Major improvements:
- Load TaxiPathNode.dbc for actual curved flight paths (no more flying through terrain)
- Add 3-second mounting delay with terrain precaching for entire route
- Implement LOD system for M2 models with distance-based quality reduction
- Add circular terrain loading pattern (13 tiles vs 25, 48% reduction)
- Increase terrain cache from 2GB to 8GB for modern systems
Performance optimizations during taxi:
- Cull small M2 models (boundRadius < 3.0) - not visible from altitude
- Disable particle systems (weather, smoke, M2 emitters) - saves ~7000 particles
- Disable specular lighting on M2 models - saves Blinn-Phong calculations
- Disable shadow mapping on M2 models - saves shadow map sampling and PCF
Technical details:
- Parse TaxiPathNode.dbc spline waypoints for curved paths around terrain
- Build full path from node pairs using TaxiPathEdge lookup
- Precache callback triggers during mounting delay for smooth takeoff
- Circular tile loading uses Euclidean distance check (dx²+dy² <= r²)
- LOD fallback to base mesh when higher LODs unavailable
Result: Buttery smooth taxi flights with no terrain clipping or performance hitches
Reverted M2 rendering skip. Instead disable M2 collision/floor queries
during taxi (externalFollow mode) for performance. M2 models remain
visible but don't affect movement, grounding, or camera collision during
flight paths.
Disabled M2 doodad rendering (trees, rocks, etc) and their shadows
during taxi flights to improve performance. Terrain and WMO structures
still render. M2 rendering resumes when taxi ends.
- Rider character bobs with mount's run animation (sinusoidal, 0.12u amplitude)
- Mount hoofbeat footstep sounds triggered at 4 points per animation cycle
- M key opens map directly to player's current zone instead of continent
- Mouse wheel scroll zooms map in/out between world, continent, and zone views
- Fog of war darkens unexplored zones on continent view, clears on visit
Render mount M2 model under player with seated animation, apply creature
skin textures, server-driven speed via SMSG_FORCE_RUN_SPEED_CHANGE, and
/dismount command. X11 XUngrabPointer on crash/hang to always release mouse.
- M2 interior darkening now uses global player-inside-WMO flag instead
of per-instance queries that were unreliable
- Fix carpet/rug sliding by skipping lateral collision push when player
is standing on top of any stepable low object, not just platforms
- Implement flight path system: SMSG_SHOWTAXINODES parser, CMSG_ACTIVATETAXIEXPRESS builder, BFS multi-hop pathfinding through TaxiNodes/TaxiPath DBC, taxi destination UI, movement blocking during flight
- Fix WMO interiors too dark by boosting vertex color lighting multiplier
- Dim M2 objects inside WMO interiors (rugs, furniture) via per-instance interior detection
- Fix ramp/stair clipping by lowering wall collision normal threshold from 0.85 to 0.55
- Restore 5-sample cardinal footprint for ground detection to fix rug slipping
- Fix /unstuck command to reset player Z to WMO/terrain floor height
- Handle MSG_MOVE_TELEPORT_ACK and SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING for hearthstone teleports
- Fix spawning under Stormwind with online-mode camera controller reset
Enrich online inventory from local DB when server data is incomplete, add
resolveOnlineItemGuid fallback for sell/equip/use, use async enqueueTile for
initial terrain load, improve walk/run animation fallbacks, clear target on
loot close, and broaden equipability detection to include armor/subclass.
Fix spell cast target fallback using selected target instead of no-op tautology.
Fix SMSG_ITEM_QUERY_SINGLE_RESPONSE to always read 10 stat pairs (server sends
all 10 regardless of statsCount), fixing misaligned armor/stat reads. Fix XP gain
parser to read float groupRate + uint8 RAF instead of bogus uint32 groupBonus.
Add item icons and quality-colored names to loot window. Use actual character
appearance bytes for CharSections.dbc skin/face/hair lookups instead of hardcoded
defaults. Add weapon-type-aware attack animation selection (2H prioritizes anim 18).
Add readable spell cast failure messages and vendor sell hint.
Enhanced the C-key character screen with a 3-column layout featuring a 3D
character model preview (with drag-to-rotate), item icons loaded from BLP
textures via ItemDisplayInfo.dbc, and a stats panel showing base + equipment
bonuses. Fixed selection circle clipping under terrain by adding a Z offset,
and corrected faction hostility logic that was wrongly marking hostile mobs
as friendly.
Split inventory into bags-only (B key) and character screen (C key). Vendor window
auto-opens bags with sell prices on hover and right-click to sell. Add camera intro
pan on all login/spawn/teleport/hearthstone events and idle orbit after 2 minutes.
Add quest log UI, SMSG_MONSTER_MOVE handling, deferred creature spawn queue, and
creature fade-in/movement interpolation for online mode.
Replace flat mesh rendering of additive/mod blend batches (blendMode >= 3)
with camera-facing point sprites using a soft radial gradient texture and
additive blending. Adds M2 particle emitter infrastructure (structs, shader,
parsing stubs) but disables emitter parsing — the assumed 476-byte struct
size is wrong for WotLK 3.3.5a, causing misaligned reads that explode RAM.
Replace the 3D top-down rendered minimap with WoW's native pre-rendered
BLP tile textures loaded via md5translate.trs. Tiles are composited into
a 3x3 grid FBO with proper axis transposition matching the ADT terrain
convention. The screen shader provides camera-rotation, circular mask,
directional player arrow, and 20% transparency. Minimap is now on by
default with the N toggle key removed.
Centralizes all coordinate conversions in core/coordinates.hpp with
proper canonical WoW coords (+X=North, +Y=West, +Z=Up). Fixes critical
tile calculation bug that was loading wrong surrounding tiles during
terrain streaming, and fixes position sync sending ADT-raw format
instead of canonical coordinates to the server.
Drop specular lighting from terrain shader — ground materials (dirt, grass,
stone) are purely diffuse and specular highlights made them look plastic.
Replace Reinhard tonemapper with a shoulder-only compressor that is identity
below 0.9 and softly rolls off HDR values above, preserving scene contrast.
Replace hardcoded specular multipliers with uLightColor * uSpecularIntensity
uniforms in all 4 world shaders (terrain, WMO, M2, character), set HDR sun
color (1.5, 1.4, 1.3) and specular intensity 0.5 so highlights can exceed
1.0, and switch the post-process pass from passthrough to exposure-compensated
Reinhard (exposure=1.8) for soft highlight roll-off without clipping.
Render the world into an off-screen MSAA RGBA16F framebuffer, resolve
to a regular texture, then blit to screen via a fullscreen quad shader.
This sets up the infrastructure for future HDR tonemapping and SSAO
(depth texture preserved for sampling). Currently a passthrough until
HDR light sources are added. Login screen bypasses the FBO and renders
directly to the default framebuffer.
Anisotropic filtering now queries GL_MAX_TEXTURE_MAX_ANISOTROPY_EXT once
and applies via a single applyAnisotropicFiltering() utility, replacing
hardcoded calls across all renderers. Fog (sky horizon color, 100-600
range) and Blinn-Phong specular highlights are added to WMO, M2, and
character shaders for visual parity with terrain. Shadow sampling
plumbing (sampler2DShadow with 3x3 PCF) is wired into all three shaders
gated by uShadowEnabled, ready for a future shadow map pass.
Replace UV scroll workaround for chimney smoke with proper GL_POINTS
particle system. Smoke particles rise, expand, drift, and fade over
4-7 seconds. One in eight particles spawns as a bright orange/red
ember spark. Enable 4x multisample antialiasing for smoother edges
on player models, fences, and foliage.
- Add spellbook screen (P key) with Spell.dbc name lookup and action bar assignment
- Default Attack and Hearthstone spells available in single player
- Fix WMO floor clipping (gryphon roost) by tightening ceiling rejection threshold
- Darken ocean water, increase wave motion and opacity
- Add M2 model distance fade-in to prevent pop-in
- Reposition chat window, add slash/enter key focus
- Remove debug key commands (keep only F1 perf HUD, N minimap)
- Performance: return chat history by const ref, use deque for O(1) pop_front
Movement:
- Fix speed controls: Shift=sprint (28), normal run (14), Ctrl=walk (5)
- Reduce character height for doorway clearance (eye height 1.2)
- Add working crouch (C or X key) with smooth transition (eye height 0.6)
- Jump to stand up from crouch
M2 Animation:
- Add animation time tracking per M2 instance
- Add procedural swaying animation in vertex shader
- Update animation each frame for vegetation movement
