Davaris

This is what an ordinary user was able to do with Blender scripting: http://www.swineworld.org/blender/gears/ I've seen a few other nice ones, like stair makers of all kinds, a bolt maker, a ladder maker and a city maker. Of course there are many more of varying quality and its all open source, so I assume you can use them to make new things as long as what you make is also open source. EDIT: City Maker Currently its for 2.49b and is okay, but the version for 2.5 will have better features, like allowing you to use your own meshes for buildings. Actually I just noticed there is a better project based on it call Blended Cities. Blended Cities and

From what I understand Blender was designed not to be easy to learn, it was designed to be highly efficient to use. Or that's what Blender artists offer as an excuse. I'm not an artist, so I can't tell the difference. As for whats in it for you, there is a huge Blender community out there, so if word got out that Blender users could use it in LWs, then they might take an interest in LWs. If only "might" paid the bills... I wouldn't worry about it though, if Blender users want Blender to output LWs files, there is no reason they can't write Python scripts to do the job. Python is a beautiful language and you don't have to decipher anyone elses code. All you have to do is learn the API and write what you want it to do. I'm sure I'll be learning it one day to automate things I want to do. As for Blender staff, I don't think there are any. I'm sure they have people overseeing the direction it is going, but everything is done on a voluntary basis.

If I am understanding Pancakes correctly, all you'd need is for Blender to output in Leadwerks format? If the format is not secret, I don't see why someone in the community couldn't write a Python script to do it, without accessing LWs code. They could also write a Python script that spits out Lua scripts and gmf files. The only problem is writing those scripts would be a lot of work and in the end, you wouldn't be able to sell it.

On this page http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Advanced_Tutorials/Advanced_Animation/example/_Piston,_Rod_and_Crank I remember reading about using Ctrl-A->Apply scale and rotation on all mechanical parts in object mode before animating as otherwise, it would mess things up. Its a tute for Blender, so I don't know if the same applies to UU3D.

I've tried Unity3d and its got a lot of nice addons and art imports effortlessly, but its terrain is ugly and its movement gives me a headache. As I like things to look as good as they can be, I prefer LWs. As for Torque, I've heard bad things about the code base, documentation and support for years, so I did not try it.

I thought the Blender code was GPL, which means if you make anything using it, its got to be free. Anyway if that's not the case, it might be worth looking into, as everything can be customized, including layouts and keys and the customizations can be shared. As for plugins, they can be made in Python to automate virtually anything and I assume that includes the building of levels. If it is true the Blender Foundation want commercial companies to take an interest, it might be worth looking into, as most people can afford a $200-$300 for a game engine, but paying thousands for 3D Max or Maya, just to make games in your spare time? Anyway if people think Blender is hard to use, have a look at some of these video tutes. It is easier than you think: http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html And yeah, like Pancakes I am a Blender user as well - albeit new. I used to be a Hexagon user, but when it changed owners, they stopped fixing show stopping bugs and after being burned like that, I won't be using a complex 3D modeling commercial product again. If I take the time to learn something complex, I want it to be around and maintained for a long time and I'm pretty sure Blender is forever.

Turns out there was nothing wrong with the normal map at all. I'm not sure if it was my experimentation with different combinations of .frag and .vert files, because while some look like they should be compatible, they aren't. For some reason mesh_diffuse_bumpmap.vert does not work. Anyway it works now and I've learned quite a bit. Here it is: http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8853/0cactus.png

Thanks Richard, I didn't notice that.

Hi Nicolas, Thanks for replying. I've continued my quest here: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/2720-with-light-object-is-black/page__gopid__25343#entry25343 We think there is something wrong with the normal map. Either that or it is the way I have set up the shaders, when it comes to the normal map.

Thats a good idea. I'll download this plugin for Gimp and see if what I can do with it. http://code.google.com/p/gimp-normalmap/

Okay I just tried MakeDDS.exe to convert cactus1_N.png and cactus1_N.tga to cactus1_N.dds and no setting I tried made a difference. I tried ticking 'save mipmaps' and it had no effect. I tried ticking every other box and no effect either. This is a shrunk down version of the normal map. Is this what they are supposed to look like? http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9328/25728215.png

Okay thanks for your help guys. I'll give it a try and report back.

No normal, no gi, it works with all lights: shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_alphatest.frag" shadowshader="Abstract::mesh_shadow.vert","" No normal, but with gi, it works with all lights: shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_gi_alphatest.frag" shadowshader="Abstract::mesh_shadow.vert","" Diffuse bumpmap, it goes black! shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_bumpmap_alphatest.frag" shadowshader="Abstract::mesh_shadow.vert","" I could have sworn it was black without the normal map before! I just opened up the .dds file for the normal map and it says, (A8, R8, G8, B8 Mip 1 of 10) I have two other kinds for the normal map, tga and png and they look the same as the dds. I used the tga files and pureLIGHT did the conversion to dds. I have a file ending in H which I assume means height map, it is black and white. The normal map is shiny blue and pink. I see Lumooja says in another thread that: I don't know what to do about this.

You should put up a PayPal donation link, so if people like it, the very least they can do is support its development and support.

This is what the point light does when part of it intersects the cactus. As you can see it is half black half texture. http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6220/spotweirdness.png

Okay I learned a couple of things about which frag and vert files to use, which I'll post in the pureLIGHT forum soon. However the problem with the lights remains. I did learn this though: This only affects the cactus. I have a plane and a box in the scene which work fine. EDIT: One thing I just remembered, I didn't have the normal map as active and I was still getting the black parts on the cactus. It had the same shaders as the box and the plane.

This is what pureLIGHT creates. As you can see, it is very basic and they said you have to create the material yourself: I found the "LMA_cactus12.dds" part which is the light map, is appearing in the 'bump map' channel on ADN Materials editor. I also found that when a light appears in my scene, the part of the light that intersects with my model turns it black. I just tried using the settings omid3098 approved of and it looks fine in ADN, but in the LWs Editor it appears as black when a light is on it. When there is no light shining on it it works. So I am a little confused. This is the mat file I generated using ADN: EDIT: I think I understand what to do now. It is something to do with this: I just did a search on 'gi' in the shaders.zip and found this: So I will try using that instead of :

I have one other question: This line appears in the file: Should this be placed in the Lua file, for when the model is created? Thanks omid3098. I wonder if I should ask Josh about this one? As he integrated it with LWs.

I was wondering if an artist can help me in understanding ADN Materials Editor. I have the following textures for a model I am using and I am guessing which channels they should go in on ADN Materials Editor. My guesses are on the right side of the arrow: I also have And I have this file: It was generated by pureLIGHT and I want to use it. So I was wondering, which section should I put it in? There are only 4 sections available. Is 4 the maximum for Leadwerks?

What is LME?

I can't post it because it is commercial. However you have given me a couple of ideas to try. I'll post any progress I make soon.

No, its just a mesh.

Thanks I found your post here. Calling C++ functions from Sandbox LUA script http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/208-calling-c-functions-from-sandbox-lua-script/ What I was not sure about, is there are a couple of flavors to chose from, so I didn't know if they would be compatible. Case in point, Josh was saying they were thinking about using Luabind here: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/blog/1/entry-189-picking-up-speed/ What I'm thinking would be better in my case, is to add the third party libraries to the C# or C++ part of my engine and use something like this to get the needed data: LUA GetKey, SetKey - How to use? http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/277-lua-getkey-setkey-how-to-use/ The thread is pretty old now, so I don't know if it is still done this way in LWs.

You might be able to write your own Toon shader. There are lots of links on Google. Google: "how to write a toon shader"

Hi, I'm having a little trouble understanding what is going on here. As you can see, when I have a light in the scene, the object appears black. http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/4549/cactusblack1.png When I delete the light, its texture becomes visible. http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1593/blackcactus2.png The shadow you see is a light map, so there is no light source in the second image. This is its mat file. Can anyone tell me what I should be looking at? Do I have the wrong combination of shaders?