayTheora() uses global SFX volume, Entity.PlayTheora() inherits volume of its parent entity.
• FIX: Memory leak in String.Split().
• FIX: Changing script order in ProjectMan didn't work correctly.
• FIX: Sprite.AddFrame() was broken.
• FIX: Alpha color for entity containers didn't always work correctly.

Version 1.7.2 (March 11, 2007)

• WME now comes bundled with a customized SciTE editor for script and definition files editing.
• New WME Integrator tool for for integrating WME with external script editors (supported editors: SciTE, UltraEdit, PSPad).
• New script methods for dynamic creation/deletion of scene layers: Scene.AddLayer(), Scene.InsertLayer(), Scene.DeleteLayer().
• New script methods for dynamic scene nodes creation/deletion: Layer.AddEntity(), Layer.InsertEntity(), Layer.DeleteEntity(), Layer.AddRegion(), Layer.Insert.Region(), Layer.DeleteRegion(). Layer.Width and Layer.Height properties are no longer read-only and can be changed at runtime.
• It's now possible to set ambient light color in SceneEdit (only affects 3D characters). It can also be changed programmatically using the Scene.AmbientLightColor property.
• New Window.Transparent property for making "click-through" windows.
• New project directory in ProjectMan now defaults to "My Documents" instead of "Program Files" to be more Vista-friendly.
• FIX: Some .geometry files weren't properly loaded.
• FIX: Plugin selection window in ProjectMan was broken.
• FIX: Setting package priority now also affects game being run from ProjectMan, not only compiled game.
• FIX: Obect.SetFont(null) now removes the assigned font and no longer attempts to load a file called 'null'.

Version 1.7.1 (February 11, 2007) - maintenance release

• New scripting methods for iterating free scene nodes (Scene.GetFreeNode(), Scene.NumFreeNodes).
• New scripting methods for dynamic creation/modification of region entities (Entity.CreateRegion(), Entity.DeleteRegion(), Entity.Region, Region.AddPoint(), Region.InsertPoint(), Region.SetPoint(), Region.GetPoint(), Region.NumPoints).
• Sprite attachments. It is now possible to attach an entity to other entity or actor. This is primarily intended for creating simple "blob" shadows for 2D actors. New methods and attributes: Actor.AddAttachment(), Actor.RemoveAttachment(), Actor.GetAttachment(), Actor.NumAttachments.
• New Game.SuppressScriptErrors attribute which suppresses the "Script runtime error" messages on screen.
• It is now possible to block-select multiple lines in String Table Manages using Shift+Click and deselect using Ctrl+Shift+Click.
• Debugging console now allows you to add "watches", i.e. to only monitor selected variables.
• Debugging console now allows you to inspect properties of native game objects.
• 3D actors now use the idle animation for talking if the specified talk animation doesn't exist.
• FIX: Crash analysis tool was broken in version 1.7.
• FIX: Memory leak when loading .X models.
• FIX: Crash when saving game on secondary monitor with save thumbnails enabled.

Version 1.7 (January 21, 2007)

• Stencil shadow support for 3D characters.
  • Stencil shadows are projected onto hidden scene geometry. For that reason, more detailed geometry is necessary. It is now possible to include meshes only for the shadow casting purposes in the geometry 3DS file. See the "3D Characters -> Principles and requirements" chapter in the docs for updated hidden geometry discussion.
  • 3D actors can now reference a separate low-poly model for stencil shadow generation purposes (see the "3D actor definition file" in the docs).
  • It's possible to set shadow detail level on scene-per-scene base directly in SceneEdit (you can only enable stencil shadows in some scenes if you need to).
  • New attributes and methods: Game.MaxShadowType, Game.IsShadowTypeSupported(), Scene.MaxShadowType, Actor3D.ShadowType.
  • There is a new chapter called "Shadows" in the docs which describes all the supported shadow types, and their pros and cons.
• Debugging console. The console allows the developer to inspect running scripts and the values of script variables at runtime. It also allows setting breakpoints to pause game flow at specified script lines. See the "Debugging console" chapter in the documentation for more details.
• String Table Manager. A new tool for extracting game texts and managing the string table for localization purposes. See the "String Table Manager" chapter in the documentation for more details.
• Note: Both Debugging console and String Table Manager require Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installed. It can be downloaded here.
• Changed the behavior of scene scrolling for 2.5D scenes. WME now assumes the camera overviews the entire scene (previous versions assumed camera only overviewed the top-left part of the scene). The original behavior can be restored by checking the "Scene scrolling pre-1.7" checkbox in SceneEdit.
• X models now support the "AnimTicksPerSecond" attribute exported by some 3D packages.
• Added right-to-left reading order support for the game settings dialog (see the "Localization support" chapter in the docs).
• Upgraded to the latest version of Theora decoder, which now uses MMX instructions to improve performance.
• New scripting methods and attributes:
  • Game.TalkSkipButton - specifies which mouse button can be used to skip talk lines (left, right, both, none).
  • Game.ClearResponses() - clears any responses previously added by Game.AddResponse().
  • Game.ChangingScene - specifies whether a scene change is currently in progress.
  • Game.LockMouseRect() - locks mouse pointer movement to a specified rectangle on screen.
  • Actor3D.AnimTransitionTime - default time for smooth animation transitions.
  • Actor3D.GoToTolerance - to prevent actors from moving by just one pixel.
  • Emitter.MaxBatches - maximum number of particle batches generated by the particle emitter.
  • Emitter.EmitEvent - allows the particle emitter to trigger a script event whenever a new batch of particles is generated.
  • Button.TextAlign - omitted in previous versions.
  • Actor3D.MergeAnims() - to load 3D character animations from X file at runtime.
  • Actor3D.UnloadAnim() - to release animations from memory.
  • New global function Debug() which pauses game execution and invokes the debugging console.
• Spacebar in SceneEdit toggles visibility of a selected node (useful for fine-tuning overlay placement with keyboard).
• ProjectMan doesn't show hidden files by default (can be re-enabled in ProjectMan settings).
• In windowed mode, WME now remembers and restores the previous window position.
• Low-res shadow model can now be used for flat and stencil shadows to improve performance.
• When placing a 3D actor in SceneEdit, you can select which animation is played by the actor (Actor -> Choose animation).
• New license. WME is now distributed as donationware. No separate commercial license is required.
• New WME logo (thanks to Malasieno), new WME website design (thanks to odnorf).
• FIX: Bounding box for 3D characters was only growing and it was never restored to its original size.
• FIX: Animation events for 3D characters are no longer skipped on low framerates.
• FIX: Camera roll value is now properly read from 3DS files generated by 3D Studio Max.
• FIX: Memory leak in Actor3D.SetTexture().
• FIX: Game.HideLoadingIcon() was causing script stack corruption.
• FIX: Alpha values lower then 8 are no longer ignored.
• FIX: Alpha blending modes were causing graphical artifacts on 3D actors.
• FIX: Passing 'float' values from plugins didn't work.

Version 1.6.1 (May 20, 2006)

• Response box definition can now specify vertical alignment of responses.
• BUGFIX: The tools no longer crash after changing hardware settings.
• BUGFIX: Theora video playback no longer crashes when "no sound" option is enabled.
• BUGFIX: The tools no longer issue the absolute-path warning when opening file for editing.
• BUGFIX: Some .X models were rendered with mismatched textures.

Version 1.6 (May 13, 2006)

• 3D actors are now using the Microsoft X model format. The 3D actor definition files have changed, so did the scripting support. The old format is still supported for backward compatibility, but it's now deprecated. See the "3D characters support" chapter in the documentation for more details and for migration hints. Some of the notable improvements to the new 3D character format:
  • Smooth transitions between animations.
  • The ability to change actor's texture at runtime, you can also use WME animated sprites for textures.
  • The attachments are now independent scriptable objects.
  • New standard animations, TurnLeft and TurnRight.
  • 3D scenes can now be setup to use 2D-based pathfinding, i.e. you can use the same way of designing blocked areas and waypoints as you would use for 2D actors; see the "Additional 3D options" chapter in the documentation for details.
  • New DrawBackfaces attribute for 3D actors which specifies whether the 3D model should display polygons facing away from the camera.
• New particle generator system. See the "Particle effects" chapter in the documentation for more details. There is a new "wme_particles" demo project with several predefined particle effects available.
• Accessibility support. WME now provides options for improving accessibility for visually-impaired players. These include sending written text to text-to-speech synthesizer, manually highlighting active areas on screen using keyboard shortcuts and pausing the game at any time. There are also some new scripting methods and attributes to support accessibility. See the Accessibility chapter in the documentation for a detailed discussion.
• Multi-monitor support improvements. WME window now opens on the correct monitor in both windowed and full-screen mode. The mouse pointer is locked on the correct monitor in full-screen mode. WME tools now use the right video device depending on which monitor they are displayed.
• WME is now more bullet-proof to common developer mistakes. Some of the engine/tools crashes caused by developer mistakes have been handled (syntax errors in definition files etc.). Missing images and sprites are now replaced by a generic "invalid image" picture making them immediately obvious to the developer. WME now issues a log-file warning if the game references some file using an absolute path, which will cause problems after compiling the game and running it on a different computer.
• The startup settings window has been redesigned to accommodate new options. Note: The standard string table now contains new localizable strings. Please update the string table of your game.
• New BlendMode attribute for actors, entities and particle emitters, which allows you to set the drawing mode (normal, additive blending, subtractive blending).
• New Game.LastResponseOrig attribute, which returns the last selected dialogue response in it's original form, i.e. before it got localized (useful for games with automatic voice-overs).
• New RightDoubleClick event.
• If you are using multiple inventories, each inventory remembers its scroll offset, so when switching from one inventory to another the original scroll offset is restored.
• New Game.InventoryScrollOffset attribute for setting and querying current scroll offset of the inventory box.
• All inventory items are now accessible using the new Game.TotalNumItems attribute and Game.QueryItem() method.
• New Game.SmartItemCursor property to only highlight the mouse pointer with selected item if the object can handle the item.
• New Game.SetSceneViewport() and Scene.SetViewport() methods for changing the scene viewport at runtime.
• New Game.SoundBufferSize attribute for setting the size of sound buffer used for streamed sounds/music.
• New Game.SuspendedRendering attribute to temporarily disable screen refreshes. Useful when you need to run multiple script updates in one frame.
• Entity.PlayTheora() method for entities now takes Entity.Scale into account, video is scaled accordingly.
• ProjectMan no longer tries to check for WME updates if there's no active internet connection.
• The debugging settings file formerly named dcgf.ini has been renamed to wme.ini.
• WME installation folder now contains the script language reference in XML format. Useful for third-party tools.
• BUGFIX: Custom camera FOV is correctly restored when loading a saved game.
• BUGFIX: Changes to save/load to prevent memory leak causing long save/load times under certain conditions.
• BUGFIX: The GUI buttons no longer display mouse-hover effects when game isn't in interactive state.
• BUGFIX: Inventory items animations didn't work correctly after saving game and loading it after restarting Windows.
• BUGFIX: 3D actors' direction/angle became broken after using the keyboard rotation.
• BUGFIX: Item.GetHoverSprite() and Item.GetSprite() methods were broken.
• BUGFIX: Division by decimal numbers lesser than 1.0 no longer causes "Division by zero" error.

Version 1.5.2 (October 9, 2005)

• The Game.AddResponse*() methods now accept an optional font filename to be used for a given response.
• WME now automatically uses speech sounds if their filename matches the string table ID of a given speech line, no need to explicitly reference speech files in scripts. New Game.AddSpeechDir() and Game.RemoveSpeechDir() for setting directories to look for speech files in.
• Improvements to the plugins API; New IWmeSubFrame class which allows plugins to modify sprites on pixel level. New methods for creating scripting objects from within plugins and for easier setting value properties.
• BUGFIX: Crash on exit when using custom TTF fonts.
• Many, many mistakes in the documentation have been fixed (thanks to odnorf).

Version 1.5 (July 23, 2005)

• Support for Theora video. WME can now play videos in Ogg Theora format which brings many advantages over the AVI video playback. There is a new Game.PlayTheora() method, and additionally the scene entities are also able to play Theora videos, which means you can easily incorporate streaming video elements directly into game scenes. Please see the "Using Theora" chapter in the documentation for more details. Special thanks to #wme channel regulars for their help with Theora testing and encoding.
• Support for advanced plugins. In addition to simple DLL library calls from scripts WME now provides a standardized programming interface for plugin development. This allows experienced programmers to develop extension modules for the engine. Please see the "Plugin development" section in the documentation for more details.
• Additional options for 3D scenes. SceneEdit now offers several additional options when designing scenes with hidden 3D geometry. Developers are now able to set clipping planes and waypoints placement, which should help to troubleshoot common problems with 3D characters.
• The Game.PlayVideo() and Game.PlayTheora() methods now offer an optional parameter specifying whether the background music should be muted while the video is playing.
• New Game.Frozen attribute for checking current game state.
• New Game.TextRTL attribute which should allow displaying bi-directional text (Hebrew and Arabic) while using TrueType fonts.
• New Game.Direct3DDevice and Game.DirectDrawInterface attributes to allow plugins accessing directly the underlying DirectX interfaces used by WME.
• The project settings in ProjectMan now include the ability to set which plugins should be distributed with the game.
• BUGFIX: Occasional crashes when using TrueType fonts.
• BUGFIX: Incorrect text wrapping and alpha color when using TrueType fonts.
• BUGFIX: The "ActorLeave" events were sometimes incorrectly triggered when entering a new scene.

Version 1.4.1 (May 23, 2005) - hotfix

• New LoadSound() method which allows to pre-cache a sound file so that any subsequent PlaySound calls don't slow the game down (useful for frequent playing of the same sound).
• FIX: The engine didn't play short sounds (bug introduced in version 1.4).

Version 1.4 (May 17, 2005)

• Support for advanced sound effects (echo and reverb). All the game objects now provide three methods, SoundFXNone(), SoundFXEcho() and SoundFXReverb(). These methods affect any sounds played by the object.
• Support for TrueType fonts. WME can now render any in-game texts using TrueType fonts. See the "Fonts" chapter in the documentation for a detailed description of this functionality.
• Support for Unicode string tables. WME can now read string tables with Unicode characters (encoded in UTF8 format). This allows games to be translated to a wide variety of languages, including Asian languages. Note that you have to use TrueType fonts to display texts in these languages. See the "Localization" chapter in the documentation for further details.
• New Actor.SetSprite() method which allows you to temporarily change actor's appearance.
• The PlaySound() method now accepts an optional parameter specifying a loop-start point for looping sounds (similarly to loop-start for music).
• The Game.Reset() method now reloads inventory items definitions, which means even deleted items get restored after resetting the game. There is also a new Game.LoadItems() method for loading/merging a new item set.
• Entity container controls now provide a Freezable attribute which specifies if the contained entity is frozen when game enters a frozen state.
• The Game.DisplayLoadingIcon() now provides an optional parameter which specifies if the loading icon should stay on screen until Game.HideLoadingIcon() is called. This allows you to display a loading icon even on scene transitions.
• New diagnostic method Game.DumpTextureStats() which writes texture memory usage status to a text file.
• Wme.exe now exports two external functions to allow StarForce copy protection to be attached (experimental).
• FIX: Several mistakes and broken links in documentation were removed.
• FIX: Some MS3D animations weren't properly animated.
• FIX: The tools crashed on startup if DirectX 8.0 or later wasn't installed (they still crash but now they display an error message before)
• FIX: The Game.MusicCrossfade() method uses the current music volume as its target volume, not 100%.
• FIX: Reloading actor from file didn't invalidate the Game.MainObject attribute which caused crashes on Win9x systems.
• FIX: Actor.RemoveMesh() no longer crashes the engine.
• FIX: The engine occasionally crashed after loading a saved game if save thumbnails were enabled.
• FIX: Streaming animations didn't work correctly with JPG images.
• FIX: The .Length attribute was returning nonsensical values under certain conditions.

Version 1.3.2 (December 27, 2004)

• The startup settings window is now always displayed, until the player checks "don't show this window again"
• settings.exe file is now copied to the output directory; it allows players to re-enable the settings window
• WME now displays user-friendly error messages if the target computer doesn't meet game requirements (outdated DirectX version or a missing 3D accelerator)
• SceneEdit allows to manually override camera field-of-view for scenes with 3D geometry (necessary for Cinema 4D generated 3ds files)
• new methods for direct keyboard control for 3D characters; see the 3D actor scripting reference for details, also the 3D characters demo has been updated to demonstrate keyboard control
• string-table items can now reference other string-table entries; it's useful if you need multiple entries to reference the same text
• the name for the savegame directory can now be configured in ProjectMan
• if the savegame directory isn't writable WME automatically switches to player's "Documents and settings" directory
• scripts with infinite loops can now also receive events; you no longer need to divide them in two scripts
• new File and Directory scripting objects allowing scripts to work with files and directories (see the docs for details)
• new MemBuffer scripting object allowing scripts to pass complex structures to and from DLL plugins
• game objects no-longer receive the MouseEntry and MouseLeave events when the game is in non-interactive mode (this behavior can be overridden using the NonIntMouseEvents attribute
• new Game.Accelerated attribute which allows scripts to determine if the game takes advantage of 3D acceleration
• new Game.LoadResponseBox() and Game.LoadInventoryBox() methods which allow you to change response/inventory box design at runtime
• entities stored in entity containers can be scaled
• new Game.DisplayLoadingIcon() method to display a "work-in-progress" icon while some long-time operation is in progress
• new Game.ClearScriptCache() method useful when you generate scripts at runtime
• new String.Split() method for working with lists
• BUGFIX: characters should no longer get stuck in place while walking
• BUGFIX: SceneEdit no longer crashes when you select a 3ds file without any cameras
• several other bugs introduced in 1.3 were fixed

Version 1.3 (November 30, 2004)

• experimental support for real-time 3D characters; this new functionality is too complex to be described here so please take a look at the "3D characters support" chapter in the documentation; if you have any comments or suggestions, post them here
• new technology demo demonstrating the 3D characters
• new Game.SetWaitCursor() method and other methods for querying and setting the non-interactive cursor
• new GetImage() family of methods for GUI controls
• the tools no longer change global volume at startup
• several bugfixes

Version 1.2, build 044 (July 7, 2004)

• loading/saving screen - can be defined in ProjectMan or using the Game.SetLoadingScreen() and Game.SetSavingScreen() methods
• new Game.ScreenshotEx() method which allows to save scaled screenshot with a fixed filename
• new const keyword for defining constant variables - similar to global, but constant variables are not affected by resetting the game
• new Item.AmountString attribute which allows you to display any text label beside the inventory item
• added a "none" option when setting the walk-to direction in SceneEdit
• FIX: mouse pointer no longer goes off-screen when running the game in a dual-monitor environment
• FIX: occasional crash when changing scene after loading a saved game
• FIX: fixed several mistakes in the documentation
• FIX: WME no longer checks for removable drives at startup which caused problems with network-mapped volumes

Version 1.2, build 043 (April 25, 2004)

• The Game.PlayMusic() now has an optional parameter specifying the start point for music looping.
• New Game.GetMusic() method which returns the filename of currently playing music.
• New Actor.IsWalking() method.
• Dynamic object creation. Game, Scene and Window objects now allow dynamic creation of entities, inventory items and controls.
• New AlphaColor attribute for Windows. You can set color and transparency for the entire window and its content.
• Scriptable sprites. Sprites now can have a script attached, controlling sprite, frame and sub-frame attributes and animation flow at runtime.
• Multi-channel music. WME now supports up to five music channels. including cross-fading between two playing channels.
• Animated fonts. Font image is no longer limited to a static bitmap, now it also accepts sprites.
• The inventory items are now fully scriptable objects, they can even talk (yes! you can now create a talking frog in the inventory ;)
• The inventory items now can display an amount.
• New Game.PrevSceneFilename attribute.
• Actors and entities now can have their own private inventories.
• New Game.DeleteItem() method, which removes an inventory item from the game permanently.
• New Scene.IsScolling() method.
• Save/load progress indicator (configurable in ProjectMan)
• Regions are now receiving ActorEntry and ActorLeave events.
• New Game.Reset() method which clears global variables, scene and response states and inventories.
• New Window.PauseMusic attribute which specifies if a system exclusive window pauses music playback.
• New Game.OpenDocument() method which opens a document file in an associated Windows program.
• New Game.WindowedMode attribute.
• New Game.GetResponsesWindow() method.
• You can now define a "walk to" point for scene objects in SceneEdit. This point works in conjunction with the new Actor.GoToObject() method.
• SceneEdit now automatically generates scripts for newly added scene objects.
• Scene states now include last sprites, cursors and alpha color of scene objects between two scene visits.
• New Game.SystemFadeOut() and Game.SystemFadeIn() methods, working even in system exclusive mode.
• Some other new attributes, methods and lots of minor changes, see the documentation for further details.
• Updated documentation.
• Updated WME demo.
• BUGFIX: Compiling multiple packages sometimes didn't work correctly.
• BUGFIX: Scaled actors didn't correctly adjust vertical speed according to scene scaling.
• BUGFIX: Paused sounds are now correctly restored when the game leaves system exclusive mode.
• BUGFIX: The FadeOut method starts from a current fade value, not from zero.
• BUGFIX: Crash bug in iconic responses.

Version 1.1, build 039 (January 18, 2004)

• New methods and attributes for actors and entities: SetFont(), GetFont(), ScaleX, ScaleY, Rotate, RelativeRotate
• New attributes for scene: OffsetX, OffsetY
• New Game.LoadStringTable() method for reloading the string table at runtime
• New methods for window controls: MoveToTop(), MoveToBottom(); HeightToFit() for static controls
• (see the scripting reference for detailed description of the new methods and attributes)
• New low level game events BeforeSave and AfterLoad
• The ability to display save thumbnails in grayscale
• The ability to bind one package file directly to the game runtime
• Very basic support for alpha transparency in the compatibility mode
• Script execution is now faster
• BUGFIX: storing objects in arrays didn't work correctly
• BUGFIX: running methods were not terminated correctly after the object has been destroyed
• BUGFIX: the Math object is now correctly restored when loading game
• ...and other minor changes and bugfixes

Version 1.1, build 037 (November 16, 2003)

• Support for JPG file format
• Support for thumbnails for saved games
• New Game.Screenshot() method for taking a screenshot of the current game
• User defined methods can now override the built-in method provided by the engine
• New object.CanHandleMethod() method
• New window.LoadFromFile() method for dynamic changing of window contents
• It's now possible to set vertical alignment for the static controls
• Support for .talk files for synchronizing speech and animations + .talk file preview in ProjectMan
• Support for font files created using the FONText utility
• Updated the WME demo to support save thumbnails
• BUGFIX: compiled game can now handle mixed slashed in filenames
• BUGFIX: entity.SetSprite immediately followed by entity.Talk sometimes crashed the engine
• BUGFIX: 32bit BMP files were sometimes handled incorrectly

Version 1.1, build 035 (September 16, 2003)

• significant scripting language enhancement: you can now define custom methods for engine objects and also your own custom objects (see the "Custom methods and objects" chapter in the documentation for details)
• Jerrot's math plug-in is now integral part of the engine (see the Math object description in the documentation for details)
• the ability to set startup scene in ProjectMan - either select a scene in the properties pane, or right-click a scene file in the project tree and select "Set as startup scene"; this setting will override first Game.ChangeScene call and will load the specified scene instead (only works if debug mode is enabled)
• new Game.IsMusicPlaying() method
• new StickToRegion() method for actors/entities
• new scrolling modifying attributes for scenes
• new RelativeScale attribute for actors/entities
• new SubtitlesPosRelative, SubtitlesPosX and SubtitlesPosY attributes for actors/entities
• (see the documentation for detailed description of the new attributes and methods)
• bugfix: the inventory item / scene entity bindings sometimes didn't work correctly
• bugfix: event triggering from animations sometimes didn't work correctly

Version 1.1, build 033 (August 17, 2003)

• new Scale attribute for actors and entities
• the ability to associate scene entities and inventory items (entities are automatically shown/hidden when the item is taken/dropped)
• new IMAGE_HOVER component for inventory items (the image to be displayed when mouse cursor is over the item)
• new "Check for updates" function in ProjectMan (either manual or automatic)
• when generating packages, ProjectMan optionally copies the engine runtime to the packages folder
• ProjectMan is now able to import a custom icon into the engine runtime (not available on Windows 95/98/Me)
• Numpad+ and Numpad- keyboard shortcuts to add/remove region vertices and waypoints in SceneEdit
• total animation time is shown in SpriteEdit
• vast internal changes to allow the new editor scheme
• updated documentation released (still not complete though...)

Version 1.0, build 031 (July 10, 2003)

• fixed several bugs introduced in build 030 ;-)

Version 1.0, build 030 (July 06, 2003)

• bugfix: window.GoSystemExclusive() has been incorrectly freezing window's own controls
• bugfix: nested switch commands were resulting in an infinite loop (thus hanging the engine)
• bugfix: Scene.SkipTo(actor) method has been setting the vertical scene scrolling position incorrectly when called from a scene init script
• new Game.GetSoundLength(SoundFilename) method which returns a length of a given sound in milliseconds
• new Game.FPS attribute (read-only) which returns the current framerate (in frames per second)

Version 1.0, build 028 (June 08, 2003)

• support for PNG graphics format
• new PlaySoundEvent(SoundFilename, EventName) method which triggers an event after the sound finishes
• new Game.GetNumResponses() which queries the number of responses left in the response box
• new Game.GetCurrentDlgBranch() which returns the name of the dialogue branch currently executing (or null)
• new AlphaColor attribute for actors and entities which overrides the scene shading color
• new CloseUp attribute for scene layers; close-up layers make all underlying scene layers non-interactive
• the engine displays names of the current and previous scene when running in debug mode
• the help file can be called directly from the tools
• SpriteEdit: now it's possible to copy alpha color and transparent color to all frames
• some of the ProjectMan dialog windows were redesigned to allow for an easier localization
• bugfix: SpriteEdit offers a correct folder when adding new frames
• bugfix: some template files were referencing wrong fonts
• bugfix: it wasn't possible to delete currently playing sound files in ProjectMan
• bugfix: automatic sound panning wasn't working for the "sound-only" entities
• bugfix: speech subtitles were misplaced in case of a very long string table ID

Version 1.0, build 025 (April 21, 2003)

• (experimental) localization support for ProjectMan and the engine runtime
• bugfix: the initial settings window was always displayed
• bugfix: Game.PrevScene now returns an empty string if it's a first scene
• bugfix: corrected the alphabet misspellings in ProjectMan :-)
• bugfix: Scene:GetRegionAt now searches the regions from top to bottom
• bugfix: SceneEdit now preserves the scene viewport correctly

Version 1.0, build 024 (April 11, 2003) - bugfix release

• fixed bug in the script compiler; if there were nested loops, the break command was sometimes exiting a wrong loop
• added the ability to set subtitles speed (either in ProjectMan or in script using the Game.SubtitlesSpeed attribute
• (experimental support for sprite rotation)

Version 1.0, build 022 (April 05, 2003)

• dialogue system enhancements
• simple DLL library interface for scripts
• scripting language enhancements (switch statement and Array class, both similar to JavaScript)
• several buxfixes

Version 1.0, build 020 (March 22, 2003)

• you can define a rectangular area on screen where the scene will be displayed - the scene viewport (i.e. scenes no longer need to cover the whole screen); it's useful for fixed interface elements
• the engine is now able to remember which scene nodes were active/inactive when the player leaves the scene and this state will be restored automatically after revisiting the scene (i.e. you no longer need to script this behavior manually); just check the "Remember nodes state" check-box in SceneEdit
• scene entities have a new "Ignore items" property (in SceneEdit); if you set this property, the entities will act as non-interactive when the player attemts to use an inventory item on them - it's useful for example for the scene exits
• the GUI windows now can contain entites; this makes the whole GUI subsystem much more flexible; it allows you to create "intelligent" windows, such as items close-ups or a Runaway style inventory

Version 1.0, build 019 (March 11, 2003)

• fixed fatal bug in script compiler
• fixed the "Basic project" template
• new troubleshooting options
• the ability to load a background image in SpriteEdit
• new script methods: Game.FadeOut, Game.FadeIn, Scene.FadeOut, Scene.FadeIn
• accelerated renderer optimizations
• improved pathfinding

Version 1.0, build 012 (February 24, 2003)

• improved compatibility with certain video cards (including the 3dfx Voodoo adapters) in both accelerated and compatibility mode
• support for TGA graphics format (the TGA files can contain an alpha channel)
• new low level events "MouseEntry" and "MouseLeave", supported by actors, entities and GUI elements
• *LOTS* of bugfixes (many thanks to everyone reporting bugs and incompatibilities)