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Hello dear reader, First of all, as I recently though on how to make the blog more interesting and valuable for you to read, I thought it would be a cool idea if I provide a gamedev specifc tip (can be everything from productivity, to technical stuff, to marketing) at the end of every blog entry. I would be really happy, if you tell me what you think of this idea. Back to topic. I want to present what I am working at the moment. Last time it were some animations and rigs. I had some more trouble with them then expected and needed to do all that stuff again (rigging and animations). As they are just meant for a visual impact for me to be able to build and optimise the systems (e.g combat, movement) they don't look very professional, but my intention was not to create high quality game ready animations . Enough about the past, I will showcase the animations any time soon, as we take a look on the combat system maybe. So what I am doing now? Well I made some good progress and have some quite cool stuff to show. I was heavily working on my npc/character system (called "Character Set"). The NPC is now able to wear diffrent cloths. Already provided are: Helmet, Body, Gloves, Legs, Boots. At the moment I am working on the weapon system. So you can easily equip, range and melee weapons to the character. As I slowly would like to get a little bit more into detail here the settings for the character set: As you see I try to keep everything as clean and userfriendly as possible. A very cool thing are the "NPC Settings" which gives the systems a lot of power as it keeps the script settings clean, and gives you a lot of options to costumize the way your NPC behaves. It even gives you access to some technical stuff you can change, so there are no boundaries for you when using diffrent rigs/animation systems etc. Maybe I will talk more detailed about the whole AI/Character Set stuff another time. Another cool progress I made is the "PHFW Animation Manager". As my system works not with the Animation name (e.g "Walking", "Running"), but with the animation index, this tool is very helpful. Why I use the animation index you may ask. Well I use my own animation playing system (not the Leadwerks "PlayAnimation" function) and unfortunately the "SetAnimationFrame" function of Leadwerks does not provide to use animation names. To work around this I created this tool. This is the first external tool for the phodex framework and there are some more to come, I will then, most likley, put them into a huge toolset. There you can also set various keyframes needed for the combat system, so the tool can still be helpful, if the "SetAnimationFrame" function gets enhanced. This is how it currently looks (its like a pre alpha :D, just set up the rough system) So as promised here is the tip: Game Dev Tip #1: If you have a problem, you struggle with for a long time and you just can't find a solution. Stop working and do something completely diffrent (for example go outside and take a walk), then come back with a fresh mind and you will be suprised what great effect this can have, how you find new ideas, or simply get new motivation. I hope that helps some of you. I try to provide some more visual content to show in the future as I know its much more fun to watch pictures & videos instead of reading long and boring texts . Just the best and stay cool . Markus from Phodex

Hi, this time I provide a closer look into the Framework. The graphic below shows what the Framework contains of and how far the diffrent elements are developed. The green bubbles inside the red ones indicate how much progress has been made for the specific feature. More green means more progress. Empty (complete red) bubbles mean this feature hasn't been worked on yet. For the best result (as its a pretty huge image) click the image to load it in full size and use the zoom tool to take a closer look. This graphic may not be complete and I may add or remove some features, it also does not take asset creation into account. It should just give you an overview on what exactly I am planning to do with the Framework on the technical side. As you can see the whole framework (PHFW = Phodex Framwork) is at about 65% progress. The most work needs to be done on the Gameplay and System side. Many features are there already, but are still very primitive and provisional. Let me know what you think of the graphic. Did it help you understanding the Framwork, or did you find it pretty confusing at all? Stay cool and have a nice day! Markus from Phodex

Introduction Hi, last time I gave you a rough idea of what the Phodex Framework is and what plans I have. This time I will talk about what I am working on at the moment and what my plans for future are. So this is kind of the first real blog entry :). What I am working on? Recently, beside some bugfixing and improving stuff, I tweaked all imported models (collapsing, normal calculation), set up the materials so that they fit the look I want etc. I also reorganzied my folderstructure within the project, and came up with a pretty cool tag system (by renaming my objects) for beeing able to quickly find what I need inside Leadwerks. Maybe I will introduce it any time soon :). More recently I rebuild the whole city, shown in the Introduction of the framework. This was needed, as I collapsed most of the models, so it was kind of a mess after my cleanup :D. But I did not only rebuild it exactly as before, I tried to make the city more interesting and did some tweaks here and there: What is next? The next big thing on my to do list is recreating/tweaking all first person animations, as those I have at the moment are just kind of placeholders and look pretty aweful. In total that are about 40 animations, so I guess I will be pretty busy :D. After that, I will create some armor for the player an also create new NPC animations to fit my combat system. What is the plan? As many features I want inside the framework are already there, my plan is to create a test scene, with a more or less livley city, where you can get some quests, buy from a trader, figth some monsters, hire a mercenary and talk to some townfolks. This will easily show me where I need to improve, or where stuff is missing. Another nice thing is that I can then make this level available for you to play, so you can take a look on what is possible with the framework, of what quality it is and of course can give better feedback. Conclusion First thank you for commenting, last time, feel free to do this at any time :). I am always glad to hear ideas and suggestions as well as what you would wish the framework would provide. Thank you for reading and stay cool Markus from Phodex