Pixel Perfect

I would agree with Metatron and recommend C++ for all the same reasons. When you really need to get that little bit extra performance your choice of language does make a difference. Most of the time working with Leadwerks and C++ is no harder/complicated than working with Leadwerks and LUA and the availability of integratable libraries is much greater when using C++. There are benefits and downfalls of using either but hey ... that's life, nothing is perfect. On balance I'd say C++ is the better bet in the long run; but both are valid options as indeed BlitzMax is too.

Sounds like a great environment to be based in ... congrats!

well more specifically, I don't think many are working with orthographic projection!

Cool !

I'm sure the technologies will merge and in a way that makes it easy for non technical people to continue to do what they want to do. So what if the game we play is no longer running on what we today technically describe as a 'console', it will be effectively the same technology just packaged in a different way. I couldn't care less what I play on if it does the job and doesn't compromise the quality of the games I would like to play. The game industry is forever crapping its pants as Josh puts it ... it does that every time someone brings a new successful game out, that's what keeps the whole thing rolling and evolving. These are not little two bit companies and industries, they are in this to survive and many will continue to evolve and furnish whatever new evolving platforms and marketplaces throw at them and if they dont ... others will take their place.

Well from my experience, the rise of mobile phone technology, the Wii and Kinect are all down to the same basic reason, they inherently expanded the hardware and software marketplace massively into the female and child marketplace. The above videos are simply examples of the big industries targeting that very marketplace. The Wii started it and everyone else just jumps on the bandwagon desperate to re-coop some of that newly created marketplace. I don't see the traditional male dominated console/PC gaming market swapping in droves to these alternatives. Gimmicks do sell as people require more and more stimulation to get excitement in their lives, the same thing is happening with 3D television but fortunately these things are mainly fads which people tire of quickly and do not lead to the demise of the more solidly based entertainment staples. So the market place that sustained the big console producers in the early days is not going to crumble, they may just fall back to the less dizzy heights of profit seen when you hit the gimmick sales. Sure you could argue whether a future series of hardware based consoles are necessary as people are fairly happy as you say with the current quality of graphics in games but the current generation of consoles are certainly suffering in terms of physics support and people have to work hard to provide the level of top end graphical output due to the limited hardware resources. Serious game players are not going to stop playing games and will require either a decent console or a PC in order to do so for the foreseeable future, and new generations of players are coming on line all the time to maintain the marketplace. Its like the fashion industry, just because some garment is in demand and a raging fashion with the youngsters doesn't imply that I won't be able to buy a pair of jeans in a few years time! [EDIT] Just saw your post Dan, and as you can see I'm pretty much in agreement

Looking very professional Ken. Nice work!

I agree, most of the console players i know fully intend to upgrade to the next gen of consoles when they emerge and are still buying console games. They lot play games on their phones too, but its just considered light entertainment, in no way a replacement for their console gaming experience. As one of your new engine's biggest plus factors is the ability to develop games for the mobile platforms I can see why you're promoting this Josh. It is indeed a valid market place but I don't believe it will be replacing consoles/PC gaming any time soon if indeed ever, it will just run in parallel. The mobile games market place is undoubtedly a good place for an indie games starter to gain some experience and make some sales though.

Excellent introduction to A Star path finding Aggror. Although you mention it I have to emphasis the importance of using the diagonals too, to get not only a shorter but a more realistic path, but this serves as a good introduction to the subject for anyone coming to this for the first time. Path smoothing techniques can then be introduced to smooth out the direction changes and make the paths (movement) look a little more natural and less mechanical.

Sounds like you are really getting into the interesting stuff now Aggror, AI is where the real interest is for me, I'm sure you'll find it equally fascinating and rewarding. Great that you spend the time to develop tutorials to hand some of this knowledge on to others too!

That's fantastic looking terrain Andy. Could imagine being at Mam Tor / Winnats Pass. Excellent work and attention to detail.

That really looks very effective, shame it's static as it's always hard to get the real feel of the water without seeing it in motion. Looking forward to seeing more of this though!

I'd agree with NA. Animated quads are a very effective way of achieving special effects and are cheap to execute in LE. I've had over 60 running simultaneously with no noticeable reduction in frame rate.

well the same still applies, just load a splash screen and then wait for 3 seconds before the main loop

If you are trying to export this to gmf format and subsequently display it in the Leadwerks Editor then you have a bit more work to do. If UU3D is not displaying the textures after importing the dbo file then you probably need to ensure it can find the textures referenced in the file. Otherwise, if it still displays the material names then you will need to re-assign each texture files to each of the materials (200+ files could be tedious) Secondly, the textures do not get embeddedexported with the gmf file, just the references to the texture names, therefore you need to ensure they are all converted to dds with mipmaps and have material files created for each one to have it display correctly in Leadwerks.

Looking great!

Congrats, seems to be coming together nicely

There is still for some reason a lot of confusion over this so to clarify once again: There is currently no released price for LE3 (that is to be announced at some as yet unspecified point in the future). Josh has specified on several occasions that for anyone buying LE2 prior to the release of LE3, the cost of the having bought LE2 and upgrading to LE3 will be less than if you had waited and bought LE3 on its own. In other words if you buy LE2 now, the final cost of LE3 will be cheaper for you. The cost of the source code is an entirely separate thing and is a matter of discussion between any interested party and Josh. No assumptions should ever be made and until the price of LE3 itself is announced it's unlikely you'll get a price for the source code.

That mirrors my view point on this too, it's fun to draw the type of conclusions being drawn in this thread but I wouldn't put too much credence in them. If we could all throw a few stats onto a graph and draw meaningful and accurate predictions for the future we'd all be rich.

The only one I downloaded was Hexagon. I know some people that have used this in the past and recommended it. I suspect I'll still stick with Blender but it's worth a look.

There are various apps that support poly reduction (including UU3D) but they tend to work better for more standard models than for characters that are intended for subsequent animation. You generally find that the poly reduction destroys the original topology and you'll get all sorts of weirdness when rigging and animating.

Sounds great, looking forward to it!

haha ... love it

Very nice, would emulate shoals of fish well

Well put Mumbles ... I'd pretty much agree with everything you've said there