2D interface for 3d game Tutorial ( perhaps Utilizing the fps example)

[BlueSoul]

I've been watching Leadwerks 5(ultra engine for a while now and found the video tutorials somewhat helpful but still don't feel comfortable to jump in and start a small project to learn the engine from a some what beginner level. my coding experience is from App game kit studio which uses a "Basic" coding style which felt more like component coding 3d, 2d, file, etc.. the rendering more or less handled by the core engine to avoid miss understanding how 2d/3d would overlap.

I attempted adding  GUI to the fps example in ultra engine before the migrations the leadwerks 5 name(so glad you return to this name btw) but i could not understand the rendering of GUI over 3d. Also could not find explanation on how the GUI in leadwerks can work within a 3d environment.

I did try for a long 4hour session  using AI to help me structure adding Gui to the FPS example. i attempted to add a crosshair in the middle of the screen using the interface commands but kept getting failure to render the crosshair or getting issues like the gun dispersing or getting culled. for the most part i think the AI was getting confused with older learkwerks code as there is not much for the Ai to learn from for leadwerks 5. I wonder if a complete command list that the AI could read might help with that later on( i tried using the help file on your website but the AI could not access it? or understand it)

Suggestion That may help me and others for 2d Game GUi/interface:

My thought for a Tutorial suggestion is game Gui in a working 3d example including things like hp, ammo or similar basic stuff but main focus explaining the work flow to create such Gui within a 3d environment and perhaps a menu system without the 3d scene.

 

How i would envision the tutorial or perhaps multiple tutorials linked together on the same subject

• Example of a 2 part Gui Structuring including: Start Menu for project and 3d scene or game with Gui
• Explanation on how to transition between menus and 3d scene, perhaps a in 3d scene toggle menu like a Escape key to bring up a option menu overlay in scene. A pause game while in menu example would be a nice extra if easily possible.
• Explanation on how the 2d aspects of the engine render in relation to 3d and including a explanation on the deference's without a 3d scene(if require as i don't understand how they relate/work with each other myself)

I believe this may help a lot of beginners in the sense of being overwhelmed in getting started with Leadwerks. I felt the same way when the first version of leadwerks was released. I only got as far as placing my own models in the editor as the coding side of things was hard to understand how to create a workflow and structure a basic project without having rendering issues between 2d aspects and 3d.

I felt like the commands were explained but not the engine as a whole, no clear vision on how to structure code/scenes in a way that does not cause conflict on how the engine functions/renders components.

The new Fps example is great as a demo but i feel the structure of how it works is complicated which leaves me having no idea of how any of it works. As a beginner i think there would benefits to a more component structure to this example, meaning less code integrated with the rest of the code which makes changing anything resulting in errors as we have not written the code our self's.

I understand functions and see parts of what i would like to tinker with to try learn the engine but found that the function seem to be heavily reliant on other code to work resulting in being hard to peice the puzzle together when you have no understanding of the engine.(sorry if this seemed repeating myself, I'm hoping you can make sense of what I'm trying to convey)

As a side note i believe for a previous communication there was no plan to add basic 2d commands for images or a sprite system but i would like to add this as a question in relation to how you envision 2d interfaces for projects.

Question:

Would there be a future plan for basic Image manipulation commands?

or a basic sprite like image system for game overlays/menus?

I would like to thank you you for reading my kinda lengthy suggestion to help beginners here, i absolutely love the potential of this engine and hope one day i can understand it enough to create a game with it in the future.