[Conversation with NVidia]

lol. Do it! Give them a good lecture.

[Should consoles be upgrade-able too?]

Over 40 replies on a status update. It pretty much ended in a discussion if consoles should be upgrade-able too (hardware wise), just like PCs. I think it's good to have a discussion about this.

 

Lol and to think it started with PhysX and NVidea.

 

With the current PS3 and X360 hardware, most games can only be played 720p or 480p. It doesn't matter if you have a Fat PS3 or a Slimline PS3, and the same goes for the fat X360 and the smaller X360. One thing that they did do wrong, in my opinion, is that they kept the 720p limitation (on most games). They could've upgraded/improved the GPU to support 1080p games better, without losing support for the 720p limited consoles *. Thus, games wouldn't have better graphics, apart from the fact they supported 1080p.

 

* Develop games for 720p, and later improve them for the 1080p consoles.

 

I admit some games are better on a controller. sooooo......As I've said before.. if you want something upgradable that feels like a console... Get a PC, plug it into your TV with a HDMI cable get a PS3 or XBox controller to work with your PC and It's pretty much the same thing except better graphics and more games. If you build your PC right you shouldn't have any hardware compatibility issues like people seem to cry about a lot.

 

After all consoles are pretty much becoming PC's with restricting operating systems. I mean you can update the OS, watch movies, save data, play music go on the internet and even edit video clips... lol... so I think the line between console and PC is getting pretty blurred anyway so you might as well not bother anymore . The only thing I would miss from the PS3 is the PS Move and Metal Gear Solid 4.. and that's it.

 

Also by building your own PC (and not doing it badly) you avoid nasty stupid things like RROD (Red Ring of Death XBox) and YLOD (Yelow Light of Death PS3) which are freaking annoying.... I've had it twice... opened up my PS3 fixed it and now its broken again..... stupid fail airflow of console systems.

 

Then there is the cost of games.... If I had to cost up the "In Store" value of the games that I have gotten off steam it would be freaking ridiculous. It seems that you pay more for a lower quality game.

 

However... On the other hand I have heard that a lot of the stuff in the PS3 now will be the same the PS4... The CPU in the PS3 is way better than it needs to be and a lot of games barely touch its potential. So in effect, the main difference between a PS3 and PS4 apparently is mostly just the GPU..... so maybe we should just get a GPU upgrade instead of having to buy a complete new system.... IDK... though I just don't care anymore. I've left the Console world so whatever aye.

 

What are your thoughts on this? What will happen when Sony and Microsoft release their new consoles? Will it have backwards compatibility for PS3 and X360?

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH! this one is very funny. PS3 had one version that was backwards compatible with the PS2 games... but that didn't last long lol. It would be a good idea but I doubt it would happen. I have a feeling the Sony doesn't want them to be backwards compatible so that they can make more money. A sony console life cycle is supported by sony for 10 years and they release a new console approximately every 6 years so that's 4 years of PS2 sales that would likely be reduced if it was backwards compatible.... cheap bastards. If it was a PC it would be backwards compatible. lolz

 

Final Note: I don't mind consoles... I personally don't think they should be upgradable for a number of reasons and I think that consoles really damage the technical progression of the game industry... Josh said it himself.... Because the big studios are trying to make cross platform games for consoles and PC they miss out on exploring with PhysX can really do... for example

[Asset Store launch]

What kind of animated character assets do you think would be best. In my head it would be the kind of generic ones. For example, soldier, or civilin and more generalized characters. That way people can have a good base and edit them to be their unique character. However, I really wouldn't know because I'm not usually the type to buy models so maybe poeple do want full on main-characterish models???

 

If I have spare time I'll make one to contribute to the asset store. However, that all depends how long it takes to convert my 3DsMax skills into Blender Skills because I only have a student version of 3DsMax lol

[More Lua for 3D artists :]

I don't meant 5% of the Leadwerks community, I mean 5% of the larger potential market.

Yes thats what I meant.

 

 

Right, and it was a big challenge to figure out how to make things simple without crippling the system, because frankly if I had to make an easy-to-use ****ty engine, I would rather go write high-speed trading algorithms or do something else for work. I mean, simply making easy to use low-quality stuff has no appeal to me. I like to think the design I worked out will make life easier for everyone, without holding back the expert programmers.

Fantastic. Thanks. I thaught this was the case I just wanted to double check

 

 

I started as a map designer.

Doubly proves my point

[More Lua for 3D artists :]

Once any third party gets involved, the user experience is out of my control. Probably 95% of the potential market for software like this won't accept or understand the need for a third party compiler. Even if they do go for it, coding tools are almost always very difficult to set up and poorly supported. That causes a lot of conflict when I am trying to make a system that's easy to use. A lot of people come here with no coding experience at all, see they have to install Visual Studio, and that's the end of it for them. My guess is that describes maybe 95% of the people who might be interested in designing games.

 

Just a question about this Josh. What about the apparent '5%' of us that actually do like to have the flexibility of coding and that actually enjoy coding with a 3rd party compiler. Will we still have the same flexibility in LE3? I can understand why others would want it but I personally don't like getting spoon fed to the point where you can just throw in a template and almost have a complete game...... So yeh just wondering if we will still have that flexibility.

 

I just hope its not going to turn into some cookie cutter engine that tends to produce a lot of similar games that just have different artwork. I moved to leadwerks from another engine because I loved its flexibility and number of options.

 

Oh... and I actually am originally a 3D artist before a programmer so I guess I'm an exception from the '3DArtists don't like to code' rule.

[Low FPS]

You could probably give players a choice of quality as all games seem to do. That way you can have a large shadow map size, and for those systems that can't handle it, they can tone it down for better fps . It seems in most commercial games that I play, puting shadows on and shadow quality up is one of the biggest fps hits in the options menu. Giving the player the option is probably the best way to go in that case.

[Hello-my introduction]

Welcome

[FreeSurface, FreeVertex, FreeTriangle]

/agree

[Lua exemples :]

I think Aggror posted a bunch of progressive Lua tutorials one youtube. try searching 'leadwerks lua tutorials' in youtube.

[Just Starting Out]

I'm using SDL_net, because it doesn't have royal fees like RakNet has, and it's better suited for MMO since it's very fast and light and you are in control what you send, each bit and byte.

 

<< You control each bit and byte that is sent in RakNet as well.

<< You only pay for RakNet once you make $100,000. At which point paying for it is nothing.

<< RakNet is fast

<< It is only not light if you decide to include every single file. You only use the things you need

 

But either way I don't care. I'm sure SDL_net is good too

[Just Starting Out]

For networking, I'm looking at RakNet. Can anybody make other suggestions? Maybe wait for Leadwerks 3.0 and its network support?

 

I recommend RakNet. It's a big learning curve but if you just knuckle down it becomes very easy to use as I have found recently. It is a fantastic Networking API and it integrates very nicely with Leadwerks. I am currently in the process of making a tutorial series for using RakNet integrated with Leadwerks. XD

 

Oh just a suggestion. Try and get into the networking side of it as soon as possible. It is incredibly difficult to integrate networking when a lot of game features have already been implemented. Things just don't work the same way when when you add networking. << sounds crazy but its so true. For example: A simple car demo approx = 112 lines of c++. Same car demo with networking approx = 1,233 lines of c++ . So yeh big difference

 

BTW I agree with you about the current state of the mmo world. They seem to be very disappointing of late. Make a good one aye

[Mechanical Walker]

mmmm yes. Really need the joint stiffness to work.. XD My wrecking ball looks more like a tennis ball bouncing around with an elastic band cable

[Not sure if this goes here but anyways,]

Only if you don't buy LE2 before buying LE3.

 

Yeh. It will be cheaper to get LE2 and upgrade to LE3 than to get LE3 straight off the bat

[SetJointStiffness [SOLVED]]

Yes I know it exists..... But it doesn't seem to have an effect. I use it on my rope class but the joints still stretch

 

I use it as shown below but it doesn't seem to make a difference:

TJoint segJoint = CreateJointBall(ropeBodySegs[i-1], ropeBodySegs[i], Vec3(segPos.X, segPos.Y, segPos.Z+(segLength/2)), Vec3(0,0,0));
SetBallJointLimits(segJoint, 0,180,180); 
SetJointStiffness(segJoint,1);

[SetJointStiffness [SOLVED]]

I agree.

 

We need this to stop the joints from stretching then rope of different stretchiness, and many other things, would become possible. At the moment I have a wrecking ball that seems to be hanging of an elastic band .

[..some random level shot..]

Hi I like the effect a lot. Looks good and the scene looks nice as well.

 

Just out of curiosity, if you were to look at your textures without the cartoon effect are the realistic textures? or have you simplified them?

 

Just curious.

[Dirty Comic Shader]

Hey Guys,

 

Been testing this in large open areas and found that although it works well in closed in and more close up areas there are some things that need to be changed to get it to work properly in a big open world scene with geographic topography made with the editor. If you don't know what I mean --> this is what happens if you use the shader outside with LE Editor hills

 

 

As you can see the shader is detecting the edges of polygons as edge lines which it shouldn't be and you can see that as you get to the horizon it starts to blacken out with a really thick black line. This is because the difference in depth on the depth buffer gets less and less the further away it gets. Therefore, I thought of a workaround to make the difference required to make a line dependant on the depth of the pixel in question... If you want to use the shader in the open planes with hills you'll need to change the following code:

 

From This:

fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 0.01) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);                           //Line Number 24

To Something Like This:

if(fCurrent<=0.5){                                                                                      
       fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 0.001) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);
} else if(fCurrent>0.5 && fCurrent<=5.0){
       fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 0.02) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);
} else if(fCurrent>5.0 && fCurrent<=9.0){
       fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 5.0) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);
} else if(fCurrent>12 && fCurrent<=15.0){
       fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 7.0) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);
} else if(fCurrent>25 && fCurrent<=28.0){
       fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 12.0) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);
} else {
       fEdgeDepth = clamp((fDDX + fDDY - 20.0) * 10.0, 0.0, 1.0);
}      

 

DaDonik & I tested this in both small and open areas but Unfortunately this also results in losing a bit of detail outlining in the distance but the ultimate outline is still retained (Will have to hard-texture in the lines within the mesh to keep the detail <-- they do that in borderlands). So if your game is in-doors, the original shader code is still better. However, for the great outdoors you'll need to change it so something like this and tweak it to be as close to what you need as possible. I also tried using a function for a smoother transition rather than a big if statement but I didn't get a good result for some reason. Feel free to play around with the idea.

 

Here is the resulting outline generated after the changes

^^ As you can see the thick line in the distance is reduced and you only see black lines on the very border on the hills. You'll also notice that the vehicle has less inner outlines... This is unfortunately the trade off. However, those inner lines will become visible if you walk closer to the vehicle. Best to hard texture in the inner lines where possible

[Example Framework :]

So you want to load a level made in the editor with npc's etc. using c++?

 

Have a look here ------> http://www.leadwerks.com/files/Tutorials/CPP/Loading_A_Scene.pdf

 

Thats the closest thing I can think of to what you are looking for.

[Leadwerks Engine 2.5 release Monday night]

Thank you Josh for this update XD... the last release was freezing up all the time but 2.5 doesn't. I think it was because of my ATI card but all is good now. Cheers

[Unlimited Detail]

Oh wow this sounds really good. Yeh there are plenty of points to be critical about... but then again, at one point computers didn't even have screens and you had to insert punch cards just to get the answer to a simple mathematical problem (no I'm actually not that old I just know about it)..... well.... I don't think anyone would be able to comprehend let alone believe that current games were even possible. Absurd! they would say...

 

I'm looking forward to see what's going on with this. It sounds like they are trying to make it so that we can model the same way using polygons and sculpting and convert it.... which is great. I don't understand how animation and physics will work but I guess that's what they are working on.

 

What's More: That company is based in my city XD... Yay I really hope this is something real. It would be good for the currently pathetic Australian games industry to be boosted by something like this.

 

In the end haters gonna hate. It seems the main reason why it isn't received well is because its different and it would require a lot of change. In my short 22 years of life if there is one thing I've figured out its that.... people are stubborn and afraid of change ;(.... which is really sad.... Just watch... if this really is real, some game dev company is gonna take it up behind closed doors and BAM! all the others will be scrambling to catch up with the tech. Anyway that is if its really. Guess I'll wait and see.

[Move a Body with normal velocity]

Thanks, that would make sense but for some reason it makes no difference. The joints still stretch. Here is my code for creating a joint and Setting its stiffness maybe I'm doing something wrong.

 

TJoint ropeAnchorStart = CreateJointBall(rStartNode, ropeBodySegs[i], ropeInit, Vec3(0,0,0));
SetBallJointLimits(ropeAnchorStart, 180,180,180); 
SetJointStiffness(ropeAnchorStart,1);

 

On another note, that command doesn't seem to be on the wiki even though it is an engine command.

[Move a Body with normal velocity]

Hi, I am having a problem that sounds similar to this.

 

I have made rope similar to this and added a wrecking ball to the end of it. I set it up so you can move the start node body (kinda like a crane) but there is a huuuuge delay between the start node moving and the first link in the rope catching up to it. Its almost like the joint is stretching under force. Is there anyway to stop the joint from stretching. I want to have a crane with a wrecking ball crane and I want the start of the cable to be 1 for 1 with the the attachment to the crane and not being delayed. I noticed on the Newton wiki that there are some extra commands for joints that don't seem to have corresponding commands in leadwerks.

 

Short Story: Is there a way to make ball joints not stretch under force?

[Free sculpting application!]

Yeh it would be good for overhangs. But also normal maps. Once you make a low poly model in max or blender export it to sculptris and detail it up and use the detailed model to make a normal map for your low poly. XD thats what im going to use it for

[Free sculpting application!]

Hey Ken... Nice work on that model. Is that your first attempt, or have you had previous experiance with sculpting?

 

Yes it is my first attempt at sculpting. I always wished I could have gotten into it earlier but couldn't afford Zbrush or Mudbox. Didn't even know that Sculptris existed until I saw this thread. I was getting frustrated while trying to find good sculpting tutorials so I just said "stuff it" and pulled up a picture of an octopus and gave it my best shot. Took me a fair while to do as I'm not used to sculpting. Though my origins in game development is more from the 3D art side so that probably helped XD I have a good 3D sense.... Now I'm just struggling to get into all the programming n stuff.. but getting there steadily.

 

Oh and nice terrain btw it looks pretty good. I'll have to try painting my octopus later to give those features a go.

[Free sculpting application!]

Wow, this is amazing. Always wanted to get into sculpting but could never really afford Zbrush. This does the trick for me didn't even know it existed. Played around with it while I was waiting for my Leadwerks registration code to be sent to me. I love how fluid Sculptis is. Oh and I'm new here, so Hi everyone XD. Check it out: