[Game Launcher and SteamUGC]

I like it. It's clear and it's straight forward. Clicking the game and opening a more detail/play page is much better than the instant install/play way of before.

[Game Launcher taking shape]

Looking 10 times better but I think the thumbnails on the home page might be a bit too small.

 

Also the clicking the image or name to launch without some hint is unexpected, I keep expecting it to go to a more info page instead of installing/playing game. I personally think dedicated Play buttons would be better and more obvious.

 

I really like how the featured game at the top is displayed with two clear buttons to Leave Feedback and Play.

[Further refinement of physics shapes]

This also does away with the need for prefabs 90% of the time

 

What!? No way, prefabs are mega useful Shrink wrap looks great.

[Carve, hollow, and cleaning up the scene tree]

Not really, at the moment I find it quicker to move and find things in perspective with Shift + Mousewheel. You can cross a full terrain in no time like that. But it takes me much longer to find anything in the scene tree, it just ends up a long wall of text that makes it hard to find anything when you have lots of stuff in the map. With the filters it will be a bit better to organise and find things but you would really need grouped objects in a filter too or something or it will be a bit messy in a different way.

[Carve, hollow, and cleaning up the scene tree]

I'm wondering why we even need the scene tree at this point. I personally never use it.

 

That's an interesting point. The editor kind of guides you into using it because it's the same tab that also shows an objects properties and is/was only way to group stuff and also make prefabs. Do we really need it? Is it just a distraction that slows down productivity, tempting us to scrutinize and manage the scene tree all the time. I'm trying to imagine working without it but I think I'd need to be able to switch it off so I'm not tempted to look at it and see if I actually miss it for anything.

 

Usually for picking stuff in the editor it's quick to just buzz over to it in perspective view anyway to make sure you select the right thing. But you would need to be able to save prefabs somehow without it.

[Carve, hollow, and cleaning up the scene tree]

Will grouped objects be gathered together in the scene tree maybe under a group filter? Right now they add to clutter in the scene tree vs using the hierarchy.

[Carve, hollow, and cleaning up the scene tree]

Looks like the hollow thickness prompt will let you set the wall thickness. So make a box or a cylinder and then hollow it with preferred wall thickness. Then you could carve out windows and doors from in those walls. Circular rooms etc. made easier, very nice.

 

The new changes on the scene panel look very useful. I'm going to export my current project first and then take it for a proper spin.

[Leadwerks Game Player enters beta]

I have a question about the resolution settings. Will that automatically set the games to run at those settings or are they passed onto the game and then it's up to the game to handle the passed on settings?

[Buildings, Doors & Zombies]

Yes that's pretty much what I've ended up doing - build and test in leadwerks and then export to obj whatever parts might be better as models. I use the convex decomposition on the furniture models and it's very good. But sometimes for example with the picket fence model I just select the box collision.

[DA 19 weeks in]

Looking good, top screenshot is very nice. Looking forward to the playable prototype.

[Buildings, Doors & Zombies]

Yeah I'm going to do some frame rate tests later. Really I would like to see csg performing better because it's just collapsed geometry and not even treated like an entity like the way models are. I would have thought it should be faster but it seems no matter what models are faster in every scenario?

[Buildings, Doors & Zombies]

The zombies don't seem to be impacting the fps too much, it's more the buildings are still my fps problem. If I remove all zombies I get average 10/12 fps and if I add 20 zombies I still get about the same 10/12fps.

 

I'm already hiding interior building objects by using the view range setting on the models, lots of them are set to near, but I might have to spread out entry buildings with non-entry buildings or something like that to help more. For example if I walk away from the buildings far away around a mountain the fps goes back up.

[Buildings, Doors & Zombies]

Yeah with some objects like the doors and windows I exported as obj from leadwerks into blender. It's easier for me this way to test and get the size right and then I can add details if I need to. I think my most complex thing I've modeled so far from scratch in blender is the door handles. I was pretty chuffed with them.

 

The map is still very barren at the moment, lots more needs adding but my frame rates are worrying me with what I have already.

[3.4 Recap and Beyond]

Sounds like 3.5 is going to be awesome

 

I think most new users will just fire the editor up and skip straight passed the help popup and get stuck into playing with it. Then when they get lost they probably go to the forums or search the web for tutorials and videos etc. Then when all else fails, "oh yeah let me have a look at the official help from within the editor". - well that's me anyway

 

I just had a look at the tutorials page and at first glance it looked like there were only 4 tutorials. Maybe have some intro text at the top with instructions to use the category links on the right for more tutorials to be sure people can't miss them.

[Leadwerks 3.4 Launch Prep]

On that page it says Display Driver ver. 14.501.1003 under Omega (14.12) but the release dates are 2014. Is it new or old? I'm reluctant to try it. I've had to roll back twice and I hate messing around with drivers too much.

[Leadwerks 3.4 beta now available]

Cool I haven't even looked into vehicles yet but looking forward to checking them out and happy about the texture fixes.

[Playing around with near real-time Map edititng]

Interesting that you can do this but I don't there would be much benefit editing in realtime and I don't think it would be worth the performance trade off. It's pretty quick to just hit the play game button and playtest as-is.

[Beta update available]

Thanks for the updates. Before I have changed anything on my map I am already seeing a significant 400MB or so memory reduction.

[Water Update [beta]]

No crashes or major problems here. The water looks really good.

 

However a black jagged line is visible at the edges of the water plane. So the sky and water are visibly split with this line on the horizon. I'm thinking this won't be a problem when there is landscape between the player and the edge of the water plane but for a coastal view or open ocean it might be more obvious. Although I suppose you could use a bit of fog in these situations to hide it.

[Water beta now available]

I have same problem as Imchasinyou - scene is all black (except under water) until I press F11 to show fps. This is on a new blank map with just terrain and player.

 

Setting water mode to false and it seems to display ok again except without the water of course.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qn8k42d8v5r9wyt/waterbug.jpg?dl=0

 

Edit: also tested with no terrain and just one box instead to stand on - same problem.

[Weapons, Batteries & Feeling Sick]

For small items it is possible to stack more than 1 of the item into a single inventory slot. Like the way many small bullets are stored in an ammo box or many pills in a bottle. So I think this will help a lot with the realism and hopefully avoid a situation like that from happening. Of course the player can always force to break the realism if they really want to but for the most part I think the system without weight factoring will work ok. It's one of those things that I might have to look at again as the item count and diversity increases.

[Weapons, Batteries & Feeling Sick]

I have a hard time calling it a flashlight! It will always be a torch to me.

 

Thanks guys. I'll upload my torch to the workshop when I get a chance but it's not as good as the one that is already there. I spent about 3 days wrestling in blender creating a simple one and then came across the one in the workshop. Doh, at least I learned some blender techniques and 2 different ones is better than 1.

[Development]

Ability to put a small lake or pond atop a mountain and also have a river/lake lower down would be good.

[Development]

Looking forward to seeing it in action.

[Crime Closer Trailer and Demo]

Nice trailer, the music and vibe is pretty cool but the last message that comes up is to do with where you sourced your models. Potential players/voters of your game won't be interested in where you sourced assets so it's not the best message to leave them with at the end of the trailer. I'd suggest ending it at the "vote on greenlight" call to action message instead and then add smaller credit text at the bottom instead if you absolutely need to.