Zephyr 23.9.7

We buckled down for the summer to focus on game development, but that doesn't mean we're slowing down progress with Zephyr! In the past few months, lots of bugs have been squashed and useful features added alongside our upcoming game!

ZephyrJS Changes

We've decided to support more than just PixiJS! Our code is tested well enough at this point that we can be confident that it works with nearly any JavaScript project. Going forward, all functions and features of our project are in the ZEPHYR space (ZEPHYR.Keys, ZEPHYR.utils, etc). We've also moved our math related functions, adding them onto the Math space (Math.clamp(), Math.mix(), etc). It just keeps things a little more understandable.

Features

#57 Added Math.withinRange()! Can determine how far inside/outside a number is regarding bounds.
#59 Added ZEPHYR.utils.merge()! Useful when objects don't slice correctly, and ours is fast.
#60 File now includes the name. Expect this to be changed in the future to use promises instead.
#62 ZEPHYR.Key.bind() is here! You no longer have to keep checking key states in render loops.

Squashed Bugs

#55 Fixed repeat-firing keys for Zephyr.Keys (it works now).
#56 Fixed random(), and it's now under Math.rand_int().
#58 Fixed Math.clamp() not clamping negatives properly.
#61 Zephyr.utils.toggleFullScreen now exits correctly.

Zephyr Project Changes

Thanks for reading this far! We've rebranded from the Zephyr Project to Zephyr Studios, as we begin to focus on using ZephyrJS for game development. You can find our site at https://zephyrstudios.pages.dev/, where we'll be posting and updates about ZephyrJS and our projects. We also have a Discord Server where you can ask specific ZephyrJS questions or get live demo access to our games, linked on our site!

Thanks for the continued support!

Zephyr 23.5.11

April showers bring May flowers and with that comes a whole bloom of Zephyr updates!

There was a slight delay in finishing up the May update because of Finals week and Zephyr update day falling in the same period. The horror! Anyways, let's see what happened in the last month(ish)...

Pixi didn't release a new version, but good news is that Zephyr is still compatible with version 7.2.4. With the end of this college semester and the start of summer break it means that there will be a little bit of a lull in development because @OttCS will be doing some game development with Zephyr. Monthly releases and updates will still happen, mostly to stay up to date on Pixi compatibility, and bug fixes here and there.

Features
#30 & #52 File Rework: Files are now loaded in a far more usable way
#53 Documentation Rework: Easier to find things in Github
#54 Particles have been reworked to be a LOT smoother, both to use and for users

Bugs
Particle stream gaps have been fixed
#37 Radius Collision: FINALLY fixed after reverse-engineering PIXI Sprites' scaling math.

...and check out our super cool, brand new Demo!
https://zephyrjs.netlify.app/git/demo/

Zephyr 23.4.13: Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Zephyr!

One year ago today Zephyr was created. This open source game development project has accomplished so much in the last year. In the past 365 days Zephyr has come a long way from a small canvas-based renderer to a fully featured game engine that expands upon Pixi. This was only the first year of the project, and I expect Zephyr to grow exponentially in the coming years! There has been a new addition to the team in the last few weeks, our PR girl! She is actually writing the message you are reading right now.

Hi Zephyr game devs! -PR Girl

In the future, the release messages and general updates will be written by the PR department (it's just me so not much of a department). Speaking of the future, you can help shape Zephyr's by requesting features or reporting bugs, filling out the usage poll, or contributing your own additions. We'll be taking your suggestions and feedback into consideration to help guide Zephyr in the coming months.

Back to our regularly scheduled ZephyrJS work. In the past 13 days alone there have been tons of updates, here they are:

Major Changes

• The website has been ENTIRELY reworked to sync up with files on Github, so documentation and messaging is consistent.
• ZephyrJS went through some insane refactoring so that its internal structure lines up much better with Pixi's style. As a result, we're proud to announce the ZephyrJS Bundle, a single minified file that contains all of Zephyr and Pixi! There were slight changes to the frontend of Zephyr that warrant documentation updates, and they're already on the way.

Minor Changes

• Tested compatible with PixiJS v7.2.4
• Audio volume control has been added
• Particles can now be rotated to match their emitted direction.

Thanks for all of your support for the project so far, we're so excited to see where it goes in the future!

Zephyr 23.4

April is here, and with it comes Zephyr 23.4! We've updated to be compatible with PixiJS v7.2.3 🥳

The particle system has been rewritten to provide more functionality! When PIXI.Particles.from() is called, the returned object now has a relative spawn.x and spawn.y position. Changing this sets where new particles are spawned in.

And an announcement of my own: Thanks for the support for this project! I've loved answering questions in the PixiJS Discord server, and getting feedback from the community about desired features through this poll. It's almost been a year now, and I'm looking forward to what Zephyr can become in the future!

ZephyrJS - Simple and Powerful PixiJS Game Development

Zephyr 23.3

Spring is on its way, and Zephyr's March release has arrived! Now compatible with PixiJS v7.1.3

No huge workflow changes this month, just a couple small improvements:

• PIXI.Mouse now has a built-in width/height/anchor, which lets you use PIXI.Mouse in the collision functions (checking if the mouse is over certain Sprites).
• Some bugs have been found with the collision functions with the latest version of PIXI, and patches are in progress. This only affects scaled sprites with radius collision, and a fix is on its way.

Zephyr 23.2

It's February, and time for the 23.2 stable release of Zephyr! Some big changes happened in the past month, and I'm excited to share them.

First off: I'm getting developer opinions to help guide the future of Zephyr! I'm focusing on features that are commonly used with PixiJS, fill out this poll if you'd like to help with that!

Second: I've entirely reworked the site to better help people use and contribute to Zephyr. Documentation is easier to read and navigate as well!

Now onto ZephyrJS itself...

New features

• Particle Emitters have been added! Very versatile and easy to use, and highly optimized with complete control over speed, distance, and direction
• Collision now works with scaled sprites, including negative scales/flipped sprites

Fixes

• Mouse x and y coordinates are now affected by scrolling
• Zephyr's collision has been optimized, helping games with LOTS of collisions

QOL

• The system for maintaining documentation has been improved, letting me keep it up to date easier
• Code Refactoring

Zephyr 23.1

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2023! 🥳

Managed to track down Reported issue #31, thanks to @txdo on Discord!

Github README files and the Zephyr website now are synced thanks to some nifty Javascript fetching, which lets documentation be updated quicker and more accurately.

Thanks for the support <3

Zephyr 22.12.06

The December stable release is here! This version is compatible with PixiJS version 7.0.4 👍

Zephyr 22.11.02

The November release of ZephyrJS is out! I've spent this month focused on school and actually USING Zephyr instead of just developing it, but I've stayed up to speed with the development of Pixi 7 so that Zephyr could be safely updated for it. And here it is!

22.11.02.zip contains the minified versions of pixi.js(.map) version 7.0.2 and zephyr.js version 22.11.02

Zephyr 22.10.1

The October release of ZephyrJS is out! This is one I've been referring to as the "usability" update, where everything has been made to be quicker to type, and easier to understand.

Functionality

• File reading/writing has been implemented! Not the most robust system, but enough to allow developers to not have to focus on it.
• PIXI.input has been split into PIXI.Mouse and PIXI.Keys: Less characters to type, and more easily understood. Also, the function names associated with these have been greatly simplified, where their purpose is clearer (and they're easier to type!)
• PIXI.File has been made, making writing/opening files possible!

QOL

• pRoPeR cApiTaLiZaTiOn! sorry about leaving it that way for so long 😅
• The documentation has been updated to contain the latest features, and a little page that lets you get the name of each key according to Zephyr! You can find it linked under the new PIXI.Keys section of the documentation. 👍

22.10.1

• A bug with the mouse position tracking has been found and squashed!

22.10.1.zip contains the minified versions of pixi.js(.map) version 6.5.5 and zephyr.js version 22.10.1