Josh

The y coordinate gets flipped when you draw to a buffer. This has to do with the way the underlying graphics API works. In Leadwerks3D, the engine will detect these cases and correct them automatically, but for Leadwerks Engine do this: DrawImage x,y+height,width,-height

BSP geometry does not require any LOD because it tends to be very low-poly. http://www.leadwerks.com/files/Level_Design_in_2009.pdf

I sent a PayPal link you can use.

Where the heck do you get a credit card that expires in 8 years?

There's two ways to do this: CSG brushes can be broken programmatically. This is nice because it requires zero pre-processing and no extra artwork preparation. The breaks are pretty simple, but they can be more complex as CPU speeds increase. In the long run, this is the right way to do things. Another option is to have an entity set to replace itself with a number of different models once a damage threshold is reached. This is how HL2 did breakages, and how PhysX still does it. It requires more work in the art pipeline, but the breakages look more realistic (although they break the same every single time, regardless of the point and direction of impact.) Neither approach deals with shearing forces, so the results will always be limited until that is addressed (which would require many times more computational power). This is why in these demos you always see breakable pieces being shot off an indestructable frame. I've seen a lot of videos where they go out of their way to hide this, but it's always the case.

The programming component remains in Leadwerks3D, and in fact will be better supported. But we have learned by now a programming SDK alone can't survive. For every programmer, there are a hundred non-programmers who have just as much money to spend. Making an easy to use visual tool was never a consideration in the past. I can't be accused of failing to provide that, because I was never attempting to. Until now, I have focused solely on performance and features, and was able to develop some nice technology. With Leadwerks3D, I am making the art pipeline and ease of use top priority, which is why I don't like hearing that people are already planning their own ways to work around the default pipeline. Your experience with Leadwerks3D will be completely different, because all those little tasks that are left to the end user in Leadwerks Engine now have a supported documented way of accomplishing them. That also has the benefit of lowering my support costs because people can just look up in the docs on how to fix a model, adjust a light, etc.

Leadwerks Engine was never designed to be a visual game design tool. It was conceived as a programming SDK for BlitzMax. It didn't even have an editor when it was first released. Leadwerks3D is being developed with a completely different approach.

MaxScript is an example of script that is useful in an editor. You can add little tools, exporters, and dialogs. However, it is my hope that when Leadwerks3D comes out people will be focused on making their games rather than reworking the tools.

So you're saying the community assumes the new editor won't meet their needs, and it's their responsibility to fix it? If that turns out to be the case when it is released, I shouldn't be in business. I haven't heard anyone name a single thing they want to extend the editor to do, except you mentioned you wanted to create a pathfinding system as an alternative to the built-in one.

That's not the same thing as parenting. It's assumed that when models are loaded in the editor, their hierarchy has already been arranged in a modeling program, and all models are top-level entities.

No, it will look like Leadwerks. The thumbnails are rendered with an orthographic perspective. It's at an angle, but there is still no depth perspective. It's kind of frightening to me that people are already unsatisfied with a tool that isn't even done. What needs to be fixed?

I've made more progress on the model editor. I needed it to be able to resave models after making changes. First, I started with an Entity::Save function that would save all entities in the GMF format. "But wait", I thought, "I can save all entities in the GMF format!" Then I thought, even better, I can simply write a Serialize() virtual class function in the base object and extend it for each class, so that instead of writing this: stream->WriteFloat(position.x); stream->WriteFloat(position.y); stream->WriteFloat(position.z); I can simply write this: position.Serialize(stream); "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!" Wait a minute, if I write a World::Serialize function, I could save an entire world with all entities in a single file, so that another person can just open the file and recreate everything that was happening! Amazing! Of course, serializing every instance of every texture would be terribly wasteful. Should assets still be loaded from files? What if they were missing? What about models that were loaded and then modified? Can I use this for sending entities over the network? How does this all fit together? It was around that time my conscience started kicking in, or whatever that feeling you get when you know you're doing something dumb is. So I stopped what I was doing, imported the GMFSDK code into the editor, and wrote a SaveModel() function, which is all I needed in the first place. I changed the default background color to dark gray (0.25). It makes thumbnails more easily visible, and is dark enough to not kill your ability to see dark pixels. The thumbnail generation uses the last rotation you had in the model editor, so it's very easy to adjust the thumbnail. The thumbnail renders use an orthographic view, which makes it easier to make better use of the available pixel space, and seems to look good. Thumbnail renders for materials and models use 2x antialiasing, which looks great blended against the background color. The thumbnail icon view we use for assets is one of my favorite parts of the editor. Having used this and a few alternatives for a while, I think this gives you much faster and easier access to all your files.

Yep, I wrote it.

Check this out: http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2094

I'm not sure what this is supposed to look like, but you can scale the terrain entity vertically to get more height.

As the founder of Leadwerks Software, software piracy is an issue that has directly affected my income. We solved the piracy problem by turning our product into a service. Only paid customers can access our community website and get full use of our product. Piracy rates dropped to virtually zero after that. I consider our piracy problem totally solved. The marketplace changed, we adapted to provide a better service, and overall both the customers and company are better off than before. Netflix, iTunes, and Steam proved that paid services can compete and win against piracy sites. Unfortunately, the copyright holders have been resistant to this model. They won't distribute their movies through Netflix, nor will they set up their own movie streaming system. Digital streaming media isn't the future, it's the present. Many copyright holders are choosing not to compete in the marketplace, then crying foul when no one participates in their archaic business models. Why are copyright holders choosing not to compete in the standard distribution model for digital media? It's because they don't want a level playing field. They enjoyed a monopoly on everything you watch, read, hear, and think for decades. They can't stand a free market, which is what the Internet allows. The idea that an artist, product, or idea could become popular by organic means outside their control is terrifying to them. They only want you to have the choices and ideas they create for you: Justin Beiber, Republican/Democrat, and McDonald's. Old media's death is imminent within the next 10-15 years unless they act now. SOPA is about handing the Internet over to old media. I don't know exactly how it will play out, but we know their ultimate dream is to limit you to a handful of "channels" all owned by the same company. This bill has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with control and censorship.

What is easy?

Lupin's image proves we need a Leadwerks model editing program that is a cross between 3D World Studio and 3DS Max.

Why do you say that? What "tutorials section" are you referring to?

Open the material and drag the texture into the slot it goes in. The common suffixes I have come across include the following: Diffuse: _c, _d, _diffuse, _color, _albedo Normal: dot3, _dot3, _n, _normal, _bump, _ddn, _nm Specular: _s, _spec, _specular Can you think of any others?

There's a big difference in implementing a new feature in a new design, and adding it to an established program.

Looks like a calculus problem.

When you double-click a model file in the asset browser, it's opened up in the model editor window within Leadwerks3D. You can drag materials onto a model to assign them, then just save the model and close the window. You can also drag textures straight onto the model, and Leadwerks3D will do a pretty good job of guessing what material to use. If no material exists, it will create one, and take a good guess at what textures should be added to it, then apply the newly created material to the model.

If the improvements can't be summed up in one easily readable sentence, they aren't significant.

I'll take a look at that, too. I think that's a new feature in 3.2.