*Note: The web installer will detect and download for you the dependencies required to run Visual3D.NET Beta 3.1, while the standalone installer only installs Visual3D.NET (so if you don't already have the dependencies installed, it will not run!).

Visual3D.NET Dependencies are:

• XNA 1.0 Refresh
• .NET 3.5 SP1

Installation TroubleShooting for Web Installer
Note, if the web installer runs, but Visual3D.NET fails to run, there is a good chance that the dependencies were not auto-installed as they should have been.  Please re-install using the Web Installer, and this time select the "Advanced" button and then check the top 3 boxes, to force all of the dependencies to install, as shown here.

Additional information about the Beta 3.1 release will be reported here once it is available.

Known Issues for V0.9.1 (Beta 3.1):

1. Won't install on some Non-English Installations of Windows/Vista (e.g. German). 

   Solution:  As "Admin" you must create a new user group called "Users".  See this post for more details.

Previous Releases

Known Issues for V0.9 (Beta 3.0):

• Don't use the "Terrain" tab at top. This should have been removed for this release as it shows the old terrain tools that have become obsoleted (and now are buggy too). If you select this tab, it will show you tools that will cause error dialogs to show. Use the "EarthBuilder" tab and tool set that exists for it. For Beta 3.0, it's still awkward, incomplete and has some bugs, but we've got a team working on this toolset until it's fixed and finished.
• Lost Isle 2 scene may run slowly for lower end PCs and graphics cards. To help with performance, you can press F6 and select "Middle" or "Low" graphics quality settings. Also, you might want to disable Anti-Aliasing, as well as Advanced Skies to see how this helps out. You can use the Terrain Console to vary the density of vegetation too. Set your resolution to 800x600 for higher performance too. Higher end systems will run Lost Isle just fine.
• While Scene Editing (Design Mode) the first attempt to set focus on an object will cause an Error Dialog to appear. Click "Cancel" (don't submit this error to us, we already know about it and have it fixed!), and then try it again. It only shows an error for the first object that you do this for. After that, it works just fine.
• Crashes when you take camera below the water, showing a windows application error. This seems to only happen on some Vista systems, and we have not resolved it yet, but we are committed to resolving it for v0.9.1 (Beta 3.1) next week.

 
Optional Patch for Beta 2.4 is available for Vista64 users only.
To learn more about the "Texture Browser Crash" Bug, Visit this Forum Thread and see if it applies to you. So far, this bug seems to only affect *some* Vista64 users. If you are a non-Vista64 user and experience this same problem, please response to this forum post and let us know.

Changes for each Beta Release:
What's New in Beta 2.4:

1. Bug Fixes for all reported bugs from Beta 2.3 (if you reported a bug with 2.3 on our forums, you should expect to find it fixed in Beta 2.4.
2. Enhancements to LandCover feature, making it more fine tuned, performant, flexible, and gorgeous.
3. Model & Material Editor Upgrades! New capability added for LOD generation and configuration, and more optimizations/fixes for the art path as you import your own models into Visual3D scenes.
4. Physics Upgrades! Check out the enhancements to the physics demos, which are more fun than ever, and also we have Vehicle physics working inside GIS2 terrains.
5. GIS2 Terrain System Maturations! We've made some quality and performance gains with this release. Our goal is to make our GCM/GIS2 Terrain system be usable for most game genres, as well as for real-earth full-globe terrain rendering.
6. Save/Load Fixes: More fixes implemented here to improve the quality of our Save/Load for scene layouts and content. Black Skull Studios served as a prime test case for us.
7. Black Skull Studios Scenes Included: Come see what these guys have done with Visual3D, using only the Toolset alone (codeless scene layouts and lighting).
8. Terrain Toolset Maturing: This toolset is still not usable, but in this version you can witness this toolset taking shape.
9. Hiccup Detection and Remedy: Now if your GPU falls behind your GPU (for high content graphical scenes), Visual3D will auto-detect this and rectify the situation by slowing down FPS to make the CPU and GPU synchronize. This eliminates the annoying hiccups and latencies that can occur when the GPU falls behind.
10. Enhanced Collada Support! Are you having trouble with OGRE formats? Give COLLADA a try. We are offering first class support for this model format, and the Model/Material Editors allow you to do corrections directly inside the toolset.
11. More... We are surely forgetting to mention some things, and may add to this later on.

What's New in Beta 2.3:
Lost Isle LandCover and New Terrain system
- Come see 1000's of plants on the island at once, rendered efficiently with advanced automated use of impostors.
- Come see the first view of our GIS2 terrain system which will obsolete the existing terrain systems.

Configurable Landcover:
- Geometry plants automatically placed around camera based on number of parameters declared in XML file (radius, density, scale etc);
- Billboard plants, auto-generated billboard image from real 3D model (fully customizable) from various orientations;
- Billboard plants are synchronized in orientation with 3D model for seamless LOD transitions;
- Fully asynchronous placement of plants;
- Effective frustrum culling for plants allows to remove invisible plants out of rendering queue;
- Normal map is generated for billboard plants (taking 3D model for source normals), allowing dynamic sunlight and ambient+diffuse lighting;
- Geometry plans can cast and receive shadows;
- Plants can be easily animated with sine-wave pattern, applied to entire plant or only it's given part;
- Fade In/Out effects between geometry/billboard LODs and fade-out at far distances; slowly fade in plants which are just appeared during camera movement;
- Fade effects between billboard "orientations" instead of immediate rotation;
- Landcover also can be procedurally generated with user-specified generator function;
- Landcover can be also defined by one (or more) images of various formats, including JPG/PNG/BMP/TGA/DDS and others;
- Landcover can be defined in XML file and tweaked at runtime with large number of customizations (including animation parameters and sprite LOD settings);

Iron-Python Basic Scripting - Preview:
- ScriptedCTF Scene: Capture The Flag using scripted logic described in a script file "ctftasks.py" (python) and "CTFTasks.cs" (C#).
- Console with the built-in interpreter and commands (use "`" key to open and type "help" for available commands)
- Can change code of tasks in run-time through the console using the following commands to reload; ReloadTasks(), ReloadTask("TaskName"). (python only)

More information about this releases advances will be added as it becomes available.