Project Werkflow

[Delerna]

Hi all

Been away for a month trying out Unity3d and I must say I liked everything except the price.

 

For several reasons Leadwerks is still my engine of choice so I started thinking about

what I preferred in Unity compared to Leadwerks and how could I mimic it in leadwerks.

There are a few things that I came up with but I would like to discuss only one of them here.

 

The biggest difference I saw is the way that unity handles project assets.

 

Leadwerks displays every asset in the folder that contains the editor regardless of

whether it is used or not. This means the more assets you acquire the bigger and more cumbersome the list gets.

Add to that the fact that each instance also appears in the list and ...... woa, its huge.

 

 

 

The features of Unity's asset management that I would like to mimic are

1) The "Asset Panel" for any project only shows the assets that will be used in that project.

2) Able to easily re-arrange assets into a structure that (I feel) suits that project.

3) Have my assets so that all files used by an asset are either listed under that asset or not displayed at all.

Like the prefabs in Unity

 

 

 

The solutions I have come up with to achieve those are.

1) I have copied the leadwerks install folder and deleted all unnecessary files so that

I am able to run the editor and edit and run LUA scripts (This is tested and working)

My intention here is to keep multiple copies of this and add different files so they become "Template" projects.

one for first and one for third person shooters, one for driving games, one for blank projects etc etc.

 

When I start a new project I will copy the template folder and paste it onto the USB drive for my projects

and rename it to my project name. That way each project will have its own leadwerks engine completely separate

from all the other project. If I run the editor in my project foder, the assets panel will be empty.

 

All my assets will be saved in a separate assets folder. Any asset that my project needs I simply

copy it and paste it into the assets folder for my project.

Run the editor in my projects folder and my new assets are listed in the assets panel and only the

assets that the project needs is listed along with their instances.

 

I realise that this will result in copies of my assets all over the place. I would much prefer one

central copy of an asset that is pointed to from any project that uses it.

Unfortunately I cannot think of a way to do that and not have EVERY asset appearing in the asset panel.

 

I had thought of swapping the "models" folder in and out of the leadwerks install folder.

The problem is if you update leadwerks all the missing "standard" models get re-downloaded.

Also it would be more difficult to have multiple projects in progress.

 

2) This could potentially lead to a lot of renaming of files whenever I create a new project.

My thought here is to create an HTA that allows me to drag assets from my store and drop them into

my projects assets folder structure. The asset and its associated files gets renamed to suit as it

gets copied accross. This would also remove the copy/paste of assets step mentioned in (1)

 

Again, structuring the assets in the leadwerks install folder doesn't work because updating leadwerks

causes the standard models to be re-downloaded, cluttering up my carefully planned asset structure

as well as duplicate copies in different places.

 

3) From what I have seen so far, I think the script that is attached to a model acts somewhat like a prefab.

Drag the model into your scene and the script automatically loads in the other models, sounds, particles etc etc

used by that "prefab". Add to that the heirarchical nature of gmf and

I think the properties of Unity's prefabs are perfectly acchievable

Need to do more experimentation on this

 

 

Anyway, I apologise for the length of this post.

I have posted it because I am an experienced business software developer

but am pretty raw with this 3D development stuff.

 

I am open to and interrested in anyones

warnings or gotcha's, constructive criticisms,alternative ideas and suggestions.

[macklebee]

The editor already has a built in way to work from different project assets. The Options' Path tab has a setting for the Game Path. Change this to a directory where you have assets that you only want to use for a particular project, then hit the apply. Close the Editor then reopen the Editor, and you should see it just show the gmf's from your assets list. Make sure that you have at least the basic entities like the directional light, the shaders.pak, etc.. in this folder though...

[Josh]

Good suggestions.

 

Check my blog. This is one of the things I am working on.

[Delerna]

ohhh...thanks macklebee.

I have changed the gamescript path before but for some reason I did not associate "Game path" with locating the assets.

Now that you point it out ... der.

[macklebee]

yeah, its a decent thing to use especially once you have a large amount of assets but are only planning to use some of them for a particular scene. it would be nicer if you could make the change then automatically refresh the assets list... but I assume maybe one of these days that will happen. Still there are room for improvements that can be made, and it appears Josh is working on some of those...

[Josh]

Leadwerks displays every asset in the folder that contains the editor regardless of

whether it is used or not. This means the more assets you acquire the bigger and more cumbersome the list gets.

Add to that the fact that each instance also appears in the list and ...... woa, its huge.

This is a feature. You can easily see all the available objects, edit a class script, and see all instances of an object in a single view. I thought a separate scene tree and a list of available objects was redundant and more complicated.

[Josh]

What bothers me about the Unity is approach is you can only play around with the presets they hard code into the editor. What if you want your own flare entity? You can't code it with custom properties like our system allows.

[Josh]

I do like some of the things they did. In order to make an editor where there's a button to control every single aspect of the engine, I think it will be necessary to hire more programmers...

[Marcus]

This is a feature. You can easily see all the available objects, edit a class script, and see all instances of an object in a single view. I thought a separate scene tree and a list of available objects was redundant and more complicated.

 

I would personally rather have them separate. Perhaps you could have three tabbed views. Scene Tree View, Object Tree View, and Combined Tree View

[L B]

I have made a prototype editor for the main asset view problem. Tell me what you think (right click on the asset to see a menu, choose instances to see its instances)

http://localhostr.com/files/658d37/ProtoEditor.zip

[macklebee]

I would personally rather have them separate. Perhaps you could have three tabbed views. Scene Tree View, Object Tree View, and Combined Tree View

 

Well I vote that we don't make it like that. I agree with Josh's original assessment that it is redundant and making it more complicated than necessary. If people just took the time to organize their assets, this wouldn't be an issue.

[Marleys Ghost]

I always name my assets to produce a folder structure .. like Props_Boxes_boxwhatever.gmf .. it then appears in a folder called boxes in a folder called props .. all nice and neat.

[Marcus]

Well I vote that we don't make it like that. I agree with Josh's original assessment that it is redundant and making it more complicated than necessary. If people just took the time to organize their assets, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

How would organizing my assets prevent me from having a list of 400 items when I only want to view the 20 I'm using in my scene?

[macklebee]

are you planning on using all 400 assets in your scene?

[Marcus]

are you planning on using all 400 assets in your scene?

 

Most likely. That will be one massive list to navigate through when I'm viewing all of the objects that are placeable and the objects that exist in my scene. It would be nice to filter my view. If I'm building a scene, I may only want to view what is placeable. When I'm viewing a scene, I may only want to view what is already in my scene.

[macklebee]

so having multiple lists that will show all 400 hundred assets once you have them in the scene is going to resolve your issue? all you are going to have is now two lists listing 400 assets...

[Marleys Ghost]

[Marcus]

so having multiple lists that will show all 400 hundred assets once you have them in the scene is going to resolve your issue? all you are going to have is now two lists listing 400 assets...

 

Not true. In my scene view I could have way more than 400 objects depending upon how many times I use one object. If I want to place a new object, I don't want to scroll through a list of potentially 1500+ objects. No thank you.

 

Torque separates the views and I found that it speed up my workflow tremendously.

[Marleys Ghost]

collapse the tree.

[Marcus]

collapse the tree.

 

All of them use to get auto opened before. Is this fixed now?

 

Just tested and I see that it is fixed now. Nevermind to my whole conversation. Beautiful.

[Rick]

I always name my assets to produce a folder structure .. like Props_Boxes_boxwhatever.gmf .. it then appears in a folder called boxes in a folder called props .. all nice and neat.

 

I actually find that far from nice and neat. You are bastardizing your file names so they show up neat in the editor. I think that's crazy. Your file names should be whatever you want them to be and not have some hidden meaning in them that relate ONLY to your editor you are using to make the game.

 

Man, imagine if this is how everything worked.

 

ProgramFiles_Adobe_Reader_HowTo_ENU_iamges_tip.gif

[Marleys Ghost]

You are bastardizing your file names so they show up neat in the editor. I think that's crazy

 

 

I actually think of it as cataloging, but it really is nice and neat

 

and not have some hidden meaning in them that relate ONLY to your editor you are using to make the game

 

That made no sense .. hidden meaning Props_Boxes_box01, oh yes it might be code for a tree ??

[Marcus]

I actually find that far from nice and neat. You are bastardizing your file names so they show up neat in the editor. I think that's crazy. Your file names should be whatever you want them to be and not have some hidden meaning in them that relate ONLY to your editor you are using to make the game.

 

Man, imagine if this is how everything worked.

 

ProgramFiles_Adobe_Reader_HowTo_ENU_iamges_tip.gif

 

Agreed

[L B]

o.o Does anyone approve/disapprove the method I proposed in my attachment?

[Rick]

That made no sense .. hidden meaning Props_Boxes_box01, oh yes it might be code for a tree ??

 

That makes perfect sense. It means you could just have called it box01 and place it in the Props/Boxes directory. Instead you are putting what should be a path (the hidden meaning because it means something to the editor ONLY) into the filename itself. If this system used directories instead no one would name their file Props_Boxes_box01.gmf. They would just name it box01 and place it in the correct directory.