DaveLee

Thanks everyone! Making photo realistic landscapes and outdoor areas is quite easy with Michael's excellent vegetation and nature models. Good point with the rusted light, I'll redo their texture soon. I'm currently using version 2.32 R4 of Leadwerks.

As promised last week, it's finally time for a new blog update! Lots of new artwork has been created since the last update, but I'm going to start off by posting several large renders of the Zone project from a few weeks ago. These would make for great desktop backgrounds: The biggest focus of the last few weeks has been the design of the derelict Ukrainian military barracks. This building was based off of a real barracks in the Exclusion Zone. One of the new Leadwerks features that I implemented in this model is vertex color texture blending, which I used to blend brick and stucco textures for the exterior of the building. The blend shader is included with R4 of version 2.32, and I will be posting the .mat code for the blend texture at the end of this post. The newest version (2.2) of ArBuz's fantastic Leadwerks tools for 3ds Max includes support for vertex color, and I used his tool set to export this model. You can find it here: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/files/file/7-leadwerks-tools-22-for-3ds-max/ Besides the building itself, I have created quite a few new props to populate the building. I'll start off with screenshots of the entire scene, and then I'll break down the props: Here are some of the new props that I created for this part of the project. From back to front: 3 cubed shelving units, gun rack A &B, 3 fuse box wall props, 3 variants of a military bed, old wall sink and radiator. I hope you enjoyed the images! Feel free to leave comments or suggestions, and I'll see you all in the next blog. Here is the blended material .mat file that I used: texture0="abstract::barracksgreenstucco.dds" texture1="abstract::barracksgreenstucco_dot3.dds" Texture2="abstract::barracksorangebrick.dds" texture3="abstract::barracksorangebrick_dot3.dds" shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap_specular_multi.frag" shadowshader="abstract::mesh_shadow.vert" blend=0 depthmask=1 overlay=0 zsort=0 cullface=1 castshadows=1 specular=0.0 gloss=0.25 bumpscale=0.3

Is anyone else getting weird behavior with "blend=alpha" is version 2.32? I'm not seeing anything directly behind the alpha blended object be rendered at all.

Now there are some really nice low poly buildings. Just the right amount of detail up close, and they look fantastic from the air. I'm looking forward to seeing more!

Hello again, everyone! As some of you may of noticed, it's been quite a while since my last blog update. Lots of good things have been going on behind the scenes, which is why there haven't been any recent updates. I'm currently preparing a large blog post for this weekend, but for now you get this little teaser:

I'm happy to report that with the newest release of 2.32, I can save without fear once again! All of the improvements are working well also.

Just to double check, where did you get your installation from? Only files downloaded from official sources should be considered safe.

Edit: Ahh, mis-read the question. Click on the last node and drag your cursor over to the next node in line and release. A pop up should ask "Create link?".

Everything seems to be working perfectly for me with the exception of a corrupted save every 3-4 saves or so. I'll screenshot the error the next time it happens, but it has to do with saving the road system.

Thanks everyone! I'm not sure if Josh is going to make this a playable level or just a visual example, but it's possible. Flexman, did you make sure that HDR is on? My terrain comes out white if HDR is turned off.

The web designer in me is horrified, haha.

Sure thing: texture0="abstract::whitebrickdecal01.dds" texture1="abstract::oldpaintedbrick01_dot3.dds" overlay=1 blend=alpha shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap_specular.frag" shadowshader="abstract::mesh_shadow.vert"

I've found that the newest nVidia drivers under Windows 7 are rather subtle about resetting. Previously my screen would flicker or black out for several seconds, but now it flickers and resets so quickly I sometimes don't even notice until I realize that performance has dropped. What Josh says about heat is true though, it shouldn't get to a point where the card is too hot. My problem is more related to overloading my GPU I think (Running Leadwerks, 3ds Max, Crazybump and other apps that use the GPU all at once). Just to make sure that heat isn't an issue, if you have an nVidia card download the EVGA Precision Tool and use it to set your fans at 80 or 90% manually when needed. Sometimes the auto-fan tries to play catch up too much.

You guys are really asking for the pain! The art pipeline for destructible assets can get pretty complicated from what I've heard, but it would neat to have the option. Bad Company 2 is a great example of how destructible environments can completely change game mechanics.

The slowdown could be caused by your Windows video drivers resetting. Occasionally when I'm running Leadwerks with everything on high, my video card will get very hot and it may stop responding. This causes Windows to reset the video driver, which may show as a quick screen flicker. After this reset, the a temporary driver is loaded until you restart and the real driver is loaded once again. The temporary driver will only give me single digit FPS.

This is looking really great! The authenticity and attention to detail are excellent.

Hello again, everyone! It's been a busy few weeks on the Zone project, and a lot has been accomplished. Besides the work presented here, a lot has been going on behind the scenes as well. Last week Josh wrote the GMF Processor, which collapses GMF models into an optimized mesh. This tool has helped speed up in-engine performance significantly, and you can try it out for yourself here: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/1767-gmf-processor/ I've also been fixing mesh errors and cleaning up and tweaking previous assets - it's the non-glamorous side of being a game artist! I still have news on the "new art" front, of course. The paved road bridge (based off of the famed "Bridge of Death" near Chernobyl) has been completed. First off, here is a look at the small version of the bridge: Like the railroad bridge, I have also completed a modular version of the road bridge. It comes in End A, End B, Middle, and Middle with pillar sections for now. In the near future I will be completing a destroyed section as well which will help close in the area that players can explore. I also have some larger renders to show today. Last week I was attempting to get the "save render" script working. After having difficulty getting it to work in the actual Zone map, I put together a small showcase scene with more of a mountain environment. Here are some of the larger renders from that scene: You may have noticed a few new assets in this scene. The largest one is the Bober Warehouse, based off of the Bober train station in the real exclusion Zone. It features a full interior as well as exterior, and you may even be able to explore the attic by the end of the project. But, what's a building without some furniture? I've been working on some wooden furniture props to help fill the buildings that will soon be populating The Zone. More variants, as well as other furniture like old lockers and tables will be coming in the future as well. Thanks to the modular bridges, I was able to drop them into this mini-scene with no effort. Here's an overview: If you haven't tried the 3.32 beta yet and you're working with heavy scenes with lots of vegetation, you should try it out. This scene has billboards disabled (meaning that the thousands of trees and plants I have in it are all being rendered at any distance) and I'm still maintaining 10-20 FPS on my nVidia GTX 285. Although, I wouldn't recommend these kind of settings for your games, as your users may complain about playing a slideshow! That's it for this blog post - thanks for reading!

This version seems to be just a little unstable (saving a test scene saved the roads but corrupted everything else - let's hear it for backups), but the performance difference is astounding! The fixed depth of field is excellent as well. Is anyone else getting flat white ploygon smoke from the firepit or instant crashes when attempting to run through their levels? I'm wondering if I have some stray files from the last version causing problems.

I knew there was a way to do an alpha blend, hah! That's exactly what I needed, thank you good sir.

I'm looking to create some softer decals, but the _alphatest shader seems to only read pixels as 100% opaque or 100% transparent. Ideally I would like to be able to paint gray areas in my alphas for softer edges. After digging through the shaders I haven't found anything that works. Does anyone else have an idea?

If you're using 3ds max, try this spiffy tool: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/files/file/7-leadwerks-tools-22-for-3ds-max/ It exports material assignments as well as the materials themselves as .mat files (named correctly), which usually only need slight tweaking before being ready to go in-game.

Very cool!

Welcome to another installment of “The Zone” level design blog. Today I’ll be detailing what has been going on since the last blog post, which includes some new and imported assets as well as some significant changes to the level design in the Editor. I implemented the new SSDO that Josh posted recently, and redid the lighting based off of a few tips he suggested. The main sunlight is a white-orange, and a very dark blue-gray ambient light is used to lighten the shadows and balance the lighting. I posted my current SSDO settings at the end of the blog post if you are interested in seeing them. To start this entry off, here are several overview images of the level. As you can see, the placeholder vegetation is gone and I have begun to populate the level with vegetation created by Pure3D. If you have been thinking about buying some of their vegetation packs, I would highly recommend them! The roadside pegs and yield sign are also by Pure3D. Check out these images for some examples (note that not all vegetation placement is final): I also used the Fill option under my cliff side texture to auto-fill all areas of the map with a slope greater than 7 degrees. If there are areas above 7 degrees that I want to paint with another texture I can do so, but as you can see from these screenshots using the fill tool helped me to automatically create some interesting texture work for me to build off of. I have also deleted all terrain that isn't visible from the "play area" to save resources. The first of several new dirt road textures is now complete and in game. The first image of the road also shows one of the new radiation warning signs. These signs are placed both on the borders of the Zone as well as areas of extremely high radiation. The railroad bridge first seen in the last blog post has now been fully modeled and textured as well. I created high-poly bolts and baked them into the normal map and used a WACOM tablet to hand paint most of the diffuse texture. The first two images are large in-engine captures that show an overview of an assembled and disassembled bridge. Theoretically, the bridge can be made to fit any length that you need. I'm also showing a re-sized (1024x1024px) version of the bridge's diffuse texture - the full size is 2048x2048. Besides the railroad bridge in the “new assets” department this week, I also have a small outbuilding. This is another background building without an interior (expect a full building in a blog post soon!): Some road barricades have been completed as well, with damaged versions to come: Finally, as you may have picked out from the first few images in this post, I have created a few low-poly background buildings for this map: And that wraps up blog post #4. If you have anything you would like to see in the next update, or if you have any suggestions be sure to mention it in the comments! SSDO Settings: #define aointensity 6.0 // between 1 and 5 is good #define aointensitydiv 2.5 #define aofalloff .35 #define aosamples 8 // dont change #define aopass 4 // 4 * aopass = samples #define aocut 0.6 #define aosize 0.5 #define aoscreenlocked 0 // enable this for screen locked AO ... #define raycasts 6//Increase for better quality #define raysegments 8//Increase for better quality #define aoscatter 0.5 float raylength = 0.5;//*dist*1.0*50.0; float cdm = 1.0;// * dist * 50.0;

This new pine tree set is a great compilation! All of the models compliment each other very well, and they make for very "full" looking forests. I look forward to seeing future sets for sure.

Actually Michael, I haven't figured out how to get the curves perfectly modular either. For now, they require aligning by hand. I'm hoping to figure out a good method for making them modular soon. Thanks for the comments, everyone! The bridge textures and finalization are coming along nicely along with quite a bit of work on the level in the Editor itself.