Chris Vossen

Okay I haven't tested this but I believe there are currently 2 steps to accomplish this: 1. Make sure you can compile for visual studios Compiling with Visual Studio 2. Change the linker subsystem property to Windows Project->Properties->Linker->System->SubSystem

The most convenient way of animating a model in lua is to attach the "AnimationManager" script (located at \Scripts\Animation\AnimationManager.lua) then call "SetAnimationSequence" an example of this is in the Player.lua class (which is attached to the barbarian in Darkness awaits) Lines 219 through 235. If you don't want to use the animation manager you could call the entity SetAnimationFrame command. Animation commands are grouped together in Entity

Question: "Why can't I create new primitives directly in the main viewport? I would prefer to drag-n-drop them from the toolbar (giving me e.g. a unit cube) and then resize/reposition them using their property window (or the mouse)." Answer: If you would prefer to drag and drop a unit cube you could: 1. In 2d viewports create a 1x1x1 using the primitive box 2. Right click on your box in the scene tab and select "Save as Prefab" 3. Name it and save it 4. Select your prefab from the asset browser and drag n drop into the main viewport:

In the editor: You can select the object in the main viewport and their dimensions will appear in the 2d viewports where you can see their dimensions and resize accordingly. or If you are working in code: Box

Question: "Are there any commands/shortcuts to snap to the grid? Or to align objects? Without that it's pretty hard to construct the scene you want." Answer: You can adjust the grid size via View->Increase Grid Size or View->Decrease Grid Size "short cut key are the brackets '[' and ']' " When you create primitives they will automatically be created according to the grid size.

Question: "I create a new project using the Project Manager (Lua). I would have expected that I can run the project right away, but it doesn't seem to work. Opening App.lua in the Script Editor and hitting F5/F6 just notifies me that <myproect>.debug.exe couldn't be launched." Answer: Josh is on this right now. I'll post more when he's done.

Also response time may vary and I am going out of order with the questions.

Question: "Isn't there a way to change the size of models by entering their numbers? The viewports show me the sizes, but I seem only to be able to change them using the mouse which is awkward." Yes. - Select your model by clicking on the scene tab - Now there is a tab that says general and within it there are parameters for scale If you want to scale the model as a whole you can use the model editor:

I think the model editor might be the solution: Model Editor

Hi everyone, I'm Chris Vossen, I wrote the majority of "Darkness Awaits" and have spent way too much time with the documentation. I wanted to open a forum up to answering LE3 user questions about how to do things in Lua or editor. Please don't be bashful! If you have a question chances are there are/will be many others out there with the same question.

Much like many jobs, in programming there are tasks that you enjoy working on and then there are the tasks that lack joy and glory but are quite necessary. I recently began moving our project from visual studio 2008 to visual studio 2010 and well I can firmly state that this task fell into the latter category. After receiving this job, my first step was to jump right into it and use the VS 2008 to 2010 converter wizard. Everything seemed to move smoothly but being a programming pessimist, I didn’t hold my breath. When the magical wizard had finished I jumped into Visual studios 2010 and went to do a batch build of the project, the only problem was there wasn’t a “batch build” under the build options. I thought to myself: “hmm that’s weird” but then proceeded to do a single build. I started the build but then realized that I had forgotten something so I went to the build menu again and attempted to stop the build…but that feature was missing as well! At this point I realized something fishy was going on and after a quick google I discovered the problem. When installing Visual Studios 2010 express on your computer, it starts off in some sort of simplified mode called “Basic Settings” in order to reach advanced features such as stopping a build (super advance technique) you must change your settings to “Expert Settings”. So I am proud to announce that I believe I am now an expert because have the need to stop build and perform batch builds…I feel so cool. To make a long story short, on Friday I succeeded in getting the debug and release dll’s and libraries to build. This means we are a large step closer to supporting visual studios 2010 for all the experts out there.

I really should have been working but I decided to give it a try! First off it was very enjoyable and oddly relaxing! Thoughts: 1. Without being able to re-assign wizard types (or maybe you can but I couldn't figure it out....) there is no incentive to purchase the cheap wizards since they just take up a vital wizard slot. 2. The ability to re-position wizards would add an extra gameplay element. 3. The AOE wizards are too much awesome! I played a round where I set all my slots to AOE wizards and only took 1 point of damage the entire game... but it did make me feel like a champ at the game. Possibly reduce their damage, or casting speed, up their cost, limit their slots... or just keep them awesome.

A deer that farts rainbows that is chased by a teapot....

Haha I don't know if the scene deserves a "Powered by" logo at the moment!

As the summer heat begins to taper off, testing on the new engine has taken the driver seat. My first task when transitioning from particles to QA was something along the lines of "Make a scene with a character and an enemy, then make the character be animated and have the enemy chase the character" One rectangle primitive, one camera, two character controllers, two models, and 5 Lua scripts later I sat in front of a completed task: I sat at my desk, looked around, then decided to play with the CSG modeling a little bit longer... I just wanted to add a few obstacles, but then obstacles led to making a bridge, which led to making moving platforms, then you can't have moving platforms without jumping..... needless to say my simple test scene quickly devolved into a flying deer farting dust rainbow being chased around a level by a teapot that vacuumed up the rainbow. Basically this is what Josh saw when he looked over my shoulder: As you can see there are a few issues to be taken care of, but the testing will keep chugging along (just as long as I stop playing the magical deer and teapot scene)!

So the video only showcased the Attractor class and the manipulation of its "force" member (when positive it attracts, negative repels). Particles will work with multiple attractors, I really should have showed that off. As for deflectors, the description of the smoke under an overhang would be a good example of physics based particles. Which sadly are not implemented as of yet but I will look into it. @ChrisV: The particle system and attractors will be in the editor and will appear in the viewport. (I'm not sure if this answers your question...)

Thanks guys! I'll try to keep up with my updates!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay on the particle updates, in repentance I attempted to make a videoblog...please ignore the horrible editing and narration!

On the previous episode of the “Leadwerks3D particle show” a Nyan Cat / Colored Printer of Death roamed the land showing off the difference between RGB and HSV color interpolation. Well jump forward to today’s episode and that cat is now dead…or perhaps I should say has matured into a more complex and quite simply cooler particle system. I’m still not finished with all of my work but here is a quick look at few particle effects I’ve tinkered with: I'm so disappointed that I don't have Fraps on my work desktop because this sphere of electricity looks pretty cool live. A classic waterfall Since we live so close to the Folsom Prison, I thought we should channel some Johnny Cash and throw in a burning ring of fire (technically a torus). This is just a blob of particles really, but I stumbled upon it while trying to create something else and thought it looked cool. That's all for now, more updates will come as the project gains speed!

Oh and playing Eternal Sonata and beating it in 20 hours.....in 1.5 days

Favorite game memories: 1. Staying up all night for the first time beating NBA Showtime. 2. Taking the clothes off of characters in Daggerfall and snickering. 3. Listening to the mad scientist in Quest for Glory 4 and then visiting the rusalki. 4. Playing Pokemon Red for so many hours that I could hear the music in my head when I went to sleep.

Like many college students, part of my time at UC Santa Cruz was spent visiting a variety of fine local establishments perusing their beverage assortments and discussing deep philosophical ideals with enlightened patrons. (Me at an art meeting, the day after a night of enlightenment.) Okay I’ll admit it, I went to bars and talked to girls (Give me a minute this story is going somewhere relevant). The easiest small talk to make in a college town is to ask someone about their major and every time I would meet someone for the first time this question would pop up. Now my major was Computer Science: Game Design and I was always timid to admit this to girls. So instead I would say that “I’m a business major” and immediately ask them their major to silence any further questions. I realize that lying is bad and every PBS show I watched growing up tried to teach me to “be myself” (Thank you Mr. Rogers and Wishbone) but for some reason I was scared of the taboo behind playing and making videogames. That is until one faithful night when I finally admitted to being a “Games major.” I braced myself for the reaction I expected: a look of disgust? Laughter? Silence? The cold shoulder? A drink tossed in my face? Instead I got “OMG, I was addicted to the Sims for years!” Surprised but happy, we went on to talk about her years of playing The Sims and the families she made and how much fun she had and it was wonderful. (My summoner name is too inappropriate for the work place) The dirty little secret of games is that everyone plays them! Sure not everyone is trying to climb the ranked ladder in League of Legends (currently at 1635 ELO and climbing) or going to a midnight release of Diablo III and missing the next day of work (Josh I might randomly be sick on Tuesday May 15th…) but everyone plays something and has memories associated with their experience. My goal in game development is to one day have someone say “Of course I know that game, it was the first game I ever stayed up playing all night with my friends!” Because our job as developers is not to release “a product.” No, instead it's our job to create. Worlds. Stories. Fun. Challenges. Memories. We create.

Random note: The first time I logged onto leadwerks I clicked on Who's Online and it said "Chris V" and showed your pic. With my name being Chris Vossen, for the first 5 mins I thought "wow that's a cool default picture" then I realized that there are 2 Chris V's....

Yeah you can always tweak the alpha value to fade.

Anyone who peruses the forums regularly might have noticed a fresh new intern posting a particle system feature request thread. That intern, who shall remain nameless, was ready to tackle the task of aiding in the creation of a rich particle system that was both powerful and intuitive to users. That was over a month ago… in that time I have been sidetracked with other more important and pertinent tasks but I’m proud to finally admit that the “Super Awesome Chris Particle System of Awesomeness +3” or SACPSA+3 (please note: this name has not yet been officially approved by Josh) is finally underway. In the spirit of spring time, I decided to start off by working on particles that change colors. Colors are interesting because just like numbers, they have different coordinate systems: RGB, HSL, and HSV being the most common (in my experience). RGB or Red, Green, Blue is the most widely known system and is usually represented using values that range between 0 and 255. The lovely cube below shows the relationship between RGB values. HSV or Hue, Saturation, Value is a cylindrical coordinate system (shown above) and is represented using values between 0-100% for Saturation and Value, and 0-360 degrees for the Hue. Why does this all matter? Well when you’re iterating from a starting color to a final color there is a vast difference between RGB and HSV. For example say you wanted the particle to start as red and end as blue. The RGB path leads from red to pink to blue, while the HSV path goes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue (like a rainbow). The resulting particle systems are as shown: RGB HSV I’ve found that in the end of the day, the choice between particles changing color according to RGB or HSV falls to how the user wants the particle effect to look. I can’t wait to see how people use the changing colors in their games (fireworks, fireballs, teleporters), so that means I better get back to working on the particle system! Stay tuned for more updates!