YouGroove

Nop the game i tested on my laptop Dragon Age 2 , i pushed a bunch of parameters down, but it is at final playable with a complex scene (but with LOD) , characters (but with LOD), UI particles , some basic shaders all running. And sorry but some Leadwerks game demos like the platform demo game was slow. It was just a test i shared even if it didn't made shine LE engine , and i can just say i was just surprised as you after lauching it. You should be realistic : I just put what i tested in my laptop, that's all. What can i say : "Yes the platform game with effects on was fast" Just to please you ? What will you gain ? You should make some FPS tests on a non powerfull laptop ... but perhaps my laptop is too slow or i know it's graphic ship is not the best and i must push down lot of parameters down for games ? So perhas the problem is lot more relate to it caus it's not really "Shader powerfull" ? And this test is not to take account ? Well let's forget it so ... we will gain nothing, what matters is LE3 not some LE 2 test. And i wait LE3 for Android first, then PC in second position, os there is no worry

Well about speed, LE 2 is not known as a fast 3D engine, you must have a good hardware. That's what i seen just playing some little games demos from the forums, even a little arcade game asks so much power for a poor scene and simple characters. By turning off shadows and full screen effects it was more playable on my laptop. In this lap top i just can run games like Dragon Age 2 by putting some settings down , but it is playable with as many or even more frames than the LE2 platform demo game or FPS demo with effects on. So i have a question ; Will LE 3 have a re write of the core engine ? Will it be optimized ? Faster than LE 2 for some same game for example ? Will it have good scene optimization options and features ? (shadows appearing with some distance clipping like some AAA games, technique that existes on old XBOX 1 games, progressive mip mapping etc .... ) Will it have some variable quality shaders (good quality, super quality ? Shadows and full screen shaders are what can put down all FPS in games, So will it be more optimisations in the future towards shadows and full screen effects ? like - very low res shadows , medium, high with different parameters of maps - shadows dynamic updated only each 5 or 10 frames For mobile i think it will have to be as good or close in speed to other 3D software having mobile support to be a good product, so im' not worried in that mobile area.

Ahaha , yes good to keep relax

If you make a standard game, i'm not sure all pure gamers that don't know anything about game making would be interested in code ? I think 3D models and textures protection is lot more important. At final the copyright guarantees that if you see a sold game using your stuff you can counter it.

For apples, yes display real 3D on clothest LOD. We can see bad orientation of polygon with leafs textures : polygon on top and right side top, they should not be so horizontal, but more vertical and face the player view : http://frostsoft.blogspot.fr/2012/02/alpha-planes-grass-trees-etc-vnt.html

I won't need incredible physic but basic ones and character capsule. I put lot more hopes on workflow for LE3 !

Will it be water areas ? siwwming , diving in water ? Water puzzles ? Oxygen bar ? Push a switch to empty a romm filled with water , push another to have less water in another room and be able to dive with enought oxygen to retrieve some important item ?

By reviewing your video i seen some interesting points : There is some futurist display in the tunnel entrance : because it's advanced technology in some old planet ? There is some red and blue things the character can catch in the level : The shapes are very simple, why not make them lot more intersting like cristals ? coins ? medals ? I think it's game in progres, but when the character catch some blue or red items bonus, there is no little 3D effect, a small effect could add lot more visual feedback inciting the player to collect more Check golden pieces when Mario take them there is a nice visual little effect adding this sort of feedBack 3D dynamic effects and particles are also one point that will make your game having a special touch.

Great news !

Great looking style, nice game (i'm also thinking on some exploration non violence game for some future project) Colors on the level why are they all same ? because of sunlight ? you could add more color tone or slightly different for outdoor solid structures. And i liked the blue colors of spider web , you could add more stuff colored in tha way ? Yes , like suggested, your game will need to bring interest to the player, so i can give you some ideas i have : GAMEPLAY : - Radar or sonar detection for important mission items ? - some non so visible sort of messages you should have to scan (Metroid on gamecube) - 3D platforming : for example to rech some item on top of some little moutain you should jump on some crates or other stuff than do the right jumps without falling. - Zelda grappling hook so fun and so good (you coould use it on some plots put on the levels to reach zones you couldn't reachat first and it could be used to solve level puzzle exits ) - some boomrang or one shot old fire weapon to active distant mechanism or switches , and destroy danegrous traps made of wood, or break wood doors, wood blocking stuff : it can bring more diversified fun for the player. - mini sort of parachute made of a simple squarry cloth ? gained far in the game ? ENVIRONMENT : - natural dangers to avoid : swamp , poisonous cloud areas , dangerous plant to avoid ? - traps placed indoor or on some dungeons or outdoor by ancient civilisation in the past : spikes, arrows when you walk on some floor etc ... -level puzzle (classic keys or any mechanisms) : small example : find the key on the level around to open the door, find some three diamonds that open a door etc ... - interactive mini game : lock pick treasure chests, doors using some special a minigame, solve an ancient mechanism using a special minigame. - Crafting system (perhaps NPC around will craft with good items and fr a price ? ) :Craft : Health potions, ammo for fire weapon, mana for some metroid visor ? BONUS ( to keep player interested ) Like the next Tomb Raider : Skills bonus - Jump longer - Jump more height - run faster - fall down from a bigger height - item special vision range - craftig improvment - New powers gained in each level or temple dungeon ( like mmo), but you would have to select Two of them before going outdoor of a temple : - Speed for 10 second (2 min of charge) - Tiger or another animal change for some minute (t oreach special zones) - Big Jump -Time Slow - Fire Ball etc ... - Collection system : collect hard to find/reach items to complete collection series that will onlock some ingame new feature - Color bonus items to find on levels or on chests ? - new Clothes/shoes/gloves/hair style or new clothes textures find on level or gained by completing a puzzle or by completing a collection etc ... etc ... LEVELS : Bring on big structures, not complicated, but big like a big cylinder thing, a big temple , a moutain with lot lot of stairs etc ... things you can see from long distances (use LOD also for performance) ! Yes, more diversity and originality (just dig Guild Wars 2 levels to have some ideas) Your game have a solid game base , now it just needs more diversity on outdoor/indoor structures, lot of ideas like some i listed, and diversified fun and rewarding gameplay. Perhaps it's too much ideas also, if you want to keep the game as simple to play , but fun like the game Journey on PS3 ?

Controllers are all the same size, due to their use of the navigation mesh and crowd avoidance I think it can begin to be complicated, specially for games using any type of character heights. But yes, not all games will have some ceilling problems , specially on outdoor terrain environments like in MMO games for example. (Just make doors height big enought for all characters to go throught ) And im' not sure everyone will need navMesh navigation depending on game type like 2.5 D platform, simple RPG with distance checking and simple pursue mode for ennemies for ennemies, flying games, space games, card game, arcade casual mobile games ... , I hope we would be able to disable the NavMesh use ? Perhaps i don't know a lot about the threads for collision and animation , but i find using separate sthreads and NavMesh can be too much power consuming for mobiles ? Perhaps, we should attach the capsule collider at initialisation to the character with the good dimensions ? Another lot more good way would be to have some graphical panel to adjust the capsule collider and its physical properties ? I doubt people will put the right values by code , and they have to do lot of error and trials before finding the good ones by code. A graphical tool , allow you to visualize the new Capsule and adjust it directly at the good size values without having to do lot of erros and trials with code ! This new way of character declaration seems restrictive to me specialy if someone just want to use some simple box to box collision betwenn characters.and a simple detect radius/pursue Player routine ! Yes it seems to be a more easy way and more complete character features compared to LE 2.5. Well, only trying these new commands and using in a game needing them perhaps i wil be more convincend.

Yes, after trying to work with other 3D soltuions , i didn't found the complete control and simplicity of LE engine. I have some questions for LE3 : - by default scene settings saved and loaded by the laod/save command ? (settings present in the scene file format ? ) - Some event system ? loading and placing 3D entties on map and drive themby their Script or C++ code depending on names ? (im' not aware at all of what will be on LE3) I don't know but searching for entities names in a loop can eat too much performance ; will it be a solution for that ? optimized ? like : myEntity = scene.find("wizardNPC"); ? - Shadows on any game even AAA eat too much power , will models of 3DWorld studio support shaders at same time as lightmapping , it could be great ?(i'm not aware also on what will be LE3 ?) For mobile indeed i bet lot more on lightmapping and use as less possible shadows as possible ( i hope we will have some "blob" shadow system for characters ? not all game needs precise shadows on characters) -will it be some internal LOD system ? or will we have to create one ? (Oblivion and Skyrim LOD is progressive sort of alpha to show a 3D model as you come near, when playing the game it's so smooth you don't notice it) - Will it be some new Specific UI system ? some UI editor perhaps ? I have also some tests on my laptop i want to share : I have a big non mobile PC , that can run fast indeed, but developping on laptop allow you to optimize the game for decent little PC and know some limits , before adding features for more powerfull PC. -Some LE2 demos runs very slow on my laptop, yes it's not a powerfull one, but it can run some little 3D games with shaders also (Radeon HD 7670M). Is this so much slow ? when it can run games like Trine or Trine 2 and their shaders ? -Animated characters don't appear in my laptop ? shaders ? (for example in the game Arean Slasher they are invisible like in the game"Last Chapters" wher only the robot head is visible ? -The game "The Last chapters" runs really not smooth , even without quality on, it don't run so fast with simple 3D models ?? I hope there will be optimisation for mobile ? The game "Furious Franck" had some over bloom effect problem and you can't disbale it ? I recognize the easy to use programming commands of LeadWerks with C++ or C# . You can put a little game very fast.And 3D World Studio with Lightmapping is the very best for performance and speed specially if you target laptop PC, non powerfull PC or mobile. I hope i'll have time to show some ideas for some simple little strategy game i plan with LE2 or 3 engine. I have lot of fun with 3D World Studio, and it's what i will use for the game : Main level layout in 3D World Studio, and little 3D assets will be imported from LE editor. (I'm just not decided if i go for C++ or C#)

Have fun and Merry Christmas to all

Well , let's wait for a solid product , i just hope we won't wait one more year

That's great. (Perhaps we will have it for Christmas ?)

Just awesome

Ok thanks. For workflow testing and lua scripting testing, count on me if needed

Well, it's been a year or more since i baught LE 2.5 , i can wait even more for LE3 indeed. I've seen on Devmaster site saying LE3 was on Beta testing : http://devmaster.net/posts/3129/leadwerks-3-begins-closed-beta-test And i didn't any special topic here about that ? It is right, and it is for some skilled selected people, or can any LE2 owner participate in the beta testing ? Perhaps it is too much early ?

For scripting there is some plugins in other engines even AAA like UT3 that allow visual programming and it works for 3D artists : Example : http://www.indiedb.com/games/xenoid-maze I simply don't understand where this insistence on having to be a one man show comes from, very few people spend there working lives on their own, we work as teams and it's this direct working relationship that really pays the dividends! I'll give you my point of view on game making and lonewolves indies : If you look at mobile platforms you'll see hundred and hundred of one man show ... or should it be simply named : "one man game" ? Lot of us don't think on living from that , but take that as a passion and would like to publish a game indeed And don't be so strict to the so incredible AAA notation and games .... Stop thinking you will make some AAA game , you'll never ;caus this is an army of skilled 3D artist and elite coders behind big studios , not a little team. Even with UT3 engine io doubt you could for example create only one complete first level of "Gears of War". And i never seen something outstanding made by an indie team that could reach the content and quality of big studios (Crysis, GTA4 etc ...) So , yes we don't want to remake AAA realistic graphics, we do'nt want to remake Crysis or Skyrim .... You can find them for some bucks, so i prefer paying 10 $ more than paying less for some indie game very very far from these games content. Some example : stupid FPS : Serious Sam 2 game can be found for 5$ easy, why should i pay more or same price for some indie game , very far from the quality and content ? And i never found in indie scene some FPS having that quality and all that levels and content. I just hope all people that wil use LE3 won't target AAA games only, and believe me , there is very ver few quality indie games on PC each year. For example the only one i could find great indie AAA is Trine 2 (even if it is just my opinion) There is a real market for indie PC original games, remakes, and games that have some world or gameplay that escapes the traditionnal repetitive patterns of "medieval RPG", "modern FPS" games ... Mobile games made by a person are a lot already, and made with this engine also : "U""N" .. ... "Y"

Will a complete game be able to be written interely as script ? (For example a game having Dialog, combat, system, inventory , special effects , levels loading , game save ) Is there some approximative year quarter date for some beta access for LE 2.5 owners ? (It is a year already since i bought LE 2.5, but i'm more 3D artist and use lot more scripting and i'm betting on LE3 new system and workflow)

I don't ask for some release date like the other thread , and i know this is incredible amount of work to bring up new version of LeadWerks I liked LE2 features indeed, only workflow and scripting weak points kept me away from it. My question would me more like , will some LE2 users will be able to test some Beta version ? (perhaps that would not allow to save the work ?) to test the new workflow and way of scripting / programming ? Benefits could be to already show some bugs or bring some opinions on the workflow or import system ? It's just some idea, not some solid ask Perhaps we have only to wait for the official release i think without asking something before it ?

It will be "Dungeon Creator" It would be cool later to have some parameters like : - walls height - type of corners : more or less squarry, or mor or less rounded For the texturing, i don't knwo if it would be possible to have some floor texture, and walls textures ? (perhaps ceilling textures also ?) I suppose by code your generator knows what is floor and where walls begins ? Another way could be for the user to specify or choose some base mesh used to create the walls , that could be complicated less or more ?

For the body armor you can inspire yourself on some other games , you could just attach upper torso, shoulder parts, than just change the texture on the body torso. (look at World of Warcraft and other games). For hands you can lower the number of bones by grouping all 4 fingers in the same bones, or 3 fingers (fable games like) on the same bones and keep the other fingers with their own bones ? Perhaps you could just attach some independant animated hands to the arms ?

Yes this is a factor. I notice it a lot palying big advanced games, i put down the resolution from 1900 to 1200 to keep lot of features and details "on". 1900 wide is too much even today, or you must have the last PC and last 3D card. So that's same thing for 3D game engine, windowed will be more slow caus all window stuff is displayed and managed. Fullscreen is like saying : "Ok now , forget the desktop and manage my game in priority" So you can just lower resolution window, to test and create your game (today, 1200, 1600 are ok for a bunch of PC games, so you should target that user resolutions for your final game project ? )

The more simple is XboxLive games: Xna games. You can find a lot made by indies, lots of simples, bad , and some really good ! Perhaps the best solution would be to go for Xna instead of Xbox ?