What's the biggest development challenge you face?

[epsilonion]

For me it is hands on coding, like produce a proper game with HUD, collect ammo semi inventury, enermy AI and implementing the likes of that, a proper tutorial to show me how to code that would set me off into actually been able to produce something worthwhile.

 

In the meantime whilst I am waiting for some proper tutorials I will be working on asset packs etc in 3DS Max, Blender Zbrush and all that for people to use... (in my spare time of course)...

 

I have idea's but no idea how to implement it ..

 

Oh and I would upgrade to C++ (standard edition) if I could afford it, there are more game related hold your hand tutorials out there for that language... lol and thats what I need..

 

While art assets are always nice to have, I'm assuming this poll is trying to judge where Leadwerks devs should focus more attention. The DLC, such as the FPS and Zombie packs, are nice, but anyone using them is going to have a game that looks like everyone else's using those packs.

 

For me, having ready-to-use code is much more valuable. I find that having scripts for things like doors, the visual flowgraph, and built-in navmesh pathfinding are what sets Leadwerks apart. Having out-of-the-box functionality with no or very little programming is why people would choose Leadwerks over other engines. Seeing things like the vehicle prototype is a lot more exciting to me than a new art pack. I find the Steam Workshop to be a better asset for art. Facilitating other people creating props and textures is a great thing.

 

I think that the devs' focus should be on creating an easy to use engine with lots of functionality that non-programmers can utilize. Let other people create the art.

 

 

I 100% Agree with this +1 from me...

[catch22]

It's a pain to find even partially animated models to try things out on. The crawler is about all we got. I've scoured the internet looking for compatible pieces and it's not easy. Wrong format, broken, partially implemented, such poor quality it's barely worth using for test material.

 

There's blender models out there, but if you aren't a blender expert just opening them and dealing with everyone's wonky interfaces to find your way around to just properly export the model (and cross your fingers they didn't make it so convuluted/non-typical that it'll even export properly...)

 

I mean, it's just the difference between a programmer and an artist. I basically have to become a 3d modeler to do anything worth spending time programming for. Aaaand I'm not an artist. At all!

 

90% of my leadwerks time is spent in a 3d modeling program trying to get art assets I just don't have to fuss with. So yeah.

[Rick]

dexsoft is the best place for animated models and I've never had any issues with them.

[nick.ace]

To add onto Rick's list as well, these are two places I also recommend:

 

-Arteria3D

-Unity Asset Store (I know, I know, it's Unity, but I view their asset store as a totally separate service)

 

I just feel that there is a large amount of art that can be readily imported into Leadwerks already, but code isn't as easy to transfer, specifically between engines.

[YouGroove]

Unity Asset Store (I know, I know, it's Unity, but I view their asset store as a totally separate service)

I'm not sure you are allowed to use characters you buy from asset store in other 3D engine ? It is legal ?

There are many free characters and i don't thin you cna use them to sell a game.

[nick.ace]

I'm not sure you are allowed to use characters you buy from asset store in other 3D engine ? It is legal ?

There are many free characters and i don't thin you cna use them to sell a game.

 

Have you read the license? I have and I even asked a Unity representative about it just to confirm. You are allowed to use assets from their asset store in other engines. They generally come in as .fbx files. You have to be careful though with what you buy, because their are some Unity-specific UV mappings conventions and such (probably related to their materials).

http://unity3d.com/legal/as_terms

[catch22]

Have you read the license? I have and I even asked a Unity representative about it just to confirm. You are allowed to use assets from their asset store in other engines. They generally come in as .fbx files. You have to be careful though with what you buy, because their are some Unity-specific UV mappings conventions and such (probably related to their materials).

http://unity3d.com/legal/as_terms

 

Cool. I've been hesitant to buy from there because it says "open" in unity and I don't use unity. So if you buy you can get the items in FBX format?

[nick.ace]

Yeah, you need to download the free version of Unity though in order to use the asset store. It works like this:

 

-You use a just like a blank project

-You download the asset in a Unity package file (from within the Asset Store window in Unity)

-Then you extract the package/import it in Unity

-And then all of the .fbx files and textures and stuff are available in your project's folder

 

It's actually much simpler than I made it out to be. Be careful about purchasing vegetation though because sometimes they use prefabs for the tree editor, which can't be imported. You can see exactly what files are included with each asset on the asset's page, so this is also pretty convenient. Sometimes you might want to look to see what the .fbx file looks like, since some artists group many objects into on file, which makes it tedious to edit.

[Imchasinyou]

I have probably about 50 animated characters purchased (at reasonable prices) and every one Ive used with LE has been good.

 

My choices for purchasing models are

3D Models and Textures

Arteria

3Dfoin

 

I also have about 200GB in models and textures in compressed formats ready to unzip and import at a whim. Now, you might ask, why does he have so much stuff? Because I can is all I can say. I alos have a permanent 50% discount at 3D models and textures which includes sale prices so i very well might see something and buy it for next to nothing. I also have a yearly sub to Arteria which allows me to grab anythign from their site I want.

[catch22]

@nick.ace- One of the things I noticed, is most assets that are animated have their own FBX for the motions. Which seems strange to me.

 

I tried a free one to see if it could work. Granted I only spent about 10 minutes, but I couldn't seem to import the animations from each FBX file? Was there a technique you recommend for this?

 

Edit: within LE itself, I mean. I can import the models, but going to import animation from the model viewer didn't seem to work when picking the motion fbx files.

[nick.ace]

That's strange. Good thing you checked though. I actually haven't used any characters from there since I usually by props and stuff from them. I know what you mean though.

 

I just tried it out as well. For just skeletons, I can't seem to import animations at all, which seems weird to me. The autopistol prefab in LE though uses just bones and can be imported.

[domi]

As I'm not a programmer, writing code and shaders is a challenge. Art assets no problem, I'm doing 3D for over 20 years and I'm Autodesk Certified Professional in 3ds max and AutoCAD.

 

Improvements would be:

 

- something like Unreal Kismet (current flow graph is not flexible enough)

- visual shader editor like in Visual Studio (see below)

- allow more than one script on object

- an intelligent deployment tool

[Olby]

- something like Unreal Kismet (current flow graph is not flexible enough)

- visual shader editor like in Visual Studio (see below)

- allow more than one script on object

- an intelligent deployment tool

1. Agree. There have been many great suggestions on how to improve it (in the Suggestion Box).
   
2. Already there. ShaderTool (on Steam) exports Leadwerks compatible shaders: http://store.steampowered.com/app/314720
   
3. It used to support multiple scripts, but it proved to be messy and error prone hence removed in 2013. Read here: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/41/entry-1081-leadwerks-3-update-available/
   
4. Agree. Somewhat more control over deployment options would be nice. Josh is working on selective file include (beta): http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/1/entry-1383-selective-file-inclusion-continued/
   

[DerRidda]

I think the answer to this almost 50/50 split is:

 

[domi]

"why don't we take the coders and team them up with the artists?"

 

Unreal Engine and UDK did just that...

I think it's 20 quid per month + 5%

I certainly tinker-toy with the idea...

[DerRidda]

You can team up independently from any engine, we have a forum here, collaboration should be easy to start.

[domi]

elite vs noob ?

who gets in and who ain't ?

 

nope, been there...

[DerRidda]

What are you even talking about? What you are saying makes no sense at all given the context.

[Rick]

It kind of does honestly. If skill sets aren't lined up correctly the team has a high chance to fall apart. I'm guessing he's more talking about "elite" members bashing the "noob" members for the quality of their work, which sometimes happens when people join up. We need a match.com for matching up the right programmers with the right artists lol. I'm thankful I found one and we work great together . However, it took about 10 years to find a good match.

[domi]

right on Rick, that's what I talk about

[YouGroove]

@Olby :

Already there. ShaderTool (on Steam) exports Leadwerks compatible shaders: http://store.steampowered.com/app/314720

Unfortunatelly this tools is far away intuitve or as easy to use as shader forge or UE4 shader editor, it looks more like visual assembling shader code than using shader nodes. I'm not sure if LE3 people are successfull with it ?

[nick.ace]

Unfortunatelly this tools is far away intuitve or as easy to use as shader forge or UE4 shader editor, it looks more like visual assembling shader code than using shader nodes. I'm not sure if LE3 people are successfull with it ?

 

I've tried it too, and it's a mess to use for me at least. I think they could have made it much simpler, and they need more effects as well (almost every effect they have is already in Leadwerks).

[TemplarAsh]

So much to learn but from what I have been looking into would be co-op integration, and probably good animation lol

 

~Ash

[Bytecroc]

The bigger problem for me is to generate nice looking models and animations.

Static models, terrain and plants are not a problem.

The second problem is to grab enough time for my project.

The next problem then is to find the best 3D Engine for that what I want to make.

I hope I have found the engine now, but not found enough time yet.

 

Edit: The texture for animated models (animals and people) are also difficulty for me.

[martyj]

I would say something that would make development easier would be allowing user submitted code samples sort of how php.net does. Allows for a more fuller documentation.

 

My biggest challenge as of yet is integrating LUA and C++. Mostly because the interpreter class doesn't have any documentation on it. to_lua++ doesn't have very clear documentation as well.