Rekindled Phoenix

Actually these billboards were generated by the Leadwerks Editor. As in a previous post, I created them by adding "vegetation_" to the gmf files and checked 'enable billboards'. I don't have the original source for the DDS files since I got them in an asset pack here. What do you suggest? With the billboards, how would I correct very 'sharp' edges that occur when the objects are far away?

1. What's going on with the dithering of the alpha values? How do I eliminate that? 2. Why are the billboards have such a sharp edge and look blotchy, when up close the billboards look exactly like my models?

I was also noticing that the alpha textures fade with distance to the trees, which makes it really obvious when it swaps to a billboard. There is a huge contrast between the two. How do I keep this from happening? Is there a way I can stop the textures from fading as the camera gets farther away? (question asked on a different thread here: Leadwerks Post )

Awesome, so the vegetation prefix is detected by the Sandbox. Does this apply for just GMF files or all files associated with it? Rename your GMF file with a 'vegetation_' in front and leadwerks will treat it like any other vegetation. Also, how do you get billboards for your vegetation models? My window wasn't large enough to see the 'enable billboards' checkbox

I'm trying to select a model to place as vegetation. The models appear in the main selection panel, but not in the vegetation list. The only two items that appear are the grass and spruce tree sample. (I'm specifically trying to get the beech tree set to display) What is required for the editor to recognize a model as vegetation?

I've been incredibly jealous of other engine's detailed water. Even something that's similar to Crysis would be acceptable. Can we have river nodes at least? It's been around for a while now... Also, has anyone looked into the way Valve does it with flow-maps? http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/siggraph2010_vlachos_waterflow.pdf (Developed for L4D2 and used in Portal2)

That is awesome! We can finally have a unified GUI soon

Are you using Lazlo's Leadwerks.Net libraries? It would be wonderful to access native OpenGL with C# code! This is exciting

Leadwerks.Net already has events that fire when a model is Activated or Updated physically. This may help. I agree. Josh should not create a separate environment calling thread-locks every frame. This would cause necessary thread-thrashing within the CPUs. Even then, each method call would have to check whether it is the Marshalling thread (main thread), and invoke a request if otherwise. When dealing with multi-threaded environments that use graphics rendering code, you must create a separate buffer for which to call upon. This allows you to reference a particular 'state' of the last rendering cycle represents. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd287191.aspx In .Net 4 you can use a thread-safe concurrent dictionary which will solve most of the work for you. (One more feature that makes it easier to use .Net) It would be an amazing feat if Josh recompiled Leadwerks into an optimized multi-threaded environment with object states internally, but that I think is asking too much.

I'm glad other agree with my suggestion. I believe I saw and example of this in one of Josh's recent video posts relating to the new texture editor. Hopefully something to look forward to in LE3.

Yes, your links have been rolled back. Could you please repost the pinned links with the SVN page for those who weren't using Leadwerks.Net?

I don't quite understand the problem you are facing. Is there less traction than you expect for the sphere? Does the sphere head in the camera's direction instead of it's initial velocity? By the way, I would recommend using Leadwerks.Net, a different library than the shortened LE.Net. Lazlo would be able to offer the link since the forums were rolled back a month or so. There have been a lot of valuable updates to the library that make it very easy to use with VB or C#.

Has collision-based particles been mentioned yet? Realistic smoke... I would also like to see static particles, where they exist eternally. This would be useful for haze / fog, ground details, creating your own imposters...

I believe each event, such as "ButtonClicked" or "MouseHover" should have available properties to define a sound if needed. The GUI should be responsible for firing these events, and checking if there is a sound associated with each. Either that, or a callback that a method should listen for. In C# / VB you define an event, and then the class inheriting the code may listen and act accordingly.

Actually, when the Crygene 2 Sandbox was showing a demo of all the features, one of them was projected lights. It seems trivial if you created it with a simple lua script. *cough* LE3 *cough*

that is awesome! Thanks aggror

This is wonderful news, great progress Josh!

Yaaaay thank you aggror. All of these awesome features you build for us should be bundled into LE3!

I may have a solution for those who use .Net to call LoadScene() and render with a progress bar without using custom OpenGL calls. I shall post more tonight later when I have time.

+1

My first project is for an small commercial project for the IPhone, using Unity. The most I'm allowed to say is it "involves shooting things". My secondary project is an easy-to-use, simplified (yet secure) Client and Server library for the Leadwerks Community. My goal is to create a simple interface that the programmer can implement like FPS, MMO, or RTS style commands to / from the Leadwerks engine. The server does the rest of the work for you if you don't override the methods yourself. I want this library to be used by those who want complete control, and those who just want something simple. I'm currently writing code for lobbies, server redirects, and a managed user "database". Once LE 3.0 becomes available, everyone will have the option to create a renderless server. All other projects are to expand my knowledge and understanding of the game content pipeline using Leadwerks. I have created a basic RTS, a 2.5D Side-Scroller, and the beginnings of an MMO. I sadly have not have had time to bring a Leadwerks game to full completion. (I have to say, Mumbles you are a typing beast.)

I think Josh really needs to buy some AdWords if he hasn't already. C4, Torque, and Unity all come up on the first pages for "Indie Game Engine". I don't even see Leadwerks...

Design Question #1 Usually that's unnecessary feature for a cursor, but fading text is quite common. As an example, most RPGs have a small number that fades in /out of the screen with each damage done to an entity. Font that is permanently opaque usually is reserved for Web 2.0 menus, and the final steps in the development process for a game when the developers start making everything pretty. Design Question #2 I agree with Rick. If there is a sort of grid system, the artists will have the flexibility to customize the interface. My implementation is a 3x3 system and works well for my project. Design Question #3 Yes. Giving flexibility to the artists would increase the productivity of the GUI pipeline. Tinting is no exception and would allow the developers the ability to tint an entire subset of menus without having to re-render the graphics in a Paint application. Design Question #4 "Shift to Menu [Forward / Back]", "Error / Not Allowed to click", "Scrolling"

I really wish this was a Native feature to the LE engine. I hate waiting for all of the assets to load as my thread sinks into unmanaged code (compared to .Net "managed" DLLs). There is no way I can make an additional render call by another thread without throwing an exception. Josh, is and updated LoadScene() this something that will be fixed for 3.0?

If you have any questions regarding creating WPF applications, feel free to PM me.