..what library would make you interested eventually..

[paramecij]

I find other peoples view on this topic fascinating. To me the above doesn't make sense. I'm not saying you're wrong I'm just trying to figure out where you are coming from

For me it makes sense because such a thing is very hard & time consuming to do (for me at least), is virtually non-existent, where as path-finding has been done to death - there's a lot of free, open source or payable libraries(if you really want) for one to chose from, tons of articles and tutorials about it, and it's really not that hard to do yourself.. Every game nowadays relies on triangles, but do we really need another tutorial on how to do a GL triangle?, it thinks it's much better if we get a tutorial on something different.. that's where i'm coming from

 

Animation & physics driven rag-dolls with IK and lip-sync support .... great as a wish list but have you any idea how much work goes into this. Hope you have your credit card ready

Exactly, thats why people like me would be willing to buy it. Thats the reason i bought LE, because it saved me tons of hard work B) (and also because it looks sexy (in code and how it performs)) ..

 

 

@XBOX360 support,

i would love nothing more than to develop for my xbox, but find XNA too ugly, this would be a wet dream for me.. we can dream can we?

[wailingmonkey]

I'd love to see (in this order):

 

-Path finding library(including formations, hiding behind geometry, avoiding collisions)

{-Collision Detection and AI}

-NPC Behavior library

-cut scene manager system(interactive/non interactive)

 

In your examples for Path Finding, it would seem that they are basically forms of 'NPC Behavior',

so I'd love to be able to just plug any animation in based upon a specific criteria being met.

(ex., villain is leg-shot, so 'lower_health=%50' and a 'limp' animation can be blended into the

normal 'run' animation). Allowing for that, or similar, style of blending and customization would

be awesome.

 

And this would bring me to my own additional library request, which would be that of 'collision

detection and AI'. Ideally, this would again allow for custom assignment of criteria and response

on our part. (so another example: NPC struck by sword on arm, play animation 'arm-hit_drop-weapon'

blended onto the normal upper body 'defend' animation) It would be wonderful to be able to also

define the collision object bone as well as a radius from said bone.

 

I too would pay for 'libraries' like these. B)

 

 

When LUA was first proposed, I had thought this kind of thing (libraries, or self-contained coded

'plugins' to LE) was one of the intended uses...but I'm curious how your idea of 'Libraries' would

work.

[Naughty Alien]

..list of libraries i have post at start of this thread is based on something I have done already, or planing to do...so i was thinking to maybe cut off small pieces of system i have and eventually make available for some purchase as a small libs...price is really not important to me, its just symbolic way that its worth 'something', but i have no delusions of any kind to make any money out of it, so, its going to be in range 5-10 bucks max. I dont know..it was just hypothetical as i have mentioned before..sure, library from everyone else is more than welcome, and me myself, willing to pay for some nice and usable stuff...why not..so, in that light and since some folks asking about those libs, Ill just say in what shape is current stuff i have..

 

-Path finding library(including formations,hidding behind geometry, avoiding collisions)

Its Djikstra based with modification, or better say, added controllable heuristics, so its really handy and fast, and way more flexible than a*. Its also creating nearest path to location where you are 'invisible' for specified entity. It can also avoid collision if few entities using same node at given moment(if no other nodes are available). It has also self update related to dynamic obstacles (eg. landslide happen so given path is not walkable). Right now, rewriting whole thing with OpenCL, in order to entirely execute it on GPU, means brutally fast. Basic formations supported , so, specific number of entities just need to be specified under same group and each will receive its own route aligned to other members.

 

-NPC Behaviour library

This is basic behaviour lib. So, behaviour list is:

-Idle

-Run

-Walk

-Talk

-Observe

-Follow

-Lead

-Angry

-Hide

-Sleep

-Ignore

-Attack

-Relax

-Friends

-Enemy

-Drifter

-Suspicious

 

Each of this behaviour is controlled by TBrain lib, and its allowing npc to do things on the way you 'describe' world or available things in world NPC can do. Each character has its own signature and it can be Friend, Enemy etc..and those flags determining how NPC behave against some other character or NPC.In short, by defining those flags over NPC, you can determine way NPC behave. It was quite funny to watch situation where i put 2 npc's next to each other with both friend listed, and then manually switch to an enemy.. one actually ran away, what surprised me (output of Observe class), because i thought it was a bug .

 

-Camera control library(FPS, 3rd perspective, top down..pretty much everything exist with geometry avoiding and loads other stuff)

Its actually just a camera system, and it does care about camera motion, smoothnes, geometry avoidance on very nice and smooth way(controlable) and automatic switching between cut scenes and gameplay events with no intervention, camera shaking upon 'earthquakes' or hit received, fading in, fading out (with blank colors or splash screen of your choice).

 

-Facial animation/expressions library

This is nice lib, but as Rick said, many games does quite well without this and he is right. This module should make some use for games based on dialogues and storyline (like DreamFall)..basically, it will animate facial bones of character, based on provided audio file(voiceover) and based on emotion you want at given time

eg. MyCharacter.emotions.smile(intensity,time,length) so character will move facial bone structure in order to form smile expression. In order to do that, face has to be rigged properly, and based on specific rules, if you want good results. Nothing hard but it does require some attention. It will be WAY easier if we can have morphing targets supported. ehh

 

-LE-PS3 Translator library

This is actually WIP. What i did is nothing special. I just have library with all features of LE recognized and 'mirrored' on Phyre side. So output is actually source code ready to compile for PS3, and code is using Phyre engine as a rendering device on Playstation 3. I have finished GUI entirely, and rendering part and it does working just just fine. Im right now at animation (stuck a bit because Phyre does it on different way than LE and Phyre uses few cores of cell to perform some stuff, so its about to manage those things properly..im on it anyway

 

 

-LE-Xbox360 Translator Library

This is same as previous one, except i havent touch it yet since i dont have Xbox 360 dev license (soon ill get it), so this is plan a bit. Not started.

 

-cut scene manager system(interactive/non interactive)

This is nice thingy. Basically, this is system with entire control over your cut scene animations(real time, not video), syncing audio with animation regardless FPS rate, loading, executing multiple outputs/choices(if any) in your cut scenes (in case you have interaction within cut scenes, like those seen in Turok or Heavy Rain).

 

so, thats some part of things I have done..some of them i may not use in my game, because of its nature (most part of pathfinding lib will not be used), but its okay because it does use in stuff im planing to do in next game anyway..so, this is short description of my stuff..if you have anything guys, maybe you should share also so, who knows, we all maybe end up with something kool here..why not..

[Pixel Perfect]

All sounds great and of interest, thanks for the detail update.

 

With regards the pathfinding, how is your system 'aware' of level geometry. Are you relying on hand placed nodes/waypoints or is it processing the level geometry in some way?

[Marleys Ghost]

For me:

 

1 Path finding library(including formations,hidding behind geometry, avoiding collisions)

2 NPC Behaviour library

3 cut scene manager system(interactive/non interactive)

4 Facial animation/expressions library

 

[ConradAlistair]

these are the ones that would be AMAZING to have for me:

 

LE-PS3 Translator library

NPC Behaviour library

Path finding library(including formations,hidding behind geometry, avoiding collisions)

[macklebee]

All sounds great NA!

1) Pathfinding

2) NPC Behavior

3) GUI Library perhaps?

 

Seems like at this point LE would already have this stuff inherently built into it, but for some reason the current focus for LE is too make scenery for screenshots and phone apps. Would have thought you have gotten some feedback\support from Josh on this by now?