SlipperyBrick

I don't know if this is a bug but I think it is worth reporting. I've made a simple decal image in Substance Designer and exported from there as PNG into Leadwerks and the result is a black background. I have to take those exported PNG's into GIMP and export them out there as PNG's and then bring into Leadwerks and then change the compression type to uncompressed in each of the images for Leadwerks to be able to recognize the alpha. If you want the original images straight from Substance Designer I can send them across. Thanks!

Just a screengrab of the problem fixed. I think I will put this as a bug report so it can get Josh's attention. No sign of the normal map on the material though, don't know if this is because the Blend mode is alpha, I did test it without alpha and put it back to solid but still no sign of the normal map. Thanks for the fix Nick!

I'll try GIMP haha EDIT: Just reporting back here haha. So I opened up my texture in GIMP and exported out as a .PNG and then imported that in to Leadwerks. As Nick said, I changed the compression type to DXT3 and it worked! I don't know if this is worth doing a bug report because I don't know where the problem truly lies. Plus not a lot of users may use Substance Designer, it kinda sucks cos I was planning on using Substance Designer a lot on majority of my textures

Changing the compression type on the texture doesn't seem to work for me, not matter what I do I can't get the black background to go haha.

Just dropping back in to confirm that Substance Designer does use black and white as mask for transparency. When I export my textures out of Substance Designer and bring them in to Photoshop and check the channels there is no alpha channel in any of the textures I had to add it in Photoshop and even then when I add it into Leadwerks it still has a black background. In Photoshop though I can see there is no background, its completely transparent. Here are the textures. Substance Designer Decal.rar If you open them up in Photoshop or GIMP you should see they have transparency but if you check the channels box there is no alpha channel but in Substance Designer I am specifying my outputs as RGBA. Even if I add an alpha in Photoshop on the textures it still shows up with a black background in Leadwerks. It must be a Substance Designer issue because any grayscale images I bring in to Leadwerks straight from Substance Designer give me and access exception error, I have to open the texture in Photoshop and export it as PNG from Photoshop for Leadwerks to be ok with it.

I took a look at the project and the decals seems pretty straight forward. It must be something I am doing wrong in Substance Designer. What's strange is my ouputs are RGBA yet when I export my .PNG files from Substance Designer it looks fine in a thumbnail and in picture viewer as if there is some sort of transparency there but when I bring it into Leadwerks my diffuse texture has the black background haha. I brought the images into Photoshop and they don't seem to have any alpha channels on them.

Hey Josh, I can't seem to get the AI & Events map. I've searched on the Workshop and can't find it there. I've gone to the tutorials section of the website and there isn't a download available in the AI, Events & Pathfinding tutorial. I've also made a new project through Project Manager and chose Tutorials but it isn't in there either

You can scale the box down and have it at 0 on the X axis (or whatever axis your wall is point out from). What I can't seem to figure out is how to get the normal and specular map to work with it and also my diffuse has transparency as it is a .PNG file. Inside Substance Designer my diffuse shows as expect but then I bring it into Leadwerks and the transparent background is filled with black. You can see the last 4 nodes of my diffuse is transparent as I am feeding the my main pattern into the opacity slot of my Blend nodes which acts as a mask.

I have a few questions in regards to decals, there isn't really any documentation on them. Are normal and specular maps supported in decal materials? Would there be any options I need to change in my decal material, such as the Blend mode? What shader do I use for my decal material if it has a normal and specular map, would this be the standard diffuse+normal+specular.shader or would I need diffuse+normal+specular+alphamask.shader? Right now I am trying to project a decal on a wall and the material is set up as a standard material, normal map, diffuse, specular. The shader is all set up for normal and specular inputs. Ignore the big white square You can see that there is no normal map or specular map showing on my decal. Here is the material. The blend mode for the material is set to 'Solid'. When I change to alpha nothing happens, when I change to shade my white background on my diffuse disappears.

After playing around in Blender and importing some creations into Leadwerks I noticed I was getting some really bad scaling issues. I like working on the grid when creating my game art and I also like predictable results when exporting models from my 3D package over to a game engine, scale is important! I have adjusted my settings in Blender to work with Leadwerks and now when I import my models they are the correct size and scale and there is no messing around with getting the right size in Leadwerks. I would like to share my Blender settings to other users who want to model in Leadwerks units inside Blender to make sure they get predictable results when importing game art in to the engine. Blender Startup & Prefs.rar Once you have downloaded these settings I would recommend you to go to File > Save Startup File. This will make sure that each time you load up Blender you don't have to load the start up file in the above zipped folder. Once you have loaded the startup file the grid in Blender will be the exact same size as the grid in Leadwerks. This is great for snapping and will give you very predictable results. The measurements in the startup file are also the same exact measurements Leadwerks uses so a 256 x 256 cm CSG cube in Leadwerks will be the same size as a 256 x 256 cm cube model in Blender. I use the Leadwerks Exporter for Blender when exporting my models. You can find this here: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/10246-official-leadwerks-exporter-for-blender/ I would recommend before exporting your models from Blender to select whatever model you are exporting and press CTRL + A and choose 'Rotation & Scale' and CRTL + A again to choose 'Location'. This will zero out those transforms of your model. If you have models with specific rotations or scale that you would want to keep then don't do this, same applies for animated models. I hope you find this useful. It should help get predictable results and stop any nasty surprises when you bring in your model from Blender to Leadwerks and see it is super huge or really small. I will do a short video soon showing how this all works

Cassius told a great story. In my mind I can see a basement filled with boxes, damp stone walls, maybe even an old projection wheel from the cinema that was left behind. Ropes and wires that have been wrapped around the wooden joists of the basement, the wood is rotting and ageing, the room has a musty kind of look. Just from that short story I am able to visualize an environment full of detail Here is a small scene I made in Leadwerks awhile ago, never got round to finishing it, but I had a small story in mind for the scene which helped me figure out the shape of the room, the lighting, what props I had to make to fill out the scene, what colours I wanted in my scene. I could have scattered junk around the floor as well to fill out the room even more. Get a story for your scene and it will really push you to not only finish it but get it the way you want it to look

Josh is right. You want to plan your environment, you have an idea based off of something you have already seen but, what is your scenes story? Was there a fire in the facility, if so then you want to start with burnt looking walls and props. Did the facility have a purpose, did it produce anything if so you will need machinery in there. The more story you have the easier it is to make your scene and then over time you will start to see everything come together and looking great. Create a design document of your game, if you don't plan then you will burn yourself out and not want to make your game. Use Daylight as inspiration to create your own story.

Hey Shad, I can give you this texture .... I have a normal, diffuse, spec and height if you want this for tests Would love to see a parallax shader available. I do remember the tessellation shader being available at some point but the displacement shader is the only thing there now.

Hi, I am having a problem with displacement maps. They don't seem to be working within Leadwerks. When I add the displacement shader it looks like it is working in the material editor but when I add my displacement/height map there is no visual change.

I have a problem with the lighting in Leadwerks. I don't know if it has always been like this, if so I've never noticed it. You can see the circles on the wall from the fall off of the lighting. My light quality settings are set to 2 in my Main.app script and the light settings are set to 'Dynamic + Static'. Everything I try though just gives me this result

You can try in your Main.app script. world:SetLightQuality((System:GetProperty("lightquality","2"))) It should be in there already, put your value to 2 if it is 1. Hope that helps

I've been quietly lurking the ShaderTool discussion board waiting for them to fix the Leadwerks exporting function and found this on their website. A bunch of shader samples that you can buy and learn from http://www.bitethebytes.net/site/codebatch---overview might come in handy for some folk.

There is one thread back from 2009 with this suggestion so without writing in that one and bringing it back from the dead I thought I would make a new one. Vertex painting. I know with the new decal system we can do similar things but I would just like to bring this up and see peoples thoughts, if it has been considered and if there is any possible chance of it being a feature in Leadwerks.

GI and PBR is what I am most interested in seeing in Leadwerks rather than Substance support. I started to look into what makes GI work in a game engine and all the different methods of how its achieved. This is all way above my head but I checked out some stuff on ray tracing and different approaches to ray tracing and the differences between real time GI and GI that isn't real time. Ray tracing is very complex but luckily with the wonders of the internet there is a ton of people who have already made ray tracers using different approaches and I have gathered chunks of code for ray tracers using these various approaches. I am following a tutorial which shows you how to achieve GI and how it all works (it involves making your own rendering engine though, which is also very interesting.) Without nuking my computer or stumbling across some code and getting a call from Gene Hackman telling me the NSA are gonna bust through my door (if you don't get it watch Enemy of the State). How can I get this working in Leadwerks using the Standard Edition? Is it possible? Is it not recommended? I will be honest I don't know what I am doing and I don't actually know if everything I have read or seen is correct. Right now I feel I have the answer to the meaning of life but don't know how to explain it, if anyone else wants to see this code I have or is interested in the topic as I am I would love to share. Otherwise I guess I can wait and see if something like this comes to Leadwerks rather than trying it out myself and then crying when my computer breaks or melting my eyeballs because the rays shoot out the wrong way.

This is what I like to hear haha. I have tried all the big engines but always come back to Leadwerks for its simplicity. Better graphical capabilities will put Leadwerks in a very positive position. I can only see good things from it. Leadwerks has its uniqueness now with its simplicity, ease of use, efficient workflow, great editor. A focus on graphics would be brilliant. If GI and PBR come to Leadwerks and Josh advertises that on the appropriate channels I can see a ton of users coming his way and a lot more content coming from Leadwerks. You got this new vegetation system coming, the flowgraph, script editor, simple yet vast API, C++ and LUA programming languages, the new features that got released in the last update, deferred decals, render targets. Improving the visual side of Leadwerks with GI and PBR is just the icing on the cake here. It makes Leadwerks compatible with the latest tools, improving the workflow even more. Opening the doors to new users who do use these new tools. It's a win. I am dying to see this stuff come to Leadwerks and when it does I will be shifting my projects back over. Right now it feels like I am fiddling my thumbs in UE4 and Leadwerks is taunting me with its potential sexiness lol. I am waiting for the graphic improvements (really wanting GI and PBR) as soon as this happens I will be opening up my project Phobia again and getting my hands dirty with Leadwerks #revivephobia P.S, the hashtag isn't a real hashtag its just for emphasis

I do remember stumbling across a thread about lightmaps which was integrated into Leadwerks through a 3rd party application, can't remember the name of it now though. It would be pretty sweet to be able to do it in Leadwerks optionally. I just feel that a focus on graphical capabilities should be looked at now. I realize that people want to see more things to help with gameplay. I just want to see some up to date things such as the PBR and GI. With these things I think Leadwerks would be a real powerhouse, the tools for making game content are moving this way to accommodate game engines with these capabilities so to keep up with the current pace of tools I think Leadwerks should get these things. I want to get back to using the engine really badly its the simplicity that makes things so much easier, I keep jumping between engines messing around with things but I gotta say Leadwerks just reels me back in, away from the big engines that are dominating the industry. I understand you want to keep things fresh and unique but your also making it harder on yourself at the same time. This is just my thoughts right now. I don't think I will ever really move to a completely new engine and abandon Leadwerks but without these graphical capabilities in the engine it makes it difficult for me to use the tools I have to make my game ideas, which is pretty much stopping me from making my game ideas haha. That's all from me anyway

Bring back lightmaps, it could even be optional. We are a step closer to getting GI then xD

Awwhhh shiiit. This is what I'm talking bout man! So damn sexy!

GI would be sick and a PBR shading model. The 3 things that I would like to see in Leadwerks really badly would be, Global Illumination doesn't have to be real time, I would be happy to use lightmaps. PBR, this is something I am dying to see in Leadwerks! Cloth and liquid simulation. I would throw money at my screen for these 3 things, be it a Kickstarter, personal funding to Josh or whoever. I really want to see those 3 things so badly. I am using UE4 for a project and yeah the fancy stuff like, blueprints, persona, cascade its all nice to have but its the simplicity of Leadwerks which makes it number one! Coding wise I feel Leadwerks is as simple as it gets thats coming from a total noob at programming, (ask Rick he will tell you lol). I feel that graphics should be a focus now, I read through this forum last night to see if there was any activity on this, may be a post from someone with a glint of news. I know the focus has been on level editing tools, a lot of Steam integrating which is awesome. Please focus on graphical stuff, get Leadwerks up to date with current tools. A lot of people are picking up these new PBR enabled tools on Steam now, content/assets are gonna pretty much be PBR ready too. It is only a matter of time until old ways are gone and it all goes standard (which is coming fast). BES: Back in March I asked about this https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=1134.0 I think Substance support would be a benefit for Leadwerks. There are a lot of people using the Allego stuff adding support for it in Leadwerks would open up to a whole new bunch of users meaning more projects with the engine pushing it even further. Personally I can only see it as a positive. May be I'm biased though

Roland saves the day again haha! Brilliant tutorial, thank you very much. Was exactly what I was looking for!