what do you want see in leadwerks 3.0

[Davaris]

As much as I hate to admit this point, Josh is probably right. It sucks to admit it though. Anyways, if you show Josh a polished project that he likes, no matter who you are he'll probably work something about for some feature that you seriously need.

 

There is no need to ask Josh to have 'faith' in indie projects. Instead indie projects should just do our best. Then we can make arguments about our legitmacy when we have a real and polished project to show.

 

 

That makes a lot of sense.

[Alessandro]

As much as I hate to admit this point, Josh is probably right. It sucks to admit it though. Anyways, if you show Josh a polished project that he likes, no matter who you are he'll probably work something about for some feature that you seriously need.

 

There is no need to ask Josh to have 'faith' in indie projects. Instead indie projects should just do our best. Then we can make arguments about our legitmacy when we have a real and polished project to show.

 

 

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. In fact when I paid money for LE, I didn't expect I had to "convince" engine developers (Leadwerks) about my project features.

I simply expect that, even if I haven't any official agreement with LE for official support/assistance, I think they could listen to the customers (you, me, etc....) when many people ask for a feature, and I don't expect that he says something like "you don't need this feature"! LOL

I decide which features are required for my project. Me and other involved people the project self.

 

I think I can follow your concept only if, LE, will officially help me to support/develop the project. But this is not the agreement I made with LE when I bought this engine.

[AggrorJorn]

There is also a thing as 'too much features'. If lip-syncing would be included then the price of LE 3 would be a lot higher. Not that it wouldn't be cool to have this feature though.

[Rick]

I agree with Aggror, and that's why LE 3 should be created in such a way that these kind of things can be separate purchasable plugins just like that lighting module was. That would be ideal.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. In fact when I paid money for LE, I didn't expect I had to "convince" engine developers (Leadwerks) about my project features.

I simply expect that, even if I haven't any official agreement with LE for official support/assistance, I think they could listen to the customers (you, me, etc....) when many people ask for a feature, and I don't expect that he says something like "you don't need this feature"! LOL

I decide which features are required for my project. Me and other involved people the project self.

 

I think I can follow your concept only if, LE, will officially help me to support/develop the project. But this is not the agreement I made with LE when I bought this engine.

 

 

lol what agreement did you "make" with LE when you bought it? There was nothing about the creators listening to their customers to implement the features they want. No engine agreement would say something like this. You bought the product as is, and at the mercy of the creator.

[Josh]

It's not a high priority because even if it were implemented and 100% working, it would still require a lot of effort to make a character with lip syncing, record speech, do whatever is required to set it up, etc. There are other things I can focus on that will be more useful for more people. Having support for this feature doesn't mean you could just drag a character into the scene and have it work. It would still take a tremendous amount of work to get your own models talking.

[gordonramp]

Fair enough Josh, I just thought it an opportunity to push for such an exciting feature. Like you say, there's plenty more for you to focus on for 3.0 Some clever dude might come up with a simple solution.. Even animating a mouth open and closed has it's merits. Although getting it to sync to the beginning and end of a sound file looks to be a challenge.

[Alessandro]

I agree with Aggror, and that's why LE 3 should be created in such a way that these kind of things can be separate purchasable plugins just like that lighting module was. That would be ideal.

 

Yes, plugin system could be good for indie, so everyone could spend money only for really required features!

 

 

lol what agreement did you "make" with LE when you bought it? There was nothing about the creators listening to their customers to implement the features they want. No engine agreement would say something like this. You bought the product as is, and at the mercy of the creator.

 

I don't remember LE license agreement, but sometimes companies offer techical support, and sometimes they offer the possibility to request specific features.

[macklebee]

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. In fact when I paid money for LE, I didn't expect I had to "convince" engine developers (Leadwerks) about my project features.

 

I decide which features are required for my project. Me and other involved people the project self.

 

I think I can follow your concept only if, LE, will officially help me to support/develop the project. But this is not the agreement I made with LE when I bought this engine.

 

 

I don't remember LE license agreement, but sometimes companies offer techical support, and sometimes they offer the possibility to request specific features.

 

Josh does try to give support (when he isn't coding LE) and sometimes offer the possibility of specific features (see the purelight addition and shadow casting emitters to 2.4). Just expecting Josh to support every developer here with specific things to their projects is a little unrealistic considering you bought the engine as-is. Requesting a feature is one thing, but demanding it and complaining that you are not being supported is another.

 

And you don't convince the engine developer about your project features... you pick an engine based on its current capabilities you want your project to have. Complaining after the fact that the engine doesn't support the 'feature' you want in your game to try to get the developer to support it, seems backwards to me.

[Alessandro]

 

And you don't convince the engine developer about your project features... you pick an engine based on its current capabilities you want your project to have. Complaining after the fact that the engine doesn't support the 'feature' you want in your game to try to get the developer to support it, seems backwards to me.

 

 

I understand what you say but, for example, some people (including myself) are asking from several days a feedback about vehicles enhancement: not a feature for me, but a BIG improvement requested by many people. And it is not for my game only (I didn't ask to implement a specific vehicle), but a generic feature that now exists in almost good game engine.

Ok... Josh never gave us any feedback, no comment, no info, nothing... :-(

 

This is an example what I mean.

[Josh]

The purpose of the features request forum is so I have a record of requests I can look at any time, and to allow the community to discuss ideas. I do not provide a response most of the time, but I am reading.

[Alessandro]

The purpose of the features request forum is so I have a record of requests I can look at any time, and to allow the community to discuss ideas. I do not provide a response most of the time, but I am reading.

 

Helllo Josh, I see ok, but I was talking about another topic... see here:

 

http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/2828-add-more-vehicle-functions/page__pid__26750#entry26750

[Davaris]

Even animating a mouth open and closed has it's merits. Although getting it to sync to the beginning and end of a sound file looks to be a challenge.

 

From what I've seen, people make animations of the mouth doing the basic vowel shapes and then a plugin detects what sound is being played and sends ids to represent the shapes. The other major issue, is you need to animate expressions for the face as well, which would be a lot of work. Anyway, I can't wait till someone figures out how to automate this kind of thing.

[gordonramp]

From what I've seen, people make animations of the mouth doing the basic vowel shapes and then a plugin detects what sound is being played and sends ids to represent the shapes. The other major issue, is you need to animate expressions for the face as well, which would be a lot of work. Anyway, I can't wait till someone figures out how to automate this kind of thing.

Yes, 'Phonemes' are the mouth shapes and the face movements are called 'Morph Targets'. This is the area that needs to be addressed if it were to be supported in the Leadwerks Engine, having facility for Morph Targets. Some Game Engines do support this...The Irrlicht Engine is an example, also the Visual3D Engine, so you can see that this Feature Request is not an unreasonable one.

[Josh]

From what I've seen, people make animations of the mouth doing the basic vowel shapes and then a plugin detects what sound is being played and sends ids to represent the shapes. The other major issue, is you need to animate expressions for the face as well, which would be a lot of work. Anyway, I can't wait till someone figures out how to automate this kind of thing.

Yeah, that's basically what I meant. The result of this would probably be a nice demo that no one could do anything with. I mean, it would be cool, but there are so many other areas to focus on that will go further.

 

Leadwerks is the C++ programmer's engine, and we can take that further with LE3, so I think we will see more middleware and external libs integrated with LE3, officially or otherwise.

[gordonramp]

Leadwerks is the C++ programmer's engine

Ouch, That's new. Non C++ programmers be warned. I guess the Leadwerks catch phrase 'We're Social Networkers' needs to be changed to 'We're Exclusive Networkers' and the hype on the Main Page of the Leadwerks site will need to be changed too.

[Josh]

I mean that C++ programmers tend to be attracted to LE, and there aren't as many choices for direct C++ programming.

[Rick]

so you can see that this Feature Request is not an unreasonable one.

 

The request isn't unreasonable, it's a matter of priorities. Having this isn't going to get the core of your game going. There are many other higher priorities that will aid in actually getting gameplay going in LE. This isn't a gameplay feature, but I agree it's a nice to have once all the other core stuff is competed first.

[Pancakes]

Ouch, That's new. Non C++ programmers be warned. I guess the Leadwerks catch phrase 'We're Social Networkers' needs to be changed to 'We're Exclusive Networkers' and the hype on the Main Page of the Leadwerks site will need to be changed too.

 

oh don't be like that, nobody here is a worse C++ programmer than me

 

you just have to look at what Josh has done so far and give him a little credit, you don't have to give him faith, but you do have to give him credit

[gordonramp]

My list of priorities, in order..

 

Continued and permanent support for the Lua Language for programming and creation of Lua 3d programs

Removal or hiding of the loading screen which appears when executing a Lua program

A built in Gui/menu system

Day/Night

Clouds

Weather

Some sort of working waypoint system for ai

Facility for face animation and lipsync.

[Davaris]

Day/Night

Clouds

Weather

 

Klepto has done a great job with day/night.

 

daynightvideo.avi

 

DayNightSunMoon (this one is very pretty)

 

As for weather, I have seen people discuss how to do rain and if I remember correctly it can be done with shaders. Do a search on it.

 

Some sort of working waypoint system for ai

 

We already have a waypoint system. See Lumooja's game code. I've forgotten what its called.

[Davaris]

Clouds

[Paul Thomas]

That's my day/night (sun/moon) and clouds video back when I was building EC with LE. It needed improvement. The art was also not that great (programmer art). My plans were to improve the clouds/shaders, fix the moon trajectory, polish it up and move on to a weather system.

[Josh]

I'm not satisfied with the simple gradient approach some people have used. I want correct atmospheric scattering ala Crysis, and will be hiring somebody to implement that specific code, rather than messing with it myself.

 

FYI, I have made progress with ocean water via a third party developer I am working with. I don't know for sure if it will work yet, but it looks really good. I am having good results by seeking out those people who already have the specific knowledge I am looking for. If I can find one person who did a Master's thesis on one effect, then it's a lot more efficient than developing that myself. Using C++ makes that a lot easier because everyone is on the same page at least.

 

Heh, can you believe I am a C++ coder now?

[Davaris]

Yeah, that's basically what I meant. The result of this would probably be a nice demo that no one could do anything with. I mean, it would be cool, but there are so many other areas to focus on that will go further.

 

 

Don't forget the female gamers, they like characters that seem alive and they are 51% of the population.

 

Matt Chat 75: Interview with Megan Gaiser and Rob Riedl of Her Interactive

[Michael Betke]

I want a nice editor UI! Looking at tools for several hours a day is not to be underestimated.