Release Notes

November 4, 2005 (Version 1.02):

- Added tool tips to all GUI controls. Hold the mouse pointer over any control for a couple of seconds for the tool tip to be displayed.

- The Torque Game Engine v1.4 added support for more than 8 collision meshes. TST Pro has been updated to also remove this limitation.

- The full PDF documentation is now available from the Help->Complete Documentation menu item.

- Under OSX, the standard Quit menu item now shuts down the application.

- OSX 10.3.9 is now the minimum version that is supported. The same application bundle now runs under OSX 10.3.9 and OSX 10.4.x.

May 3, 2005 (Version 1.01 OSX Only):

- Corrected a bug under OSX 10.4 (Tiger) that was preventing TST Pro from launching.

- Under OSX, it is now possible to open shapes on volumes other than the one TST Pro is launched from.

December 15, 2004 (Version 1.0):

- Under the Mounting window, the left list that contains the nodes for the object to be mounted now has a new entry: [origin]. Selecting this entry rather than one of the node names in the list will mount the object from its world origin. This is to work around objects that don't have a proper mount point node (normally called mountPoint), such as the TGE Orc crossbow.

December 1, 2004:

- Fixed a bug where only the triggers in the first sequence that had them were correct and subsequent sequences with triggers always pointed back to the first sequence. Now all animation sequences correctly show their own triggers.

- Added a check at object load time for shapes that may be corrupted due to an older 3DS Max exporter. These shapes would normally require UnmessDTS to be run on them to fix them. If the user has not yet run UnmessDTS, then the shape would crash Looking Glass. When loading one of these shapes, the user is presented with a messaage boxing asking if they would like to continue to load the shape even though it likely contains errors. This user request was added just in case Looking Glass has missinterpreted the DTS file (a false positive on the test) and it is indeed OK to load it. Whew!

- The current mip map level may now be modified from the bottom of the Materials window. Either the value may be entered into the "Global Base Mip Map Level" text field (remeber to press Enter for the value to take) or the double-arrow drag button may be used.

- The locking of the max mip map level may now be done from the bottom of the Materials window. Use the "Lock Mip Map Level" checkbox. This is the same as pressing the "m" keyboard shortbut or using the "M with Lock" button in the toolbar at the top of the main window.

- A new option has been added to the Materials window. The "Draw Material Window bitmap at current mip map level" checkbox, when activated, will force the bitmap of the currently selected material (at the top of the Material window) to draw at the current mip map level. This is handy if you wish to see how OpenGL is scaling the various mip map levels.

November 8, 2004:

- Both the shape tree view and rendering simulation tree view on the Shape Properties window have a checkbox added to determine if primitives should be included in the list. With this option checked, all primitives and their number of vertices will be shown as children of their materials. By default this option is off as very large objects or slower machines may take a while to generate this list upon object load and switching between objects.

- Two new rendering modes have been added: Triangle Strips and Tri-strip Wireframe. Both of these rendering modes will disable all texturing and assign a random colour to each triangle strip in the object. The wireframe mode adds a coloured wireframe over the triangle strips for better individual triangle visibility. As always, the wireframe colour may be controlled using the Display Properties window.

- The Mount Window now has a new checkbox underneath each of the node lists that allows the user to sort the list alphabetically. With sorting turned off, the node list will be in the order in which it was saved within the DTS file, just as it has worked in previous versions.

- Created a new button for Light Properties. This opens a new window that contains all of the controls that were under the Light tab of the Display Properties window.

- Removed the Light tab from the Display Properties window and replaced it with a Node tab. Any controls that were under the Render tab that had to do with nodes have been moved to this new tab.

- When an environmental map is loaded using the Display Properties window's Render tab EMap popup, it is now displayed underneath the popup list. This helps to identify what the actual bitmap looks like.

- A new slider control has been added to the Display Properties window's Render tab: Tristrip Bias. Using this slider forces the triangle strip display mode to cycle through the random colour table, changing the colour of each triangle strip. If you find that two triangle strips that are next to each other are too similar in colour, use this bias to help them stand out.

- There is now a default environment map (clouds from TGE) that will be selected when the environment map toolbar button is clicked. To load up a different environment map, use the popup under the Display Properties window Render tab. The last selected bitmap will always be used with the environment map toolbar button within the same session.

- The 'Show rotation/translation axis' checkbox has been moved to the Render tab of the Display Properties window.

- A new checkbox has been added to the Display Properties window's General tab entitled 'Invert view's mouse rotation'. When this is checked the mouse controls will be inverted when rotating the main viewing window. This allows the user to match their own 3D application's method of rotating a view with the mouse.

- When loading in a bitmap such as for an environmental map or a background, the load file dialog window now contains a small preview of the selected bitmap. It's useful to make sure you have the correct one selected before actually loading it.

- Fixed a bug where the rotation of the mount point of a child object (the node of the object being mounted onto the current object, often named 'mountpoint') was not being taken into account.

- Windows such as the Display Properties are no longer stopped from moving past the edge of the main window. This means that you could have a window that is partially moved off screen.

- There is now a minimum size that the Looking Glass window may be shrunken to in order to keep some of the interface accessible. However, as the window is made smaller, some of the buttons and popup controls will disappear to prevent controls from being drawn over top of each other. When this occurs, the text 'MORE' will appear with an arrow to indicate that there are more controls if the window were to be made larger. This applies to the toolbar buttons along the top, the object and node popups along the bottom, and the item coordinates display at the bottom left.

- With a sorted mesh (TSSortedMesh) is being viewed it is now possible to see the rendering order of the clusters within the 3D view. To activate this mode, select the 'Show Sorted Mesh Draw Order' checkbox from the Rendering tab on the Display Properties window or use the button in the toolbar that looks like two intersecting planes. It may also be toggled from any preset. With this mode active, each cluster of primitives will be drawn in a shade of gray depending on its drawing order -- the first cluster drawn will be very dark and the last cluster drawn will be very light. It is usually best to use this mode with lighting disabled so that the shading due to lights doesn't conflict with the cluster colouring. And while this mode may be used with texturing turned on, it may be easiest to view in a display mode that does not include textures. A good object to try this on is any of the leafy trees that come with the TGE demo.

- A new rendering mode has been added that will force a shape to render transparently. This is most useful when used in combination with the new solid bone mode mentioned below. To activate this mode, use the 'Render meshes in ghost mode' checkbox from the Rendering tab on the Display Properties window or use the button in the toolbar that looks like a ghost. It may also be toggled from any preset. When active, all shapes will be drawn with a transparency value set with the 'Fade Amt' slider under the checkbox. Setting the slider to 0 will cause the shape to be completely transparent and a value of 1 will force the mesh to be opaque as if the ghost mode were turned off.

- A new method of drawing the connections between nodes has been added: Solid Bones. As usual, this method may be selected using the 'Connect nodes as' popup from the Nodes tab of the Display Properties window. It may also be set from any preset. With this connection method active, all connections will be drawn with a filled-in bone shape and both the connections and the node axis' will take the depth buffer into account. This will cause the 'bones' to not be drawn if they are inside the shape. However, when used in combination with the ghost mode above, it is possible to see the bones within the shape and get a sense of their 3D position.

- The camera's field of view may now be interactively modified using the button with the vertical and horizontal boxes that is located between the Target and Rotation buttons located at the upper right of the main screen. Holding down the left mouse button will display the current FOV underneath the row of buttons (in the HUD). Dragging the mouse left and right will modify the camera's FOV.

- The fix for the child's mount point rotation not being taken into account introduced a new bug with wheeled vehicle wheels. The TGE wheeled vehicle code mounts its wheels differently than the shapebase mount code in that it doesn't take the child's mount point rotation into account. To correct for this, the Mount Left, Mount Right and Mount Wheels buttons on the Mount Objects window will not take the child's mount point rotation into account. However, the regular Mount button still does.

- Added an 'Unmount All' button to the Mount Objects window.

- New buttons have been added to customize the background, direct light and ambient light colours. Beside each text edit control for red, green and blue is a button with two arrows on its face. Holding down the left mouse button and dragging left and right will modify the neighboring colour value and automatically switch the accompanying popup to Custom.

- A new set of popup controls have been added to the Mount Objects window. In place of the checkboxes that allowed for the sorting of the node lists are popup controls that provide three options: don't sort (same order as loaded from DTS file); sorted; and sorted but with all nodes that begin with 'mount' placed at the top of the list. The last option is quite useful when you're referencing nodes with the standard TGE naming convention.

September 22, 2004:

- Under Windows, a new button has been added to the Project Directory modify window. It is a picture of a right pointing arrow. This button will open a standard Windows dialog that allows the user to choose the project directory and populates the chosen pathway into the "Path to Project Directory" edit field.

- The Shape Properties window now contains two tabs along the top: Tree and TSDump. The TSDump tab provides access to the standard TGE TSDump facility that was provided in a previous release. The Tree tab provides a hierarchical view of the displayed DTS file including detail levels, subshape structure, and skins.

- Added the ability to render objects using the Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack. This may be toggled on or off using the Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack check box under the Lights tab of the Display Properties window, or using the icon in the toolbar with a lightbulb and 'LP' text beside it. Note that when in this rendering mode, having the main light over 50% strength (or 128 in any of the text fields) will create an overexposed look.

- Added a new tab on the Shape Properties window: Rendering. This tab contains a tree view that simulates the order that meshes are rendered in. This is useful to determine if your non-transparent meshes are indeed being rendered before your transparent ones. The information updates based on the currently viewed detail level.

- The Tree and Rendering tab trees under the Shape Properties window may have their columns resized. To do so, click the mouse on the vertical column separator bar within the header and move the mouse left and right.

- Shifted around some buttons. The Presets drop-down is now underneath the tool bar beside the Grid drop-down. The Shape Properties button has been moved down to just above the Sequence Info button.

- New preset options have been added: Use Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack, set the background colour, and set the background bitmap.

- Added in three new items to the LOD HUD: Alpha In, Alpha Out, and IntraDL. The first two define when the current detail level will fade in the next detail level and when the current detail level will fade out, respectively. The IntraDL value is the current shape instance intraDL and controls when the fading occurs. The standard TGE formulae are as follows:
CurrentIntraDL > AlphaIn + AlphaOut: render current DL
else
CurrentIntraDL > AlphaOut: render next DL with alpha, then render current DL
else
Render current DL with alpha, then render next DL

- A new 'S' button has been placed beside each of the sequence, object, and node popup lists on the main screen. When this button is depressed, the popup list will be sorted alphabetically. With the button raised, the list will be in the same order as defined within the DTs file (as it has always been).

- Modified the Project Directory window to operate like the Presets window. Selecting an entry and editing either the optional name or pathway will change the selected entry rather than requiring the user to also add a new entry. A new button has been added: Copy Directory, which will copy the selected directory name and pathway to a new list entry. The other buttons operate the same as in previous releases.

- The camera rotation, translation, and zoom are now stored with the individual object. With this change, the camera will no longer be reset when switching the view between multiple objects. The camera may still be manually reset using previous methods.

- Added a new button to the tool bar labeled 'MP'. This allows the user to toggle the rendering of all mounted objects within the current view.

- It is now possible to set an animation to ping pong forwards and backwards while playing. This may be activated regardless of the animation sequence's capability to loop. To turn this feature on, toggle the new button in the lower right of the main window that has a right and left arrow on its face. This is beside the original Play button.

- Added in support for TGE shape instance material reskinning on a per object basis. The controls for this may be found at the bottom of the Material Properties window. With the checkbox selected, the current object will be forced to reskin using the name in the text edit box. With the checkbox unselected, the current object will revert to the materials it had when first loaded. Reskinning of an object may also be set up using the Presets drop-down menu. This allows for easy toggling between the red team's colours and the blue team's colours, for example.

- When using the 'Load DTS & CS' option, the .cs file will now always be first compiled before it is loaded. This should ensure that any changes made to the file are recognized, even if it was previously loaded in the same Looking Glass session.

- The load file dialog has been updated to include a Refresh button to reload the list of displayed files. This was required as the list of files is buffered within the internal resource manager. Also, a new Project Directory drop-down has been added to the top of the load file dialog to allow the user to browse through their project directories without needing to first close the dialog.

- The Shape Properties Tree tab now has Expand All and Collapse All buttons to expand or collapse the displayed tree.

August 30, 2004:

- David Wyand's Looking Glass now runs on Mac OSX.

- A number of new buttons have been added to rotate, translate and zoom the display. These are located in the upper right of the window and allow you to perform these functions with only the left mouse button (or from a single button mouse in the case of the Mac).

- Added a button that looks like a bullseye to the upper right of the window. This performs the same function as click on the 'a' key: recentre the display around the current object.

- Added a new drop-down to change the current view. The options are: top, bottom, front, back, left, right and perspective. The perspective option is the standard. Keys 1 through 7 match up with the options in the drop-down (ie: pressing a '7' will change the display to perspective) and may be used to change the display.

- Under OSX, a new button has been added to the Project Directory modify window. It is a picture of a right pointing arrow. This button will open a standard OSX window that allows the user to choose the project directory and populates the chosen pathway into the "Path to Project Directory" edit field.

- It is now possible to translate and zoom with the left mouse button. Holding down the CTRL key with the left mouse button will cause the view to translate (the same as using the right mouse button) while holding down the ALT (Apple or Command key on the Mac) key will cause the view to zoom (the same as using the mouse wheel). All of the usual modifier keys will also work at the same time ie: hold down SHIFT in addition to CTRL to translate faster.

- Implemented user defined presets. From the Presets drop down menu in the upper left, the user may choose the modify option which will open a new window. From here, presets may be built and assigned to a function key (F1-F8). The checkbox beside each parameter indicates if the selected preset will change that parameter or leave it alone. Clicking on the "G" button beside each parameter will get the currently set value (such as setup in the Display Properties window). There must always be one preset in the list, although it doesn't have to be the supplied default one. These presets are saved when the program is quit.

- Added a grid size drop down menu to the tool bar area. It is now possible to change the grid size without having to go to the Display properties window.

- From the HUD, the specifics of a tsLastDetail (billboard) detail level are shown, such as the number of equatorial and polar steps, etc. The currently rendered bitmap index and the angles at which it was rendered at are also shown. This may be toggled on or off from the Display Properties window.

- A new icon has been added to the toolbar to toggle the window always being on top. The 'w' key may also be used. Previously this was only possible using the Display Properties window.

- A new icon has been added to the toolbar to toggle the grid. The 'g' key may also be used.

- The Mount Objects window has a new button: Mount Wheels. With a standard TGE wheeled vehicle object in view, select a tire object from the drop-down list. Then click on the 'Mount Wheels' button (there is no need to select a hub from the right node list). The wheel will automatically be mounted to each of the hub nodes and oriented correctly based on which side of the vehicle the hub is on.

- A new button and window have been added: Shape Properties. Clicking on the Refresh button on the Shape Properties window will generate an outline of the currently viewed shape using the standard TGE tsDump facility. Clicking on the Export button will save the currently viewed object's tsDump to the file 'dtsdump.txt' into the same directory as the Looking Glass executable. These features will be expanded upon in future releases.

July 30, 2004:

- The program now uses the Windows' mouse cursor rather than the TGE-drawn mouse cursor. The main advantage is the cursor doesn't disappear when it is in the window's title bar, making it easier to drag the window.

- An hour glass mouse cursor will now be shown when the program is busy.

- It is now possible to resize the main window to any dimensions, including minimized and maximized.

- It is now possible to have texture maps that are larger than 512x512 in size. 2048x2048 with an alpha channel has been tested. Please note that standard TGE does not handle texture maps that are this large.

- Added FPS and MSPF rows to the HUD. While this would not be an indication of how well your objects will perform in game, it does provide something to compare your objects relative to each other. This may be turned on and off under the General tab on the Display Properties window.

- It is now possible to view a node's local coordinates. This is selected from the drop down list at the bottom left of the main window that includes a node's world coordinates and an object's bounding box dimensions.

- When the Looking Glass is not the foreground window, it puts itself to sleep for a short while between screen redraws. This allows other applications more time at the CPU. This may not be desirable if the Looking Glass is playing back an animation on a second monitor while another program is being used on the main monitor (the animation playback will be jerky). The user may change how long the program sleeps (even setting it to zero milliseconds) when in the background under the General tab on the Display Properties window.

- It is now possible to view all of the vertices that the selected node has influence over. This may be toggled on or off either from the Render tab of the Display Properties window, or the small 'V' button beside the Node drop down list. The colour that the vertices are drawn in depends on the weighting of the node on the them (0% weight to 100% weight). These colours may be changed under the Render tab of the Display Properties window. You'll also find there a preview of what the colours look like at the various weights. Note that this currently only works for 'Skin' meshes and their nodes.

- Added a Help drop-down to the main screen. There are a number of options from this menu. The first labeled 'Contents' opens a web browser to the local documentation files. The second labeled 'Help on the Web' is meant to go to a support forum, but for the moment goes to www.gnometech.com. The third labeled 'About OpenGL' displays some OpenGL and screen info. This will be expanded in the future. The fourth labeled 'About Looking Glass' opens a window with the usual information about the software.

- It is now possible to give a Project Directory a name. Sometimes a project directory may be really long or only different from a previous project directory by one directory. This can make finding the correct directory in the Project Directory drop-down difficult. The name may be assigned using the optional 'Name' field in the Project Directory dialog window that is opened when the '[modify]' option is selected in the Project Directory drop-down menu.

- The licensing window that is displayed when the user clicks on the 'Quit' button has been removed. Now the licensing information is displayed when the program is first launched and goes away when the first object has been loaded.

July 13, 2004:

- Added the ability to render the LOS collision meshes. This may be turned on under the Render tab of the Display Properties window and using the toolbar LoS icon.

- Fixed a bug where using the Load Recent popup didn't always initiate the correct Project Directory, which would prevent the loading of some/all assets.

- Added a toolbar icon to toggle the nodes display. The 'n' key may also be used.

- It is now possible to reload an object that has been changed (such as with a 3D program) and see the changes within the viewer. Previously, once an object had been loaded, it would stay resident in memory and the file would no longer be accessed, even if the file had changed.

- Mounted objects will now correctly show the appropriate detail level. To change how a mounted object is drawn (detail level wise) go to that object and either set the LOD manually, or turn on automatic LOD selection. Those settings carry over when the object is mounted to another object.

- Improved how mounted objects animate. However the object has been setup (including multiple threads and moving the animation slider to a non-zero value) is how it will look when mounted. Note that if the object is animating while viewed, the animation will stop when viewing it mounted on another object. This should also correct a bug where mounting an object, then viewing it separately, and then going back to the mounted view could cause the mounted object to change its animation sequence.

- Two new buttons have been added to the Mount Object Window. The Mount Left button will mount the object as if it were a left wheel in standard Torque, and the Mount Right button will mount the object as if it were a right wheel. The standard Mount button still exists and will mount an object without any added rotation.

- When the user quits the program, the mouse now automatically moves to the OK button of the licensing window.

- It is possible to set the program's window to always be on top of all other windows (Top-most window). This is toggled under the General tab of the Display Properties window.

June 30, 2004:

- The Sequence Info window now shows all trigger properties such as trigger state and activation position if the selected sequence contains one or more triggers. A column (Trig) has been added to the sequence list to indicate which sequences contain triggers.

- If a sequence is selected that contains triggers, a white line will be drawn on the main sequence time slider in the position of each trigger.

- The recently loaded files list now supports loading a DTS file and its corresponding CS file as if the user used the "Load DTS & CS" button. This is indicated with a "[cs]" shown beside the file name.

- The Sequence Info window now shows all nodes that are used in the selected sequence. The node information scrolled window displays if the node has a translation, rotation or scale change in the selected sequence.

- The Render tab on the Display Properties window has two additional option: a check box to draw all nodes that are used in the selected sequence in a 'bolded' fashion, and a drop down list to select the colour to draw the animated nodes in. If the 'Use node color' option is selected from the drop down list, then the animated nodes are drawn in the same colour as the non-animated nodes (selected from the Node Axis Color drop down list).

- Holding down the ALT key and using the mouse wheel over the object view will change the object's detail level (and lock to that LOD). This is the same as using the left and right arrow keys.

- Added the ability to load files from any directory. This is accessed from the Project Directory drop down list. By selecting a directory from the list, the internal resource manager will point to that directory and provide a listing of all valid files within the load dialog windows. If the [modify] option is selected, a new window opens to allow the user to add or remove directories. At this time, the directory pathway must be entered manually. Also note that all subdirectories are searched for valid files, so setting the project directory to C:\ will take a while (listen to the hard drive churn!). Note that if you load in an object from one project directory, move to another project directory and then bring up the load requestor that the already loaded object will show up in the list. Consider it a feature for now... :o)

- When a file is loaded from the 'Load Recent' drop-down list, and the current project directory is not the same as the chosen file, the project directory will first change to that needed for the file and then change back. This may cause a slight delay in loading the object if there are a lot of files and subdirectories in the project directory.

- A HUD has been added to show more information about the loaded object. The HUD options may be found on the Display Properties window under the General tab. The location of the HUD (and being able to turn it off) and its text colour may be changed. Currently the grid size and the viewed object detail level statistics may be displayed. The 'h' key may be used to toggle the HUD.

June 20, 2004:

- Added a 'rewind' button. If an animation sequence is playing, it will jump to the beginning and continue to play. If the sequence is paused, it will jump back to position 0 and stay paused.

- Added an 'M' (for mip map base level) and 'D' (for detail level) to the item coordinate display. Each shows the current respective values. If a lock icon is displayed beside the 'D', then the user is manually controlling the value. If a lock icon is beside the 'M', then the user has locked the base and max mip map level to be the same.

- Pressing the 'm' key will force the max mip map level to be the same as the current base mip map level. This effectively turns off mip mapping and leaves the textures at the currently displayed mip map level. This may also be controlled with a toolbar icon.

- Pressing the 'd' key will toggle the manual control of detail levels. This may also be controlled with a toolbar icon.

- With the left and right arrows, the user may manually control the current detail level. This is the same as using the detail level slider.

- Added a drop down list above the item coordinates display. This allows the user to change the item coordinates display to show either a node's world coordinates or a selected object's local bounding box coordinates.

- Added the Thread Controls window. From here it is possible to add new animation threads to play multiple sequences at once. There are also various controls for manipulating how sequences transition from one to another. This transitioning works even if there is a single thread. The 'TS' icon in the toolbar may be used to enable or disable animation sequence transitioning in addition to the checkbox located on the Thread Controls window.

- The mini-slider in the Thread Controls window has multiple uses. Normally, it is just a mirror of the main animation slider. When there is a transition between sequences occurring, it will go from a yellow colour to a red colour to indicate how far along the transition is. If the transition is set to occur at the slider's position (rather than synchronized), then the mini-slider may be used to set where the transition will occur in the target sequence. In this case, the mini-slider will show a cyan (at the left) to blue (at the right) colour.

- Added support for the numpad's Enter key in all text edit controls.

- Added tabs to the Display Properties window to help break up the options, and to allow for more to be added without needing a bigger window. The current tabs are: General, Render, and Lights.

- It is now possible to change the ambient and direct light colours. These options are found under the new Lights tab on the Display Properties window.

- It is now possible to change the colours that the nodes and their connections are drawn in. It is also possible to disable the connections between the nodes using the 'Connect Nodes As' drop down list. These may be found under the Render tab.

- Many more predefined colours have been added to the colour drop down lists.

- When the user changes the angle of the direct light, a light box is displayed in the 3D view to give a better sense of where the light is being aimed. Under the Lights tab on the Display Window, the user may change the distance from the object that the light box is shown (given as a multiple of the object's radius). From here the user may also manually enter in a rotation for the direct light (using the SET button) as well as view in realtime the direct light's rotation.

- Timed automatic texture cache flushing is now implemented. Currently, it is quite heavy-handed as the entire texture cache is flushed rather than just those that have changed. This may cause a slight hesitation in the cursor when the cache is being reloaded. To enable this, go to the Materials window and at the bottom there is a checkbox as well as a place to enter in how many seconds there should be between flushes. There is also an icon in the toolbar with a picture of a 'T' and a toilet that will turn on and off the timed flushing (the same as if the user clicked on the checkbox in the Materials window).

- The page up and page down keys will now cycle the user through the loaded objects as if they were selected in the object drop down list.

- A reference axis is now displayed when the user rotates or translates the view. The appearance of the reference axis is different depending on if a rotation or translation is being performed. This axis may be disabled under the General tab of the Display Properties.

June 1, 2004 (first alpha release):

- Loading of multiple DTS objects into their own view. DSQ files may be loaded individually or through a standard .cs file to import multiple animation sequences at once. Using the 'Load DTS & CS' button is like loading an object in the TGE showtool where the TSShapeConstructor is called in a script file with the same name as the DTS file.

- A list of the last five loaded objects is available (will load only a DTS without first executing the script file, for now)

- Multiple rendering formats: textured shaded, untextured shaded, flat shaded, textured wireframe, front face wireframe, wireframe, vertices, and bounding boxes.

- User selectable bitmaps for environmental mapping -- See the Display Properties window (for choosing multiple emaps) or click on the 'EM' button at the top of the ShowTool (which will toggle that last chosen emap).

- The light source may be moved around with the mouse in a 'trackball'-like fashion, or turned off for unobstructed viewing of the applied textures. While holding down the 'l' key, press the left mouse button and drag. This will move the primary light around. Clicking on the 'lightbulb with an arrow' button at the top of the ShowTool will toggle this mode on without needing to hold down the 'l' key.

- The light source may be turned off by pressing the 'L' (shift-l) key, clicking the lightbulb button at the top of the ShowTool, or through the Display Properties window.

- The current texture mip map level may be changed at any time with a key press. Use the up and down arrow keys to control this, and look at the 'Mip Map Base' value in the bottom left of the ShowTool

- Textures may be flushed and reloaded with a key press. Press the 't' key or go to the Material List window and press the 'Flush Texture Cache' button.

- All material properties are displayed in the Material List window.

- A user definable grid at 'ground level' -- see the Display Properties window

- The view background may be a solid colour (selected from a list or user defined) or a bitmap. A snapshot of a game's level could be used as the background. -- See the Display Properties window

- All nodes and their parental links may be shown. -- See the Display Properties window

- When a node is selected, its world position and rotation are shown as well as a graphical representation of the node's axis.

- Individual object bounding boxes (rendered solid or wireframe) and collision meshes may be displayed.

- Any loaded object may be mounted to any node on another object. -- Use the 'CM' button at the top of the ShowTool to activate collision meshes. Use the button with a box on it at the top of the ShowTool to activate solid bounding boxes. Alternatively, go to the Display Properties window.

- Levels of detail may be manually selected or automatically displayed as they would in game. -- See the Detail Levels window

- Animation sequences may be played forwards or backwards at a user defined time scale. The sequence may also be scrubbed through using the animation slider control. -- The time scale is the text edit control at the bottom right. Be sure to press return after changing the value

- All animation sequence attributes may be viewed using the Sequence Info window.