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Learn about game development technology

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OnLive Lives

I signed up for a free year of OnLive. I received a response email within 24 hours, so I think they just are choosing applicants based on connection speed and location. I've been extremely skeptical of this service, but I can report that it works, and it doesn't suck. I can play UT3 on my netbook. There is some slight lag, but it's not bad. Fast mouse looking can amplify it, so I slowed down my mouse speed to compensate. I had no trouble getting headshots with the sniper rifle, and the gam
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13

Downtime

First, I want to apologize for the server issues we have experienced this week. With the amount of activity we have coming through the site, it is inexcusable to have any downtime.   The server is reverted to the state it was about four days ago. If you have any important information from the last week you want to save, replace the domain name of the url you want to access with "69.163.255.164". For example, here is the link to the blogs on the other server: http://69.163.255.164/werkspace
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4

Bug-fix week begins!

There were numerous small issues related to the 2.32 release, but I am chipping away at them: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?app=tracker&showproject=1&catfilter=2   I'm not going to add any new features until every bug is fixed.   Remember that the more complete and easy to reproduce a report is, the faster it will be to fix. Thanks for the feedback!
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7

Some hints of 3.0

This is a quick blog to fill you in on some of the features planned for Leadwerks Engine 3.0.   -Any entity can be a physics body. The body command set will become general entity commands, i.e. Entity.SetVelocity(). You can make an entity physically interactive with Entity.SetShape( shape ).   -Any entity can have any number of scripts attached to it. The basic model script functions will be supported for all entities, plus specialized script functions for certain entities. For example,
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14

Persistence

Version 2.32 is the biggest internal change in the engine in a long time. It's also the last time version 2.x will undergo this extensive of additions.   LuaJit2 was implemented for fast Lua execution. This initially caused some BMX programs to not compile with the included modules.   The rendering buffer storage scheme was modified somewhat in preparation for a new feature that is unannounced.   Roads and saved to and loaded from SBX files, so they don't have to be generated at runtime.
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5

Everything in its place

I've been working a lot on the business side of Leadwerks lately, and although the results aren't yet visible, it's important to ensure our long-term goals are achieved. I wish I could say more right now.   My main machine is back on Windows XP. I don't want to discuss the relative merits of operating systems, but for me Windows XP is more productive. Other people might not work the way I do, so they will have their own preferences, and no one is "wrong". That said, I am surprised with ho
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Firefox Explorer

I like standard interfaces. I like the consistency of having all programs look the same. That's why web browsers bug me a lot sometimes; They each have their own unique look. It's disappointing to me how Microsoft has gotten away from this idea. Why oh why can't Windows have skins? But I digress.   In terms of performance, my favorite browser would probably be Opera. In terms of appearance, my favorite is Internet Explorer 6. I know, web designers hate it for its quirks. I don't use i
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6

Improvements for 2.32

Version 2.32 will feature some internal improvements that ensures your games run their best when conditions get demanding. I've totally rewritten the vegetation rendering routines with a highly specialized quad tree algorithm. There's a lot more to it than that, and I could write ten pages about the technique, but the bottom line is its fast and dynamic. Rendering with many vegetation layers is much faster, and since the visibility determination routine is so optimized, the engine can perform
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Sunrise, sunset

Day/night cycles are something I have thought about for a long time. There's several possible approaches to simulating these, but it wasn't until today that I decided which is best. Here are some options I considered:   1. Shader-based skies with particle clouds. This is the method Crysis employs. A subsurface scattering shader creates the sky background. The mathematics are pretty complex, but the results for an empty blue sky look great. Particle clouds are used to place sparse clouds
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18

Lua Debugging

Until now, we haven't really had proper debugging info when a crash occurs during execution of a Lua script. Thanks to some previous work TylerH did with Lua, a conversation with him revealed how to easily add debugging info into the editor and script interpreter. (Incidentally, the Lua integration was Tyler's idea to begin with!) Here's a shot of the Script Editor catching an engine crash and displaying the script line the error occurs at. This is a crash that occurred in the engine, not a
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8

Picking up speed

Lots of things are happening around here right now!   First up, we've got some free professionally made animations for you to use with our futuristic soldier character. You can download the files here.   Michael Betke of Pure3D has been cranking out AAA-quality 3D models ready to use in Leadwerks Engine. The following sets are available: Birch Trees 1.x (€22,00) Pine Trees 1.x (€22,00) Ground Plants 1.x (€19,00) Each set features new unreleased content. Buy a couple today
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11

Best classic start menu for Windows 7

If you prefer the classic start menu like I do, there are several solutions available to get the classic start menu in Windows 7. My favorite is Classic Shell.   Classic Start Menu is a clone of the original start menu, which you can find in all versions of Windows from 95 to Vista. It has a variety of advanced features: Drag and drop to let you organize your applications Options to show Favorites, expand Control Panel, etc Shows recently used documents. The number of documents t
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6

GEForce 470 and 480 specs released

480 stream processors on a single card. http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=13422 http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=23088   Thanks to CarlB of FoxConn for tipping me off on this.
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3

Vegetation nation

I got my hands on the GDC showcase scene by Michael Betke, and it's much more beautiful than I thought. I used this scene to rewrite and test the vegetation rendering code. Collision isn't working yet, but it's built into the routine. The results speak for themselves.   Fortunately, Pure3D is soon offering a set of game-ready vegetation models, so you can create gorgeous landscapes like this.
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14

lgui screenshot

I got selection and rendering order working correctly, which is really the problem I wanted to solve with this. Here's a screenshot of the work in progress:  
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9

GDC wrap up

I skipped the GDC for a couple of years, because I just wanted to focus on developing our technology. This was my first year back since our engine came to be. I was surprised how many people were familiar with our engine, and I got to talk to a few users (who probably aren't active on the forum). I also got to chat briefly with Tom Spilman, David Helgason, and Mike Wuetherick. It's really fun to see what everyone is up to, and how far they have come since a few years ago.   We met new frie
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13

Fresh Blood

Dave Lee has joined the Leadwerks team. His job is to create a AAA game environment in Leadwerks Engine. Check out his work here.   (Influences of Crysis and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., how could I not hire him? )   Simon Benge, the lead artist from FPS Creator X, is also completing some animations for us.
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10

Siggraph Contest

This might be worth submitting a demo to: http://www.siggraph.org/s2010/for_submitters/live_real-time_demos
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4

2-17-2010

I dabbled in a lot of little things recently, like GUI code and networking, just to make sure things would work the way I want in the long run. The lighting optimizations weren't planned to come out yet, but were moved to the front due to one user who is finishing up a commercial game. I've also been helping Pure3D a little bit, but I can't say anything about that right now. Of course, our website is still in progress, and that will hopefully come together by the end of the month.   We'll h
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7

Screen-space directional occlusion

Screen-space directional occlusion (SSDO) is the next logical step after simple screen-space ambient occlusion. This routine uses a raytracing approach to approximate global illumination. You can get my shader here.  
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11

lgui

I've never considered myself a fan of writing GUI code, but now that I have a small job I need to get it done for, I'm actually having a lot of fun with it. I've been tinkering around with Lua GUI code for two days, and I came up with a really neat system after lots of trial and error.   Controls A "control" is the name for a button, label, or other widget. A control is a Lua table. The programmer creates the controls they want and then inputs mouse coordinates and the left mouse butt
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6

Future Ideas

Here are some of my thoughts on how a future engine might look. I am not devoting any time to this, and it would not come to exist for several years, but it's fun to think about technology and design:   I've been fascinated with the game "Fuel". This game has an enormous playable area that is streamed from the hard drive. You can drive for hours and barely cover a fraction of the map. For some reason the game has been given bad reviews. I played Motorstorm on the PS3, and I think Fuel is a lot
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16

Why Apple Fails

Their prices are more than 250% the price of a comparable PC. Even their "most expensive" laptop is using a budget GPU! So for less than half the price, you can actually get a laptop with a much better GPU!   $999: http://www.newegg.co...=laptop%209800m   $2499: http://store.apple.c...mco=MTM3NDcyOTc   Just for fun, I checked all the most expensive options. The grand total was $7305.35. Who spends $7000 on a laptop with a budget GPU???   I can't believe how dense their management is.
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12

Double-buffered shadow maps

I got my idea working with spot lights! You can simply use a shadow mode of 2 to indicate an object or light should be considered "static". A light that has the static mode set will use two shadow maps; one for static objects and one for dynamic objects. In the image below, the walls and room are static, and the oildrum has the regular dynamic shadow mode set. As you can see, redrawing the shadow only requires 650 triangles. Without this feature, the whole room and everything in it would ha
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