[Miscrosoft Visual Studio 2010 and C++0x]

Just learned that MS Visual Studio 2010 was released some hours ago.

There are some new features in both the IDE (e.g. new design, faster Intellisense) and the language, look it up:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465215%28v=VS.100%29.aspx
  
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235629%28VS.100%29.aspx

  Additionally, Visual C++ supports several C++0x features, for example, lambdas, auto, static_assert, rvalue references, and extern templates.

• Wiki C++0x
  
• They also added a (standardized?) multithreading framework: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd504870%28v=VS.100%29.aspx
  The most interesting part of this is the PPL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd492418%28v=VS.100%29.aspx. Together with lambda functions, this allows easy parallelization of loops.
  

 

The only problem is, that one has to learn all those new great things... xD

[Soldier Animations for LE]

The included sample code demonstrates some PROBLEMS marked with "PROBLEM" (these are: animation has to be loaded for every LoD, only lod 0 and 1 work, there's visible LoD popping because the animation is reset for like 1 frame when switching LoD).

@Josh: Please have a look at these.

[Soldier Animations]

There you go: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/1710-soldier-animations-for-le/

[Soldier Animations for LE]

File Name: Soldier Animations for LE

File Submitter: Masterxilo

File Submitted: 12 Apr 2010

File Category: Models

Triangles: Some...

LOD Versions: Yes

License: See below.

 

Contains the soldier model with all animations as .max and .gmf.

Theres a simple cpp sample code included that loads and displays the model with animations.

 

IMPORTANT: The file is actually a renamed .7z archive!

 

See the other soldier model uploads for more info:

• http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/files/file/129-soldier-animations/
  
• http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/files/file/38-soldier-model-with-gmf-x-3ds-fbx-dae-versions/
  
• http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/files/file/8-soldier-model/
  

 

Click here to download this file

[Beginner needs some help to get going]

1. Yes.
   
2. Yes.
   
3. Already said.
   
4. The terrain can actually be scaled to any size. The input box in the editor is just wrongly set up as it seems.
   In the code, the command would be:
   

   ScaleEntity(terrain, Vec3(800.0/4096, MAX_TERRAIN_HEIGHT, 800.0/4096));

   
   to scale a 4096 terrain to 800.
   

5. You'd have to write your own shader.
   
6. Obviously, you can forget Groups. A pivot is just an invisible Entity (can be moved etc. and have child entities).

[Soldier Animations]

There was actually a bug in the model itself.

There's a bone in the animations ("Bip01") which was also in the original skeleton, but was not added to the skin modifier.

So the skeleton of the exported mesh (which only contains bones added to the skin modifier) didn't match the animated skeleton, so it couldn't work.

[Soldier Animations]

Finally:

[Skybox]

That black image with the moon really looks fantastic as the others said.

[Soldier Animations]

Anyone got this to work yet? I tried, but

#include "engine.h"

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
   // Setup
   Initialize();
   Graphics(1024,768);
   CreateWorld();
   TEntity buffer = CreateBuffer(GraphicsWidth(),GraphicsHeight(),BUFFER_COLOR0|BUFFER_DEPTH|BUFFER_NORMAL);
   TFilter(); AFilter();
   TLight l = CreateDirectionalLight(); RotateEntity(l, Vec3(45,45,45));
   TEntity camera = CreateCamera();
   MoveEntity   (camera, Vec3(0,1,-3) );

   // Load
   TMesh mesh = LoadMesh("abstract::soldier.gmf");
   RotateEntity(mesh, Vec3(0,45,0));

   int sequenceId = LoadAnimation(mesh, "abstract::anim_soldier_run.gmf");
   int animCount = CountAnimations(mesh);
   int length = AnimationLength(mesh, sequenceId);

   while(!KeyHit(KEY_ESCAPE) && !AppTerminate())
   {
       // Animate
       Animate(mesh, fmodf(AppTime()/20.f, (float)length), 1.f, sequenceId);

       // Upadte and render
       UpdateAppTime();
       UpdateWorld();
       SetBuffer(buffer);
       RenderWorld();
       SetBuffer(BackBuffer());
       RenderLights(buffer);

       Flip(1);
   }

   return Terminate();
}

didn't work.

It looks like there's a bug with LoadAnimation because it always returns 0 no matter what (non existing) file you make it load.

Has anyone ever successfully used LoadAnimation?

 

I guess I could hack around by loading the animation as a second mesh and parenting the original bones to the animated ones.

[LoadModel, Sound, Mesh, Texture from memory]

I guess he thinks that most of the slowdown from loading meshes and other files comes from reading the data from the HDD (which might be true).

So one could load the files into memory in a separate thread and then tell the engine to load the stuff from there.

[Quick question: Editor configuration]

Don't install LE to C:\Program Files\... .

[How can I get UV coordinates of picked point]

If the TPick::triangle field works, I'd use that together with the surface mesh to find all the vertices of the hit triangle, and then do some math to find out the UV value at the hit position. I guess that what you had in mind. I wouldn't know another way.

[Question about current licence model]

While "major update" means that the old version will be discontinued.

[Editor - Reload object / refresh]

++

[OpenGL collision with Leadwerks commands?]

would it be possible to set up the terrain model some how to accept leadwerks collision commands, with vehicles and controllers?

If you create an le mesh/surface equivalent of it once you're happy with it and set it up as collision tree (http://www.leadwerks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bodies#CreateBodyTree) then yes.

A newton heightfield might be more efficient but there are no commands exposed for that.

This will only make the physics work, the raycasting commands won't detect the mesh I suppose.

 

Getting the rendering/lighting to look correct with a custom drawn object will be a pain...

[Question regarding terrain]

xD Now it should not read

40.9 meters

but "40.9 kilometers"

[Question regarding terrain]

40960 meters = 4096 kilometers

???

40960 meters = 40.96 km ...

 

A km per grid point/heightmap pixel would be a way too low resolution, even for a flightsim.

[How can we use morphing?]

It worked, but wasn't included as core functionality. You just need a vert shader and have to encode the vertex positions in a float-data texture.

[Leadwerks GDC 2010 Showcase (HD)]

I like it.

 

But it's not better than the first version. Criticisms:

• The extreme video compression makes HD res useless and makes the whole thing look bad in general.
  
• LoD popping/sudden appearing of the bushes is still visible (I guess it's just the same video, but you managed to upload it in HD).
  
• Also the changes of the different shadow areas/resolutions is very visible.
  
• Music fits less and is not as good as the first one.

 

Still, the map and artwork is great.

[Positions over 4000]

Try a size smaller than 100000.

[Changing/updating environment vars in Visual Studio?]

The included ribbon framework is really cool:

[Changing/updating environment vars in Visual Studio?]

Yes I know I could manually ad the new folder and delete the old one, but I want to use the variable.

 

Nvm. I found and solved the problem.

For some reason the variable updating batch file looks up the vars at HKCU (looks like it's not allowed to read from HKLM), but the installation only updated the values in HKLM. I copied those over and it works fine now.

[Changing/updating environment vars in Visual Studio?]

I recently installed the latest windows sdk (7.0).

But the environment variable/"macro" $(WindowsSdkDir) from msvc still points to the old location ("C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\" instead of "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\").

 

I executed all

• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat,
  
• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat and
  
• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat (I think this should be the only one that has to be run.)

with admin privileges.

From what I know, these should update the variable from the registry "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\CurrentInstallFolder", where the correct current install folder is stored (I checked).

 

But even after running these the WindowsSdkDir variable still points to the old location.

 

Any ideas?

[Attaching LE to a HWND?]

FindWindow is not optimal either in the rare cases where there might exist another window with the same title.

[Java and leadwerks]

It's quite difficult to use dlls in Java.

You actually have to compile another wrapper dll:

http://java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Programming/JDCBook/jni.html

http://www.javaworld.com/jw-10-1998/jw-10-apptowin32.html

 

And I think it would not work/be allowed in an applet. Not unless you bought a security certificate. And even then it would still only work on the Windows platform.

 

The entry for Leadwerks Engine on devmaster is quite old and contains wrong information.