digman

As Dave is texturing, I started to build our first basic character rig from scratch. Soon we can give some animations to Rick to start testing and working on. This rig still has a few problems but all in all works well. The rig can be adjusted to meet varied human type of characters. I am working on creating this production pipeline, from creating rigs, exporting out of blender and importing the animations (working correctly) into Leadwerks. The rig in the picture is shown with all the armatures showing ,relationship lines and axis showing. I still need to add the bone shapes for the controllers. Of course all the bones will not be exposed when animating but only the bone controller shapes.

I do not have the steps to reproduce this problem yet but am making you aware of a potential bug Dave (ScrotieFlapWack) Lua Steam version 3.1 O.S. Windows Rick Lua Steam verison Steam Standalone 3.1 O.S Windows David (Digman) Standalone 3.1 version O.S. Linux 12.04 LTS 64 bit. Testing Systems: FPS relative to each persons system specs. Problem: Phobia Project---- No large changes in the Project between updates that should cause a big FPS hit. Phobia Project is updated using the Project Manager each time I get a new Phobia project updated from Dave. I remove the old project and then import the new project and and update it using the Project Manager. Rick has mention that the FPS takes a hit sometimes when loading a Phobia project that has been updated (GoogleDrive) by Dave David--- I turned on vertical sync and my FPS is a solid 60 FPS. I created a new folder, added a Character model (no bones or animation) and then saved the Phobia project locally on my hard drive. Upon reopening Leadwerks and running the Phobia project my FPS is now 30. This is not the first time this has happened. From reading the forums, I noticed that others sometimes take hits on their FPS and are unsure why. Sorry for the non-reproducing bug report. Josh, do you any suggestions on what I or we can do to help narrow down what is causing this problem and get you a reproducible bug report. You made remove this report if it does not meet the bug reporting standard as I can not give a real reproducing bug report yet.

Here is another one for you to check out if you so desire. It is also cross platform browser base for the client. https://www.mikogo.com/

Yes Sir, nice indeed...

I will write various articles as we progress through the making of Phobia. Our team Dave, Rick, Rose and myself are like the Leadwerks promo states "turning players into game makers". In the end hopefully some things we learn you can use as well. As Josh said marketing is considered before one line of code is written so it is with modelling, UV set creation and texture \ normal map workflows. My first job as I saw it when I joined the Phobia team was to establish a modelling and texturing workflow that could be used through the entire process of the game. This took some testing and then a final workflow settled on. Regardless of software used a repeatable and consistent workflow is vital for production. This helps the different modellers and texture artists keep consistent as they work on the overall scheme of the game. If the team increases then any new artist can be brought up to speed quickly. I will leave any coding articles to Rick...

You got your love now Rick. Us artist would be squat out of luck if there were no programmers. Even thinking about programming makes my head hurt...

On the new collision detection. If you build your simple shapes or if you model is simple enough just duplicate that shape (object) including them in the model file and the shapes are named "Collision", they will become the collision object upon importing the FBX model. Correct? Lots of good stuff coming down the pipeline for Leadwerks, Thanks for the hard work you are doing.

Ah, good to know the reason why no other types of DDS file compression schemes were supported plus knowing that changes are on the way is good news. Since the Tex conversion routine is a non adjustable global setting for compression I do not know if it would be possible to set it per model but it would be great if the Tex conversion routine would just keep the current compression or non-compression we set in a specific DDS file. Just stating my preference as I do not know what is possible with Leadwerks.

A headups here. When Dave opts out of the Steam Beta Branch (Lua only version), he then gets the same error and problem I do and can not load the Phobia project.

Thanks for taking the time to inform the Phobia team of how things work...

From my first post: "Our Workflow: Dave uses the steam version plus he is also hooked up with the Steam beta branch. I used the Standard 3.1 version, no Steam." I had forgotten to mention I use the Linux version. I just am dropping the ball today on giving you the required information to solve problems. Plus after your first post, I went back and edited out the part of my post where I thought it might be a version difference between the beta steam branch and my Standard 3.1 version (no steam)...

I think you mean that Dave needs to update the project on his end or am I mistaken. I updated on my side using the project manager as stated in my other post and it still does not load. It is a Lua project, sorry for not mentioning that. I will ask Dave to update his project when he gets back online and re-upload the project, then I will test and report back here.

Thanks for the heads up there Aggror, I am sure that Josh will fix this soon...

Error:File version 25 not supported I get this error in the loading panel at the bottom of the Leadwerks screen when I try to open our Phobia project from the file menu. This error stops the opening process. Our Workflow: Dave uses the steam version plus he is also hooked up with the Steam beta branch. I used the Standard 3.1 version, no Steam. I update my Phobia project by downloading from Dave the Phobia project and replace the entire project each time. This error happens whether I update the Phobia project or not update it using the Project Manager. This has been working till yesterday when I got the above mentioned error. We do need this fixed soon so any help you can offer is much appreciated. I put this here as we do not have a general problem section in the forum.

@ Admin. Maybe it would be better to say detailed Docs and tiny was the wrong word do use... my apologies there. One example of some information that appears no longer current and will confuse new users. I got there by going to Documentation/User Guide/ Workflow/ Lighting. http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/documentation/_/user-guide/lighting-r685 The above page should explain what the lights are and what the settings do for each light under the light tab or if some settings do not function for that kind of light. That information could as well be placed under the Special Entities page. This would help a new user who is not familiar with light setups. The functions for each light setting is left up to the new user to figure out... Leadwerks no longer uses baked lightmaps and so far I could not find information on light settings and their function under the light tab. There are other areas that do not give enough information about what the settings do or how to use them. Example.. Look at the shader panel information compared to the others, No picture, no information on the choice of shaders available under the shader's folder. http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/documentation/_/user-guide/material-editor-r8 I am not being critical here just pointing some things out... Docs are the hardest areas to keep updated I know...

This is from a artist and not a programmers view based off the 3.1 Standard version. The source SDK would give greater flexibility I would imagine. I am not comparing game engines here just what I like about Leadwerks 3.1 standard version. I am happy with the engine. Leadwerks does make areas easier for the artist which impacts it's future from a artist standpoint. Very easy to import assets into Leadwerks using the FBX format which Leadwerks automatically converts it's own format. Mipmaps generated or not per texture including normal maps. I think the Leadwerks tex files already have the mipmaps created but you have to check generated if want to use them. It is selected by default. Being able to choose flipping of the X or Y channels for your normal maps in the normal map editor window is a big plus... This does not have to be done outside the program. Recalculating your normals for some models using the model editor with the choice of two recalculating methods. Saving models as prefabs then instancing those models. Material per model is very fast to setup. Lights are easy to setup and change colors, strength, view range and what kind of cast shadows are used. Lua is easy for changing some things the artist might need with a few easy code inputs, like running your game in full screen mode to get a good look at your models plus changing the shadow draw distance quality (stages) for the real time Cascaded Shadow Maps. YouGroove has it right in that every game engine has it's strong and weak areas. The lack of current documentation hurts Leadwerks leaving a new user to search the forum or using the docs which are mixed up with 2.5, 3.0 and a tiny bit of 3.1 stuff. Being able to choose a couple of other DDS compression schemes would help as well. Right now, I believe Leadwerks uses the 8,8,8,8 ARGB uncompressed DDS format when converting your texture files. I will not go further as I will write a post about being a new user to the program and what my impressions are, the good and what can I think can be improved for the new artist user.

Without having the files I am just guessing but I know a NDA will not allow you to post publicly. Are the fence railings (not the post) just flat polygons or do they have true depth... Check your model for duplicated vertices and merge or remove them. Also check for flipped normals... You might have done the above already but did not mention this in your post. Could it be a light bleed problem?

Steam Indie Version, Lua scripting only Standalone Version, C++ and Lua That is the major difference between the Indie Steam version and the Standalone version plus Standalone without Steam has no Steam support meaning no workshop...

The quality setting you added only effects the shadow when you run your game. It has no effect in the editor window. Under the tool panel (main menu) Options/Video/Lighting Quality, set it to high. I was told that this effects the shadow quality in the viewport. Also if your first range setting under the light tab for the point light is set to a higher number it will also effect the shadow drawing distance in the viewport. It has no effect on the shadow when running the game that I seen so far. This is what I found to true by my testing, so I would test it yourself as well. Of course your result could be different but it's worth a test.

The uploaded file is a 2048 x 2048 file and not a 1024 x 1024. Nothing is wrong with the tex conversion... 8,8,8,8, ARGB will produce an appox 21 mb file size with mipmaps from a 2k image.

Ok, I going to jump in here and say what I think is happening... If Leadwerks is using 8,8,8,8 ARGB DDS for image conversion then all images are converted to 32bits with the alpha channel plus there is no compression, no lost in image quality. What you see is what you get... That means if you have an 8bit image with no alpha it will be converted to a 32bit image with the alpha channel plus no compression. 8,8,8,8 ARGB scheme from my understanding is the 4 channel uncompressed DDS file format. I would imagine that the source code that is also sold would give you the ability to choose your own DDS compression scheme but of course I am guessing here. I downloaded the 1024 x1024 image file you posted. In Leadwerks after the conversion the Leadwerks "tex" with mipmaps was 5.6mb. Photoshop with the Nvidia DDS plug-in using 8,8,8,8 ARGB for the image conversion to the DDS file it was 5.6mb with mipmaps. I can not tell you why your are getting such large file sizes with the same image.

You are coming along great there... Wings3D is very good at creating larger modular game assets. The uncluttered workspace and the limitations really work to your advantaged here. The only thing I see is what appears to a small triangle section that is a non-planar polygon. The triangle section is by the vertical boxes. What I mean by triangle is that the area in question is modelled in a triangular fashion but crossing two axis. It appears to be a quad polygon and not a real triangle polygon,

The moderating team... Admin can not recieve a pm to or Josh either. This is not a problem as they would be overcome with too many pms.. One moderating member as not been on since June of 2013 and the other in about 5 days... By mistake I put this post here when it would have been better in the blog... So if the Admin or Josh sees this post, you made remove this thread... I will repost my stuff in a blog... Last post my by me in this thread...

I found where to create the blog, though it is not under my user name but under Community / Blogs. I have ask the Admin to remove this thread...

No Manage blogs under my user name that I can find. Yes that would be a better area to post this kind of stuff... Maybe you need to be here awhile before you use a blog... Sometimes that is the case to avoid being spammed...