Michael Betke

Indeed. Requested this already some time ago. One very big thing I loved working with Crysis Sandbox was the ability to reload models/shaders/textures with one click. Some time you have to go for try and error or just change some small stuff. You need to reload the whole thing. If levels get bigger and bigger its time consuming. Or you have to use a small "Testarena" for setting things up properly and then import stuff. There are some basic stuff we need but Josh wrote he'll enhance the pipeline in the next two months. So maybe we'll get stuff like undo, reload stuff and other things soon.

I have no idea why you guys have such a spreading effect. Mine fades off after 2 centimeters... I had no time to look into this but it seems to be different hehe.

Yes, often small things improve workflow a lot. Now it's a charm using copy/paste on models and relocate the copies with one clik. Really well done.

You guys are always ending up discussing LE vs Torque vs Unity3d. These guys are very fast progressing with their engine and I think from an artists point of view (this what I can only judge without having the tools at hand) they are most promising: http://www.youtube.com/user/NeutronEngine So I would like to ask a question to bring this discussion a bit furhter: What should Josh develope to gain or hold a unique selling point compared to the other engines you guys always mentioning?

Really nice. YOu listen to electronic music? This is awesome too. hehe

I use Leadwerks for visualization stuff without having an idea of coding too. If you worked a lot with AAA engines like Unreal or Cry you'll probably miss some things here and there but you can work in a productive manner with Leadwerks. The engine/editor works stable in my opinion and I don't have a lot of crashes. Maybe one time in 50 working hours. There is a nice exporter for 3dsmax models too. Like in other engines the overall eye-ccandyness depends on the assets you use. You can browse my galery (and others of course) to see decent stuff. Just test it for a while and ask if you have trouble. This forum is very helpfull as well.

Hmm I see mto make something wrong and its hard to see a difference. The effect looks a bit grainy and even if I change to rediculous settings it doesn't change like this #define aointensity 8.0 // between 1 and 5 is good #define aointensitydiv 5 #define aofalloff .1 #define aosamples 8 // dont change #define aopass 8 // 4 * aopass = samples #define aocut 2 #define aosize 5 #define aoscreenlocked 0 // enable this for screen locked AO (dont use) I opened the ssao.frag in shaders.pak and replaced the content (after doing a backup). then i updated the .pak....dont know

Yes I really need such a function too and talked to three coders here but noone seemed to be able to deliver an app. Someone started and had luck rendering the bufer but for some reasons the skybox was rendered black. For I wont be able to take high-res pics for print or resizeing them to get a good AA effect like in CE2. This little script is nice and handy. Only a option "Size" is missing.

Yes I have this problem if I forget to use the makedds.exe on my normalmaps sometime.

Yes. I think this is a issue. You have to change every node in its directions one by one. Very time consuming and combined with lacking undo its sometimes hard to do long roads. Maybe it'll get improved some day.

Thanks mate. Just changed it.

To really demonstrate the power of LE you'll need a good amount of eye-candy and not just a nice coded/scripted game. What graphical style do you want to archieve?

Ok I'll. Make sure to follow the pure3d youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/pure3dviz Facebook is also up and running. I now have a good feeling about the page and the content. Now it's time for getting more/quality samples done and do some videos for the page.

Yes good point. I have to admit I really was to lazy to insert all the links in the footer. I think a user'll choose the language right after he enters the site. I'll need to edit the footer anyway as soon as I got my facebook account and Youtube channel up and running. I don't like all the web 2.0 stuff but a lot of companies are in there so I have to do the same.

I launched my new company website. Since 2008 I was freelancing for different companies. Now I squeezed it into a new layout with own CI, offially company name and all other stuff to get more clients. I also plan a sub-branch for selling game-assets to indy-developers but this needs to be evaluated further. One more thing are realtime visualizations which are growing and the possibilites are awesome. This is why I've choosen Leadwerks. Josh is very helpfull and I don#t have to do a whole game in it's glory. Just "levels" to stay in game-art terms. I need to "persue" people to use this kind of marketing. One of my clients got a million euros deal using one of my projects. I hope this will help to get new big projects for me. English isn't my first language. If one of you guys see very exceptional errors (technical and language) please tell me. www.pure3d.de (hit the small flag to enter engish page)

I also miss terrain undo. For my own surprise I get used to have no regular undo in the editor hehe. But terrain undo is very essential.

You can get these textures there: http://technofreak.te.funpic.de/reflex_developer.rar Its from another german mapping-guy I used to know a few years ago.

No you need to unwrap your lowpoly where the texture is going to be baked on. Learning proper unwrapping is a nasty but neccesary task. Check game-artists.net for video-tutorials on unwrapping. There are good ones in the Spotlight Section. Plus Eat3D has also good tutorials on unwrapping stuff.

Take a look at 2:11. Your baked clock texture got only a very tiny spot on the huge map. The automatic-uv layouting is **** and you have to unwrap your low-poly object before plus disable the automatic unwrapping in the render to texture dialog.

Yes saving is king with LE. For me an undo button for terrain is most important. I modify my terrain to much in some cases and it needs more time to fix it up again with the tools.

I made a small video - turned out crappy and got cut off at 7 mins...anyway it shows some small improvements for artists and other people using the editor a lot. http://www.michaelbetke.net/LE_improvements_compressed.avi The last two minutes which were cut off were about: - painting several vegetation layers at once. - Having sliders to adjust bloom, HDR, godrays and ssao like the filter slider, shown with an exsample. Would enable the artist to adjust these settings in a specific environment like using more SSAO to emphasize geometry a bit more or use heavier godrays in a dense forest or more bloom/hdr in a desert level and so.. I know it's possible to manipulte the shaders but I think it's a piece of additional artistic freedom to use the post-effects with another setting like on/off. Don't laught about my spoken english. I don't talk a lot english here.

How did you set up the objects? Please tell a little bit more about the models. UV's etc...

Just a bit off-topic to the Leadwerks engine world, but I need a nice installer. Open-source / free and without ad-ware or such stuff is a big plus. I know there are quite a few out there but I prefer a good recommendation from the community here. I also would like to include the open-AL install if its possible because I guess most of my clients wont have it installed or know what it is. Some kind of EULA window to click through is neccecary too. I hope I demand not to much on this (free)installer...

So I can use a .ini file or set the parameters with object.model:SetKey("collisiontype","1") for other property settings too?

WIll it be useable from the editor? Maybe a checkbox "use as static". Like collision type and other stuff in the default object properties.