Josh

I use this in Xcode and VS all the time, and it's a great feature. I don't know if it will make it into the first release, but I agree it's very useful.

The saved files are located in "C:\Program Files\3D World Studio\maps" by default.

Ah, matrix math. That matrix looks right. Line 1: The local x axis points at 1,0,0 Line 2: The local y axis points at roughly 0,0,1 Line 3: The local z axis points at roughly 0,-1,0 So the object is pointing down, which makes sense with a euler rotation of 90,-180,180. That's where gimbal lock sets in, so the yaw and roll are a little funny. The scale should be 1,1,1 and it's only because of floating point imprecision that it's not. That happens all the time and isn't a problem.

It's the old ease-of-use vs. quality of results conflict. I think you guys will be happy with how I worked it out. I am coming from a programmer's point of view, but realize the market probably values a visual art pipeline above anything else.

Really, I'd like to play a 3D game on the iPhone that doesn't suck. Something like Mario64 would be really fun. If there was a game like that available I would buy it.

You have to have the texture somewhere in the Leadwerks Engine SDK directory. You can change the path the tools use to load assets from in their settings file. LE3 uses a more drag and drop approach.

That seems counterintuitive, because assets are reusable and scenes are unique.

It took a while to figure out, but I was able to get drag and drop interaction working on OSX. (Thanks to Seb Hollington for helping with the coordinate transformation stuff.) Now the editor lets you assign textures by dragging them onto texture slots, just the same as on Windows. There's one last step before the editor code becomes totally platform-agnostic. A file system watcher needs to be implemented on Mac. On Windows, this was fairly straightforward, because there is a built-in API for detecting all files events. OSX has something called FSEvents, but they only detect changes to a directory; they don't actually tell you what file changed, or how it changed. QT has a file system watcher, but from what I can tell, it looks like it doesn't detect new folders that get created. I think this is something I am going to put off for now and slowly research it. As can be expected, OpenGL support on OSX Lion has some issues to be worked out. I haven't actually had a confirmed bug where the driver's behavior is violating the specification, but there are some weird things. Due to the difference between Mac and Windows file paths, I was accidentally not attaching any shader objects to a shader program, yet it successfully linked! This actually does not contradict the OpenGL specification, but ATI and NVidia drivers would have raised an error. The commands for MSAA textures are working, but the highest supported multisample level is one, meaning no multisampling. Again, this is all in accordance with the OpenGL specification, but the GPU in my iMac is capable of doing 16x MSAA textures. I got around a few issues and sent Apple a demo of LE3 running on Lion; The rendering flashes on and off every few seconds, and I have no idea why that could be, but there's nothing more for me to do on it since it's not raising any errors. I think Apple is moving in the right direction, and they'll eventually get things worked out, but I would not recommend buying a Mac for high-end graphics just yet. I met with an Android developer yesterday about getting LE3 running on Android devices. Since we already have it running on Windows, OSX, iPhone, and iPad, adding one additional platform should not be too hard at this point. Compiling C++ for Android is a pretty complex task, so it makes sense to have someone else work on this area while I focus on the core engine and editor. Once we have it running, the "platform milestone" for LE3 will be reached, with support for all platforms we intend to target at launch.

The ordering system problem has been resolved. -The ordering process features 100% SSL-encrypted content, which will display in the browser. -Customers can enter the CC info right on the site and order through our merchant account, instead of sending a PayPal payment. -Customers can order with an account balance, and the seller can still request a payout for the amount earned. -Sellers are protected from refunds because the transaction is governed by the same rules as a regular credit card purchase. Only in case of proven fraud is a refund issued. By contrast, a PayPal account lets the buyer requests a refund within 30 days for any reason, or no reason, and since no UPS tracking number can be provided, the buyer automatically gets their money back. The Leadwerks Asset Store will be launched August 9th. I am composing a press release which will be sent out to tech magazines, bloggers, and journalists so we can maximize your exposure. We’re also launching a promotion for the month of August. All new licensees will receive $20 account credit in the Asset Store. They can use this credit to purchase your assets, and you can request a payout in real money for your balance earned. You may begin submitting your models now, and they will only be visible to you. On August 9th your paid items will all be approved for the launch. If you need to review the terms of the merchant agreement, all information on this program can be found here: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/merchants

I've done stuff like this before. Basically, anything that uses the normal to change the shading will break up the flat look.

It's not an "optimization", it's backwards technology for obsolete hardware. Ah well, at least I still get my hardware tessellation...

I seriously doubt you would need to do any of your own culling techniques like this. If a light is hidden behind a wall, it won't be drawn. The cost of each additional light is very low. The shadow rendering optimization in LE is very advanced. There's an article here that explains how to get the most out of it: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/Documentation/LE2/tutorials/_/artwork/tools/indoor-lighting-optimization-r18

Occlusion culling is already used on lights and animated models.

Use Visual Studio 2008: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/files/file/215-visual-c-2008-express-edition/

The problem with that is it's never enough. Any time I have released game examples of what you *could* do, they get treated like they are chiseled in stone, and then I get complaints that my example doesn't support X feature. What's needed is a complete rethink of how games are produced, because it's obvious that programming has failed as a design method.

There are ways to do simple water. We made a custom stream shader for the GDC2010 video. It's not that hard to do with refraction or a cubemap for reflection, but it's not supported "out of the box".

You actually can search the documentation, but it's not as simple as I'd like: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?app=core&module=search&search_in=ccs The index here lists every page: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/Documentation/le2/_/index/

The command reference is here: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/Documentation/le2/_/command-reference/ We're not ever going to use CHM again, since it's Windows-only.

Water in LE3 will be done using CSG solids, so you can create multiple volumes of water.

Your card should support occlusion. It will also say so at the beginning of the program .log file. You can turn on "extra statistics" in Options>Display. This will show the number of polygons drawn, so you can see it change. I just created a box car and hid behind it, and I could see the polys rendered decrease.

I just didn't think it was that relevant.

You're aware this is supported now?

I get some different results with the ATI 3870 in the machine I am on now. What GPU do you have? The performance seems very slow for such a simple scene, which makes me think it might be a SM3 card with no support for occlusion queries?

I can't guarantee a date it will be ready by, so I would not make any commercial decisions based on this. I wanted to see how much interest there is in this sort of thing, and apparently there is a lot.

The water plane uses occlusion culling. If the waterplane is hidden behind terrain or anything else, the reflection won't be drawn.