Pixel Perfect

That's a nice technique. I remember you making reference to this somewhere else recently. I always wondered how people got their foliage textures for tree/vegetation models. I do a lot of my own ground textures and agree with the cloudy day requirement. Gives a much more uniform light distribution too which is important if you're planning on making them seamless for tiling.

My high density scene actually runs slower (getting about half the FPS of the 2.31 editor) otherwise it seems stable. Have you changed the SSAO as it now seems to blur everything in the foreground?

Might I also suggest you check your credit card statement and confirm that a payment was made to Leadwerks just incase it did not go through for some reason. If it has gone through then this is strong supporting evidence that you have paid for the upgrade. Google should also have a record of the transaction having taken place.

Wow! It's all coming together very nicely Dave. Starting to look really polished now. Fantastic work! Is Josh going to be combining game play code with this to make a demo playable level of sorts?

Then it should be fully supported or removed. What use is a scaling function in an editor where the scaling is not preserved!

Hi Shard, given that the alpha in your image is ok the only thing I do differently to you is as follows: pFramewerk->Update(); pFramewerk->Render(); pPlayer->showStats(); SetBlend(BLEND_ALPHA); DrawImage(hudImage,650,10,140,60); SetBlend(0);

Yeah, that does bring back memories. I still have my boxed copy of Visual C++ 1.0 with its full set of manuals. Three proper printed manuals from what I remember, it's not seen light of day for a long long time Those were the days when you got more than just a CD for your money! I actually started off with Turbo Basic which was completely written in Assembler and lightning fast for its day. C++ Builder 6 was nice though, the power of C++ language with a VB style IDE and design methology. All driven by Delphi under the hood. I still have the professional version which was bought for me by the people I was contracted to at the time. Unfortunately, the licences are non transferable so I can't use it commercially otherwise it would still be my tool of choice.

Sounds great. I've never tried the official CEGUI Layout Editor but I'll take your word for it. Sounds like this would be a really useful tool. I used to use Borland C++ Builder 6, years ago, and that was a really Rapid Application Development system and great for building tools.

Welcome Raul and thanks for the introduction. I'm currently playing RVL Hacker and enjoying it. I look forward to hearing more from you regarding your current and future developments. Is the casual game being developed using Leadwerks Engine ?

Here's a link to a game demo vid of mine showing character and bird animation: STRANDED -The Game There are plenty of other examples around by others too. Skeletal animation is well supported including interpolation between frames and animation blending. Models can be manipulated procedurally too. Up to 256 bones are supported with fast skinning on the gpu.

I have the SDK but I haven't had time to get round to trying it yet. I'll see what I can do.

The simul software has been embedded into a package for Dark Basic users DarkClouds. This is available at low cost but unfortunately not usable by Leadwerks due to its DirectX rendering requirement. However, their product is integratable with OpenGL too and their SDK gives an example. If they did a deal with The Game Creators perhaps they might be prepared to do the same with Leadwerks too. Might be worth an initial enquiry Josh! Their founder and MD Roderick Kennedy is very approachable. The demo runs fine for me and is very impressive.

Great article Drew, thanks for sharing this and explaining it all so well. Like Lumooja I am quite able to write my own if need be but I'm certainly willing to look at available libraries first as I, like most, have so many things on my 'to do list'. CEGUI has always looked like one of the better and easier integrated libs.

Having tried it out I'm really quite impressed. The model and animations are of a nice quality; so thanks to Josh for providing these and also to both the original modeller and subsequent animator. Thanks to Masterxilo too for sorting out the animation issue, the gmf conversion, providing the nice demo script and packaging it all up ... much appreciated.

This looks really cool! Thanks for sharing. Downloading now.

The commands Masterxilo illustrated (FindWindow and SetWindowLong) are Windows API commands and not language specific so you just need to call these from C#.

Very nice MG

Hi answers below: 1. Yes, but you'll need a 3D modelling app to do this and then import them into the game 2. In theory anything you are capable of concieving and programming 3. Yes, so long as you have the models initially 4. There are some animated zombie models available for sale at various model sites on the net, or you might be able to get a modeller to make one for you. Those two sentances dont seem compatable with each other. Work on something small to start with until you've learnt the basics!

Yep, I think that was an Adventure game set on some desert island, written by a German Indie Games company from what I remember. It's been brought to my attention before. [EDIT] As regards your 'I may be willing to trade' statement. The code is freely available OpenSource

Thanks RVL, and that's a nice compliment. Unfortunately it's not even a game, it's just me playing at being artistic as a diversion from my programming activity and being very inspired by Michael's modelling and texturing! The actual game I'm making is STRANDED which is primarily a modern FPS with some RPG elements; with an initial level here on Earth but then all the action takes place on a distant Alien planet. I haven't shown much recently due to being deep in development of my game editor, pathfinding and AI.

That's great, thanks for the clarification.

Thanks Michael and yes the bird can fly; its animated and I've developed code to allow them to fly randomly within any configured area. The level was just experimental, I would never actually use the rocks in that manner in any finalised level but I liked the colouring so much I wanted to see how they would look as hills/cliffs enclosing a valley. A quick question, having bought the pack would I be able to use some of the textures on other models I make for use in my Leadwerks game or are they strictly for use only with the models you supplied?

It's a shame but of course Leadwerks was never designed with this market place in mind but rather as a high end 3D graphics game and architectural visualisation engine.

Just for anyone who might not want to wait ... if you log into Paypal on the German page then Paypal will display the next screen in your language and you can make the transaction.

Really, all I see is some moving vegetation and a moving light and shadows. It looks very nice but this is an every day occurance in Leadwerks. What are we supposed to be impressed with? I'd be much more impressed with you posting demos of games you've written in Blitz3D seeing you are so insistent in mentioning the engine in just about every post you make. Got anything to really shake our belief in Leadwerks? I'm open minded and fair and ready to be convinced if the evidence is compelling. Time to show your hand I think ... or are you bluffing