Gonan

Hi Josh, I recently got Ultra engine, and have been watching your workshop videos. Im retired now, but still have an interest in programming. I would like to have a tutorial on how to set out my project file structure so that when I create my project source files they work with yours but would not be impacted by changes to your files as you update ultra engine. One for Lua and one for C++. I found this was one of my issues with Leadwerks, as I would edit your files, which would later be updated by a patch or new version. The more I put into creating my code the bigger the amount of rework required for each update to the supplied source code. While its useful for people learning to start this way, It quickly becomes a technical burden for anyone who starts to get productive. I think this would be a very usefull to put beginners on the right track, and give Ultra engine a better chance of becomming the engine of choice. I'm so pleased that you are close to releasing Ultra Engine 1.0. and really hope it goes really well for you. All the Best Gonan.

Start by creating a general map loading function, use it where ever you load a map, add logic to that function to detect if a uniquemodel file exists for that map. If it doesn't load the map, create a dummy progress bar, then create a file of the uniquemodels currently loaded. Animate the progress bar. Next time the function is called for that map a uniquemodels file will exist, get all the entities loaded, counts the number of unique models, use this when animating a progress bar during this loading stage. The model list file could use the name of the map + "uniquemodels" . Once written the whole process could be automatic for future projects.

try setting the account name to NickWashco rather than Nick Washco. I'm guessing the space is causing a problem for the shader loader.

Over a period of time, these forums will collect lots of data. That data may remain relevant and be useful, or irrelevant and obscure relevant data. If nothing is done the irrelevant data will be more prevalent than the relevant. Thus making forums less useful to users. A knowledge management solution can help, but it needs some sort of data maintenance where user feedback keeps useful items, and relegates unhelpful items. Have you considered a knowledge management solution?

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had combined animation sequences, with selecting bones to become controlled by ragdoll physics, as the character sustains injuries to arms, legs body and head. The existing character controller, simply reduces total health, and the dyeing sequence is selected when it drops below 0. However none of the injuries are fedback to the viewer, which would make fighting zombies more interesting.

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/11065-monsterailua-function-scriptendattack-bug-fix/ This problem occurs when more than one monster is attacking you. Not sure if it was ever fixed.

if you want to create a function that will not be sharing variables with other functions with the same name, are you thinking of having a using namespace convention?

hi Josh, I can't find any reference to Actor in the API documentation, is this intentional?

use steam for leadwerks 4.x

use a small radius point light source just in front of the light, so that it illuminates the headlight.

sorry I assumed that each task was on a thread, running independently. I was suggesting that if you had more active threads than cpus, you would experience contention for those cpus. You would see this in the performance stats, as context switches, which will cause the current context to be saved, and another loaded. If this happens a lot you are loosing useful cpu processing power.

as each thread is doing a smaller subset of the work, you are probably getting more cache hits, are you also using thread affinity on your busiest threads to stop them context switching.

Have you tried turning off lua sandbox mode? Then are you getting the same results?

I imagine that having an assignable icon to a pivot and let it be displayed in the leadwerks editor, and have the option to hide it in the runtime, or debug would be a nice feature, making spawn points, ammo supply, points that effect gameplay. The old FarCry map editor used icons to mark various items added to maps and it did make it easier to tweak the gameplay visually.

Thanks Josh, looking forward to trying it out. Are you allowing updaters to see the updates leadwerks have held back due to user updated conflicts. So that they could choose to integrate them themselves. As you said LE 4 api is pretty stable, so there should not be too many. Hopefully I can use a backup of a working project, and then reapply the new version of the project update. LE 5 is going to be the start of a new set of changes, will the same update process apply?

I agree with Josh, he must make decisions on the direction that leadwerks needs to follow, ensuring his business meets the needs of its users. My original post also stands, and is not meant to conflict with Josh's plans. I was asking about how others managed their source code, and if there was a standard, or best practice to follow when setting up a new project. Having a tutorial on minimising the effort required to keep projects up-to-date. Its not about main.lua, that was used as an example. What I really need is how to separate my user code from the leadwerks supplied code, so that it can be reintegrated after updating the project. I recently updated a project and was told over 400 files had been updated. Of couse the program no longer works, and would need a lot of effort to go back and reapply my code changes, just to get the program working again. That's why I call it a chore, as I have had to redo this work after each update. I am asking the community if they have developed a standard approach to this problem. I am enthusiastic about leadwerks and the new features, but adding them into existing projects is too big a hurdle to cross knowing that I would need to repeat the process every few months. Imagine you had several projects written over the years, you would spend ever increasing time managing your codebase, and less time creating new work. As Josh says this is a user business decision, in how to manage what is an ever increasing legacy user codebase. So please comment on your best practice, and how you minimise the rework required after project updates.

way back in the 80s when I was an IBM systems programmer, user exits were provided, which simply returned, by default, but would allow user supplied code to be substituted. Obviously this is done at each significant point in the supplied code. eg. main; //initialise supplied code and setup internal_memory up=addr(internal_memory) call userexit01(up) //start up call userexit02(up) // main loop . call userexit03(up) // main loop end call userexit04(up) //end as user supplied code was changing a supplied module that simply returned, it never needed changing during a version change. Also we never had to change main. other Leadwerks users may have a more modern way of doing this. An alternative is a optional user folder where modified versions of supplied code override the standard implementation. Leadwerks updates would not update the user folders. This would require some sort of path search , looking in the user folder before the existing folders, to be implemented in Leadwerks.

I would like to see how you should create your own source code in LUA, by starting with a new project, and what you should do to implement your changes to the existing starter code, so that you are never impacted by a new version, or project update. Its very tempting to start tweaking the starter code, and save it back overwriting the original. For instance making changes to main.lua, means any updates to the main.lua made by a new leadwerks update, when applied to the project, with the project update facility, will mean remaking those changes by looking in the .bak files. keeping a project uptodate with the latest version can quickly become a chore, especially if you are using the beta to get the latest features and fixes. Managing this aspect of using leadwerks in a long running project, is my biggest negative experience, all I would need is a standard to follow for making user changes, that would eliminate or minimise the impact of this issue. I'm sure someone else out there has found a way to avoid this from impacting their development.

I looked at the creation dates on the folders and it does look like they were created as a project new with the create subfolder option unchecked, making sense as to an explanation for their existence. This was under version 3.3, and I was experimenting with the option, but have not used it in any real project. I should do some house keeping, after I take a backup copy.

The missing files exist in my projects folder, but are not related to a particular project, eg shaders folders directly under projects. So I think these are created when the projects folder is first created, not when you create a newly named project. Does the projects/shaders folder exist?

I think it might be your directory "Nick Washco" as it uses a space. Just a guess.

when reading an update to a long article, for instance the kickstarter tutorial, it would be nice to have a bottom button to scroll down to the last entry. This is much more useful when using a smart phone, rather than a pc, where you can use a scroll bar.

I think you should have a live and beta, version, like you do at the moment, otherwise you will have users on different versions, some reporting bugs that have already been fixed, which will annoy anyone maintaining code. Users who want stability can use a previous version, but it would be unlikely to be fixed, should a bug be found, in that version. So basically as it is now with LE4.

entity:GetScript()) and entity:SetScript("path/filename") are missing from the reference.

Thanks, I added a line to the Monsterai.lua Script:Start System:Print("self.GetScript()="..self.entity:GetScript()) this gives the full path and file name of the script in the log. Then using those results followed it with a line to load a new script self.entity:SetScript("C:/Users/....................../monstera3.lua") In the log this caused the old script to be deleted, the new script loaded and then executed. So looks like it can be done, with that method, though will have to check that it doesn't cause any leaks.