[Question regarding importing assets / size of the resulting game]

A lot of the ones I've used don't. Unreal Engine and Source definitely don't: there's a lot of cut content in several games that's pretty well documented. It's not without precedent.

 

Unreal Engine has content culling. It does not load the unused assets in the packages in the editor by default and does not include them in a build afaik. Don't know about the Source, maybe it's a limitation about the mods.

 

My point is, someone said it's impossible for the engine to know which assets are used and which are not, so I've proven that it's possible. And what is your point?

[Question regarding importing assets / size of the resulting game]

I bought the preorderedition recently and do not have access to any version (neither the steamedition, nor the full edition) to test that. That's why i asked here

 

My apologies then, seeing that you're in the "Developer" group, I thought you had it.

 

I think an engine couldnt know which assets the software will be using @runtime when the code will be compiled.

 

Actually all the engines I know of remove the unused assets on build. If you reference an asset in a script it's count as being used.

[Question regarding importing assets / size of the resulting game]

Well instead of opening a thread in the forum for it and waiting for answers wouldn't it be much quicker to build a project and take a look at the resulting file hierarchy in the installed game?

 

As far as I know Leadwerks does not omit unused files on build currently, just does not load them if they are not used in a map.

[Internal shader uniforms]

materialcolorspecular and materialcolordiffuse are self-explanatory. The others you listed are all in the code above.

 

Why can't you just add a list of ALL of them with their descriptions to a shader reference self-explanatory or not? You want some great looking shots filling the gallery to promote the engine right? Help the shader developers!

 

I mean most of the API is self-explanatory but they are there in the documents with unnecessary amounts of code examples for both C++ and Lua and a butt load of description. This is lazy, do the Right-Thing-To-Do as Carmack's fond of saying

[Suggestions for the level editor.]

- In the 'Scene' tab, a feature to double click on an item in the list, and make the cam (in perspective mode) focus on that particular item. This would be very handy to quickly find back any particular object/item in your scene.

 

I agree this would be usefull, instead of having ourselves each time moving camera to the object to be able to select it.

 

Right click on an object in the scene tab and click to the "Go To" option or press CTRL + F.

[Internal shader uniforms]

Also I'm seeing some other uniforms in "diffuse normal specular" shader. Like "materialcolorspecular,

lighting_ambient, buffersize etc.

[Internal shader uniforms]

How about the input attributes? vertex_position, vertex_color etc?

[Simple ammo counter?]

Wait you are saying the health display is above it because you have the code written after the vignette but ammo is below it and how you can make it so that it's displayed above the vignette? You already know the solution as it appears.

[Newbie to the Engine, Require Assistance]

Start playing around with the scripts, change values and run the game to see how they effect the output. Ask here if there is something that won't make sense to you. Once you are bored of fiddling with the other scripts, try to create your own scripts from scratch.

 

So break things, fix things, experiment with things and before you know it you'll learn a lot.

[Simple ammo counter?]

Script:PostRender()

 

This function will be called following a call to World::Render(). Use this for 2D drawing for HUDs, health meters, map displays, etc.

 

So you can do this and it will work just fine in any script;

 

function Script:PostRender()
   local context = Context:GetCurrent()
   context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Alpha)
   context:SetColor(1,1,1,1)
   context:DrawText("Ammo ",92,92)
   context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Solid)
end

[wiki request : cone of vision]

That wouldn't respect occlusion (What if the player's behind a wall?) , multiple raycasts is a better solution.

[tabs vs spaces in script editor]

It would also be cool if one could configure to use an external editor of choice (be it sublime, notepad++, ultraedit or whatever).

So when you click the "edit script" button in leadwerks the file gets opened in the external editor.

 

Good idea, I'm currently more interested in the ability to run Leadwerks generated Lua interpreter of a chosen project directly from Sublime Text so I don't have to switch back to Leadwerks every time I want to test the application. I'll look into it once the completion file is done.

[More camera scripts]

There is so much more that should go into developing the engine in my opinion. Such scripts should be made by the community.

[tabs vs spaces in script editor]

I agree and there is much more space for improvement there. Personally I moved to Sublime Text 2 and working on my own completion and snippet files. Plan is to release them here once they are done. I also integrated the Leadwerks API highlighting and auto completion on ZeroBrane IDE but that is not so fun to work on compared to ST2.

[change resolution,antialias or lighting quality in lua ?]

The quality settings do not appear the same in the built game. I guess they are editor only for now. Or maybe a bug?

 

I also agree they should be exposed through the API.

[change resolution,antialias or lighting quality in lua ?]

There is a default script file called App.lua in your project. You can change the resolution and window settings at where you create it. Looks like below;

 

self.window = Window:Create(self.title, 0, 0, 640, 480, Window.Titlebar)

 

You can set the AA on context creation

 

self.context=Context:Create(self.window, 0) -- Second parameter determines the MSAA count. Check it out on the documents

 

The other quality settings are changed through the editor options.

[External Lua IDE]

So after a bit of research I've found this free (funded by donations) IDE called ZeroBrane Studio. It contains everything I need and is cross-platform. I will try my hand at implementing the Leadwerks API auto-completion and highlighting to it. I also think it may be possible to run the Leadwerks project through the IDE but I'll have to look into it once the other 2 features are done.

 

I'll let you know of my progress here and share it freely.

[External Lua IDE]

How would one go about integrating Leadwerks' API to an external Lua IDE so it can auto-complete API commands and color them accordingly?

 

I know Notepad++ and some other text editors have plugin systems towards this but do I have to type in the commands one by one and set them in a plugin or is there an easier way to somehow import the API to a third party IDE?

 

I'm aware it wouldn't be possible (or easy to implement) debugging the Leadwerks authored code but I would sure love to work on something like this as I dislike the white background and lack of some simple features like browsing the open tabs with keyboard or navigating the caret in the code with great features all the text editor have.

 

Any pointers much appreciated.

[Is Renderer Framecount Locked?]

Even in an empty scene I'm getting around 200-250 FPS. My computer is quite modern so I know it's not a limitation due to my hardware.

 

Is there a hardcoded frame limit to the engine so it does not fry our GPU's?

[Many Questions]

13) If not PSK/PSA for animations what are you using? I see blender mentioned but FBX Blender is bugged PSK/PSA is currently the only pipeline for Blender I am aware of.

 

I'm not aware of any bugs and been using Blender FBX export happily for about 3 years now. Can you elaborate?

Also Blender is not the only modelling package that export FBX files.

[Any suggestions/tips towards my LUA learning path?]

Do you have any previous programming experience? If so Lua is dead easy. You'll be working with the API provided by the engine for the most part so once you are comfortable with the syntax it's all a matter of general programming knowledge and good usage of the programming documents here.

 

When I'm stuck on how to do things on Lua I just refer to the language reference on lua.org. I have a very strong C# background though.

 

Anyway don't waste any money on Lua books would be my advice. Best (and only imo) way to learn a programming language is to develop something in it. Pick a very easy project for learning how stuff's done in the engine and stick with it until it's complete. Ask question here in the forum when you are really stuck after checking the documentation and lua.org language reference.

[Many Questions]

1) Has anyone moved a project from UDK into Leadwerks 3? What issues did you encounter? How much had to be rebuilt and what was it?

 

Nope, I have a general dislike towards UDK's editor and workflow.

 

2) Animated Model Extension Formats? Can it handle PSK/PSA?

3) Static Model Extensions Formats? Can it handle FBX?

 

Only FBX for both static and dynamic models.

 

4) Graphics Extensions and special requirements? Power of 2 I would assume?

 

Modern GPUs support npot textures. It's a different story for mobile platforms. I'm yet to confirm if Leadwerks supports npot textures or automatically scales them to nearest values.

 

5) Can you import map files from other editors by chance? Not everything would translate but I would hope most geometry could, would be a time saver.

 

What other editors for example?

 

6) I hear 3.1 is supposed to be the new engine that will have it all, does anyone have a timeframe of when it might be releasing?

 

3.1 Lua (Indie) version is already released on Steam. 3.1 Standalone C++ version is yet to be released with no dates.

 

7) Replication, Networking & Security. How is this setup? Is it by default built with these in mind, is it server side oriented?

8) Player count? How big can it scale could it handle MMO Size #’s or even 100 people on one level?

 

There is no networking out of the box. You would have to implement your own networking with the C++ version for the time being.

 

9) Engine Budget, some engines all you need is more horses and they can handle more on screen budget. Other engines it doesn’t matter how much CPU/GPU you throw at it eventually there is a chug ceiling. What are the typical budgets for a medium range PC.

 

This varies wildly based on the game being developed and it's features. So one would need so much more detail than that to estimate the limit there.

 

10) Limitations? What are some of the big limitations or issues a developer should be made aware of? I am fairly impressed with what I see, however I read a lot of grumblings about how this isn’t a complete engine as of yet? Could someone currently take this engine and make an AAA Title?

 

If someone has the experience, willpower, manpower and budget to develop a AAA title why not? But it sounds really naive to work with an engine with 100 USD price tag and expect Unreal Engine level features and tools in my opinion. I seriously believe the engine will get there in a couple years but I wouldn't go and try to develop Mass Effect 4 in it. Yet it's all possible to get the C++ version, implement 3rd party libraries that specialize in areas like networking, gui, etc.

 

What Leadwerks gives you is an easy to use and feature packed (Pathfinding, prefabs support, CSG, physics, lua scripting, node based visual behaviour editor, particles etc.) editor and a powerful renderer behind it. I find the API nicely designed and very easy to use also. These are my opinions of the engine so far.

 

11) Scaleform GUI or Interface? I am not hearing much about interfaces, can anyone provide details on interface specifications or requirements? Limitations? AS3 Format?

 

Even the Scaleform Unity engine plugin is more expensive than Leadwerks. I mean, come on. But if you get the licenses for it there is nothing stopping you from integrating it providing that you have the C++ edition.

 

12) Is it able to interface with external programs? DLLBInd is a common way for UDK to interface with external programs, does leadwerks have something similar?

 

I believe it's answered in above, if you need further details please feel free to inquire further.

[Shortkeys ;)]

F5 - Run in debug mode

F6 - Run

 

There are many more keyboard shortcuts, please take a look at the menu items above, all the shortcuts are written next to the items in those menus.

[Model Texture Problem]

Seems like there is no UV mapping on the cube.

[Loading prefab Error]

Ok the problem it seems is loaded prefabs do not run their Start function. That is where your Animation Manager is created. And in Draw function, script tries to access it and update it. So as it's not created in the first place, it returns a nil reference exception.

 

That also explains why the enemies you drop into the map work and the ones you load do not. The ones you drop invoke their Start functions and create their animation managers successfully.

 

I just made it so that before updating the animation manager in the Draw function, the script makes sure that it's not nil. If it's nil, it just creates it once.

 

I also implemented the time delay mechanism in the enemy generator so when you change the delay value in the editor, it will reflect in the behaviour of the generator. Make sure you use milliseconds for that value, 1000 for a second for example.

 

Hope it helps!

Entity Spawner.lua

MonsterAI.lua