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Learn about game development technology

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Loading Assets from Streams

Since the GLTF file format can pack textures into a single file with the model, I needed to implement asset loading directly from a stream: auto stream = ReadFile("image.png"); auto tex = LoadTexture(stream); This was interesting because I needed to add a check for each supported image type so the loader can determine the file type from the contents instead of the file path extension. Most file formats include a string or "magic number" at the beginning of the file format to indicate what
Josh

Josh

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GamesBeat 2015

I just got a ticket to GamesBeat 2015 Summit. Message me if you'd like to meet up during the event. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=AAMAAABZ4BAB_h-adCunzdSr7r90HFOdx_MLrow
Josh

Josh

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Leadwerks 5 Beta Update

A new beta is uploaded with lots of new features and improvements. Things are really taking shape! Animation is now supported and it's really fast. Two examples are included. Package loader plugins now supported, VPK package loader for Source Engine games included with example. Added localization example. Shaders folder very neatly organized, now contains shader family files. Config folder eliminated. Engine headers cleaned up and organized. Lots
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Josh

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Next Steps

A big bug fix update just came out for 4.5. Unless there are any major problems then I am going to go back to Europe for a while. I will be focusing on multiplayer features, specifically the P2P, lobby, and voice chat features in Steamworks, as well as converting lots of models to make them ready-to-use with Leadwerks Game Engine. I am just going to bring my little Gigabyte Brix mini PC. If I need to I can have my big monster machines shipped to me overseas, but I'll start with this one and
Josh

Josh

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Beta branch update

The Workshop interface will now more closely match our website. Item pages will now display videos, multiple images, and other information about the items.  
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Josh

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Articles

Reflections on Reflections

Now that I have the downsampled reflection data working, I can start casting rays. The cone step tracing is not a 100% perfect representation of physical light, but it gives a very favorable balance of quality and performance. Somehow I came up with a few formulas that eliminate light leaks and other artifacts. Quite honestly I did not think the results would be this good. Indoor / outdoor scenes with thin walls are very difficult to prevent light leaks in, but somehow it's working ve
Josh

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Articles

Sparse Voxel Octree Reflections

I've now got basic specular reflections working with the sparse voxel octree system. This uses much less memory than a voxel grid or even a compressed volume texture. It also supports faster optimized ray tests, for higher quality reflections and higher resolution. Some of the images in this article were not possible to produce in my initial implementation that used volume textures. This shot shows the reflection of just the diffuse color. Notice the red column is visible in three reflectio
Josh

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Game Launcher Release Schedule

Based on the results of the summer games tournament, we can expect each new tournament to produce about 10 games: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/41/entry-1510-leadwerks-summer-games-tournament-results/   Right now we're at 35, which means by the end of the winter games tournament it is reasonable to expect 50 Game Launcher games.   My Steam Workshop changes are now implemented to provide more reliable downloads.   Support for SteamOS will be added in November, with a full-screen
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GDC 2019

I have not gone in several years because everything we were doing revolved around Steam, and it just didn't seem very important. But this year I had some business to attend to so I spent the last three days in San Francisco. I still have a lot of friends in the game industry, and the reaction to my plans for the new engine was very positive. A few years ago people would have groaned at the idea of another engine, but it seems they are now bored with technology and very open to something new
Josh

Josh

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Articles

Leadwerks 5 Editor Extension Example

Our new editor is being designed to support user-created extensions written in Lua. I want Lua to work in our new editor the way MaxScript works in 3ds Max, to allow an endless assortment of new tools you can create and use. Now that the editor GUI system is well underway, I want to start thinking about how user-created extensions will work with our new editor. I'm going to lay out some theoretical code for how a road creation tool might integrate into the editor. First we declare a st
Josh

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Beta Update Available

A new update is available on the beta branch. This is a full build that fixes numerous small bugs and prepares for paid Workshop items.
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Josh

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Leadwerks 5 Beta Update

A new update is available for beta testers. Terrain The terrain building API is now available and you can begin working with it, This allows you to construct and modify terrains in pure code. Terrain supports up to 256 materials, each with its own albedo, normal, and displacement maps. Collision and raycasting are currently not supported. Fast C++ Builds Precompiled headers have been integrated into the example project. The Debug build will compile in about 20 seconds the first run
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Josh

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Workshop Store Updates

The Workshop Store interface has been updated. These changes will go out to the in-editor store interface soon.     Clicking on the "Buy" button now opens the item directly in the Steam client, so you no longer have to log into the Steam website. No credit card is needed if you already have one on file in your Steam account.  
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Josh

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Beta Update available

A new update is available on the beta branch on Steam.   Changes Temporary slowdown from last beta is fixed. Bone picking behavior now matches default branch's original behavior (for compatibility with existing code). All recently locked bug reports fixed.   Please see this note about updating C++ projects to accommodate the addition of the VHACD library.
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Josh

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Articles

Ultra App Kit Beta Updated

An update is available for the Ultra App Kit beta on Steam. Menu open / close behavior is finished and is now working bug-free. Fixed problem where list boxes were only showing the first item. A submenu item is demonstrated in the example program. A progress bar widget is added in the example program. A label widget is added in the example program. A second radio button is added in the example program. Still to do: Work out some scaling i
Josh

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Articles

Real-time Global Illumination: Background Updating

Previously I wrote about introducing latency to the voxel cone step tracing realtime global illumination system. The idea here is to improve performance and quality, at the cost of a small delay when the GI calculation gets updated. The diffuse GI lighting gets cached so the final scene render is very fast. Here's what a gradual GI update does. Of course, this will be running unseen in the background for the final version, but this shows what is actually happening: My new video pro
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Beta update available

I've updated the editor and Lua executables on Windows with the following fixes: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/15399-rc4-editor-hints-get-built-in-probe-reflections/ http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/15646-prefabs-child-entity-scripts-start-function-not-called/ http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/15644-latest-43-beta-causes-crawler-to-rotate-at-wrong-direction/ http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/15593-releasecleanup-vehicle-error/   The game launcher beta branc
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Josh

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Articles

Built-in Shaders

In Leadwerks, required files were always a slightly awkward issue. The engine requires a BFN texture and a folder of shaders, in order to display anything. One of my goals is to make the Ultra Engine editor flexible enough to work with any game. It should be able to load the folder of an existing game, even if it doesn't use Ultra Engine, and display all the models and scenes with some accuracy. Of course the Quake game directory isn't going to include a bunch of Ultra Engine shaders, so what to
Josh

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Update available

A small update is out, on all branches, that fixes the vehicle wheels not being positioned correctly: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/15405-problembug-with-vehicles-cars-wheels-dont-move-since-update-4-2
Josh

Josh

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Articles

Ultra App Kit 1.2 Released

Ultra App Kit 1.2 is now available on our site and on Steam. This is a bug fix update that resolves numerous small issues reported in the bug reports forum. To download the latest version, see My Purchases.
Josh

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