Other players previously appeared partially naked — only chest, legs, feet,
hands, cape, and tabard rendered. Now renders full equipment:
- Helmet M2 model: loads from ItemDisplayInfo.dbc with race/gender suffix,
attaches at head bone (point 0/11), hides hair geoset under helm
- Weapons: mainhand (attachment 1) and offhand (attachment 2) M2 models
loaded from ItemDisplayInfo, with Weapon/Shield path fallback
- Wrist/bracer geoset (group 8): applies when no chest sleeve overrides
- Belt/waist geoset (group 18): reads GeosetGroup1 from ItemDisplayInfo
- Shoulder M2 attachments deferred (separate bone attachment system)
Also applied same wrist/waist geosets to NPC and character preview paths.
Minimap: batch 9 individual vkUpdateDescriptorSets into single call.
Squared distance optimizations across 30 files:
- Convert glm::length() comparisons to glm::dot() (no sqrt)
- Use glm::inversesqrt() for check-then-normalize patterns (1 rsqrt vs 2 sqrt)
- Defer sqrt to after early-out checks in collision/movement code
- Hottest paths: camera_controller (21), weather particles, WMO collision,
transport movement, creature interpolation, nameplate culling
Container and algorithm improvements:
- std::map<string> → std::unordered_map for asset/DBC/MPQ/warden caches
- std::mutex → std::shared_mutex for asset_manager and mpq_manager caches
- std::sort → std::partial_sort in lighting_manager (top-2 of N volumes)
- Double-lookup find()+operator[] → insert_or_assign in game_handler
- Add reserve() for per-frame vectors: weather, swim_effects, WMO/M2 collision
Threading and synchronization:
- Replace 1ms busy-wait polling with condition_variable in character_renderer
- Move timestamp capture before mutex in logger
- Use memory_order_acquire/release for normal map completion signaling
API additions:
- DBC getStringView()/getStringViewByOffset() for zero-copy string access
- Parse creature display IDs from SMSG_CREATURE_QUERY_SINGLE_RESPONSE
Create a VkPipelineCache at device init, loaded from disk if available.
All 65 pipeline creation calls across 19 renderer files now use the
shared cache. On shutdown, the cache is serialized to disk so subsequent
launches skip redundant shader compilation.
Cache path: ~/.local/share/wowee/pipeline_cache.bin (Linux),
~/Library/Caches/wowee/ (macOS), %APPDATA%\wowee\ (Windows).
Stale/corrupt caches are handled gracefully (fallback to empty cache).
Prevents unbounded GPU memory growth in long play sessions where the player
visits many zones. Tiles are inserted into a FIFO deque; when the count of
successfully-loaded tiles exceeds MAX_TILE_CACHE (128), the oldest entry is
destroyed and removed from both the cache map and the deque.
At 256×256×4 bytes per tile this caps minimap GPU usage at ~32 MB.
Remove stray X-flip in minimap display shader that mirrored the map
horizontally (West on right instead of East). Fix arrow rotation
fallback path (missing negation) and add character-facing-relative
arrow in rotateWithCamera mode.
Compact key ring: 24px slots in 8-column grid, only show rows with
items, hide when empty. Add Show Key Ring toggle in Settings with
persistence.
- Tighten celestial glow falloff and edge fade to eliminate visible quad boundary
- Add opacity support to minimap display shader, synced with UI opacity setting
- Fix audio double/triple-scaling by removing redundant master volume multiplications
- Rename "Original Soundtrack" toggle to "Enable WoWee Music"
- Add About tab with developer info and GitHub link
- Add .setMultisample() to minimap display pipeline and recreatePipelines() for MSAA changes
- Defer all swapchain recreation in window.cpp to beginFrame() via markSwapchainDirty()
to prevent mid-frame render pass destruction crashes on resolution/fullscreen change
- Move spawnPlayerCharacter() call to after loadTestTerrain() where character renderer exists
Extends gender system beyond WoW's binary male/female to support nonbinary characters with proper they/them pronouns. Implements client-side gender mapping (nonbinary→male) for 3.3.5a server compatibility while preserving player identity through local config persistence. Adds pronoun placeholders ($p/$o/$s/$S) and three-option gender text parsing ($g<male>:<female>:<nonbinary>;) for inclusive quest and dialog text.
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.
