Andy Gilbert

Shad, One thing ive noticed whilst using these is that the material intensity is alot darker than the default leadwerks shaders, is there a reason for this, or can they be matched somehow? I ask because im finding odd things (and i know these are experimental) but im finding the light map rendered in the viewport at edit time doesnt represent what you see at runtime, which makes things a little difficult. Thanks Andy

Really loving these Shad, hopefully will have my new demo to show soon, making full use of these Andy

Again youGroove this is a standard 3d vector issue, a simple google "Vector from 2 3d points" (ill even link it for you here) will provide many many threads and websites that describe how to do this and it is all related to vector math which in turn can all be done in leadwerks, you dont need another leadwerks user to explain it. Although what i think your after is another leadwerks user to script it for you, which really isnt the best solution. Andy

You grove I think you should read up on some basic game design or general game programming tutorials that are plastered around the net, google will be your friend here. A lot of what you asking is not just le3 related but fundamental features of game development across most 3d engines. I only tell you this as you will probably be able to find the answer to you questions a lot faster, then come back to le3 and look through the API reference to see what options you have. Picking (ray casting) is the way I do both player shots and enemy shots, although you will still have to impliement an 'accuracy' system of your own. Andy

To move around the 2d views freely like u want I use my mouse wheel button. As in my mouse wheel is a button as well as a scroll wheel. If your mouse doesn't do that then I'm not sure how you would do it. Andy

Is there a reason simple openGL fog has yet been implimented? Im sure its one of them features that every 3d game engine has and is one of the first feature to add? Seeing as this isnt a deferred renderer, cant we just use the built in openGL fog? Thanks Andy

Looking forward to it. Andy

I noticed this and the way I do it is, once copied project into the project folder I then open the editor config file and manually add the path, you will see where you have to add it. It then Appears in the project manager. I guess it would be better for the project manager to do a check on startup and just add all folders in the projects folder into the project manager list. Andy

I don't think so as. But as far as I'm aware you only need two options, open a script or create a new script. So opening is simple as you do this by right clicking the script tab attached to the entity. New script you can right click in the asset browser and click new script. Andy

Shadmar that would be great to have a play with them if you don't mind of course. How do you want to get them over to me? Josh I do agree, and like I said I know the future renderer will bring them big graphical features back. But in the videos I watch of left 4 dead there's a torch being emitted and that torch lights up everything, models and geometry? What I did notice is the torch doesn't effect the shadows of the zombies, but nevertheless they do have some basic projected shadows from somewhere. And I guess this is what's missing the most, simple shadows for animated objects and maybe some dynamic lighting for csg, even if for pc/mac use only. Thanks Andy

Do we have command to set the mass center of an object within Leadwersk 3? Thanks Andy

Why not read the docs youGrove? Please dont just assume... I know i can write a function using move,but that command simply moves an object along its own axis. It does not move and object to another point in space. Andy

Hi, im wanting to move an entity to a point but without using navigation or the navmesh, just simply move an entity to a point over time, a bit like the LE2 camera flythough. Thanks Andy

Yougrove, i honestly think you just enjoy typing. I am aware of this, hence in my post i refer to the "current version" of leadwerks 3. I know this as i explained in my post. Same again, i said in this in my post? Are you a modeller? Baking normal maps is a process of baking a normal map from a high-poly model, this is the only thing i can assume you are refering to. But again, like i mentioned, normals and spec on models is no problem, but models dont cast or receive any shadows on other models in this current version of leadwerks3, nor does BSP have normals or spec (at the moment) so in a complex scene there are visual conflicts that make the scene look bad.

Me! Andy

My hours of use in leadwerks 3 is already counting up fast and along the way i thought i would share some of the things ive found so far. Which no doubt means this will turn into a small rant about the features i wish leadwerks 3 had in its current version I am not going to talk about bugs as we all should expect them in new software and trust they get resolved as soon as Josh can get around to them, what i am going to talk about are a couple of (to me) significant issues with the "current" leadwerks 3 when developing for PC or MAC. To start with and get it off my chest, leadwerks 3 in my eyes is extreamly good and i am happy with my purchase, i find its easy of use for simply getting stuck in and making a quick game very good (despite the current bugs). But im finding in its current state a, quick game or demo is about all i seem to be able to do. At the moment i am primarily interested in developing for PC (and maybe mac) thefore I deciced to see if I could script a quick FPS system along with some AI for learning purposes. After a short time I posted my result on here which some of you might have seen (I wont post it again) and I was very surprised at how easy I personally found it to put the demo together with animations, sounds and AI. So this encouraged me to go ahead and see if I can get a full blown FPS game with some decent visuals and some clever AI running around, which is where I started hitting some confusing problems. The CSG / Model conflict First, i started by designing a larger level and as my understanding goes when CSG is involved you create your base layer, blocking and main structure out of CSG and then add in detail with models. This to me is great as I love developing 3D environment models, but not so keen on making full blown levels in 3D, so to me the CSG is great and a very wise feature. Until... you try to apply both, it unfortunatly doesnt currently work in certain areas and this (for me) is down to normal mapping and shadows. Shadows I can easily create a nice level structure in CSG, through some lights in and get some lovely looking shadows from a lightmap pass and it looks great! Unfortunatly CSG can only have diffuse textures and are therefore a bit "flat" looking, but nevertherless looks ok. So now if i add some detail models, these can cast static shadows but only onto CSG and not onto anything else or even them selves, this instantly gives a confusing visual conflict of light (which we all know is one of the most important factors of todays games), at first i thought it wouldnt be much of a big deal but the more detail you add the bigger the visual conflict becomes. I then tried to not add so much detail and try to balance it, but then the problem just remains and the level looks empty and dated, I then thought I could do some of the detail in CSG but without any simple CSG operations other than rotate and scew this is impossible (especially without a texture lock feature), so this is the first wall I hit. This also came a problem when I threw in a mid-poly character with a nice modern gun, normals and spec, but it was instantly spoilt without shadows, even with a simple plane shadow underneath it instantly made it look like a visual from 10 years back. Normals & spec The second conflict I found is the normals and specular maps. To me specular maps are extreamly important, normal maps show detail but specular maps tell the user what the material is, and we can have this with imported models and thats great. But having it with models but not with CSG causes a very similer conflict. If you watch my video of the underground "wearhouse" style FPS, when I fire the gun a flashing light emits to give the effect of a muzzleflash, what surface around me flash? only imported models with a normal map applied, so the gun, cardboard boxes & the signs on the wall do, but the actual walls and level dont and to be honest I cant figure a simple way around it. Options Do the whole level in an external 3d modeller so you can have normals and specs, but then still have no shadows. Or do a game where alot of work can be done using simple CSG shapes and some detail models where shadows and lighting are not as important which is why I think the current version of leadwerks 3 is designed for the mobile platform and not for PC (which is a dang for me). After all said and done though leadwerks 3 is very powerful and i like it alot, but unfortunatly just missing some vital features that bring it on par with some of the other engines. I know there is a roadmap that will cover most of the issues im finding and I just hope that in the near future we get some of these features back that will allow us to develop exciting and graphically pleasing games for PC and MAC. But for now, even some projected shadows for imported models would make a HUGE difference. Thanks for reading. Andy

Ahh thats good then. Thanks Andy

Josh just to clarify, you state its $199/199/199? Is that $199 for PC and $199 each for ios & android module. Or is that $199 for 3.0, $199 for 3.1 and $199 for 3.2? Andy

Im really struggling with some CSG to able to align textures correctly as the adjustment moves it to far. although it currently moves to 1 decimal place, could we not have to 2 decimal places? Thanks Andy

Hi Josh, i read through your optimization blog post and cant work out if the "uploaded" version you spoke about fixed the slow down when player is moving? I only ask as i am currently experiencing this whilst playing with leadwerks 3 BUT... This brings me to my other question, if you did update or fix it for lua versions, do we need to replace the old exe & debug.exe for each project with new ones? Thanks Andy

Thats fine, i know there are bigger priorities I just didnt know if it was to be included at all, but thats great. Andy

I know this has been asked before with LE2 and so i was just wondering if there will be (or is) any level of security to published games that use lua scripts? I know there is alot of talk when it comes to protection and its a little like marmite and I agree that if someone wants to get the code they will, there is always ways to hack. But even if there was some simple protection, that puts off some from copying then it would nice. Just a thought. Andy

As in parenting? Drag the entity from the list and drop in on the one you want, this parents it. Or is that not what you mean? Note: this is for le3 only. Andy

Well as you can see in my video I have an fps style gun attacted to the camera or self character. I didn't make this global as I have developed a weapon management for the main character only (yourself) so my weapons are completely self controlled. As in I have a script for each weapon as each weapon is different and has many different properties. And these are then attached to the relative weapon model that can be picked up by the main character. I didn't have to use any normals of the camera. Using parenting is the way I do it. Andy

I would second mesh lab. Mesh lab keeps topology and I have used for many high poly to low poly meshes. It's always used in my workflow. And it's free. Andy