More Lua for 3D artists :

[YouGroove]

Well, i started wanting to use the engine with some C++, C# or other,

if find from a 3D artist point of view, that i was loosing too much time for accessing the world created in the editor and entities !

And i had not a real example.

 

In fact i hope like Unity 3D engine, that scripting would be lot more supported , the success of Unity is that scripting allow to access and attach code to any 3D object and entities.

 

In fact that the main point that is used in Unity Scripting you can make all the game by script without performance impact. And that' lot more direct for some people and 3D artist to

Directly in the editor program the beahaviour of an entitie directly and see the result as fast.

 

I've seen even pure 3D artists be successful in scripting a game with some help and produing a gorgeous game.

I say that because i find important for the engine, if the target is to become lot more accessible and open to more 3D artist than that is now more dedicaced to pure programmer !

 

In fact i'm using Lua now with the engine. Lua by definition is a fast language even if just precompiled. I just hope more support, optimisations,

and things like complete and complex games ( for example a full town RPG) driven only by Lua.

(Perhaps some costly functions like path seeking, special computation separated in fucntions put in a C++ dll ?)

[Josh]

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/1/entry-655-tools-and-stuff/

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/1/entry-658-lua-and-c-debugger/

 

I intend to focus on Lua for examples in the future. It's a lot easier to work with because you don't have to install compilers and code editors for all the different platforms, and it runs the same on everything.

[Canardia]

I'm writing a GameLib example for LEBuilder right now, so it will be only 1 mouseclick to create a game project. You do most editing of the game in Editor, since GameLib uses everything it can use from the Editor scene, so there is a minimum of coding required.

 

I think most programmers don't want to use other people's code, and artists wouldn't even understand the code, so the trend for GameLib will be also in future to focus on using Editor as a Game Maker for LE. You don't have to care about the code behind it, but you just edit your game visually in Editor, including all AI and game logic too.

 

LEBuilder will create everything for you, including a simple demo scene which is populated with an animated player model and some other models.

[Rick]

I think most programmers don't want to use other people's code

 

I'll gladly use other people's code as long as it fits nice with my code. The pathfinding script I found for Lua is a perfect example of the kind of plug-n-play stuff that works well.

 

I'm writing a GameLib example for LEBuilder right now, so it will be only 1 mouseclick to create a game project.

 

But does that game project still require some kind of compiler? I think that was Josh's point. The editor is the compiler for Lua programs so no external tools required.

[Canardia]

Well, technically it doesn't matter if it's a compiler or whatever. It's just a setup.exe which must be installed into some folder, preferably c:\mingw. I think that shouldn't be too hard.

[Josh]

Once any third party gets involved, the user experience is out of my control. Probably 95% of the potential market for software like this won't accept or understand the need for a third party compiler. Even if they do go for it, coding tools are almost always very difficult to set up and poorly supported. That causes a lot of conflict when I am trying to make a system that's easy to use. A lot of people come here with no coding experience at all, see they have to install Visual Studio, and that's the end of it for them. My guess is that describes maybe 95% of the people who might be interested in designing games.

[Canardia]

LEBuilder is the saviour, trust me. More templates will come, and there is no limit to what they can do.

LEBuilder just has to work, because if it doesn't, then the user has to go back and check his installations.

The installations are a seperate process which can be covered easily.

The user just installd the compiler with default options, if he changes settings during installation, then he is responsible for that.

The LEBuilder GameLib template has a default setting of c:\mingw. It's easy to change that path if the user installed MinGW somewhere else.

 

This encapsulation of each step makes it very clear to find the problems.

 

But what is mostly important are rich examples of LEBuilder templates. Small, but complete games, of any genre.

[YouGroove]

Yes LEBuilder, once you use it, you can't go back !

I have used it for C++,.Net and Lua, so great, you just select the directory , language and it puts all you need in your woking directory !

Without having to battle with installation.

Another 3D engine propose to copy all stuff in the right directories of Visual C++ , it works directly , it's another choice of installation.

But i really prefer the LEBuilder way.

 

For templates, why not, some extension where you would choose : Third person, FPS, platform, car game or any other genre,

and it would install the template and all stuf needed ready to go on your directory !

[Roland]

Yes LEBuilder, once you use it, you can't go back !

I have used it for C++,.Net and Lua, so great, you just select the directory , language and it puts all you need in your woking directory !

Without having to battle with installation.

Another 3D engine propose to copy all stuff in the right directories of Visual C++ , it works directly , it's another choice of installation.

But i really prefer the LEBuilder way.

 

For templates, why not, some extension where you would choose : Third person, FPS, platform, car game or any other genre,

and it would install the template and all stuf needed ready to go on your directory !

I'm working on setting up a LeBuilder Customer Templates package containing such things as you describe.

[YouGroove]

@Roland :

Just great

I don't tallk about : " great for me" , yes it will be great for me , but i think , it will be great for anyone taking on the engine on the beginnng,

and specially people wanting a solid base and to begin slowly to modify it or add things.

I think 3D artists are not turned to the programming side even if they can do good things with some help , and some starter kits would just be excellent for them, and to start prototyping something.

I don't say we should have just some buttons to create game things like some Unity extension, but a good base, reday to go and running would be cool.

Any 3D artist i'm sure could make the game using only the template and bringing small thing like sword attack system for some or Gun shooting sytem for others !

[Canardia]

My idea is to use Thingoids in Editor, to make a game. Most things should be 3D WYSIWYG. You can control if the player can do a sword attack or gun attack, only by giving him the weapon. I have done this already in an earlier GameLib tutorial, where you can place a weapon on the ground, and if you additionally specify that it should be auto-picked by a player, then he doesn't even need to pick it up manually.

[Roland]

My idea is to use Thingoids in Editor, to make a game. Most things should be 3D WYSIWYG. You can control if the player can do a sword attack or gun attack, only by giving him the weapon. I have done this already in an earlier GameLib tutorial, where you can place a weapon on the ground, and if you additionally specify that it should be auto-picked by a player, then he doesn't even need to pick it up manually.

Great idea. I don't really know what Thingoid's are, but I assume they are customer designed controls. Rick had a good video showing his work with that. I guess the LEBuilder could install "Thingoids" also or if needed be updated to do that.

[Roland]

@Roland :

Just great

I don't tallk about : " great for me" , yes it will be great for me , but i think , it will be great for anyone taking on the engine on the beginnng,

and specially people wanting a solid base and to begin slowly to modify it or add things.

I think 3D artists are not turned to the programming side even if they can do good things with some help , and some starter kits would just be excellent for them, and to start prototyping something.

I don't say we should have just some buttons to create game things like some Unity extension, but a good base, reday to go and running would be cool.

Any 3D artist i'm sure could make the game using only the template and bringing small thing like sword attack system for some or Gun shooting sytem for others !

Nice that its great for you. In fact its great for me to. So then we are at least two

Just joking ... Yes some more LEBuilder samples is great to have, it can handle as many as needed even if its hundreds of them

[Canardia]

LEBuilder works already now with Thingoids and custom assets. I just use the SDK flag and it can copy any files from any SDK subfolder into any directories of the game folder.

[Roland]

LEBuilder works already now with Thingoids and custom assets. I just use the SDK flag and it can copy any files from any SDK subfolder into any directories of the game folder.

Great

[YouGroove]

I don't know about Thingoids !

But it seems to be like attaching some script to an object no ?

You put the code to a weapon to be picked up by a player whe nit comes near for example !

So you must follow some conventions like , having the bone name of the pplayer with a certain name , so the weapons knows where it must go

when auto picked (and also some relative position/rotation values fro adjustment to the hand of the player) ??

Or am i wrong ?

[Canardia]

Yeah, that's basically how it works. Thingoids are Lua scripts with some placeholder mesh, so that they can be dragged with the mouse into Editor. The main difference between a Thingoid and a normal Model is, that Thingoids usually do services and automation for other Models and Entities, while Models only serve themselves.

 

Thingoids are like exchangable, independant connectors for real Models, because it doesn't make any sense to put multiple code into a Model directly, if you never need 90% of the code. With a Thingoid you can choose exactly the action you need, and connect it to the Models you need.

[YouGroove]

Cool

I plan to use that if we have it !

[Road Kill Kenny]

Once any third party gets involved, the user experience is out of my control. Probably 95% of the potential market for software like this won't accept or understand the need for a third party compiler. Even if they do go for it, coding tools are almost always very difficult to set up and poorly supported. That causes a lot of conflict when I am trying to make a system that's easy to use. A lot of people come here with no coding experience at all, see they have to install Visual Studio, and that's the end of it for them. My guess is that describes maybe 95% of the people who might be interested in designing games.

 

Just a question about this Josh. What about the apparent '5%' of us that actually do like to have the flexibility of coding and that actually enjoy coding with a 3rd party compiler. Will we still have the same flexibility in LE3? I can understand why others would want it but I personally don't like getting spoon fed to the point where you can just throw in a template and almost have a complete game...... So yeh just wondering if we will still have that flexibility.

 

I just hope its not going to turn into some cookie cutter engine that tends to produce a lot of similar games that just have different artwork. I moved to leadwerks from another engine because I loved its flexibility and number of options.

 

Oh... and I actually am originally a 3D artist before a programmer so I guess I'm an exception from the '3DArtists don't like to code' rule.

[Josh]

What about the apparent '5%' of us that actually do like to have the flexibility of coding and that actually enjoy coding with a 3rd party compiler.

I don't meant 5% of the Leadwerks community, I mean 5% of the larger potential market.

 

Will we still have the same flexibility in LE3? I can understand why others would want it but I personally don't like getting spoon fed to the point where you can just throw in a template and almost have a complete game...... So yeh just wondering if we will still have that flexibility.

 

I just hope its not going to turn into some cookie cutter engine that tends to produce a lot of similar games that just have different artwork. I moved to leadwerks from another engine because I loved its flexibility and number of options.

Right, and it was a big challenge to figure out how to make things simple without crippling the system, because frankly if I had to make an easy-to-use ****ty engine, I would rather go write high-speed trading algorithms or do something else for work. I mean, simply making easy to use low-quality stuff has no appeal to me. I like to think the design I worked out will make life easier for everyone, without holding back the expert programmers.

 

Oh... and I actually am originally a 3D artist before a programmer so I guess I'm an exception from the '3DArtists don't like to code' rule.

I started as a map designer.

[Road Kill Kenny]

I don't meant 5% of the Leadwerks community, I mean 5% of the larger potential market.

Yes thats what I meant.

 

 

Right, and it was a big challenge to figure out how to make things simple without crippling the system, because frankly if I had to make an easy-to-use ****ty engine, I would rather go write high-speed trading algorithms or do something else for work. I mean, simply making easy to use low-quality stuff has no appeal to me. I like to think the design I worked out will make life easier for everyone, without holding back the expert programmers.

Fantastic. Thanks. I thaught this was the case I just wanted to double check

 

 

I started as a map designer.

Doubly proves my point

[YouGroove]

In fact it's not replacing actual programmer side at all !

Its just bringing access t o3D artists even those without basic programming knowledeg

 

Fro example a starter FPS or Third person game with simple stupid AI for ennemies and examples for melee, shoot or magic system.

The ywould just have to throw the template than begin to bring their 3D world creations i it like moding on big engines !

Later they can modify code , gameplay even with community help if needed.

 

I was incredibly happy playing "E.Y.E" game some mode for Source Engine. The team behind have such originality and refreshing world.

They don't had to worry about the programming side a lot using the SDK and examples.

 

In fact it's just for LeadWerks that is already open to pure programmer , to open it to pure 3D Artists also !

[Josh]

Actually, I don't think a non-programmer will be any more likely to be able to write script code than C++. It's all the same commands and concepts. If they can't understand code, putting it in another language (Lua) isn't going to help. They might be able to edit a few variables, but that's it...it just opens the door to endless requests for examples for this and that and the other, and then when an example isn't written to their tastes another request comes for a trivial change. At some point, requests for examples just become requests to write their game for them, to their specification.

 

That's why I have implemented our flowgraph system. It's something completely new that largely replaces the need for code, and lets designers use pre-made interactive objects. You'll have to wait and see how that works.

 

This is an example of when listening to literal customer recommendations is suicide. I don't mean you, YouGroove, I mean the hundreds of non-customers who have said the kinds of things I am describing. You want to listen to your customers' problems. You don't want to listen to their proposed solutions, because even if you carried them out exactly as specified there's no guarantee that would solve their problem. Additionally, if you just carry out a recommendation, you won't necessarily even understand the problem, so your solution can completely miss what they are after.

 

[stephan360]

Once any third party gets involved, the user experience is out of my control. Probably 95% of the potential market for software like this won't accept or understand the need for a third party compiler. Even if they do go for it, coding tools are almost always very difficult to set up and poorly supported. That causes a lot of conflict when I am trying to make a system that's easy to use. A lot of people come here with no coding experience at all, see they have to install Visual Studio, and that's the end of it for them. My guess is that describes maybe 95% of the people who might be interested in designing games.

 

that statement couldn't be any more true, josh. I come from not only no coding background but also no 3d modeling either. The 3d modeling anyone can watch a few you tube videos and pick up the user interface of 3ds max pretty easily with trial and error. I am in school for software engineering and taken my first programming class this semester i finally can read code and write simple programs. But for the longest time i have avoided it, even though game design and playing video games has been a huge hobby i have wanted to get into. I always ran from purchasing game engines with lots of coding involved i know all of them require it but some are more accommodating than others.

 

If you look at the success of other engines you will see the simplicity in using them for new users. Or a ton of community support with lots of tutorials like the unreal engine 3. There are several 10 hour dvds that any beginner can purchase and follow to write a game from start to finish. I think that is what leadwerks needs, a friendlier user interface for LE3 or more support videos for new people. I think this will help leadwerks grow, we will see more games being produce from start to finish and will reduce the amount of repeated questions in the community forums. Sometimes i feel stupid in there cause im asking such basic questions and i know the same question has been asked millions of times.

 

This is my perspective from someone new to everything in game design, except for playing them of course.

[YouGroove]

I also think for 3D artists the game will require a minmum scripting like it is the case in Unity 3D.

But easy programming like integrated framework, you just insert code logic in the init() and frameUpdate() methods, like :

 

frameupdate() {

me.turnYaxis(180);

}

 

It's just an example, because actually the alreday discussed points lot of times i had was that all the things you do in the editor (HDR, DOF , Lights, entities) where not loaded by the loading command ,

and you have to place and manage all entities by seeking them by names and manages them with some sort of tables of objects !

All that should be transparant like in Unity3D for 3D artists

 

Besides , if LE3 will really have the plugin system, who knows perhaps some people will be able to create Hight level Visual logic editors Tools for pure 3D artists ?

There are already some 2 or 3 such tools for Unity !

Brain Builder for Unity

 

But pure visual indeed would remain some tool made by some user , and why not to be sold on the store !