Beta Release 85

We released Beta Release 85 on Thursday October 17, 2019.

Note: There is no protocol change in this version.

Note

High Fidelity is an unsigned application. Due to Catalina's new security measures, users of Mac computers must now authorize the installation of High Fidelity from the System Preferences panel. We are actively working on signing and notarizing our Mac install in an upcoming release. In the meantime, please refer to our Installation FAQ for steps to install High Fidelity on Catalina.

New in v0.85.0!

  • Free Look Camera: The desktop and HMD controls to "look around" now control the camera direction rather than the direction your avatar is facing. For small rotations, the avatar will follow the camera with only its head and shoulders, rather than its entire body. Avatars now have a more natural and relaxed appearance in-world, while allowing you to manipulate the camera more freely in third person camera mode. All movement and camera controls remain the same from previous versions.

  • Selfie Mode: Mirror mode (accessible with the "2" key in desktop mode) has been replaced with a new selfie mode. Unlike mirror mode in past versions, you can now move around while looking at yourself and use the camera to look around.

NOTE:Though they are no longer available in the user interface, we did not remove the legacy camera modes from our JavaScript API. If you would like to re-enable the legacy behavior, refer to https://apidocs.vircadia.dev/Camera.html#.Mode.

  • Use Computer Default Audio: You now have the option to use your computer's default input and output devices as your High Fidelity audio settings. For new installations, this is the default. Using this new setting, Interface will use whatever your computer's audio settings are, even if you change them at the operating system level.

Improvements

Avatars

Cloud Domains

  • Improved error messaging and user flow when setting up cloud domains through High Fidelity's web interface.

Create

  • Removed detection of right-clicks for entities with link properties; previously, right-clicking on an entity with a link would activate the link, now it doesn't.

  • Added support of relative paths to the "link"/"href" property for entities.

  • Avatar entities can now be created even if the user is not connected to a domain.

Other Mentions

  • Enabled support for the use of port number in host names (for example, hifi://mysampledomain:40102).

  • On Mac, Interface no longer triggers the "App Nap" OS feature when minimized.

Fixes

Build System

  • Updated our included version of WebRTC to match the appropriate OSX version.

  • Suppressed benign warnings being thrown during Windows compilation process.

Audio

  • Recording.setPlayerVolume(volume) now correctly sets volume; Recording.setPlayerAudioOffset(audioOffset) is also implemented.

Avatars

  • Bugs were fixed when users would incorrectly receive an avatar theft message in the following circumstances:

    • Switching networks

    • Putting a computer to sleep

  • Fixed a bug that would occur when using the Avatar Uploader – scale values were incorrectly being scaled during additive blends.

Create

  • Deleted web entities no longer leave behind extra QtWebEngine processes.

  • Sound from a web entity no longer lingers when leaving the domain the web entity is in.

  • Avatar entities will now respect their "lifetime" property and go away when appropriate.

Rendering

  • Meshes with opacity maps will now look consistent regardless of the distance at which they are observed; fixes an issue where transparent objects would disappear at a distance.

Other Mentions

  • Fixed issue with extra QtWebEngine processes being created when entering and exiting sleep mode.

  • entityTreeRenderer.cpp no longer allows signals to get connected more than once.

  • Added code to prevent duplicate copies of 'controllerScripts.js' from running.

  • Fixed Mat4 methods to return the same values as respective Quat class.

  • Assets.initializeCache() now returns the correct value; previously, it always returned false.

  • Addressed an error that would occur during baking of FBX meshes with no indices.

  • Steam release notes link now correctly directs to our release notes page at https://docs.highfidelity.com/release-notes.html.

  • Fixed the functionality of loadWebScreenOnTop in the TabletScriptingInterface.cpp file so it works the same way as loadQmlOnTop.

  • The Blocks app and script now works correctly, and the "BACK" or "CLOSE" buttons have been removed from the top of the screen.

Crash Fixes

  • Fixed crashes in the following scenarios:

    • Selecting the Calibration tab from the Controls window

    • On shutting down Interface on Mac computers (NOTE: We have fixed one crash condition that caused 100% crash on shutdown. We are aware of other crash conditions on shutdown that are occurring on occasion, and are actively working to identify their causes and fix them in future releases)

    • Addressed a race condition that was causing crashes when using HMDs

Android

There are no Android-specific fixes in this release.