V2.1 Release Notes

SoftWish is built with Softimage 3.7SP1. It will NOT run with earlier versions of Softimage. It has been tested on Intel and Alpha versions of NT 4.0 and Irix 5.3 and 6.2, mips2.

What's New

o Find is a new utility for selecting Softimage elements. Find is user extensible.

o UDEdit is a new utility for viewing or editing any user data. UDEdit can be extended to allow one to work with non-text data.

o NotesPlus is a new utility for working with model notes. NotesPlus runs on Irix as well as NT and can be configured to use most editors.

o SliderMaker has been improved by the addition of a select button. This lets you select the element the sliders are controlling.

o SoftWish 2.1 uses Tcl 8.0. The most notable improvements are a byte compiler and dual-ported variables. Performance is substantially improved.

o A new access procedure has been added for getting and setting array elements and structure fields. The old syntax is still supported but using the access procedure results in faster code.

o The SoftWishSliders and SoftWishChaos plugins .cus files are not installed by default, so as not to clutter Model->Effects. The .cus files need to be moved explicitly if you want to run these examples.

General Information

o When running on Windows NT SoftWish windows which appear on top of Softimage must be switched to using <ALT><TAB>.

o Documentation is in HTML. The installation does not move the documentation. It is on the CD or wherever you unpacked the download.

o The SoftWishDebugger menu entry appears in Display in all Softimage modules except Tools, where it appears in Viewer.

o The SoftWishConsole menu entry appears in Display in all Softimage modules except Tools, where it appears in Viewer.

Serious

o SoftWish standalone does not come up in the SoftWish interpreter. To enter the SoftWish interpreter you must perform one of the following actions:

type: <CRTL> 3

use the menu entry Console->Attach Console->Main (SoftWish)

move SI_LOCATION/3D/custom/SoftWish/home tkcon.cfg (NT) or .tkconrc (irix) to the users home directory.

o You cannot use the SoftWish Debugger to debug a new interactive plugin or tool until the current plugin or tool being debugged has called cleanup. If a plugin or tool fails to call cleanup you should restart Softimage before attempting to debug a new plugin or tool. There are no such limitations on Standalones or the Console.

o There is a problem with puts on Alpha NT at a certain stage (when starting Tk). If you use puts statements in your plugin they and SoftWish may not work on Alphas.

Annoying

o When SoftWishDebugger is selected it will minimize Softimage. If other windows are present the SoftWishDebugger window may appear behind them and so not be visible. We recommend minimizing all other windows before starting Softimage. The breakpoint facility in SoftWishDebugger is fragile and may become confused.

o Valid calls to SAA_sceneRefresh will fail when made from SoftWishDebugger. This is because Soft is minimized. You will need to debug your Setup and Edit entry point code from SoftWishConsole in this release. The other workaround is to wrap your procedures which call sceneRefresh with SW_maximize and SW_minimize, like this: {SW_maximize;someRefreshProcedure;SW_minimize}.

o SWC_databaseGet - to use a database which is NOT a system-wide database you must click the custom button and browse for the desired database. The database resource file in the users home directory is NOT searched by default.