mdgunn

Would agree a store is probably necessary (see FPS Creator Reloaded/Construct 2/Game maker as well as Unity etc.). For beginners I found Jorn's YouTube tutorials were essential for me to get up to speed in an applied but modular fashion. I think construct 2 and their web site get a lot of things right for getting started and building community and resources. (You're probably not meant to mention other software but this is 2D and it seems relevant to point it out specifically). An easy way for LW to help new users is a nice attractive splash/start page like construct 2 has. It isn't a splash as such because it doesn't go away and is actually useful. The page actually stays open all the time in a tab (which fits their tabbed interface fine). You can disable it in configuration. There's loads of useful stuff on there. - 2 'full' game projects (with tuts to follow) - Many real world useful skeleton templates (endless runner etc.). - Links to manual, tutorials, forums and store - You Tube FB etc. - Friendly 'Plain English' *sentence* re-iterating same info above it. Importantly the graphic and presentation are nice enough and readable enough that I don't feel compelled to turn this of and it is still a convenient place to do whatever task you want to do on program start (new/open/recent projects). If a program is aimed at beginners or users that want approachable software then the start UI can probably be more inviting than a traditional and typical windows software. They also provide a resource pack (as LW does) which isn't mentioned in here but seems well signposted on the web site I think . I get a strong impression from construct (Scirra) that they have done usability testing, and acted upon it.

Looking good. Like the minimal look.

Haven't yet worked out how to modify my listing for my game so here are a few images so you can see what it looks like.... I'm thinking it probably looks better when it is moving.... EDIT: I worked out how to get edit my game listing..yipeeee!

A few days ago (last minute as usual) I thought I'd try and do an entry for the Leadwerks Winter Game Competition Entry. I hadn't created ANY games up to that point having just bought the software so didn't initially think I'd get anything playable done but I had a few ideas and the result is.... 'Crazy Auto Present Dash' !!!! Yeah. I'm not too pleased with the name but it'll do. I'm still trying to get it uploaded to the site while I write this. A number of issues to resolve so it's more of a Beta (maybe Alpha ), but the basic game is there. My aim was just to complete a game that could be played (at all) - by me, so I think so far I've achieved my goal!

I tried again and it seemed to go better this time. I seem to be able to export cycles based UV mapped image materials and the PNGs appear now. No idea why I had the problem before yet. Probably some material setting that I'm not spotting. Thanks, Michael

So do you mean that any materials defined as cycles materials should be baked and then re-created as old-style Blender texture OR should the exporter export a cycles material if it is correctly baked? My simple example was just a UV map image (png). It exported the material but it lacked a path to the image and I don't know if this is because it was not defined right as a cycles material or because cycles materials CAN'T be exported even if they are just a PNG texture (which seems to me similar to a baked texture?). I was in Blender 2.72 BTW to try to make sure 2.73 RC was not an issue. I'm by no means an expert Blender user so I find it easy to get confused in the pipeline necessary here. If the plug-in needs old-style Blender render then I think that point is important enough to be in the docs. Thanks for responding. Hopefully someone can clarify a little more on if I HAVE to always bring everything back to a old-style Blender material to work. Cheers, Michael

Can anyone explain how to get a texture out with cycles renderer? I can get the png files generating if I use Blenders old Render but when I try to use cycles the image file doesn't appear but the mat file does (with no image file reference). I don't know if it is because I don't know how to do it, or if you have to use the old render materials? Materials look fine with cycles in the viewport (as far as I can tell). Can anyone explain using export with cycles materials? Thanks, Michael