A publicly editable resource of 308 articles related to the Virtual Paradise platform and friends.
Ground zero of Blizzard world
What is Virtual Paradise?
From the official website:Virtual Paradise is an online virtual universe consisting of several 3D worlds. In each world you can chat with others, create your own buildings and explore the environments built by other users of Virtual Paradise.
Option to multiply particle color with world ambient color
Buttons to apply terrain height, texture or rotation to multiple cells at once
Live update when changing terrain height, texture or rotation from object properties
Include VirtualParadise_No_Web.exe in installation package
Direct3D 11: Fix texture memory leak
Direct3D 11: Fix application hang when unloading textures
Fix particle emitter axis not showing up correctly
Fix crash when reading AWG files with text longer than 255 bytes
Fix new line characters not being read correctly from AWG files
Fix validation of length for model, action and description
Fix object not saving when deselecting a single object while multiple objects are selected
Fix highlighting of 'seq' command
Version 0.4.8
January 1 2024
Fix inaccuracy in clustered shading light assignment, which caused lighting artifacts in some cases
Show particle volume as bounding box
Show bounding rectangle for selected terrain cells
Gamepad support using XInput on Windows
Fix always falling through the floor if the first reconnection attempt fails
Select all objects in a 10x10m cell when holding CTRL
Separate VirtualParadise_No_Web.exe executable added on Windows, allowing VP to start without web support. Running this instead of the main executable might make VP run on older operating systems.
Update CEF to version 120
Fix hang at login window on Linux
Direct3D 9: Fix incorrect FVF value for CreateVertexBuffer, causing crash on AMD hardware
Direct3D 9: Change default of d3d9_white_texture to 1 (fixes rendering of opaque objects on AMD)
Direct3D 9: Add support for indexed drawing with base vertex. Fixes rendering of some md5mesh models.
Direct3D 11: Implement a texture memory budget, dropping the largest mip levels when needed (default 8192MB, controlled by texture_budget setting in the configuration file)
OpenGL 2: Improve shader compatibility by naming all structs, anonymous structs are not supported in GLSL
OpenGL 4: Fix abysmall performance on some hardware (AMD on Windows and Linux)
OpenGL 4: Fix incorrect color on specular highlights and dark areas on transparent surfaces
Vulkan: Support different primitive topologies (such as lines, fixing the selection boxes)
Vulkan: Fix rendering of 2D elements
Vulkan: Fix names/chat above avatars
Vulkan: Allow texture loading on background threads
Vulkan: Allow creating vertex buffers on background threads
Vulkan: Fix several validation warnings and errors
Vulkan: Show memory budgets in diagnostic text
Version 0.4.7
July 4 2023
Fix incorrect rotation for SEQ animations loaded from text-based SEQ files
Fix possible crash when opening the file to load a DDS texture fails
Fix fallback during socket connect on Windows (for example for servers with both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses, and the first attempt to connect fails)
Adjust texture loading in Direct3D 11 renderer to workaround texture corruption on AMD graphics cards with recent drivers
Updated CEF to v114
Version 0.4.6
March 18 2023
New
Add mask support to particle emitter objects
Rectangle selection for terrain, by holding shift while pressing the arrow keys.
Unfortunately the selection rectangle is still invisible in this version
The maximum width of the rectangle to be selected is 10 by default. It can be set using the terrain_max_selection_width world setting up to a maximum of 32
Add support for tag= to sign command
Support for prelight in RWX models
Support normal (norm) and specular maps (map_Ks) from OBJ MTL files
Automatically adjust offset of md5mesh avatars and add avatarOffsetY and textOffsetY settings to allow overriding offsets
World option to reverse diagonals in terrain mesh (terrain_reverse_diagonals)
Experimental Vulkan graphics mode, still hidden from the UI. See below for more information
Mac: Fog support in Metal renderer
Mac: Set initial keyboard focus to 3D view
Mac: Quit the application when the last window is closed
Mac: Teleport to world feature
Mac: Position display in status bar
Mac: Add ability to change type for newly created objects
Mac: Fill current position in teleport to coordinates window
Fixes
Fix error in OpenGL 4 shaders: Replace deprecated texture2D calls in shaders with texture (use of deprecated function was unnecessary and unintentional)
Fix possibly corrupted TLS connection if a lot of data is sent quickly, such as when importing a large object group
Fix aworld:? URLs in web pages opened with web command
Fix loop for MP3 sounds
Fix corrupted text in saved object groups for special characters
Fix crash when loading OBJ file with no valid faces
Fix SEQ not correctly preserving scale and shear
Fix bounding box and sphere for md5mesh models
Mac: Fix collapsing of sidebar in newer macOS versions
Mac: Fix crash when clicking on messages tab
Vulkan graphics mode
The Vulkan graphics mode is now approaching a usable state. It can be tested by setting renderer=6 in the virtualparadise.cfg file.
Clustered lighting similar to Direct3D 11, GL 4.x and Metal renderers
Multisample anti-alias support
Use uniform buffers instead of push constants for modelview matrix
Materials
All blending mode variations that VP uses are now supported
Rendering of the 'basic' version of the gradient sky (as is also used for Direct3D 9 and OpenGL 1.x. Uses vertex colors)
Textures including mipmap generation and anisotropic filtering
Normal map materials
Normal map materials with a specular map
Lighting equations made equal to the ones used for Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 4.x (previously the light intensity was not clamped)
Rotated terrain textures now render correctly
Improved performance by reducing unnecessary updates of uniform buffers
Particles are now rendered with the correct depth stencil state
Support upload of clustered shading data using staging buffers when necessary (if a mapped buffer is not available)
Version 0.4.5
August 3 2022
New:
Add sync option to animate command
Add teleport to world option in teleport menu
AppImage works on newer Linux distributions again
Default UI stylesheet is now VP2021
Improve file handling for MP3 and Opus sounds
OpenGL 4: Cloud texture layers in sky
OpenGL 4: Fix rendering of rotated terrain textures
OpenGL 4: Per pixel sky coloring
OpenGL 4: Use a sampler buffer for clusters buffer
Remove 16x from multisampling drop down in settings (this setting never worked)
Remove distance fade, since it has been broken for a while and was only supported in OpenGL 2.x mode
Use a larger font for chat
Fixes:
Fix crash on teleport commands that lead to different worlds
Fix owner not set for objects loaded from an object group file
Fix pressing middle mouse (scroll) button triggering a mouse down event on objects using web commands
Fix RWX material stack restoring incorrect material after block end
Fix RWX model groups not sorted for rendering opaque parts before transparent parts
Version 0.4.4
August 7 2021
New:
Avatar animations on avatars using RWX models (SEQ format)
Support SEQ command on objects using RWX models
Add transparent/opaque switch for web command
Apply picture update= refresh on initial load
Handle aworld:? URL commands in browsers opened with web command
Non-blocking connection setup (UI stays responsive while the connection to a server is being made)
Add option to settings to show or hide chat above avatars
Add FOV (field of view) option to camera command
Add 'Change world setting value' option in debug menu
Reordered items in debug menu
Linux version now distributed as an AppImage
Fixes:
Fix "Disable camera command" in debug menu
Fix potential crashing when joining or receiving a teleport command from a bot
Fix updating textures (picture update=)
Fix bug in texture management that could cause duplicate textures loading (using more memory)
Fix infinite loop when TLS handshake fails (causes error dialog that keeps reappearing after closing)
Fix window icon on Linux
Fix crash in OpenGL 4 renderer when using web command
Fix incorrect defaults for renderer type in settings dialog on Linux
Fix object placeholders (black triangles) not facing camera
Fix selection box on particle emitters appearing at incorrect location
Fix crash when switching worlds while objects are still selected
Fix scale and shear not resetting after editing object
Version 0.4.3
September 7 2020
New:
Action syntax highlighting
Go to named object feature in context menu of action edit
Interpolate camera position from physics simulation (smoother movement: see video)
Use save file dialog for 'Save screenshot' option in debug menu
Option to invert background color for highlighted messages
macOS: invert text color in dark mode on Mojave (10.14) and newer
macOS: disable automatic quote and dash substitution in action and description fields
Updated to Qt 5.15
Updated XAudio2 redist to 1.2.4
Updated CEF to v85
Fixes:
Fix chat text color after switching between light and dark themes
Fix jittery avatar animation with high frame rates
Fix streaming audio sources not getting cleaned up (XAudio2 only). After a certain number of played sounds no new sounds could be played.
Fix possible crash after login
Version 0.4.2
March 24 2020
New:
Sound output using XAudio2 on Windows
When the world list is ordered by user count descending, still sort by name ascending for equal numbers of users
Update to CEF version 80
Fixed:
Fix alpha parameter for specular command not working with world light
Version 0.4.1
October 31 2019
New:
New clustered shading lighting approach, removing the limit of 32 active lights. Implemented in Direct3D 11, OpenGL4 and Metal renderers.
Metal renderer now the default on macOS
New OpenGL 4 renderer
Special login window design for Tower of Terror: After Dark event
Reorganize renderer selection in settings dialog
Add options for frame rate limiting when VP is inactive to settings dialog
Use fixed width font for action input
Show application name and version in user context menu
Lock command (activate and bump triggers only)
Fog support in Direct3D 11 renderer
Updated web browser library (Chromium Embedded Framework)
Fixed:
Fix issue with loading GZIP-compressed files (the files were not closed properly, eventually nothing loads because the maximum number of open files is reached)
Fix race condition in unloading objects that could cause a crash
Fix leaking audio streams (memory and possibly file handles) that did not play until the end of the stream
Fix crash when the maximum number of sound sources is reached
Fix hanging when reconnecting to server
Fix specular lighting differences between OpenGL and Direct3D 11 (spot light falloff was not being applied to specular lighting in OpenGL shaders)
Fix particle emitter updates being delayed by 2 frames
Fix sound volume settings not being applied to new sounds (streaming sources only, static sources like WAV are unaffected)
Fix select recent objects debug action
Fix unable to create OpenGL context error on Linux
Fix incorrect Y coordinate in teleport dialog (value was offset by 0.175)
Fix exp2 fog mode for OpenGL 1.x renderer (exp was used instead of exp2)
Fix path objects not being selectable
Versions 0.3.x
Version 0.3.68
December 27 2018
New:
Experimental Metal-based renderer on macOS
Preferences UI on macOS
Restore old behavior for pivot of multi-object selections
Debug menu: Export list of textures with name, dimensions and format
Fixed:
Fix Debian package not installing on recent versions of the Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Fix Debian package not installing through Ubuntu Software Center
Fix crash when pressing certain keys with French keyboard layout (macOS only)
Fix loading status window (from debug menu) not appearing if it was closed earlier
Fix missing UI stylesheets on Linux
Fix missing icons in object properties window on Linux
Fix move command inadvertently waiting twice the wait time at the start of the animation (when both loop and wait are used)
Fix particle fade in not working in some cases
Fix start world setting (macOS)
Fix world name used for terrain, invite and join being overridden by "worldname" world setting
Version 0.3.67
July 17 2018
New in this version:
Format date in object properties window based on the system locale
Use last selected object's origin and rotation as the pivot for multi-object selections (the original behavior was also broken in the previous version)
Support for custom cache folder location
Extended command support for OBJ models:
Normal map
Specular map
Opacity
Color
Improved libcurl based download manager
Time out stalled requests after 30 seconds
Don't write response body of failed requests to disk (404 Not Found etc.)
Use libcurl based download manager on Windows (instead of WinInet based downloader, the libcurl based download manager seems to be faster)
New cfg options: downloader=curl, downloader=wininet
Assign signs to group name vp_sign on OBJ and MD5Mesh models
Assign pictures to group name vp_picture on OBJ and MD5Mesh models
Apply graphics settings immediately in Direct3D 9 and 11 (without restarting)
When changing settings, only show the restart required warning if there are actually changed settings that can't be applied without restarting
Fixed in this version:
Fix incorrect UI styles on Windows
Fix RWX rendering groups with differing LightSampling values being merged, resulting in incorrect rendering
Fix specular lighting for positional lights with Direct3D 11 renderer
Fix crashes because of incorrect cross-thread access of model collision data
Fix deadlock when accessing collision object from bump triggers (non-Windows platforms)
Fix particle emitters disappearing because of frustum culling. Frustum culling is now disabled for particle emitters.
Fix invisible objects with move/rotate/path staying invisible in build mode (making them impossible to select)
Fix VPSDK corruption when start world entry fails, caused reconnect dialogs to appear
Fix crash when a RWX file contains vertex index 0 or lower
Fix camera rotation limits not being applied in build mode (allows rotation using mouse controls to exceed 90 degrees up/down)
Fix PNG texture transparency not working on MD5Mesh and OBJ models
Fix Kd (diffuse) value from MTL file being interpreted as ambient in illum 0 mode (OBJ model materials)
Fix OBJ group names not being read correctly for files with Windows line end characters
Version 0.3.66
February 7 2018 (Windows), February 11 2018 (macOS)
New scene management for visibility determination and collision:
Fix animated objects no longer updating after they move out of view
Fix objects becoming non-solid if an animation moves the object more than 30m away from the object's origin
Fix incorrect depth sorting of objects when using 3rd person or object cameras resulting in incorrect rendering of (semi-)transparent objects
Performance characteristics might be different. In general, performance is better for scenes with mostly static objects. Because moving objects that are out of view are now also updated correctly, this can lead to reduced performance in some cases.
Fix move/rotate commands on objects that are part of an object group
Fix depth sorting for objects that are part of an object group
Debug menu option to disable camera commands
Default renderer on Windows changed to Direct3D 11
Default renderer on Linux changed to OpenGL with shaders
Version 0.3.65
October 13 2017
MP3 sound support
Entry point world setting
Correctly stop sound sources when starting a new sound on the same object (Opus, Ogg Vorbis, MP3)
Version 0.3.64
September 27 2017
Fix incorrect near clipping plane on Direct3D 9 and 11 renderers
Fix spot lights not working properly on objects that use scale
Fix stereo WAV sound files not playing with 3D positioning
Fix typo in invitation accepted message
Map MD5 animation joints to mesh joints by name instead of relying on both files to have the same joint ordering
Version 0.3.63
September 10 2017
Add a horizontal separator line to chat when switching to a different world
Fix "solid no" command not having an immediate effect if the object is already being touched
Fix VP crashing without any notification
Fix all particle emitters in a selection being overwritten by the settings of the last selected particle emitter
Fix audio files with uppercase file extension not being recognized
Fix incorrect rotation applied for path animations
Fix loading of DDS textures without mipmaps
Fix reset rotation button not marking the object as changed, resulting in it not being saved properly unless other changes were made as well
Fix texture command on MD2 models
Hide user names for consecutive messages by the same user
Improve error handling in Direct3D device creation
Improve frame rate of web browser
Specific particle type for double sided flat panels
Support lower WAV sample rate (wind.wav seems to use 7333 Hz)
Support tag parameter for normalmap and specularmap commands
Version 0.3.62
July 9 2017
Particle spin support
Random start angle support for particle emitters
Flat panel type particles are now double sided
Fix sky blinking when world settings change
Fix double free in Ogg Vorbis reading code (possible crash when sound stops playing)
Version 0.3.61
May 13 2017
Gradient sky
Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 2.x renderer: Shader based per pixel calculated gradient, 2 cloud layers
Direct3D 9 and OpenGL 1.x/fixed function: Colored vertex based gradient, no cloud layers
Shader path for OpenGL and Direct3D 11 as config file option (opengl_shader_path and d3d11_shader_path)
Fix crash when texture file fails to load and is reported by the loading code as a 0x0 sized image
Fix sound attached to invisible object playing at (0, 0, 0)
Fix radius not being applied to non-streaming sound sources, resulting in them playing with unlimited range (WAV files)
Updated Dutch translation
Add English translation to make plurals work correctly ("n world(s)" becomes "n world" or "n worlds" based on the value of n)
Version 0.3.60
January 28 2017
Change default maximum for the visibility menu to 400m
Fix buffer mapping in OpenGL ES 2 renderer
Fix deadlock issue with light command when there is already a light attached to the object
Fix handling of connection error during sending (client sometimes didn't detect that the connection was dropped and didn't report a disconnect for this reason)
Fix index buffer initial data handling in OpenGL ES 2 renderer
Invite functionality
Loading status window available from debug menu
New world settings for quality setting recommendations: recommend_light_count and recommend_per_pixel_lighting. A warning will be shown when entering a world if the recommended requirements aren't met.
Radius parameter for sounds (the default is 50m)
Support specular lighting for positional lights in OpenGL with shader rendering
Version 0.3.59
January 8 2017
Fix disconnections due to issues in the network code
Fix illum command in OBM MTL files not working (illum 1 was always used)
Fix VBO's being leaked and recreated when MD5 meshes have multiple instances (OpenGL with shaders renderer)
Version 0.3.58
December 31 2016
Add buttons for account creation and recovery to login screen
Adjust light frustum culling to account for light brightness
Disable group index based tags for RWX models (conflicted with manually specified tags from the model file)
Fix crash when reading file from ZIP fails
Fix faces in OBJ file not being read correctly if there is more than one space between the "f" command and the first group of vertex indices
Fix handling of OBJ with indices higher than the maximum value of a 16-bit integer (ignore faces above this limit)
Fix loading of mask BMP files exported by Preview
Fix tab order in particle object editor
Fix unnecessary reloading of world with teleport command without parameters
Improve reading of data/long string fields in network protocol
Remove logging of camera commands to the chat
Save username and password functionality for Windows
Share MD5 mesh data between multiple instances of the same model
Support separate 3D positions for left and right audio channel of stereo sounds (assigned to named objects using leftspk=name and rightspk=name)
Updated Chromium Embedded Framework (internal browser) to 2883 branch
Updated Qt version bundled with VP on Windows to 5.7.1
World setting for run speed (run_speed, default 2.4)
World setting for walk speed (walk_speed, default 0.3)
World setting to enable/disable flying (allow_flying, default 1)
Version 0.3.57
November 3 2016
OBJ model support
Remove fade in of fire light fx
Support for using tag= to assign materials to named groups in OBJ and MD5 models
Windows raw mouse input (much better sample rate) and support for optional mouse filter
Fix crash when mask file failed to open
Fix incorrect rendering of concave quads from RWX models (like parch01.rwx) by tesselating them like other n-sided polygons
Fix loading of VPPTSV object group files with "inf" values in the RotationAngle field (this is used as a flag to signal that the Rotation X, Y and Z fields contain euler angles instead of an axis-angle rotation)
Fix loop not working for rotate command when time is specified without wait
Version 0.3.56
September 28 2016
Rotation angles in path object editor grid
Use a different way of creating the OpenGL context in the Qt 5 GUI (fixes keyboard focus issue in bug #129)
Sound volume setting
Fix OpenGL GPU based vertex skinning for MD5 models not working when EXT_gpu_shader4 is not available as an extension but the OpenGL version is 3.0 or higher
Fix URL's containing pipe characters not being saved because the character is not valid in a Windows file name
Fix crashing issues with v-sync on Mac OS X
Fix existing light not removed from object when replacement light is deemed "invisible" (bug #135)
Fix handling of commas and semicolons for quoted strings in action commands (fixes bug #106)
Fix loading of object path texture names containing slash or colon characters
Fix low frame rate in CEF web browsers
Fix object owner name of previously selected object not being cleared from the object properties window (fixes bug #133)
Fix too dark colors when sRGB OpenGL extensions are available but the framebuffer is not sRGB capable. Either shader based color conversion will be used or sRGB will be disabled
Version 0.3.55
September 12 2016
64-bit version for Windows
Button to open storage folder in settings dialog
Chat color invert setting using Qt property in style sheet (old config file and command line options are removed, css property can be set like this: "ChatViewWidget { qproperty-invert_colors: true; }")
Cube3's VP UI themes bundled
Fix incorrect lighting for normal mapped materials on OpenGL with shaders renderer
Fix mask from last rendered object being applied to web overlay
Fix name persisting after being removed from action (bug #126)
Fix normal map texture specified in RWX file affecting world colors with renderers that don't support normal maps
Friends list sorting
Installer on Windows
Resize textures to power of 2 sizes disabled by default
Store cache and configuration file on Windows in local appdata folder
Style sheet option in configuration and settings dialog
Support for looping of sounds using Vorbis and Opus files
Use Windows Unicode file paths
Volume setting for sound and noise command (volume=0.5 makes the volume 50%, this can also be called without a sound name to change the volume of the currently playing sound on the target object)
World setting for disabling the debug menu (setting key allow_debug_menu)
World setting for visibility override (setting key override_visibility)
Version 0.3.54
August 6 2016
Sound support with 2D and 3D sound sources. Supported file formats are Ogg Vorbis, Opus and WAV (PCM only)
Camera command (attach camera to named objects)
Home key switches to first person camera
Fix group objects being assigned to wrong owner 0, making it impossible to use commands with name to refer to objects inside the group
Fix incorrect lighting for point lights
Fix light positions not updating for lights attached to invisible objects with move/rotate animations
Fix live updating of world light settings
Fix object editor not working for particle emitter objects on Mac OS X
Fix particles rendering up side down
Fix possible deadlock (client freezing) in adone trigger handling
Fix rotate command not having an implicit infinite wait time when an animation duration is specified (time=)
Version 0.3.53
June 28 2016
Object group loading using group command
Particle object editor UI (Windows and Linux)
Special optimization case for single particle sprite rendering using particle emitters (no vertex buffer updates for every frame necessary)
Spot lights
Version 0.3.52
June 12 2016
Add links to wiki and bug tracker to help menu
Create vertex buffers and textures from background threads with Direct3D 11 renderer when driver reports support, can be disabled with d3d11_concurrent_creates=0 setting
Fix crash when loading model list file containing empty lines
Fix crashing when world settings are received before renderer is initialized
Fix incorrect detection of GL_EXT_gpu_shader4 (for MD5 rendering using OpenGL)
Fix only first MD5 vertex weight being used when rendering with OpenGL shaders
Fix possible crash in mask bitmap loader
Fix world settings not loading properly
Mac OS X: Changed world list icons to match Windows/Linux version (and added 2x resolution version for retina displays)
Mac OS X: Disable pop-up button below users list if there is no selection
Mac OS X: Don't show users list context menu if there is no selection
Mac OS X: Fix broken MD5 rendering with Nvidia GPUs
Mac OS X: Fix crash after login if v-sync is enabled
Mac OS X: Remember username after successful login
Mac OS X: Show user ID in users list context menu
Mac OS X: Use max_fixed_visibility for visibility menu
Version 0.3.51
May 22 2016
Drop down list with auto-completion for model field in object properties (list can be loaded from a file from the right-click menu of the model field)
Faster maximum speed for camera rotation
Faster running acceleration when CTRL/Option is pressed
Fix crash in RWX loader with RWX files that combined many nested clumps and prototypes
Fix initial right click on friends list not selecting item (Mac OS X)
Fix look up/down/level menu items (Mac OS X)
Fix web views not working after a popup window is opened
GPU vertex skinning for OpenGL with shaders renderer (renders animated MD5 more efficiently)
Improved error messages at login screen (Mac OS X)
Live update support for world settings
Menu items to change camera mode (Mac OS X)
Pointing hand mouse cursor for activatable objects
Small performance improvements for MD5 mesh and animation loading
Support different mouse cursors for web overlay
Support server side univere start world setting
Tag support for ambient, diffuse, specular and opacity commands
TLS secure connection support
World setting skybox_extension to allow using non JPEG textures for skyboxes
Version 0.3.50
March 14 2016
Avatar animation with MD5 models
Changed walking speed behavior (go back to old behavior using old_walking_speed=1 setting)
Compile fewer shaders for OpenGL (duplicate vertex shaders for different light counts)
Don't reload world when joining someone in the same world
Fix avatar dialog crashing on Mac OS X
Fix freeze when loading MD5 animations
Fix object not being deleted if server rejects the new object
Fix terrain not rendering when a large terrain offset is set in world settings
GPU based MD5 animation when using Direct3D 11 renderer
Load configuration from "~/Library/Preferences/Virtual Paradise Preferences" on Mac OS X
Load fewer shaders for Direct3D 11 (duplicates vertex shaders for different light counts)
Position and rotation editing in object properties
Read avatar list from YAML file on the object path instead of world settings
VP About dialog
Version 0.3.49
January 2 2016
Disable GL_ALPHA_TEST in OpenGL renderer when when blending is disabled (potential performance improvement)
Fix crash when area gets unloaded while queries were still in progress for that area.
Fix delay in closing object properties window on Mac OS X
Fix double entries in user list after teleporting on Mac OS X
Fix hang on Mac OS X when other users change terrain
Fix possible crash or slowdown in MD2 rendering because of NaN values in the currentFrame variable (uninitialized memory).
Frame rate counter for Mac OS X
Handle Direct3D 11 shader loading errors without crashing
