What this update lacks in amount of features, more than makes up for in fixes and optimizations. We already gave you a brief introduction to the UV Mapping Editor, one of the main stars in 3.8.3 but not the only big feature.
Character Attachment Merging (Shadows)
In CRYENGINE characters consist of many attachments, tied together via the skeleton. While this approach provides a lot of flexibility, it makes the rendering quite expensive as each part needs to be rendered individually. We optimized shadow rendering in a way where all attachments are merged into a set of large meshes which can be rendered with one draw call each.
UV Mapping Editor
The UV Mapping Editor provides easy and more powerful ways to define UVs of a designer object, very similar to what you could build in most DCC tools. We understand these tools can be difficult to learn, and simpler ones can’t accomplish the level of polish CRYENGINE users are accustomed to.
You can read the longer list of fixes and implementations here. For now, take a quick look at some of the important changes:
•New: Improved occlusion and indirect shadowing quality.
•New: Added two new Lightstyles (49/50) to simulate large and small open flame variations.
•Fixed: SplineDistributor can be hidden now.
•Fixed: New level - on creation, make an objectives.xml. Removes warnings in editor log.
•Fixed: Cubemap generation when SVOGI is in use.
•Fixed: CUIEntityTag first-frame flickering.
•Tweaked: Changed Vegetation Tool "UseSprites" checkbox to be unchecked by default. Sprites are no longer supported.
•Tweaked: only brushes need to notify the NavMesh of upcoming changes of their AABB.
Thanks for reading!
All the best,
The CRYENGINE team.