Hello again, programmers, artists, and game designers! Today's blog update will be a smaller one, with a much larger update on the way soon. Today I'm going to talk briefly about one way to utilize vertex color when texturing an asset, in this case a building, and then share some images of the Zone beta milestone from the end of May.
Those of you that downloaded the R5 version of Leadwerks 3.32 are already familiar with my derelict garage model. For this model, I initially used a single main
The interactive and playable version of our GDC 2010 Technology Demonstration is available now.
This version differs a bit from the video version because of it's interactive nature. A video doesn't need to be optimized and game-play doesn't matter too.
So this version is made more compact and fun to walk around. There are no area restrictions like invisible barriers so everything can be explored.
Furthermore all four game-asset packs can be test-drived before buying too. The "Holodeck" sa
I have many projects going on, some have been going on for years, some were finished in very short time. When I got all pieces together, then projects are finished in very short time, and when some essential piece is missing, it will keep the project open until... well, until the piece is found.
I was inspired to write this blog, because today I saw many pieces come together. Not just one for one project, but multiple for multiple projects. Actually this wave started already yesterday, and t
Another "gravy" feature which I wouldn't have spent time on had David (part man, part 3DSMax) hadn't made it so easy. He detached the existing low res wipers from the exterior model and created a single 100 frame animation cycle of both wipers complete with slight wobble. The two blades operate at different speed ratios too.
The cockpit wiper control was set to send it's setting as a key to both the exterior and interior cockpit model. Allowing for dual speed wiper control and a park mode
Hi guys,
I have made some small progress on my gui system the last few days. Nothing fancy, but believe me there where a lot of changes under the hood and
now I can show you a first skinned screenshot:
As you see the base skinning part is done. Well it will develope further with later gadgets, but the base part is done. You can have multiple skins running in one application, so you can have your main gui in your own game style and another like an ingame pc with a WinXP skin.
On
First, I want to apologize for the server issues we have experienced this week. With the amount of activity we have coming through the site, it is inexcusable to have any downtime.
The server is reverted to the state it was about four days ago. If you have any important information from the last week you want to save, replace the domain name of the url you want to access with "69.163.255.164". For example, here is the link to the blogs on the other server:
http://69.163.255.164/werkspace
Our Apache received more love today, the cockpit panel textures suffered a little from DDS compression acne. But by increasing the bits-per-pixel to 24 and using DXT1, we get better quality results using a texture half the size as a larger one using 8bpp compressed. And smaller texture memory footprint too. This only works for some textures.
Additionally specular maps were added to the cockpit, now it reacts to light in a much more dynamic way and the scratched glass blast shield and canopy
We're going to edit the LUA script for the CH47. Helicopters are somewhat complex and incredibly noisy machines, you thought your XBOX 360 was loud?
Yesterday we trawled through some online video, ripped the soundtracks and used Audacity to get some loops of the compressor, and rotor beat. That's two discrete sounds that when mixed together should give a good representation of helo noise. Using Audacity it's possible to mark a region, and use that as a 'sample' to remove that noise from anot
Sound is an impressive tool. And something I worried a great deal about from the start. Just adding various audio sources to the Apache, from the Betty, to various computers tones, compressor noise, all adds to a sense of cockpit space.
The Chinook needs similar attention, as a non-hero aircraft (currently a non-flyable). The game engine uses OpenAL, which employs a system of 3D positional audio. In the Apache most of the noise is behind your head, looking left and right appears to pan the a
Making notes on discussions of blade flapping.
Definite gravy but easy to add. Currently blade flexing is done via blended animation controlled by the simulation sending key values to the model. The CH-47 has quite a large blade system (almost doubling the length of the helicopter to 100 feet) and low ground clearance.
Most of the droop comes from the flapping hinge Dave has indicated in white (adjoining the red highlights). These pivots allow the blade to horizontally move upward when
David posted up some more CH47 pics around SimHQ and Facebook and possibly elsewhere. Lot of detail work has gone into the engines, rotor head and trying to get the smoothing correct at the rear of the aircraft.
Looking forward to getting those blades turning, the sound thumping and the dust is flying.
I've been doing a lot of logic work in the Apache in the past day or so. Also full of a head cold which tends to make me cranky.
Sat in the cockpit, the APU sounds like a vacuum cleane
More detailing on the rotor head, details on the flap, pitch link and coning hinges.
Assembled audio for the CH-47 today in addition to implementing the Apache cold-start procedure.
Source
The CH-47F has had a lot more work done in the cockpit area. The seats are looking remarkably clean, I just need to get a child to play inside with some squeeze boxes and a can of 3in1 oil.
The Chinook is smaller than you might think, with a fuselage approx 50ft long, it's shorter than the Apache which is 58ft long (approx). I was surprised by that.
Networking
Today saw successful Combat-Helo net connection between the Leeds UK and Bangkok in Thailand. Getting the link to work throug
Connection time-out now resets the connection status to "disconnected"
Apache canopy glass, lighting issue fixed
GUI input controls that receive key-presses still occasionally hogging the keyboard. (fixed)
Some speed improvements to OpenGL DrawCurve function.
New GUI style as submitted by Spac3Rat in place. See Facebook image
Next week: Back to weapons and more multiplayer functions.
Source
Ok, as said in my last post i will make an advanced 2d system and a gui. I have now decided to start with the gui and add 2d Functions on demand.
Here is a first screen, nothing special, but it shows some progress:
Note the correct rendering of the window at the cube. I'm using one of my first 2D additions, SetScale , to mirror the rendering correctly for the texture.
What does the renderer currently do: Every control is itself contained in a buffer which is only updated if it
A need to test Combat-Helo on Windows 7 resulted in a TESCO purchase of the Windows 7 Upgrade and 1kg of bananas (a rich source of potassium).
Running any Leadwerks program on a fresh OS install results in an EXCEPTION on launch, only two steps required to get it working. Run the OpenAL install then update video drivers. Simple. Everything worked as it should.
Source
After a forced break from programming with Leadwerks Engine, due to Work and other not 3D related Projects, I have started yesterday to come back to my Leadwerks project.
As I'm continuing my project, I'm developing some extension for my own needs and if they are needed and good enough i will publish standalone addons here.
The first project will be somekind of Leadwerks2D. It will offer a richer 2D function set than the current one. eg: Rotation, scaling, origin handling and new primit
Leadwerks Engine 2.32 is now available.
2.32
-"Render" Lua object function renamed to "Draw".
-Added Draw entity callback.
-Entity draw callback and Lua "Draw" object function will only be called at most once per frame. Perform animation in this function.
-Entity LOD distance parameters changed for better performance.
-LoadAnimation now works without exact hierarchy matches, so LOD meshes can all use the full-res animation.
-Implemented entity octree with hierarchical culling and pick
The game world clock is now synced across network clients, time advance and day-night cycles locked. Accuracy is down to round-trip packet times plus a few milliseconds. More than enough to keep entity spawn times and waypoint navigation in close sync.
I'm as yet unsure how often to send clock updates, currently it's every half-second which is quite aggressive, it's easy enough to tweak. Clocks run on client and frame-rate independent so they don't need to be updated often. They just need t
