ChrisV

Yeps, after a closer look, it does seem that there's a black dot visible at each corner of the texture. It doesn't seem to be the texture itself, but rather when the game is run. In the editor, i see no black dots at the corners of each terrain tile, but they do appear when you run the game. There were also black dots (all over the texture, and not only at the corners) when using one of the LE normal map textures, and those dissapeared when i used my own normal map textures.

Not sure if this is a bug, but the dots come from the normal map texture. I created a few of my own terrain textures (diffuse, normal and displacement), and i had no more dots at all. The LE normal map textures for terrain seem to have transparency on them, which might cause it. My guess is that some parts are completely transparent, causing the black dots. Or, it is something else.

Working on a bunch of new terrain textures for LE, which i'll upload for free. I'm really impressed by the new terrain system in Leadwerks. Currently, i created around 4 or 5 base textures, and then created a few variations on those base textures, which brings the total of textures up to around 8 or 10 (i haven't counted them yet, but it should be around that number ). I'll upload them within the next couple of days. Here's a screenie to show some of them:

Sorry to sound a bit negative, but i have to agree with YouGroove. Although LE is getting better in terms of gameplay creation, features and ease of use, LE 3 runs slower than LE 2 did. LE 2 had no problems running at a decent speed with a few hundreds of trees, terrain at max size, all fullscreen shaders on (bloom, godrays, DOF, antialiasing, trilinear and anisotropic filter, SSAO, HDR, terrain and vegetation shadows, etc...), while current version of LE sometimes goes below 30 fps (resolution at 1280*1024) with less models (no trees at all), no fullscreen shaders, etc... Don't get me wrong here, i love LE and see a bunch of great improvements which i like, and i know plenty of enhancements will come. So, a BIG + for speed (and also visual) improvements! If LE 3 would run at the same speed and visual awesomeness that LE 2 had, it would be sooooo sweet!

It should work if you make all objects you want to group together, to have a parent object. So, for example, say you have an object called 'Box1', and another called 'Box2', then simply drag 'Box2' onto 'Box1' ( in the 'Scene' tab) to make it a child of 'Box1'. Hope that helps?

He's not yet Mr. Universe, but maybe in a few decades he'll be.

Yep, sadly enough, we game developers all come/came to a point where we think: 'Oh dear, what am i getting my self into?', or 'Geez, i will never be able to make a game!', or something along those lines. The truth is, that game development isn't easy, especially if you only know a certain aspect of game development, be it programming, art creation, sound design, or other skills related to game design. Some of us are into art creation, others are great at coding, there are guys that are super at concept art, level design, sound creation, you name it. There are a few that know a combination of these skills too. I'm not an expert on coding, but i do have a fair amount of experience/skill in the artistic branche of game development. I already have made a couple of entire games (one was an Arkanoid clone, the other a space shooter), but they were small compared to some of the games created by teams of course. For those who don't have enough expertise/skill in all branches of game design, you could either team up with someone, or learn these other skills. For some it will be hard to learn, for others it might go easier than expected to learn new things, it all depends on the person. You could also hire someone, or buy models (or find some free ones), but usually they don't fit with your game idea, or the art doesn't match a certain style. I'd suggest, get your game idea written down (story, artwork needed for both 2D and 3D, sound, concept, etc...), and ask around here on the forum for team members, or learn some of the missing parts that you don't have the skills yet, or do a combination (team up, and learn a few things). Best advice, is to not give up! ;-)

Hey guys, Been working on another 3D character model in 3DCoat. Some kinda monster/mutant/demon. I call him 'Gurglar'. The name just came up when i looked at his rippled chin, and also because it sounded rather wicked. The model is finished (sculpted, uv mapped, textured), and later will follow rigging and weightpainting in blender. When finished, i'll upload this model for free. I'm having some problems with the normal mapping export/import (3DCoat to LE). It's a bit strange, because i didn't experience this when importing models from 3DCoat in other applications. I'm looking into this, and hopefully find a solution or work around. Anyways, here's the finished model (not yet rigged) in 3DCoat.

It would only matter if the invisible material needs a drawcall. The less drawcalls, the better. Does the invisible material require a drawcall, or not? I think Josh could shed some light on the matter. If it needs a drawcall for the invisible material, then maybe a better solution could be made?

Also, the poser license states that it is forbidden to use the 3d models in games. You are allowed to render the 3d poser models and use the 2d rendered images for games, i think. At least, that's how it was a couple of years back when i purchased Poser Pro 8. So, best check the license before you decide to use the poser models in a game or not.

Yes, i know about that option. Forgot to mention that. Still, it would be nice to have a doubleclick option on the item in the list. And, also work vice versa...doubleclicking on any item in the perspective window and have it focused upon in the Scene list.

Hello, Here are some suggestions to improve the workflow when working in the level editor. - An option to select multiple files in the thumbnail window at the bottom of the assets panel and the ability to edit these multiple files at the same time (delete, rename, etc...). Currently, it's only possible to select only one thumbnail at once (as far as i can tell ), which is no problem if you only have a couple of items that you want to edit, but if you have like 10 or more files that you want to delete (or whatever), it'll take quite some time. Also, a shortkey to do these actions (delete, copy/paste) would be very handy and time saving. - In the 'Scene' tab, a feature to double click on an item in the list, and make the cam (in perspective mode) focus on that particular item. This would be very handy to quickly find back any particular object/item in your scene. Maybe the same principle could also be done when double clicking on any object in the perspective window, thus highlighting the double-clicked item in the 'Scene' panel. I also noticed that the colour of the highlighted item in the 'Scene' panel, is almost the same as the white background. A more noticeable colour would fix that. - When in 'face select' mode, i noticed that the related buttons/options for that mode are in the 'Objects' panel. No problem with that, but it would be great to have the panels switch automatically whenever you select either the 'Select Face' mode, or the 'Select Object' mode. - Selecting an object (which has a material applied) doesn't always show the material name used for that object. It would be great to always see the material name (in the 'Appearance' tab) for all objects (csg or custom models). That's about it for now. Thanks!

Thank you, mate! I hope they're usefull. Let me know what other 'themes' could be of use, and i'll have a go at creating them.

Thanks a bunch, guys! Well, i've just uploaded the free texture/materials pack. You can find it here: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/files/file/469-wallandfloorzip/ The theme of this pack is 'Wall and Floor'. 10 high detailed materials (each with it's own diffuse, normal and specular texture!) for (worn and used) floors and walls, suited for FPS games (such as Half Life, Doom, Unreal, etc...), horror games, space/tech or games that need realistically looking wall/floor textures. I've spent quite some time on creating them, so i hope to see some great games made with them. Also, comments or suggestions are much appreciated. You can use them for commercial or personal use, as long as you don't sell them, or claim them to be yours or made by someone else than me. Here's a screenie of some of the textures: Cheers!

Ah yes, very true, SarperSoher! I'm gettin used to the LE 3.1 commands. Thanks for pointing that out.

The above script, i had it attached to a camera. The draw commands need a camera to work (either created in the code, or by attaching the script to a camera). The fpsweapon.lua script doesn't have a camera (in the code), so it won't work. It should work in the FPSPlayer.lua script, since there is a camera created in the script.

Hmm, this works for me : function App:Start() self.window = Window:Create() self.context = Context:Create(self.window) local font = Font:Load("Fonts/Arial.ttf",36) self.context:SetFont(font) font:Release() return true end function App:Loop() if (self.window:Closed() or self.window:KeyDown(Key.Escape)) then return false end self.context:SetColor(0,0,0) self.context:Clear() --Draw text on screen local text = "LEADWERKS" local text2 = "IS" local text3 = "AWESOME !!!" local font = self.context:GetFont() x = 0 y = 0 self.context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Alpha) self.context:SetColor(1,0.0,1) self.context:DrawText(text,x,y) self.context:SetColor(0.3,1,1) self.context:DrawText(text2,x,y+30) self.context:SetColor(1,1,0) self.context:DrawText(text3,x,y+60) self.context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Solid) self.context:Sync() return true end

Try this: function Script:Loop() self.context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Alpha) self.context:SetColor(1,1,1,1) self.context:DrawText("Ammo ",92,92) -- Add these two lines self.context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Solid) self.context:Sync() return true end Also, in your start function, be sure to set the font. I'm not sure if that's needed, but just in case.

I agree. It would be very very usefull to get more advanced shaping done in the editor, without having to create these 'simple' shapes in an external 3D modeling program. It would also increase the speed to create the basic shape of your environments. As an example...if i want to create a wall with a door opening in it, i have to create three cubes for this one wall, and then also tweak the texture scale on each face so that there's no seam (to make it appear as one whole mesh and not three seperate boxes). So, yeah...a big +1 for such a commonly used game engine feature.

Hmm, i doubt that's a good idea. I know from experience that rigify has a lot of unnecessary bones (for the widgets, etc...) upon export. Even when i got rid of these widgets, there were tons of other bones/attachments when i exported the rigged character. I must admit though, that i'm not a blender expert, so i'm sure there are ways to get rid of all these things, and only have the necessary bones exported. I personnaly think that creating your rig from scratch is easier/better. Not saying that rigify is a bad option, though. Haven't tried using a rigged character in blender and import in LE yet, but i'm pretty sure you need to select the mesh and armature to be exported. No, i don't think so. No idea on that matter. Sorry. Haven't tried it myself yet, but soon i will, because i'm working on some free 3D character models (rigged) to upload for LE.

Hey Leadwerkers, Been working on free texture/material packs for LE today, and i'm quite happy with the results! The pack i'm creating now, has textures for ground/wall, suited for a variety of game genres, such as horror, fps games (half life, doom, unreal and similar), realistic environments, industrial, and space/tech games!! It's not finished yet, but so far i already have 9 materials (each with diffuse, normal and specular maps)! Once finished (probably tomorrow, as now i'm off to bed, getting some sleep), i'll upload this free texture/material pack! You can use these textures/materials for free, as long as you don't sell them or tell others that you've created them. And of course, credits are appreciated . Thanks! I'll also work on free skyboxes and upload them as soon as they're finished. Here are a couple of screenshots of the texture pack i'm working on. Hope you'll like what you see.

Outstanding, shad! Our shader guru has done it again! Totally awesome!

Hey guys, Here's a couple of screens of a new character model i created in 3DCoat. Some sort of a weird looking alien guy. This character will get uploaded as soon as the new assets feature is available. The model is 4.3 K, so not too high, not too low. Next up will be to rig the dude in blender, and optimize him for LE. I might probably create some weaponry and additional cloths (armature, gadgets) as seperate meshes, so that people can customize him a bit to their liking. Anyways, i hope you like what you see. Any suggestions for 3D art are always welcome.

Well, here are a few suggestions for future tutorials, which i think are important for (almost) every game you'd create. - The first one (maybe not really related to 'gameplay'), would be GUI/HUD integration. Pretty much every game needs a HUD or GUI, and i haven't seen any tutorials on that yet. What about a tutorial that explains the basics of setting up a HUD/GUI which then people can expand upon? Also, if possible, both in C++, as in LUA. I would prefer LUA myself, but i'm sure others prefer C++ instead. - What about tutorials or templates for specific gameplay? Such as a basic template for platformers/sidescrollers, space shooters, top down strategy games, etc...? The templates/tutorials could be used as basic start projects, but would also be usefull to gain some knowledge on how to set things up. - Another suggestion: scripts (LUA and/or C++) for spawning (enemy or player), bullet/weapon impact (particle creation, sound playing, etc...on impact), basic A.I., etc... Basically, any script/tutorial that can help in game(play) creation would be very usefull. They would help getting newbie game developers started, while seasoned developers could learn a few tricks here and there, and it would help to get more games created with Leadwerks, which would then in return be good for the engine/community. Cheers

Hello, everyone! It's been a while since my last post, but you'll probably see me around a lot more soon. In just a matter of days, i'll also be purchasing a copy of LE 3.1! This means that i'll be able to make art for this great engine again and upload some of it for free on the Assets page. I'll be creating a variety of 2D and 3D art, such as skies, 3D characters (rigged, and maybe also animated), environmental props, textures/materials, and other usefull game art. The 3D character models will have a very basic rig (using blender ) , and i might also do some animated ones (depending on how much free time i have left). Here's just an example of a 3D character (some sort of goblin ) i modeled/textured a couple of days ago in 3DCoat, and then rigged in blender. This model is around 5K, but i can go lower if needed. Note: this particular model won't be uploaded, as i created it for a project that i'm working on together with Roland, but i might do another one similar to this. Stay tuned!