Another week, another weekly report. Vectronic is going more smoothly then ever before taking things one at a time, and just shelling out maps and ideas quickly. Last week, I did a few improvements with how the player picks up objects, and fixing the issue of shooting projectiles through objects. I did not shell any more maps because I thought it would be better to focus on a small amount of puzzles at a time, perfecting them before making more maps. For this, I needed help.
As of this week,
A new update is available which should fix terrain rendering issues. The project explorer panel is also shown in the script editor on Linux as well. I am not 100% happy with the layout of this and it may change before the final release.
I am also experimenting with Teragen 3 and think I can create some nice high-def skyboxes for us.
I recently had a strange interest in looking at Lego sets online and watching reviews. There was something about them that I felt like related to game development and level design. Something very interesting I noticed was that each set would include several extra elements that formed a story line. This added "play potential" to the set. For example, the raft below includes three pirates loaded with weapons, one who is obviously the leader, a treasure map, so the crew has an objective, and a
Implementation of the project explorer went really fast. I started it this morning, and I think it's pretty much done now. The project explorer shows up on the left side of the script editor window. It's positioned in an adjustable panel so you can resize and move its position. (Saving the position and orientation has not been implemented yet.) The project explorer shows a tree displaying your "Scripts", "Shaders", and "Source" folder, if you have the Standard Edition. You can double-click
Along with vegetation, Leadwerks 3.7 is planned to include new features that turn the script editor into a powerful IDE. Auto-completion makes it easier to remember the command you are looking for and greatly enhances coding productivity. A built-in project explorer is also being added to make it easy to quickly navigate to and open any script or shader file in your project.
These and other planned enhancements provide a powerful coding environment built seamlessly into Leadwerks Edit
A new update is available on the beta branch on Steam. This fixes the low-res terrain shader so it compiles on AMD cards. It also fixes a possible brush rendering crash having to do with the recent optimizations made to make uncollapsed brushes draw more efficiently.
I'm very happy with the progress our community as a whole is making. Instead of getting distracted with endless technical features, we're releasing games.
Lean Game Development The Lean Startup Methodology basically states that life is too short to build a product no one wants. Companies invest years in development to release a product onto the market, only to discover that early design flaws doomed the product from the start. Lean Startup Methodology posits that one should release a minim
As I mentioned in my previous post, throughout my time of developing Vectronic on the Source Engine, the project never had more than four maps because so much time and worry was focused on the concern of how it's going to look. While the overall art style, and the balance of visual noise is importation for a project like this, I was spending more time on this than making more maps and puzzles.
I decided to once again start from scratch and only focus on the maps and gameplay for the time bei
Today I am happy to say I worked out the problems that the vegetation system prototype had on AMD and Intel graphics. I started by upgrading the system from using texture buffers to using vertex buffers, as recommended in Daniel Rakos' excellent RasterGrid blog. He made this change for speed, but in my case it gave me simpler code I was able to eliminate the OpenGL errors with.
The most interesting part of this was discovering the glVertexAttribDivisor command. (Fortunately, it's in the 4
After a whole summer of working on the LEX template, and learning new things about the engine, I'm happy to say that Vectronic will soon be back on track in full development!
Before I go into full detail, I wish to mention that the Vectronic Demo has been updated with Josh's optimization edits, and the VecBall has a new effect I've made during the development of LEX. If you had sluggish performance before, I recommend you check out the update!
Now that I've got a nice foundation with a m
A new update is available on the beta branch on Steam. This fixes a few problems with brushes that the last update introduced. A grid snap button has also been added in the main toolbar.
An update is available on the beta branch. This will improve rendering speed of uncollapsed brushes in-game. You may also see a speed increase in the editor when viewing maps with lots of CSG brushes. You can read about this in detail in this thread.
Lunarovich's suggestion here has also been implemented.
I also tweaked a few stock prefabs and the FPS example map. The crates and boxes will now all use the dynamic shadow setting, and the red cage light prefab is set to only cast stati
An update is now available on the beta branch which fixes the alt+tab problem. This works by skipping rendering when a window is minimized, since the Win32 command GetClientRect() returns a size of zero when windows are minimized.
Now I am on to the highly anticipated Leadwerks 3 vegetation system. I previously wrote about some research I was performing here:
http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/1/entry-1499-vegetation-research/
http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/1/entry-1500-veg
Leadwerks Game Launcher was released last week as a free early access title. This means the release did not appear on the Steam new releases list, and its visibility is very low on Steam, unless someone is specifically looking for it. The final "real" release will see a period of high visibility. So right now the only traffic you should expect to get is what we drive to the Steam store page ourselves.
That said, Leadwerks Game Launcher now has 2000 users, and has very positive reviews so
I have merged my photography business (limited company) into eve lbs studio to offer more services under one house (name).
I intend to get a gallery of textures build up for use with my models using the photography department..
I recently updated the Leadwerks Extended Executable with more shaders, and hot fixes. Fetch and pull this update in git. I wanted to post this yesterday, but I was having issues.
Fix 1: No more crashing upon Alt+Tabbing
This fix is eventually gonna be made engine side, but I was not sure if Josh plans on that being pushed to the default branch, or the beta branch. While the beta and default branch are synced, I jumped the gun and fixed it.
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Your game's logo is its identity, the first thing people see that they associate with your game. This is the first step in the sales funnel, and if you have a bad logo it turns people off from even trying the game. Fortunately, getting a decent logo isn't hard with Fiverr.com. There are many logo designers that do surprisingly good work.
Tips:
Describe exactly what you want. Design is expensive because you throw away 90% of your ideas, so if you can absorb some of that process you make
Leadwerks Game Launcher lets you play a variety of creative, experimental, and just plain wacky mini-games made with Leadwerks Game Engine. Fly a spaceship through an asteroid field, play a round of miniature golf, or ride a lawn mower while dodging killer cows. It's free and there's a constant supply of new things to try.
With Steam Workshop integration, you can talk directly to the developers and give your feedback for new ideas to be incorporated into their games. Start a discussio
Leadwerks Game Engine 3.6 is now available on Steam. This free update brings an array of new features along with the release of Leadwerks Game Launcher.
New Features
Deferred DecalsLeadwerks now supports decals using an advanced deferred rendering technique. Decals are useful both for bullet marks and character blood, and as a decoration tool for adding detail to maps. Leadwerks decals even work with animated characters, so you can show damage when enemies are hit.
Terrain Vertic
I'm very excited about Leadwerks Game Launcher. I think it's going to be very beneficial. I noticed a change as soon as I showed people the store page for it. Connecting game developers with an audience solves a very big problem. My goal is to bring you 10,000 players for your games and create a sort of "incubator" for your ideas.
Over the last year, our community have gotten a lot more focused on releasing titles, with help from the game tournaments that Aggror started. Combined w
Leaks of games happen, and they still happen. You can spend months and months working on your game, only for a server attack or the wrong person to share it with their buddies; which then goes public accidentally, (or intentional). Having an unintended work in progress build out there can give people the wrong idea about your game because there are people out there who think the development process is pretty straight forward.
Let's take a look at the Half-Life 2 leak. The game, and the entir
Congratulations to Type Advantage for the release of Pump-Action Captain on Steam. This title began as a Kickstarter project clearing 170% of their modest $500 goal. The team used that momentum to fuel a successful Greenlight campaign, gaining approval in just ten days. Today marks the release of the game as an "Early Preview" title, which means it's a playable work in progress. You can play it now for just $4.19.
From the store page:
Be sure to support your fellow Leadwerkers. Buy
I thought I would take a minute to write down some of the things I have learned about releasing software on Steam, in order to help with your game releases.
First of all, always wait a week after you are "finished" to release a major update. This is because you will always find little problems, and sometimes major ones, after you think you've finished everything. Leadwerks 3.6 was scheduled for release at the start of this week, as far as I knew everything was working, but I knew to give i
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