Since we don't have a lot of info regarding v1.9.1.f7. Only this change log.
https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W311I've decided to update Playmaker in my current project and took couple hours to play with it and figure out what exactly do we got. If you don't understand where I got access to Playmaker v1.9.1.f7. I bought Playmaker trough Hutong Games site and it seems that they decided to give those direct buyers access to new version earlier than to asset store buyers.
Overall impressionsI will say right of the bat, that I'm impressed with this update. Not a single bad decision was made and new actions and improvements will be a huge productivity booster. It doesn't happen that often with other software. Like new Asset Store is still inferior compared to old asset store and has a lot of problems. I still don't like new prefab workflow in Unity etc. So often in other software upgrades change something to be inferior. I'm glad that is not the case here.
InstallationUpgrading Playmaker in my current big project went very well. No errors, no corrupted globals. I haven't extensively playtested my game after upgrade to see if some connections broke. I do plan to do this later.
Workflow bugs are goneTwo annoying bugs that have been hurting my productivity are gone. I'm talking about those bugs.
https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=20174.0https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=21701.msg95269#msg95269Productivity boosterI feel like this is the core focus of this update.
"Exposes variable/events as Outputs in Run FSM" This has been a long awaited feature. No more need for hacky unintuitive solutions. Run FSM is now way more powerful and I'll probably start to use it even more, especially considering that there are other improvements related to templates.
"Added native Tween actions." When I originally saw that line, I didn't pay much attention to it. But when I looked at those actions I was really impressed. They are very smartly designed and some tasks that took 3 actions and couple minutes to setup will now need only 1 action and 10-20 seconds. Some actions also have their own interactive gizmos.
I've always associated tween actions with movement/rotation. But those new tween actions work with sound, transparency, camera etc.
There are also other changes that should boost your productivity.
Editor performanceOne major performance issue with Playmaker that bugs me, is that when I have lots of FSMs on one object and that object is selected, editor performance becomes really poor. You can read about that issue here
https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=20293.0And I know, that this is kind of Unity's fault, not Playmaker fault. But with this update, we got new look for PlaymakerComponents. And I love that minimalistic look.
That new look gave me hope, that we will get some editor performance improvement for the cases that I've described before.
When I opened FSM on gameobject with lots of FSMs and tried to drag states around it looked like that it runs at 5 fps. So originally I thought that performance is as bad as it was before. But when I decided to type something in action field like set string, it felt much more responsive than before. Unfortunately this is where good news ends.
At the moment I constantly bump into random Playmaker/Unity freezes when I'm working with FMSs. I mean, editor becomes unresponsive for like a second or two. I didn't pin point all the cases when this happens so it's hard to reproduce. At the moment I know couple reproduceable cases.
It happens when I add new FSM component to game object. Unity literally freezes for 2 seconds. Delay also happens when I copy-paste FSM component and hit Edit. This happens only once. For this case. I can even restart unity and this will not happen for this specific FSM component.
There also noticeable delay when I remove Playmaker FSM from some game objects.
New bugsHere's the list of bugs I've found.
https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=23311.0https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=23310.0https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=23308.0https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=23315.0And one major bug is that drag and drop for actions is a bit broken. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This is the biggest downside of this update.https://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=23314.0As I've said before. I've only used new Playmaker for couple hours, but so far I really like this update. I hope they release v1.9.1.f7 on asset store soon. I really want to see more discussion around v1.9.1.f7.