[Problems with importing a model from Blender]

Can you put a link to your .fbx file, so we can check if it ok?

 

EDIT:

Ok received your file. The file have an empty scene. We could report that when loading an empty scene from a FBX, that cause the problem. (pointer check that should be made in Leadwerks)

 

Here is the file that I'Ve received. It's a FBX with no scene and no geometry

[ANSWERED: Export option?]

Hi,

 

I'm new to LEADWERKS and pre-ordered it. I'm currently reading the docs and checking the tutorial. But I'm having a question, and I've not found if this was possible...

 

When I was building levels in Hammer using brushes, I was able to export the level as OBJ/DXF to give the 3D artist a reference to the level, as we kept up the brushes geometry for collision, and put the Artist meshes over.

 

This method was really useful, as the level designer could quickly "block out" the level and tweak the gameplay until he's satisfied with it, and when it "feel" ok, export the brushes to the artist to give it a final look.

 

Is there an option in the editor to export the LEVEL or part of a level in any editable format? (.OBJ, DXF, COLLADA, FBX) so we can use the brushes as reference in a modeling application (3DS MAX, Blender, etc.)

[Leadwerks Indie Edition- Windows Exception]

Hi,

 

I've checked again the STEAM store page, and it's clearly written there. I think some people don't really know their video card capabilities (and lots of them don`t care, they just want to "play" on their old rig). There could be a link to check their hardware before they buy, but I would ask STEAM to do this, since it's not only applying to LEADWERKS but also a lot of games and products.

 

Could be interesting to have your link in the LEADWERKS web site in the leadwerks store, as "check this before your buy".

[SSAO in 3.1 ?]

Ha? We will have better antialias with 3.1?

 

Sorry, Josh. I just pre-ordered 3.1. That I don`t have yet, and never had a version before that. I'm still not totally sure of what we have yet. Still learning with the tutorial and the forum. By the way, the videos are really cool, thanks to you and all the community that worked on them, it`s really like having a teacher that show me how it work! Just consider me as a PRE-NOOB! (Until I get 3.1 and pratice a bit)

 

I wonder why I did not come to Leadwerks before, as it`s the tool that seem to use an approach like I learned at school. I'm a level designer that learned on SourceSDK, and done some LUA on Gameloft "Dungeon Hunter II".

 

So having a editor that is really similar to Hammer, LUA scripting and C++ seem to be perfect to me. I think I will be able to really quickly adapt to it and produce prototypes really fast!

 

@YouGroove, edited my post to add HDR.

 

@ Wchris "If there's an easy way to do it I would like to know. Yes, please teach us."

Hi, I'm not too good with shader, but was using IRRLICHT to call a Occlusion Query, once I had the result for the query, just redraw the mesh as a post process. The one from L4D is better since it's done with a shader.

Here is a screenshot from my C++/Irrlicht project that use to learn and practice C++:

 

If you look the character is redraw in RED so we can see it even it's behind the wall. To make the character in RED, I simply swapped the texture for a RED color and redraw the character over when the scene was fully draw.

 

Once I will have leadwerks 3.1, I could perhaps create a "demo" with source if you want to make that. If we can do occlusion query it should be really easy to do. (the way I do it here, for the way they do it in L4D, they simply redraw in post process the character with a shader. But, as I said before the shader part is still difficult to me.

[Leadwerks Indie Edition- Windows Exception]

Why not create a really simple application made with LEADWERKS that only display on the screen:

"You system passed the test and has all the requirements" (Could put the Leadwerks logo in the back to make it pretty)

 

Don't need a lot of work. Microsoft used a ActiveX to check if the computer was able to handle Windows 7 when it came out. So people could check if their computer would handle it.

 

Instead of a "Demo" it could be a kind of "certification test" to check if you can run the application at home.

[SSAO in 3.1 ?]

Wow! Thanks Josh! With that stack we'll surely be able to render:

- DOF (Depth of field effect) (This one will require access to depth buffer)

- God rays

- Glows / Bloom FX

- SSAO

- HDR

- Antialias (seen a post-process shader that was improving the aliasing of edges in the render)

 

 

- Some oclusion query mask like they used in L4D (Can be useful in lots of situation when your character is occluded when using a 3rd person cam for example)

 

[Video Tutorial: Switching levels]

Thanks for the informations! I will surely get back to this thread when I start building levels !

[Release date for full?]

Hi, Thanks for the links! I understand perfectly. I would never implement and old pipeline into my work if I'd worked hard to implement a newer and better one.

 

On the lighting side with the new deferred rendering system, Leadwerks 3.1 beat UNITY 3D (Max about 4 dynamic lights with the PRO version) and other similar tools. I'm really impressed that Josh was able to get transparency working with the deferred system. Saw that it was a problem when guys were trying to implement that.

 

I was asking if Leadwerks could make available the 3.0 version to buy (lower priced and perhaps only fix reported bugs with it and NO more work on it on the feature side).

 

I was thinking to use Leadwerks 3.0 to make casual games (cards games), and use 3.1+ for more serious stuff. The only problem I would see with this is "support", since the 3.0 is already done, Leadwerks would only have to give some time to fix the reported bugs. But looking at the links, I doubt that it would happen now.

 

In my day job, I work in a computer store as tech and saw that even new systems don't have support for GL4.0 (getting rare but still happening with 2014 systems).

 

As an example, I builded a system for a customer today that wanted a FX processor (FX4130), and only wanted to use the integrated graphic of the motherboard. Most of the boards that offer integrated graphic for the AMD FX chips have the AMD760G chipset that have ATI 3000 video and will support OPENGL 3.0, DX10.1. max. And it`s not a old board but a brand new one. The store is even selling replacement card as NVidia GeForce 6200. So all cards that are sold now are not all openGL 4.0 compatible.

 

Those things are buyed by people that don't really care about gaming and only want their "card games" from time to time. As on steam you would find mostly dedicated gamers and hardcore gamers.

 

I was thinking of using Leadwerks 3.0 to make little games like you could get on http://www.bigfishgames.com/ To make games for casual gamers. But I could probably use Irrlicht (using this now) to make those little games.

[Release date for full?]

I pre-ordered LE 3.1 after the 6 of january and have to wait. I don't mind much as I am kind of developer myself (me and someone on a open source project since 2 years now).

 

When you are in a small team, it can and will surely take longer than expected to deliver. I really understand this. I will wait until Josh get the Linux version operational, and have Leadwerks 3.1 more solid (Lightmaps back?) As I would prefer having an operational product than something that crash every 5 minutes because it was rushed.

 

One thing I might add, is that It would be nice to have LE 3.0 (Using GL3.2?) available as a "legacy" product for projects that need to reach a much wider user base. Josh will have to see if it worth it and determine the selling price for supporting "legacy" hardware (pre- GL 4.0)

 

GL 4.0 was implemented in hardware since almost 4 years now, but some people don't seem to like to upgrade their rig often. And with these people, having a legacy product (Le3.0) would be nice. The development should continue (feature freeze on 3.0, perhaps only bug fix), and continue with the release of LE using only GL4.0.

 

After 3-4 more years, anyway those old systems will stop to function properly. All theses people running old cards, most of them are running XP, and Microsoft is finally stopping supporting it.

[Leadwerks model editor improvements]

How can we parent something to a bone? (I would like to attach weapons to a model "attachment" bone) Is there a way to quickly check the names of the bones?

[Optimisation : LOD settings for lights , shadows, characters]

Sorry, I don`t have Leadwerks 3.1 yet, but is there a checkbox that we could set to have it "dynamic" or not? Is the Lightmapping still there in Leadwerks 3.1?

[Character performance]

This should be in for 3.1 and is called "Hardware skinning". I don't know yet how it work in 3.1 (have pre-ordered it, but waiting for the release)

 

This is using a shader to calculate the skinning (deformation of the mesh when the bones are manipulated), so it's calculated from the GPU instead of the GPU and should improve performance when we have lots of animated characters on the screen. On what hardware(video card) have you run the demo?

[how i can i draw in a cubemap ?]

Hi, In Hammer/Source engine, this is called a 3D Skybox.

 

Here a link to the description:

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/3D_Skybox

 

This is using RTT to render from a camera a "reduced model" of a little city that is used in the skybox as background as the player move, the other camera is updated so we see the perspective. Was used in lots of Source games including L4D, HL2...

 

So if we can use RTT with LE3 we could theorically render them and use them as texture for the skybox. But this would require more render passes.

[Shooting]

Hi, I'm new and don`t have the exact answer but I hope theses recommendations would help.

 

If you need to use projectiles like on gun bullets and the velocity is really high, I would recommend using "raycasts" to find the collision point and then once you get the collision point (when you fire the weapon), you could do some visuals to show the damage. For bullets, it could be a simple 3D line that is draw for 1-2 frames (this would show the bullet trajectory)

 

For a rocket launcher, could be the same thing, you move the missile (you would need to "spawn" the missile from the launcher) to the collision point and put a particle trail behind (particle emitter attached to the missile).

 

If you decide to "lock" on a moving target with the missile, you should create a script that move and update the missile trajectory until it has hit the target. (when it was "locked" with the raycast)

[Video Tutorial: Switching levels]

Hi, I'm new here and pre-ordered 3.1. Thanks for this tutorial! Just checking the more I can before I receive it.

 

Is there a way to keep and update (like a savegame) "persistent" data (Quests info, Health info or any other data that need to be checked all over the game) when you load the new level?

 

If you had NPC on theses map, they would re-spawn since we did not kept their last state before getting the new level...