First of all a warning. Version 0.4.0 contains many API-breaking changes and the files are not compatible to V0.3.0 files either. Make sure that you have a current backup !!!

That said, there are many nice new features in this version:
- The resourcemanagement has been completely rewritten, the internal mesh structure has been changed and the files have been normalized so you dont have lfma, lfmt etc. anymore which were the same fileformat anyway, you can now put everything into any lfm file (see news entry from September 30th)
- Skeletal animation now supports animation blending (untested due to lack of test-models)
- Morph- and skeletal animation at the same time (for example for face-animations on a skeletal animated model)
- animations can be played once or in a loop
- animation-events to snychronize animations with external things like footstep-sounds
- modelconverter now converts all .x models we had for testing, including those with quaternion-based rotation that didnt work before
- support for framebuffer-objects
- IFileSystem has been removed and CFileSystemStub has been renamed to CFileSystem - so CFileSystem should be used now instead of IFileSystem
- take isWindowActive() into account - dont render if window is not active. Set EWCF_RENDER_ACTIVE_ONLY in createRenderwindow call
- new option EWCF_RENDER_VISIBLE_ONLY will render only if the window is visible (not iconified) - 100% on linux, needs some work on windows and mac
- fpscontroller and 3rdpersoncontroller now use the same base class (thanks to calav3ra)
- The portal system has been completely reqorked to better integrate with the rest
- added a program to convert v0.3.0 static! models to v0.4.0 format, doesnt work with animated models though
- the log method has changed to accept a format and a variable number of parameters
- exporter for solidworks to new LF file format - thanks to puh
- support for point parameters
- renderstates are now attached to materials instead of nodes for better control, setting a renderstate on a node now will set it on all meshes attached to the node
- added codeblocks project files - thanks to mandrav
- the timers can now also return the time in nanoseconds
- if you have a very new system you might, in some of the test programs see something like - 28747489469 as current fps this is due to an overflow
- added support for custom renderpass parameters (works with GLSL, Cg implementation not yet done)
- loading [renderpass] sections (custom glsl/cg renderpasses) from lfm
files (cg part not yet implemented), yes this means applying shaders loaded from a file as material to models/nodes :)
- added support for multi-line-entries in readconfigfile() and writecon
figfile(), put a \ at the end of the line to continue it in the next
after reading, it will be converted to \n in the valueString
- added a "post-processing framework" making it easy to create post-process effects. See the image gallery for an example (test11 4)
- loadCgPrograms takes compiler arguments for vtx and fragment program
- updated libpng to version 1.2.12
- updated zlib to v1.2.3
- huge performance boost for CGeoMipMapTerrainModel (full set of vertex indices were sent to the card each frame)
- added CGeoMipMapTerrainModel::loadHeightMap() overload that takes a colormap (IImage) argument for the vertex colors (handy for using it with ERPF_VERTEX_COLOR_SPLATTING* materials)
- added array2 which is an array that reuses entries instead of erasing them
- cleanup of apps now much better, still not 100% though
- added a few very simple post-process shaders (brightness, contrast, saturation) to test11
- added user clipping planes per camera (up to 6 user clipping planes for each camera)
- when adding a rendertarget to a camera, it is also possible to specify the top-level node this camera will start rendering from
- added ext/IrrlichtNX/lib/linux64/libIrrlichtNX.a (64bit) so modelconverter works on 64bit systems too
- screenshots can now be written as .png thanks to calav3ra
- playing videos in a texture is now possible (win32 only atm)
- added resourceregisterlistener and events so you can be notified when a resource is registered/deregistered with the engine

As always, for the small things like bug fixes, see the changelog.

Since there havent been any news for quite some time now, i thought i should give you an update.
We have been working on Lightfeather a lot and the next release will be coming out next weekend.
I wont list the new features here (and there are many of those, and really nice ones, too ).
for an idea of whats coming your way, check out the Changelog which is available on the wiki - yes thats not the newest version but we do want to have some surprises left for next week :)

First of all, i want to welcome Mandrav as a new developer to Lightfeather.

He already contributed some nice new features and also maintains a Code::Blocks workspace for LF, which you can find in build/codeblocks.

The main new features that we added to the cvs version within the last 2 weeks are: support for renderpass-parameters, including default values for those parameters (rp-params set to the renderpass itself will be used as default values), loading shader-based renderpasses from .lfm files and support for post-processing shaders (by the way of a post-processing-renderwindowpane).
Check test11 to see those features in action.

As a sidenote: i have added a FAQ-entry on how to build Lightfeather on 64bit linux systems.

The cvs version of LF is working again, with one caveat: animated models. Also there are still problems with the cleanup when exiting applications.

Puh has very kindly agreed to make his solidworks->lfm converter public. With this you can create model-files from within solidworks. It supports the new fileformat for geometry files already.

You can find it in cvs under tools/solidworks and also in the download section here on the site.

I just wanted to let you know that we are slowly getting there.
For early adopters and everyone else who wants to know whats coming, i wrote a small article about the changes: http://lf.mmdevel.de/content.php?article.19 .

As to the current state i can say that most of the tests are working again (see changelog for details), also some of the tools are working (modelconverter for example). There are still many things to do, though and since i have been wrong often enough now, i wont go into detail as to when its ready to be released. As soon as possible (hey thats better than "when its done").

In other news, i have added a "how to build lightfeather" to the documentation section of the website. Comments are welcome.