Better Workflow and World Editor :

[YouGroove]

I've begin using the engine, and when you begin some good bunch of things are weak , so here is some wishes :

 

- Import models in the in the World editor directly (Tool converter automatically launched depending on choosen extension to import)

Unity 3D engine for example launches a batch to convert a blender model behind the scene, you just have to import it in the World Editor !

- Choose and edit material in the World editor

- Choose textures for an object (diffuse, normal map etc ... in a panel in the world editor)

- Righ click context menus in the World Editor !

For example you can access all properties of an object and edit it , just by right clicking on it , in the 3D view or in a panel that list all available objects.

 

There are just improvements to make the engine lot more 3D artist oriented by briging up the Workflow in accessing all things of an object directly from

the World Editor !

[macklebee]

i believe what you are looking for is called LE3

[Naughty Alien]

..to me its look like quite a lot people actually looking in to Unity, based on description of what are requests..to me, I believe, engine should be accessible to programmers as an engine, without anything but code..on other side, for artists, should be provided some tools for scene composition and scene setup, with some scripting ability, but to expect whole system to be literally drag and drop, sounds very bad from my perspective..

[Roland]

Drag and drop does not mean that things would not be accessible for the programmer.

So both things could perfectly live together. I'm a programmer but I can't see any drawbacks

by having drag & drop as that means that I don't have to spend the programming time in trivial

tasks as loading meshes, materials etc etc. I can concentrate on things that really needs to

be programmed. But hey... that's only my humble opinion

[Josh]

It's the old ease-of-use vs. quality of results conflict. I think you guys will be happy with how I worked it out. I am coming from a programmer's point of view, but realize the market probably values a visual art pipeline above anything else.

[Naughty Alien]

@Roland

Well..as i said, some scene management tools provided are fine , just for sake to see/preview scene or level, with some basic setup what will allow artists to see how it should be, but to go completely by that concept, I strongly feel/believe, is wrong.

 

Im dealing with artists on daily basis, and what i learn is, that NO TOOL out there is good enough...there is always something missing for those guys..I was dragged whole path of building fully functional editor for LE2, with everything requested, visual material/shader creation, bullet physics, AI, physics partticles, and guess what ? I end up writing few shaders for 3dsmax what will do all things they ever needed and then exported to LE 2.x .. Bloody Editor even does everything requested and more (testing AI, grouping, combat, etc) , nobody ever tuched..everything fall back to 3dsmax + small utility i made, for setting placement of objects and triggers and testing same..and thats all..

[Pixel Perfect]

I could well believe that NA That's why Josh shouldn't be and to my belief never has been totally driven by artists demands. However I agree with Roland on this one, the programming access is good enough and I'm sure josh will maintain that but a lot of trivial everyday tasks associated with level design could and probably should be automated. I have faith that Josh will get the balance right in LE3.

[Roland]

@ Naughty Alien

I can see what you mean. But what should then those poor people (like me) do when they can't write their own shader's and have no access to 3DS Max, that's a quite expensive piece of software. I totally understand your point of view though and that is the best way to go for you and many others. On the other hand I believe that would end up in Leadwerks slowly fade away. The majority of customers are not skilled programmers or shader constructors and they need visual tools and as Pixel says, Josh will probably find the balance between those two words.

 

With that said, here is what I personally would be fully satisfied with in a updated Editor/Engine.

 

- Groups in Editor

- Top/Front/Left/Right/Bottom orthogonal views

- Snap to geometry

- Visual scaling of models

- A simple way to enter position, scale and rotation numerical

- Automatically updated materials, textures and models when they are changed on disk

- All common texture formats should be accepted. Any conversion to some internal format should be done automatically

 

There may be some details I have forgotten in this list, but those are my main concerns.

So essential where are perhaps saying the same thing

[YouGroove]

Yes !

 

Scaling is so needed, but perhaps to avoid to have to scale model by code, avoid some that calculation and saves power ?

I don't know if it is really visible impact ?

I know others engines allow scaling in the editor !

 

For snapping , it can be interesting for 3D tiles like dungeon etc ...