what do you want see in leadwerks 3.0

[DaDonik]

I would like to have some better structured shader code, where i can change things myself without being a maths genius.

Actually the current shaders are ok, but the total lack of comments is a bad thing. =)

[dreamhead]

I would like to have some better structured shader code, where i can change things myself without being a maths genius.

Actually the current shaders are ok, but the total lack of comments is a bad thing. =)

yeah a better material editor with be nice idd

[franck22000]

Those are not primitives. That's CSG modeling. I would kill to have THAT in the editor.

 

I would kill to have that too Josh are you planning something like this ?

[dreamhead]

I would kill to have that too Josh are you planning something like this ?

i realy hope so,and my kat too

[Josh]

I'm not such a fan of CSG, even though I wrote a CSG editor. It's been obsolete for about four years now, and it would be a big chunk of time to support something that would give low-quality results.

 

Actually, I am planning on "solids" which are based on my CSG code, but they are for creating triggers and zones, like a block of water, not for making level geometry.

[macklebee]

Actually, I am planning on "solids" which are based on my CSG code, but they are for creating triggers and zones, like a block of water, not for making level geometry.

 

that would be a nice option to have... would the editor have 4 viewports? or would this be a separate small app that allows you to create the solid then the auto file detection would load it into the assets list?

[Josh]

No, you would just have some creation parameters like width/height/depth, and then attach the solid to an entity. The Quake-style editing isn't something I want to get into.

[macklebee]

No, you would just have some creation parameters like width/height/depth, and then attach the solid to an entity. The Quake-style editing isn't something I want to get into.

 

so this would be a gmf? how would this differ from the current creation of mesh primitives?

[Rick]

It's been obsolete for about four years now

 

Says who? You are starting to sound like Lumooja. CSG is still very much in use today. It greatly increases level design and requires less skill than being a 3D artist.

[AggrorJorn]

- A build in particle editor would be nice. That way you can easily preview and save your particles to a folder.

- river editor.

- camera path editor

- emitters for objects

- emitter physics

- prefabs

[Josh]

Aggror, everything you listed is planned. I also want to be able to record an AVI from the editor by rendering each frame along a camera path, and then combining the frames into a video file.

 

Says who? You are starting to sound like Lumooja. CSG is still very much in use today. It greatly increases level design and requires less skill than being a 3D artist.

Far Cry 2, Crysis, STALKER, none of the newer engines use it. I think Unreal only has it because they originally used lightmaps on everything. I'll consider it, but a CSG editor is a very big chunk of work, and I think the results would be a lot of bad blocky level design. The artists I have heard from generally do not like CSG, so I am afraid I would be making a lot of effort for something skilled artists don't usually want. Let me think about it some more.

 

so this would be a gmf? how would this differ from the current creation of mesh primitives?

No, I think in the editor you will have some primitives to choose from. Not entirely sure yet how it will work, but you will be able to create lights, emitters, as well as non-entity things like joints and solids. Physics bodies in LE3 will be something you attach to an entity, instead of being an entity themselves.

[Rick]

The artists I have heard from generally do not like CSG

 

Artists won't like it because it limits them, but level designers love it & non artists love it!

 

It's good to hear you'll think about it. Honestly I'd rather have lots of blocking levels that have actual gameplay (ie. programmer art), then just pretty static scenes. If anything it allows us programmers to showcase things that will help get artists interested in the job.

[Canardia]

You can make a Voxel sculpting editor instead of CSG editor. It does the same as CSG but much better and doesn't add any polygons no matter how often you do boolean ops. Crysis uses Voxels for the terrain too, and modern 3D modelling programs like ZBrush and 3DCoat uses Voxels too.

[Richard Simpson]

Having a day/night cycle in the editor like crysis sandbox did would be great XD. One thing I would like to see also is the ability to change the view distance inside the editor. I imported a very large model into the engine the other day, and couldnt see from one side of it, to the other. Maybe this is just because it was one large mesh? and not a lot of seperate meshes? (i had the current view distance set to "infinite" also, but this didnt help)

 

Another thing I would like to see is the ability to change the cubemap strength. At the moment it is too strong for what I need.

[Josh]

Having a day/night cycle in the editor like crysis sandbox did would be great XD.

I agree. Originally I thought people would find that too restricting, but the general desire seems to be to have more of these pre-made things built in, so I won't worry about it.

 

One thing I would like to see also is the ability to change the view distance inside the editor. I imported a very large model into the engine the other day, and couldnt see from one side of it, to the other. Maybe this is just because it was one large mesh? and not a lot of seperate meshes? (i had the current view distance set to "infinite" also, but this didnt help)

There should not be any problem with that with the current version.

[franck22000]

Having a day/night cycle in the editor like crysis sandbox did would be great XD.

 

But this is important that if a programmer want to do his own day/night cycle he can do it with no problems and the daynight cycle of the engine can be disabled

[Laurens]

But this is important that if a programmer want to do his own day/night cycle he can do it with no problems and the daynight cycle of the engine can be disabled

 

This. My game is space-based so a day/night cycle would be a little out of place

[Richard Simpson]

oh the model was about 1.3 miles long btw XD.

 

For me, the pre-made things in the editor are very handy. As im no programmer xD

[L B]

I hope the new editors, for prefabs, paths and particles, will have nice UI's. It's not worth having a tool if it's not convenient.

[Rick]

I agree, but I don't see much wrong with the current editor UI so I don't think we have much to worry about. It needs to be functional first, pretty second.

[Josh]

I hope the new editors, for prefabs, paths and particles, will have nice UI's. It's not worth having a tool if it's not convenient.

Convenient and pretty are two different things. I love the .NET GUIs, and I wish they were used for the standard Windows GUIs, but I will be using MaxGUI, which gives the standard interface for each OS.

 

I think you will find it very convenient. The asset importation is really good, and I am using drag-and-drop control whenever possible.

[Rick]

I love the .NET GUIs, and I wish they were used for the standard Windows GUIs, but I will be using MaxGUI, which gives the standard interface for each OS.

 

Mono. I think it's important that you are honest with yourself and just know that you are using MaxGUI because it's just what you are most comfortable with, not really because it's the best solution. I'm not even saying Mono would be the best solution, because there are other GUI's out there also, but have you really checked all available solutions to you? There are some C++ GUI's out there that are cross platform, look great, and easy to use.

 

Just a few that I know of:

 

http://qt.nokia.com/

http://www.wxwidgets.org/

 

Using C++ for your GUI's might yield some benefits over MaxGUI, just like using C++ for your engine yields some benefits over using BMax.

[Josh]

I looked at wxWidgets but found it to be ugly, glitchy, and difficult to work with. For example, the sliding panels in Code::Blocks will cause visual errors if you make the window smaller then the panels.

 

Using C++ for the editor would be a very bad choice. I don't think C++ is typically used to make GUI applications anymore. C# and Java are much more common. They're both slower than BMX and neither offers a cross-platform GUI that actually uses the OS controls. Using C++ for a low-level engine command set is one thing, but it would be suicide to try to write a complex GUI app with it.

[Rick]

Qt is probably the most sophisticated out of those.

 

Using C++ for a low-level engine command set is one thing, but it would be suicide to try to write a complex GUI app with it.

 

Not at all, and to be honest I wouldn't call what the LE Editor is a "complex app". Even if you plan on adding a few more features to it, it's still pretty basic. I would call something like VS a complex app, with all the docking and customization that it allows.

 

Qt has a designer for your UI just like .NET or Java does. At that point, what difference is the code behind it compared to .NET or Java? Not much, but the fact that it's the same language as the engine "could" bring benefits. It could avoid workarounds, and such that might be needed otherwise. It could give a faster more responsive editor also. Qt runs on some mobile devices also, which is kind of cool.

 

C++ has truly be screwed over in the GUI department, so it's understandable that most people think C++ isn't used for this, but C++ can GUI's just like any other language. I personally think MS gave it a bad rap when they created MFC. That was probably the worse C++ UI (it was more than just that) implementation I've ever seen. The editors for UI's is probably 75% of creating UI's in the first place, then the rest is the code behind it and how easy it is to use. MS could have very easily created a better C++ implementation of their UI that mimicked the VB design at the time, but then people wouldn't need to buy their new VS versions like they do now with .NET.

[franck22000]

Question1: Will it be possible to convert models, textures like before with tools or everything is going to be in the editor ? Because the actual tools are pretty usefull to make some batch for converting multiple models/ textures.