This new version can be downloaded by opening Defold and allowing the editor to self-update.
All releases can be downloaded at: https://github.com/defold/defold/releases
Official forum thread with complete update notes: https://forum.defold.com/t/defold-1-8-1-has-been-released/77064/16
Defold 1.8.1 includes new engine features like error handling for file writes, options for disabling LiveUpdate auto-mounting, and support for Lua transpilers, new and improved camera component and API, as well as numerous bug fixes related to meshes, sprites, fonts, HTTP requests, and editor UI issues.
We’d like to highlight the initial support for Lua transpilers in the build pipeline (both editor and bob). The first language that can be used to try the transpiler feature is Teal 37 — a typed dialect of Lua. You will need to add teal extension 13 to the dependencies to try it out. The support is currently limited to transpilation only and excludes automatic extern generation for Defold’s Lua APIs. This means it is more useful for writing type-safe standalone logic than interacting with Defold runtime, though teal allows writing necessary externs yourself.
The first iteration of an improved camera component has been added in this version of Defold. The camera API is now available in all scripts (including render scripts and gui scripts) via the camera namespace, and contain new functionality to bind a camera to the renderer instead of passing explicit view and projection matrices to it.