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Learn about game development technology

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Creating a VR Teleporter

I'm building the VR project template for Leadwerks 4.5.  Although you can enable VR in any project, this template is specifically designed to provide some of your most common room-scale VR features: Teleportation movement, which prevents motion sickness. Picking up and throwing objects. (It's actually really fun!) To start with I am creating the art assets for the teleport effect. This is basically what I want: Your controller shoots a beam which ends in an indicato
Josh

Josh

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4.5 beta update 4

A new build is available on the beta branch on Steam. Fixed Kinematic joint rotation (thanks Julio!) Fixed FlushKeys / FlushMouse not working on Linux. I'm still having trouble compiling with the latest version of Code::Blocks / GCC: https://www.leadwerks.com/community/topic/14663-compile-problem-on-ubuntu-1604-using-codeblocks-c  
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How I turned my 3D game into a VR game with eight lines of code

I recently published the full source code to my little mini-game "Asteroids3D". You can download it here: Turning this into a VR game with Leadwerks Engine 4.5 was very easy.  I will show you how here. The first step is to enable VR.  This code will check to see if OpenVR initializes correctly. If it fails for any reason, an error message will be printed and the game will exit: if VR:Enable()==false then System:Print("VR failed to initialize.") return end Now we need to adjus
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Josh

2

4.5 Beta Update 3

Another build is available on the beta branch on Steam. Fixed zip import behavior. Fixed physics swept collision bug, waiting for confirmation this fixed other reported problems. Kinematic joint rotation not fixed yet. Updated to Steamworks 1.41 Updated to latest version of OpenVR Code::Blocks C++ project not updated yet. We're getting close to release, so your reports (especially the ones with examples!) are appreciated. Instructions for upda
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Version 4.5 Beta Update

The beta branch on Steam is updated with some fairly big changes. Leadwerks Engine is now compiled with and uses Visual Studio 2017. It is now compiled on Ubuntu 16.04.  I do not know yet what changes this means for the end user but I had to add some dependencies in the editor. In addition to that, ZIP import is now working (File > Import). The VR command set is finished and documented.  A VR project template is forthcoming. The new vehicles are not yet ready.
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Zip File Import

Leadwerks Engine 4.5 will add ZIP files to the list of file formats you can import into the editor.  This isn't really anything special except that it works in a very specific way.  Source art files will be extracted first, followed by final game-ready formats (mdl and tex), followed by .meta files, which contain thumbnails and conversion settings for each file.  The resulting behavior is that you can import a zip file of game assets, with source art files, and the files will be copied in a way
Josh

Josh

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How infinite terrain can be implemented in Leadwerks Engine 5

Gamers have always been fascinated with the idea of endless areas to roam.  It seems we are always artificially constrained within a small area to play in, and the possibility of an entire world outside those bounds is tantalizing.  The game FUEL captured this idea by presenting the player with an enormous world that took hours to drive across: In the past, I always implemented terrain with one big heightmap texture, which had a fixed size like 1024x1024, 2048x2048, etc.  However,
Josh

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4.5 Beta Updated

The beta branch has been updated with a new build of version 4.5 beta.  VR support is implemented and documented here: https://www.leadwerks.com/learn?page=API-Reference_Object_VR Linux C++ projects will currently not build in the beta (working on it now). See this thread on updating your C++ projects: https://www.leadwerks.com/community/topic/16838-upgrading-44-c-projects-to-45/  
Josh

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Vehicle Improvements in 4.5

The revision of our vehicle system has been a long time coming, and I am happy to say the wait will soon be worthwhile.  The new system uses a hyperrealistic slip differencial system to adjust the power given to each wheel. The results are a clear cut above any game vehicle physics you've ever seen. I am also taking steps to make the vehicle system easier to use.  The AddTire() command can now accept an entity as a parameter for the tire object.  This would typically be
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How to Make Your Game Look Beautiful

In this article I am going to explain some simple color tricks you can use to give your game environments a much more cohesive color scheme and look much better. Now if you look at most indie game environments that are thrown together from random models they will look something like this: It looks awful, with no consistent color scheme and saturation levels all over the place.  In fact, most look much worse than this.  I'm going to show you how to fix this. Control Saturatio
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Josh

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Version 4.5 release plan

Version 4.5 will feature official support for VR (Vive and Oculus) and a new super realistic vehicle system.  These features are more or less already done, but need some work to make them release-ready.  The new vehicle system is so good, and I am so grateful to Julio for his help making this happen, that I think we might do a racing-themed winter tournament.   I am trying to think of a clever pun to call it. At the same time, I have implemented the first build of version 5 in the same sour
Josh

Josh

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EuroTrip II

I am now in possession of the official Leadwerks USB drives.  Weighing in at 16 GB, they look fantastic. These will be shipped out shortly, along with the posters from the last game tournament.  I've been working behind the scenes on some big things that took my attention, but I am not yet ready to reveal any of this.  Because of the timing on this, we are going to do a Leadwerks Fall Games Festival starting in September. I am going to spend the rest of the summer in Europe, where
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Josh

6

Leadwerks 4.4 RC2

A new build is available on the beta branch.  I am putting it out tonight because I want to give you guys as much lead time as possible. I have not tested all hardware yet, and there were a lot of shader updates, so there could easily be a compile error on AMD or Intel cards.  Will test those out in the morning. New camera commands for fog: virtual void SetFogColor(const float r, const float g, const float b, const float a); virtual void SetFogAngle(const float start, const float s
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Leadwerks Game Engine 4.4 Release Candidate

A new build is up on the beta branch, for Windows and Linux, with Lua and C++ support.  This is a full update. Version 4.4 will be announced June 26th, and this will go on the default branch some time next week. I was not able to get the new vehicles working in time, and It will have to be added in an update.  Version 4.4 will have vehicles disabled.  If you need this functionality, stick with version 4.3. A big thanks for all the people who are helping to test it.
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Josh

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Version 4.4 beta update

Leadwerks Game Engine 4.4 has been updated on the beta branch on Steam. Networking finished and documented. GUI finished. All new physics features finished. The character controller physics and picking up objects has been improved and made smoother.  There is a problem with the player sliding down slopes, as seen in the FPS Character Controller example map.  I will work this out. I also noticed during testing that picking up some objects in the FPS / AI map will f
Josh

Josh

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Forum Update

The forum software has been updated to a major new version.  This completes my effort to give the entire website responsive design, and ensures we continue to receive security updates.  The responsive design part is really for SEO, but it is kind of cool to be able to browse the entire site on your phone without zooming in. Documentation has been switched over to the new system here, which is independent from the forum software: https://www.leadwerks.com/learn The entire site is now us
Josh

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10

Documentation Update 2

I've taken your suggestions and incorporated the fixes into the new documentation system here: https://www.leadwerks.com/learn   All classes and commands are alphabetized, with classes listed first.   All pages in the API Reference should be working now.   If a page does not appear in the old docs, or if a command does not have an example, it will not appear in the new docs, as I am not changing the content right now.   Please let me know if the table of contents of pages have any error
Josh

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13

Please review the new documentation

I'm asking the community to look over the new documentation system and find any mistakes before I sign off on the project. The tutorials are not completed. The API Reference should be completed, although the main API Reference page is not showing anything right now. https://www.leadwerks.com/learn   Here are my notes to the developer who is working on the docs:   Please review the material and make sure everything meets your satisfaction, and leave your comment below if needed. I figure
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11

Leadwerks Documentation Update

The table of contents and index can now be used to navigate to a page: https://www.leadwerks.com/learn   Search is also working.   Almost all of the commands are filled in, with examples for Lua and C++, updated to use the standard main() entry point, or in the case of Lua, just a main script with no function.   Function arguments and syntax will also be displayed in C++ or Lua data types. So if you have the docs set to Lua, you will just see "number" instead of "const float blah blah bl
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5

Documentation Revision

The new docs system is mostly working now: https://www.leadwerks.com/learn?page=API-Reference_Object_Entity_SetPosition   Features: Treeview list of all tutorials and API classes and functions. Alphabetical index (generated automatically from the table of contents). Search (with autogenerated search index). Switch back and forth between languages, with cookies to remember your preference. Entire examples are automatically selected when you click on them. Todo: Table of c
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16

XML for Documentation Data

I've been getting good results storing documentation data in XML files. This allows me to make changes to the way documenation is displayed, without updating hundreds or thousands of pages. I can also write documentation without as much HTML markup. For example, bullets can automatically be inserted in line breaks for the syntax info. Javascript-based search engines usually require all page contents to be store in an array, so this gives us an easy way to collect that data.   Since XML is
Josh

Josh

3

Help System Revision

I'm not entirely happy with the output of HelpNDoc for a few reasons. It outputs a great variety of formats, but doesn't do a spectacular job of any. I hoped to use CHM for local help but these do not scale well on high-resolution displays, and the technology will not be updated by Microsoft. HelpNDoc's HTML output is okay but not great, so I started experimenting with my own HTML to get exactly the look and functionality I want.   RIght now I have a javascript-based treeview for navigation
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3

Website Updated

Our website has been updated with a new look and responsive design. Here are a few highlights.   Landing page:   Product pages:   Screenshots used in the site from games will display the title and author when you hover the mouse over them.   Responsive layout scaled for phones:   Clearer writing that says exactly what Leadwerks does and who it is for:   Dark gallery and video pages:   Sleek screenshot pages:   I left the Workshop pages as-is for now. The forum softw
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10

Web Development

I have a few preview images to show you my progress with the implementation of my design for the website refresh. Enjoy.         Here's a new version of the view image page. It's pretty bold. The image stretches to its max dimensions, and a dark background is shown beyond that.     Working with a dark background for the video and gallery pages, and it feels pretty natural. Information pages with lots of text use the light theme, while image-heavy artsy sections use a dark the
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Website Concepts

Here are some concepts I came up with for the site redesign.         The bold no-bull**** interface of itch.io inspired this design:     I think what will work best is if the designer takes my rough sketches, turns it into a clean design, and implements it with clean code.   I don't think we can change the whole site over at once without me losing control of the creative process and having runaway costs. I want to focus on the pages I have shown here and establish a foundation
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