A number of changes introduced in breve 2.0 may require small changes to simulations written in previous versions of breve (1.x). These changes and instructions on upgrading simulations are discussed below.
MultiBody functionality has been changed the section called “Changes to MultiBody Functionality”
Arrays are now deprecated the section called “Arrays Are Now”
The Data class has been removed the section called “The Data Class is Now Obsolete”
The Vision class has been removed the section called “The "Visions" class has been removed”
Texture loading has been changed the section called “Loading Textures From the Controller Class is Now Deprecated”
MultiBodies are now optional. Some MultiBody functionality has changed, and some MultiBody methods have been removed.
The MultiBody class is used to manage a logical collection of connected links. Prior to version 2.0, all physically connected objects were required to be part of a MultiBody. This lead to complications when multiple MultiBodies would merge to form a single body, or when a single MultiBody would split to become two bodies.
In version 2.0, MultiBody objects are now optional. The Link class is now a subclass of Mobile, so Links can be created as real objects in the simulated world, and can be connected or disconnected from other links as desired. The MultiBody object is now a distinct class. It can be used, if desired, to move or rotate a group of connected link objects, but it is otherwise not required for physically simulated bodies.
Some of the methods which MultiBody previously inherited from the Real class are now no longer available (since MultiBody is no longer a subclass of Real or Mobile). You must now call these methods directly on the link objects associated with the MultiBody. The method get-all-connected-links will help you
Freeing a MultiBody will also no longer free all of the connected Link and Joint objects, and the associated bodies will remain in the simulation. If you want to destroy the simulated objects, you should call the method free-all-connected-objects before freeing the MultiBody.
If your simulation made use of MultiBodies prior to version 2.0, you may need to modify your simulation to account for the changes described above.
The use of arrays has now been deprecated and will be removed from a future release of breve: use lists instead
Lists have all of the functionality of arrays and more. Arrays existed for a short time before lists had been implemented, and have been around ever since, though they are only rarely used.
As of version 1.9, lists are indexed for fast access so that repeated list accesses are as fast as array accesses.
If your simulation uses arrays, you should convert them to lists to ensure compatibility in the future.
The Data class has been deprecated and will be removed from a future release of breve.
Because archiving and networking has been improved and allows for archiving of complex types such as objects and lists, the Data class is now obsolete. It will be removed from a future version of breve.
The same functionality can be reproduced using the new "Camera" class and the updated "Image" class.
The "Visions" class was used to provide the user with pixel buffers of rendered perspectives in the simulated world. This allowed multiple rendered perspectives in the main viewing window, but it also required reading pixels from the graphics card at each time step, an operation which is somewhat slow.
The new Camera class allows multiple perspectives to be rendered to the main output window without the slow pixel reading step. The updated Image class now allows pixels to be read from the main output window as desired. The Image class provides all of the functionality of the Vision class, and more: its pixels can be read or modified, it can be written to disk or used to texture another object in the simulation, and it can provide a pointer to raw pixel data.
One important note regarding differences between the Vision class and the Image class: Visions stored three separate pixel buffers for red, green, blue data. The Image class stores a single buffer containing interleaved red, green, blue and alpha pixels.
If your simulation used the Vision class in a prior version of breve, it will need to use the Camera and Image objects to preform the same functionality in the current version of breve.
Obtaining a "texture number" by loading an image from the Control class is now deprecated, as is using a texture number to set a texture, bitmap or lightmap. You should now load an image using the Image class, and use the Real object methods set-texture-image, set-bitmap-image and set-lightmap-image to apply textures, bitmaps and images.
The Image class provides much better control over textures than the previous method.