wailingmonkey

Particle deformers: - Non-linear: bend, taper/flare, sine, squash, twist, wave - free-form cage deformer (customizable matrix) - sticky particles (with 'sticky-ness' customizer, gravity editor, and ability to splat/radiate from contact point---hello gib-tastic particles!) *edit* forgot to add, trail particles that could potentially be based off of a spline tool similar to road tool (not just 'trailing' off of a geometry's animated motion)

awesome!...and just a short walk to the river.

really nice seeing your experiments as of late, MG!

maybe a way to implement Tessendorf waves?...I suspect it's pretty fps-heavy, but as I'm no programmer...maybe you could work wonders. Here's a guy who implemented them in XSI (before it was Autodesk Softimage): http://www.amaanakram.com/?page_id=131 *edit* Oops...forgot to say, looking good, Gandi!

yep, as macklebee suggests...hoping to have speedy camera acquisition of specific items as well as just a handy way to 'frame all' of your models in the scene. The option to exclude the terrain being available for huge maps that may have just a 'cluster' of models somewhere on a large terrain, so framing to the terrain as well could be fairly useless. Also, would be very nice to be able to assign one's own hotkeys/mousekeys for navigation. I'm used to the 'Maya-style' and would find *only* WASD to be inefficient.

will you also incorporate a 'frame selected' (f key?) and 'frame all' (a key?)--- the latter omitting the actual world terrain as an option to set in preferences?

nice job, Marleys Ghost!...performs exactly as one would expect!

adding sway/wind on the trees and subtly on the grass would probably add a bit of immersion too! (nice work, franck22000)

Also consider it's not just bone hierarchy...how the model was envelope-weighted/skinned per vertex will have a bearing on how each model deforms when animated. Differences in mesh topology and just general silhouette/scale can have great affect, unless you can figure out a way to create a 'cage' that is universal to all of your assets as well as a universal bone hierarchy scheme that serves as an intermediary. So yeah, not really a trivial task, and that's why even the big boy DCC products don't do it all that well (3dsMax, Maya, Softimage ...although Softimage has some advanced tools in there that can do pretty well like GATOR/MOTOR). You might have a look into MotionBuilder as well, since it's pretty industry-standard in dealing with mocap (or already animated bone hierarchies).

right back atcha, Marleys Ghost! (and everyone)

I'd say you'll need to edit your smoothing angle in UU3D to whatever angle you've got in Max. Also, looks like you've set your texture to repeat a certain amount in max, but your UVs are not actually scaled to that degree on the 0-1 UV space when exported, so once they get into UU3D you'll need to set their repeats to match what you did in Max. (I don't use Max, so sorry to not be of more help... there may be a more elegant export option someone else can assist with) Or perhaps an easier solution might be to use Arbuz's exporter?

lol, tournamentdan (instantly hums benny hill jingle) Josh, having these extra parameter controls accessible will be of great use! (I'm liking gamecreator's ideas as well) depending on how fps-costly this is, I could see this also being immediately applicable to adding secondary 'non-conflict' life to a game world--thinking flocking fauna (fish, birds, etc.) or man-made stuff like background airplane paths, cars, etc. The idea would be to set 1 'hero/leader' NPC on a path and have instances or other NPCs flocking behind. In this regard, some built-in randomization or noise/turbulence to the accuracy of the path-following would be handy too.

perhaps consider affecting the normal as well in coordination with the specular? (thinking puddles tend to wash out --sorry for pun-- the bump detail they're sitting on top of...although I do like the gradient effect of the second image around the shiny edges--the puffy outer edge seems off though) Seems like you'd definitely need multiple UV-channel support for anything affected by your rain shader. (I'd guess there is probably a UDK shader example out there somewhere too)

good job. in terms of critique, maybe a bit 'muddy'...perhaps another layer of grainy pits over the top of the bricks to bring a bit more crisp feel? (personal taste, of course)

nice work, franck22000!

as in: It's not the size of the pencil, it's whether "The Leadwerks" ???

were you thinking of this, Josh?: http://www.pixelux.com/DMMengine.html (DMM)

" Leadwerks Corporation " does have kindof a 'Skynet' ring to it, doesn't it?

hmm...if it's not a driver error, I'd say it looks like 2 vertices on those fingers didn't get weighted to any bones?

yep...could be mud, dust, snow.... nice one, Aily!

agree with Pixel! (reminds me a bit of some buildings from Just Cause 2...mmmm grappling hook)

just wanted to stop by and say 'thank you' for sharing this, klepto2...nice work!

if I read your last 2 sentences correctly then, the actual order of placement of arguments (marker and constant) along the node links makes no difference to 'Platform' in how it interprets the value? (I'm thinking of this as a variation to the way a render tree in XSI works...there, you have open slots to plug your nodes into, like diffuse/specular/transparency etc.---with what you're showing above, all available 'slots' that can be plugged into 'Button' lie on the link between it and it's target node, 'Platform'. Same basic concept, just different means to send values/properties, yes?)

not trying to pick a fight with you, tournamentdan (I think you've got some idea how much effort/energy/experience goes into making 'good' art) but those animations seem to be about $25 or less. If you built your pipeline around their naming conventions/rig you'd save a huge amount compared to paying an animator. It just baffles me how there's this perception that art should somehow be less costly than other things that take an equal amount of skill, knowledge/experience, and time to create. I'm currently going to Animation Mentor and I can tell you for a FACT that a reasonably polished run cycle will take waay more than 1 hour's work to make look decent... (gets off soapbox)

was hoping for something like Softimage's ICE: (early implementation, disregard audio) Have a look around youtube for additional vids on Softimage ICE...there's fluid sim nodes, particle sim nodes, etc. Is there a reason LE 'nodes' couldn't be self-contained complex logic? I would think there could be some compelling reasons to allow the system to accept higher-level functionality...namely, a more desirable means for merchants (programmers) to create and profit from their effort. Maybe somebody has a Tessendorf wave 'node' they'd like to create and sell so folks like Red October (or anyone dealing with an ocean-based game) could have that option to purchase and 'plug-in' to their ocean geometry... Frankly, being able to have a standardized means of offering these node plug-ins would seem to be a huge boost in enhancing the ability for games to be made with LE. (Animation-blending/Managing node, Substance texture integration node, ocean nodes, sky nodes, ragdoll node, particle node, car-physics node, cut-scene/camera node .... etc, etc.)