Rick

Is there a new one that supports VS 2010? I'm lazy and the one I have only has 2005 & 2008.

That's basically the way Unity works too. When you import something to your project it copies it to a location for the project. The issue is that not everything with Leadwerks has to even go through the editor though so still need a way to load stuff from code. I really like Lumooja's suggestion. Giving names to paths is a pretty cool idea. The editor could give us the ability to add as many of these named paths as we want in it, and the LE library would handle the replacements of these named paths when it loads something.

In UU3D Select->All 3D Tools->Modifiers->Scene->ScaleTo

How would you do something with C++ in it? If I make a page with ++ it takes it out, and I'd prefer not to use Plus Plus. It seems like it titles the page with whatever the link name is. Strange there isn't an "Add Page" button somewhere. Nevermind, I see there are special characters to get that. Thanks!

How can I add something to the code base section of the wiki? I signed in but I can't see how to make a page like Gamelib has in this section.

I know before Lua each model had a classname key, but once Lua was put in I think it was taken out. You would have to put it in yourself in the Lua scripts.

I don't think there is, and yes that sucks

OK, nevermind, I guess he was to big. I scaled him down some and now I can see him, but when I play animation in the model viewer it goes insane. I can't even really explain it. It's like it zooms in but it's all flat. It's strange.

I purchased http://www.dexsoft-games.com/models/royal_warrior.html and converted it via UU3D. I created the mat file that looks like: texture0="abstract::Warriori_body.dds" texture1="abstract::Warrior_N.dds" shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap_skin.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap_specular.frag" shadowshader="abstract::mesh_shadow_skin.vert" I have the .gmf, .mat, and the 2 .dds files in my LE directory. I also saved the dds files with mipmap. When I open the file in the model viewer I just see the skeleton for the animation. I don't see anything else. What could I be missing?

It's not your fault Pancakes. It's Blenders. If they can't get people to see what they (you) see then either they aren't very good at displaying it, or it just isn't as good as people expect it to be. I think we all understand that you can change the interface and basically change everything about it, but asking Josh to put LE 3 in the hands of software that someone else wrote and he knows nothing about is risky for him. You have some serious passion for Blender and it's engine capabilities. I think you should really learn how to do some of the programming around it and try to come up with some kind of engine yourself. That faith you have in it should keep you motivated to do that learning.

Come on Pancakes we know that's not going to happen

Blender Foundation!

If this happens it'll be because the interface is much easier to use. Pancakes you have to face the facts, Blender is hard to use for new people, and even harder for people who have become used to a certain interface. You can have all the features in the world but if people have a hard time using it, that means the interface isn't good. Even if the creators think what they have is brilliant, it doesn't matter. What matters is how the general public, the average Joe, thinks about it and the common theme from most people seem to be that they don't like the interface. It doesn't follow some standards that most people are used to. Here is a quote from someone reviewing Blender That may seem harmless and not asking for a ton from the user. "Take some time and learn the interface" you may say, but honestly once the editor opens and if a person goes to the "standard" WASD and mouse movement and it doesn't work the way they expect, you've already lost the majority of the people. That simple minor thing is something almost everyone in the game making business has come to accept as a standard and when you take it away, people freak out.

I think in the case of CSG it's both. CSG is very suitable for the final game (it has and is still used in games sold today), but if others want to use it to give dimensions for artists to make other more detailed models then it's good for devs also. More importantly in the terms of what kind of people will be using LE, namely hobbyist and indie, CSG is a must to help speed up dev and still provide very acceptable end game quality graphics for certain structures. Most bridges, even the one used in that Crysis example could have been created with CSG and been perfectly acceptable in the game. Most everything today is about materials these days anyway.Add on to that tessellation to help make things look better, I think CSG could be very powerful. The idea of exporting CSG groups is pretty cool too though.

With tessellation some CSG models won't really need to be exported and defined better in a 3D program. They'll get defined better in real-time by the engine via tessellation, assuming we have control of triangle count on each face. I also think people often underestimate what you can do with CSG. The difference in some situations between something created with CSG and something created with a 3D app are hardly noticeable given good textures and such.

You seem like you have stuff organized. How long have you been working on this game?

I didn't even think classname was part of Lua. Did that chance recently? I know it was around before Lua but then I thought it was removed with Lua. I would assume you would be able to set that variable yourself inside your Lua class assuming it's now a variable in the base Lua class.

I disagree about the CSG being backwards. 3D modeling programs are much more complicated to use for non artists than CSG editors. The point of CSG isn't just to be able to model in the editor, it's meant to be much easier to use than modeling in a 3D program so that level designers can easily and quickly do it. Back in the day when I was making levels for HL & CS I picked up on CSG in Hammer very quickly, but I still to this day have no idea what is going with Blender. It's just more complicated than something like 3DWS, and that's just the facts. It's a big reason why CSG exists in editors. It's just easier.

I thought there were issues with that working correctly without custom phy files? Maybe that was an older version of LE.

There are various things CSG can be used for outdoor designs. Think about putting a hole in the terrain and now you have to fill it with a cave. CSG can be used for that and by the level designer. If you've ever played WoW you can see that those caves can be made with CSG pretty easily, and the benefit you would get is that they wouldn't have to all look the same like in WoW. The level designer could customize those in the editor instead of just using one from a list of 3 already created caves by an artist. Also you can make bridges to fill gaps in the terrain like in Masters link he posted above. Basic fences and other smaller props that don't need physics can be made with them all right in the editor. There are so many situations that CSG can be used and it really helps speed up level design.

Yeah for sure, but even these newer games have things in the distance and other models that could benefit from this. I would assume since you wrote one already that it would be slightly easier to include that but maybe there is way more to it. That's a good point, but maybe giving us the ability to select faces of CSG and control the triangle count could put all that into our hands instead of yours?

1) The motivation for the request is that we aren't all artists and CSG is much easier to build a level with than going into a 3D program to make it. 2) Duty separation for level design and artist is another reason for it. 3) Quick and fast demo's can be created for it. 4) Even programmers can make levels with it! (my personal favorite) 5) Even artists can do amazing things with it.

That sounds like a good PR statement, but you aren't going to be doing yourself any favors by not looking at the competition because your users are looking at more than one engine to see what features work the best. So if your users are looking around, then so should you to see what they are looking for. What works and what doesn't. Only seems logical. Putting your head in the sand to the competition isn't going to help any. I'm not saying you have to copy them, but looking at what they have is a must. Either way, the main point was that CSG is still very much in demand and other engines have it, and if you don't it's a tick in the negative column on that point for Leadwerks, and features is what your users are looking at. I wouldn't consider mimicking one of the companies that basically wrote the book on game engines to be bad reasoning. Clearly they are doing something right, and I was just using UDK as an example. I know you have to set Leadwerks apart, but people are going to know about engines like UDK before they know about Leadwerks. Leadwerks clearly beats it in ease of use and looking better, but not having much of the same tools that these bigger engines have will only hurt Leadwerks. People expect these things because the big boys have them. You are being judged and compared to the likes of UDK, Unity, & others.

But don't they require .phy files that we must create with that phygen tool to work correctly with the physics engine? If so what's the point then of having them included when we load a mesh?

I think it's almost a requirement to compete with something like UDK. CSG is still very popular and it helps us scrub programmers get some playable demos going really fast and skilled people in it can still create very nice scenes. Most buildings would use this.