CRM64Pro GDK v0.19.0 Particle effects, 2D lighting and Universal VTT maps
CRM64Pro GDK v0.19.0 is now available, introducing the first public Particle module, a lightweight 2D lighting pipeline, and complete EditorC64 workflows for authoring effects and importing Universal VTT maps.
This release focuses on dynamic visuals that remain practical for 2D games. Particle effects can be created from built-in presets or designed from a blank emitter, previewed in real time, and stored directly in CDC resources. The new lighting API adds ambient light, soft point lights, spotlights, and immediate occluders without requiring a separate scene renderer.
Alongside these additions, v0.19.0 improves image-target rendering, software drawing performance, Scene reliability, validation, and renderer-state handling across the GDK.
A complete Particle module
The new ParticleMgr and ParticleEmitter APIs provide CPU-simulated real-time effects with pixel, rectangle, line, soft, Image, and Sprite visuals. A broad preset library covers fire, weather, water, impacts, auras, trails, engine thrust, pickups, confetti, bubbles, fireworks, and environmental effects, while a blank preset provides a clean starting point for custom designs.
Emitter controls include spawn shapes, rate and distance-based emission, particle limits, duration and looping, lifespan, direction, speed, gravity, damping, turbulence, attraction, orbit, velocity inheritance, simulation scale, warm-up, local coordinates, deterministic seeds, draw order, and cached bounds. Effects can also use lifetime color and scale keys, tint palettes, timed bursts, manual bursts, and one-shot playback.
Death and collision sub-emitters support bounded recursion, while tile-layer collision and glow options make it possible to build richer reactions from the same emitter definition. Particle resources, including owned Image and Sprite visuals, are persisted in CDC files.
2D lighting and glow effects
The new 2D lightmap workflow supports ambient light, soft point lights, spotlights, and immediate rectangle, segment, polygon, and circle occluders between beginLighting() and endLighting(). It is designed to layer lighting over existing 2D rendering without changing how scenes and sprites are drawn.
GFX also gains cached helpers for radial glows, flashes, glow images, and glow sprites. Cache, lightmap, and occluder information is now included in the GFX diagnostics so these effects remain easier to inspect and tune.
Particle authoring in EditorC64
EditorC64 now includes an Effects tab for creating, loading, editing, previewing, and saving particle resources. The preview provides play, pause, stop, manual burst, drag positioning, and selectable black, white, or checker backgrounds. Any built-in preset, including the blank emitter, can be selected and modified while the result updates in real time.
Modeless Advanced and Appearance panels keep the larger control set readable while preserving live preview. They expose emission, motion, forces, transform, simulation, collision, timed-burst and sub-emitter lists, color keys, tint palettes, ramps, and scale keys, with tooltips throughout the workflow.
A shared color picker is now available across EditorC64, with a color wheel, RGB and hexadecimal editing, quick palette colors, a current-color swatch, and alpha handling where supported.
Universal VTT Scene import
Scene import can now read Universal VTT data and bring map geometry, point lights, portals, line-of-sight walls, object occluders, and movement-blocking boundaries into EditorC64. Import options allow these elements to be selected and organized before the scene is created.
The importer uses yyjson 0.12 as a read-only JSON dependency, keeping the parsing path focused and lightweight.
What this means for CRM64Pro v0.19.0
CRM64Pro v0.19.0 adds an end-to-end workflow for dynamic 2D effects: author particles visually in EditorC64, store them in CDC resources, render them through the new Particle module, and combine them with the lighting and occlusion APIs at runtime.
Universal VTT import extends that workflow to externally authored maps, while the GFX and Scene changes strengthen the foundation used by both the new systems and existing projects.