Marleys Ghost

Meet The Flockers.

2012-02-06T13:47:00.003Z

Well, it should be more like meet the Swarmers, but you can't have as much fun with the word Swarm as you can with the word Flock. My first port of call was to do some quick research, not a good idea on a Sunday morning after a "busy" Saturday night, lets just say even plain English was reading like Egyptian Hieroglyphics ...

I found a large variety of examples on the Net, but nothing in a programming language I use or with Sunday morning syndrome could be bothered to wade through. Most, and probably all the examples I came across, were 2D, and not what I wanted. I opted for the same route I took when writing my Lua A* Scripts, just to work from a simple written definition of the rules and how they are used. With A* I used:

1) Add the starting square (or node) to the open list.
2) Repeat the following:
a) Look for the lowest F cost square on the open list. We refer to this as the current square.
b) Switch it to the closed list.
c) For each of the 8 squares adjacent to this current square …
If it is not walkable or if it is on the closed list, ignore it. Otherwise do the following.
If it isn’t on the open list, add it to the open list. Make the current square the parent of this square. Record the F, G, and H costs of the square.
If it is on the open list already, check to see if this path to that square is better, using G cost as the measure. A lower G cost means that this is a better path. If so, change the parent of the square to the current square, and recalculate the G and F scores of the square. If you are keeping your open list sorted by F score, you may need to resort the list to account for the change.
d) Stop when you:
Add the target square to the closed list, in which case the path has been found (see note below), or
Fail to find the target square, and the open list is empty. In this case, there is no path.
3) Save the path. Working backwards from the target square, go from each square to its parent square until you reach the starting square. That is your path.

And from the written description I then coded the AStar Script. I felt using this approach again would enhance the learning potential. For this new exercise I used the descriptions of the three rules Craig Reynolds uses to take this approach.

Cohesion: steer to move toward the average position of local flockmates

Alignment: steer towards the average heading of local flockmates

Separation: steer to avoid crowding local flockmates

From Conrad Parkers website :

Boids try to fly towards the centre of mass of neighbouring boids.

Boids try to keep a small distance away from other objects (including other boids).

Boids try to match velocity with near boids.

It was also my interpretation that the rules when performed on an individual boid had a limiting radial area when looking for its neighbours, which if I correctly understood was the factor that changed the overall behaviour. I took this to be the case given the graphic representations on Craigs boids page:

So my rules ended up as:

Boids try to fly towards the average position of local flockmates in a given radial volume of 3D space

Boids try to keep a small distance away from other local flockmates in a given radial volume of 3D space

Boids try to match velocity with other local flockmates in a given radial volume of 3D space

Actually I also implemented a 4th rule, which is a mathematically described harsh confinement volume, by harsh I mean zero tolerance, which currently means the boids "bounce" off an imaginary wall belonging to the volume in the same way the ball bounces in the game breakout. However when time permits I will redefine the confinement parameters to coax the boids into staying within the confinement volume as opposed to bluntly preventing them leaving the defined area. Of course, when a boid ricochets of the imaginary wall this repositioning should have a knock on effect through its neighbours and in turn their neighbours and so forth, well that was my thinking.

So 3D vector math was the first thing on the new to do list, I made a new math class to allow all the calculations to be done by a boid type, I decided to simply store all generated boids in a TList, which then could be looped through to adjust the vectors of each one. These I called my Non-corporeal boids, simple mathematical ghosts, without shape or form. Using an Entity array the physical form was generated as a copy of a mesh, in this case a cube. Thus in the draw cycle the Non-corporeal boids have their respective vectors updated based on the stipulated rules and a corresponding pre created body is then assigned to its co-ordinates.

Currently this is just an exercise I am using to find out more about this field of AI. It has practical game applications, one could be "wildlife" volumes, like birds in the sky over a scene. But as with all things the first part is to find out how and why it "ticks" and to try and get it working.

This is a slow motion video capture of how the rules effect the behaviour:

Demo Application Can Be Found Here

References:
http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
http://www.kfish.org/boids/

UDK Custom Weapon Tutorial.

2012-02-06T12:17:00.000Z

Ok, the boys over at Magic Stone Studios have just released a UDK Custom Weapon Tutorial.

The tutorial series covers modeling a weapon, rigging, animating, and ends with showing you how to program your custom weapon.

The tutorial series is highly detailed with around fifteen hours of video.

I have run through this myself and it is excellent, so a big hats off to them. The tutorial is free and includes art source files and UDK packages, but for only a small donation, which I took advantage of and recommend, you get the High Resolution Skeletal Meshes, High Resolution Textures/Particles, Sound Effects, Asset Source Files and Source Code.

So many thanks for that guys and wishing you all the best and future success with your current project R.A.T.S.

Revamping A Modular Asset Idea.

2012-01-19T14:21:00.005Z

I have dabbled with modular construction for 3D scenes, my last efforts where for a sci-fi based corridor which was essentially to test out some texturing methods with heavy use of bump mapping.

From Blog Entry Scale to the Chief
From Blog Entry Bumping ..... Adventures in Textures

Now, I have recently built a new Development PC so most of my development code and "stuff" is on storage drives that I am currently going through. Whilst doing this I came across some of my very first modelling and texture tests.

From Blog Entry Textures

Kind of makes me shudder although I don't think I have improved that much with time, but it got me thinking about assets I will need and the different workflows I could use. The original "Jetty" was a place holder model created in 3DWS to try out some textures I had made from photographs. It was also my very first attempt at a modular asset, which did not go so well in the area of "snap to gridability". So using this original concept for an asset, I decided that the place to start would be with a base model, which would be kept as simple as possible in regard to geometry and from which the higher and lower level of detail models would be derived. Also, I decided that the individual sections of the model should also inherit this modular aspect.

I started by modelling a basic revamp of the original jetty design.

Then I added more detail, but still keeping the poly count low and the geometry simple.

I managed to get good grid snapping with some careful modelling constraints on the overall volume of the piece and careful placement of the centre of origin.

Now what I can do in Silo is to save segments/objects out, such as posts, planks and roof types, to use as custom primitives and from there simply "blockout" ideas for different things:

So for a few hours work I think I have a fairly good work flow going to at least assemble a modular Bridge/Docks/Jetty "construction kit".

UDK - Water with Flow Map

2012-01-18T13:27:00.002Z

This is a rather impressive technique to control the direction and movement of water in UDK via shaders. This has been done by Phill Johnson, who also kindly wrote a tutorial about how to implement this in UDK, along with a downloadable example map. It uses a 2d vector field and vertex colouring.

Respect to Phill Johnson and I look forward to more UDK "watery works" from him.

Quick 3rd Person View Character Test.

2012-01-04T23:24:00.000Z

Ok, its been a while since the last post, took me a while to regain access to my blog after Blogger was taken over, seems Google had some issues in the "not so smooth change over". Anyhow happy new year.

This was a quick test of a character I purchased from a relatively new 3D asset company, 3dFoin, currently they are having a new year 40% off sale so I though I'd check out one of their character models. I have recently built a new PC so most of my development code and "stuff" is on storage drives that I still need to go through, so I quickly coded a script for "her" and a 3rd person collision cam rig off the top of my head to try "her" out. I made some alterations to the textures and made a few adjustments here and there in UU3D. Overall, I think "she" was worth the money. I may have to try out some more of their wares before the sale is over.

I only set up three of the animation's that come with "her", walk, run and idle. I did not bother with animation blending, or smoothing out the turning when moving from stationary/vanity cam mode, this was just a simple temporary rig. The "level" was just some assets quickly thrown together for effect.

You can find 3dFoin here:

http://3dfoin.com/

The other assets are from several sources that include:

Michael, over at Pure3D:

http://pure3d.de/en/index.php

Steve, at Arteria3D:

http://arteria3d.corecommerce.com/

and the boys over at Dexsoft:

http://www.dexsoft-games.com/

As soon as I locate the 3rd person rig I used here ....

I will test "her" out fully. But on the whole I am very pleased with the purchase and will be keeping an eye on their products in the future.

Colourful Behaviour.

2011-08-29T11:51:00.001+01:00

Currently I am working on the second phase of the MapData generator, which is to scan the map for scene objects and then adjust the walkable/unwalkable data accordingly. The basics are working fine from a simple AABB check per collision type. Although I am only using the x and z returns at the moment, a more "honest" check would also require y0 and y1 with reference to terrain elevation to be taken into account, but for now this will do as I have another system in mind to further "refine" the AABB space check.

I also integrated a version of my Blitzmax A* system, and have a test "AI Bot" that can path the generated data in the editor and traverse the loaded map. Debugging is currently paramount, especially with regard to the data generated and co-ordinate conversion between the different ways arrays and tables within Blitzmax and lua store data and the co-ordinate system of an .sbx file. On smaller maps I simply drew a small coloured cube at the grid position, and made use of LE's view range to "cull out" an area surrounding the cameras position. A physical pick test which did not rely on any generated data would then tell me if the system was aligned correctly. At the moment I am confident that the formulas I have derived are working fine.

The issue with this type of debugging is it is only practical on small maps, whilst alignment will (should) remain the same regardless of map size, drawing check cubes for every grid tile is a non starter once the map goes over a certain size, as it eats up the available memory to a point when the application will simply crash whilst generating or indeed with very large maps simply crash on start. The map in the videos is "128 x 128" or more precisely 129 x 129 with an MpT of 2 this equates to 66,049 "tiles" which would require 66,049 check cubes to be created. Whereas a "1024 x 1024" with an MpT of 2 equates to 4,198,401 "tiles" which would require 4,198,401 check cubes to be created and a "4096 x 4096" with an MpT of 2 equates to 67,125,249 "tiles" which would require 67,125,249 check cubes to be created. So my solution was to write a function for both the camera and the AI Bot that would create, on the fly, a set sized area of check cubes around the respective focal points.

So, whilst "playing" around with different ways to save and retrieve the data generated for a map, I tried the Portable Network Graphics (.png) image format, mainly to see a pictorial representation of the walkable and unwalkable areas of a map, but also as another way of storing the data, where the red and green channels act as the 1's and 0's stored in the .dat .txt and .lua files. It then dawned on me that an extra "cost" per walkable tile could be embedded in the green channels value, such as the slope of the tile, the flatter the tile, the easier the route. Writing a small routine to determine the slope of a walkable tile (along the same lines used to determine walkable/unwalkable) the value written to the green channel was adjusted a set amount for a particular slope range. The result can be seen below.

I then wrote a small function to read the png's pixel data on the fly and display its ARGB values.

This set me thinking, why just store slope data and walkable and unwalkable logic. Of course, you can change the value of the map data stored as values in .dat .txt and .lua files, for instance, instead of 1 meaning unwalkable, the value 0 could be used with walkable tiles having a value ( 1,2,3,4....) which reflects extra cost. But using the .png format this can be done using only two channels of the single (co-ordinate) pixels returned ARGB value.

But channels A and B are left unused, both of which can contain a value 0-255 (00-ff). So why not use them to reference area specific AI behaviour. One scenario might be, a town crier NPC, areas where that NPC is required to "do his stuff" could be defined by a certain value stored in either the A or B channels of the single (co-ordinate) pixels returned ARGB value, this value would only be recognised by that particular NPC class, so other NPC types would simply ignore it. The AI behaviour routines would be encapsulated into the lua control scripts for that class, simply waiting to be triggered. Of course it maybe required that an "area" should have several AI behavioural aspects associated with it, currently I can think of a way to attach three behavioural aspects to a single grid tile using the colour information from a single pixel, but I have a few other ideas on a way to increase that. Those ideas will have to wait as I am trying not to do what I always do and get side-tracked, but they are on the to do list.

This approach would also fit in well with my ideas about Ambient NPC Populations, where the vast majority of control resides in the hands of the "map".

This is all still very much a WIP, but shows potential.

A* Pathfinding MapData Generator.

2011-08-23T16:05:00.000+01:00

The Alpha of my MapData Generator, this is the first phase where the terrain is interrogated and using pre-defined criteria an external .dat file is created containing the walkable and unwalkable grid information for a loaded map. This information can then be fed into either my Blitzmax/Leadwerks A* solution:

A* Pathfinding Using Blitzmax And Leadwerks Engine

or my Lua/Leadwerks A* Solution:

AI, Waypoints, A* Pathfinding, Lua & Leadwerks.

Of course this is only one way to create the node graph data for A* pathfinding. But for current tests using my Lua A* Library this approach will do just fine. The editor currently has only hard coded settings which in the demo video also checks to see if a grid square is below the waterplane and mark it unwalkable.

R.A.T.S. – Rodent Army Training Simulator

2011-08-23T14:56:00.001+01:00

A friend of mine, Paul Thomas, is a developer on the team behind R.A.T.S. – Rodent Army Training Simulator. I have been following this closely. I will be placing permanent links to his blog and to the R.A.T.S. website.

In association with, and presented by Plastic Piranha, R.A.T.S. was demonstrated at E3 2011 and reportedly, got fantastic feedback.

I know Paul is hard at work on this, and I wish him and his crew all the best, and look forward to future updates and demos. You can check out the on going development on the R.A.T.S. website or over at 3D Masons. Heres little of the work so far.

CryENGINE3 Free SDK hits 100,000 downloads

2011-08-23T11:17:00.001+01:00

Cryteks CryENGINE®3 Free SDK, has hit 100,000 downloads in only five days of its release on August 17th. That is a massive achievment.CryENGINE®3 Free SDK is free of charge for non-commercial use, but they are offering a royalty-only license model to developers who are interested in using the SDK for commercial projects from which Crytek requires only 20% of the developer’s revenues generated from the commercial launch of their game.

The free SDK can be downloaded from here

Epic Games, announced the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) exceeded 50,000 users worldwide a week after its launch on Nov. 5 2009. In May 24 2011 Unity annouced that its registered user base had doubled to more than 500,000 users in just over 6 months with 150,000 of those users being active monthly users. Unity Indie was renamed and released for free in October 2009.

CryENGINE 3 Free SDK Released.

2011-08-17T15:27:00.000+01:00

"Anyone can now download a full version of the best All-In-One Game Development Engine, for free and use it without charge for non-commercial game development. You can try out the fastest toolset for creating game worlds and use the power of CryENGINE 3 in your own games."

More to come about this, I am just too busy downloading!

CryENGINE 3 Free SDK

AI, Waypoints, A* Pathfinding, Lua & Leadwerks.

2011-08-17T11:32:00.001+01:00

Over the last few days I have been getting into Lua script. A few days ago, I bounced an idea off of Macklebee about path nodes and waypoints, and things kind of took off in all directions. A special thanks to Macklebee for authoring the random visible node selection routine and other scripts and Lua snippets in this joint venture. Between us over the last few days we now have a small arsenal of different waypoints, path nodes and pathing techniques including a Lua scripted A* solution, which can use pre-calculated map data or be dynamic. Mack is currently working on another interesting idea along this route, and I have more functionality to code for some other ideas I have in this venture, from NPC behavioural information exchanges to waypoint 3D A* pathing, amongst other tweaks and new AI functionality.

Anyway, here is a short video of just some of the things we have put together entirely in Lua over the last few days. The video was shot inside the Leadwerks Engine Editor with the Lua scripts running in real-time.

Previous entries for AI and A* Pathfinding:

Oh how I hate AppTime() and the randomness of it all.

Attack of the Killer pathfinding butterflies!

A* Pathfinding Using Blitzmax And Leadwerks Engine

The Way Forward ... Making Blitzmax Trax ...

On The Right Path, A* Pathfinding In Leadwerks.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

OOP I did it again ...

UDK APEX Destructible asset test

2011-08-16T23:32:00.002+01:00

Just a quick and simple test of the workflow. I created a "metal crate" in Silo 3D, textured it in Ultimate Unwrap 3D and then imported it into APEX 1.0 PhysX Lab, where it was "sliced and diced" and exported as an APEX Destructible asset, this was then imported into UDK and placed in a default scene. Took about 5 minutes start to finish.

TGC Launch AGK (App Game Kit)

2011-08-15T12:02:00.018+01:00

Well, this product has been in the offing for a while now, but as of today it is officially released. I pre ordered my copy a week or so ago. It did how ever take nearly an hour to get a download slot to retrieve my prize, I guess the bandwidth was taking a hammering over at TGC. I only have had a short time to play with this and go through the examples but it looks fun and relatively easy. The Tier 1 basic is pretty close to Dark Basic Pro which I used to use, and the rest of the syntax is not that dissimilar to Blitzmax or Lua. Tier 2 for this game engine is C++, or what they call native.

"The App Game Kit solves many problems caused by mobile device fragmentation. With it you can code your game once and then deploy your game to multiple platforms. Different resolutions and input systems are all handled by AGK."

App Game Kit

Current support at the time of release is for Windows, iOS, MacOS, Samsung Bada and MeeGo with support coming post release for Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile 7 and Blackberry.

I will blog about it more later when I have had a chance to "play".

3rd Person Movement & Animation Control Rig Test

2011-07-27T11:16:00.001+01:00

This is a video showing a simple test of a 3rd person view Movement & Animation control rig. Features include camera collision, movement to animation synchronisation and skeletal bone spatial position reference routines as demonstrated here with the throwing of grenades. Written in Blitzmax and using the Leadwerks Engine this is the simple base code off of which a more robust solution will be created. The test also utilises a Blitzmax module that I created to take the game mechanic aspects from Furious Frank and have them readily available for other projects, in this case the explosion system and particle FX were used. The grenade object/model Lua script is a hybrid of two scripts written by Macklebee for a grenade launcher and ammo, which is used in Furious Frank.

Character model is by Arteria 3D

Also in HD

Metro : Last Light

2011-07-27T07:55:00.000+01:00

Another release I am personally looking forward to. Metro : Last Light is the sequel to Metro 2033.

Here Huw Beynon from THQ takes us through what to expect for the upcoming game:

"Much as changed since the darkones were scorched from the Earth. The air is not yet pure enough to breath, but sometimes we glimpse the sun for a bit of blue sky and the ice has begun to melt, but sadly we ourselves have not changed. War still rages throughout the Metro and we face a new threat from secrets long buried by our fathers. The prison held at station is our only hope. He is the key to ending this madness. We have to find him Artyom."

A Free CryENGINE SDK .. August 2011?

2011-07-22T18:36:00.001+01:00

Well, if the hype and rumours are true then in the next few weeks we could be playing around with CryENGINE 3 in all its "full access" glory.

I have blogged about this before, but information has always been scant to say the least.

Crytek planning to release UDK-like version of CryEngine 3

I had completely forgotten about it, but came across An open letter to the Crytek Modding Community:

"In August 2011 we will be launching a free CryENGINE SDK. If you want to use it for fun, like all our previous MOD SDKs it will be completely free of charge, to anyone who wants to play with it! You just register, download the SDK with a personalized license key and you're good to go!"

The letter is from Cevat Yerli the CEO & President of Crytek, and when I say "full access" that seems to be exactly what he is saying:

"This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC."

So all in all, definately worth the "price" of admission, but it seems it will only be free for non commercial usage, but hints at "rates" or "help" for those wishing to use it to develop commercial ventures:

"If you want to use it to make a game to launch commercially, we'd like to help you with that. If you want to take your product down a traditional commercial route, we will offer an innovative low cost licensing model if you want to release your game digitally."

How close this will be to say, Epic's pricing for commercial games developed with the UDK, who knows, it maybe on par or very much higher. I can't see it being less, it would be nice if it was, but ...

Ambient NPC Population, a continuation of an idea.

2011-06-05T11:36:00.001+01:00

Last September I mused about the concept of what I call Ambient NPC populations, I spent a lot of time researching (read playing) certain games that have what I call an ambient NPC population. This is specifically those NPC's that reside in the background and generally have no real or very limited interaction with the player, but may have some limited interaction with each other or the surroundings.

I felt a new approach would be needed to sort through what was and was not required to achieve a similar environment in LE, I decided first to create the environment and to then set about, at different levels, adding in the ambient NPC population, the thought behind this was it would be easier to visualise what I wanted to see taking place, if it took place ... in place ... not the best description but I hope you will understand what I mean.

So the first step is to create a small village environment and then to start adding in the population.

Test/concept scene (test application screenshot) : The Village of Swanwyck

The important thing with this small test village level will be the roads/paths, as the first tier of the population will basically be simple "walkers".

Even now, I am still formulating the different types required from "walkers" to simple "static actors" and how to implement some of those types to have different interaction levels. I will be utilising several different methods to allow the NPC's to navigate Swanwyck, from a simple "follow node" approach to predefined path data and on the fly A* navigation.

I did have some very good results with A* pathfinding already, which can be read about here:

A* Pathfinding Using Blitzmax And Leadwerks Engine

Hopefully I can find the time to get "Swanwyck" up to a usable standard, and get the first tier of the "walking" population up and running.

Oh how I hate AppTime() and the randomness of it all.

2011-04-08T18:32:00.013+01:00

Actually I don't hate AppTime() I just don't like using it in some instances. Its extremely useful and from what I can tell a more accurate mechanism to use than AppSpeed().

Whilst working on Furious Frank, one thing I noticed and it always caught my eye, was what I term “Chorus Line Syndrome” where using the basic AppTime() frame incrementing code for looping animations results in a regimented animation playback for like models/characters. I have ignored this issue thus far as it was not such a big deal in the early stages. However I decided it needed to be sorted, rather than just left as this issue will no doubt crop up again and its always handy when problems do arise again to have a basic template solution. First I took the lua entity script for the bug and removed all dependence on AppTime() completely using AppSpeed() to adjust for running speed variations. This worked fine but still broke down under high stress tests. The only way I can simulate high stress is to run some background applications and Fraps. Of course some breakdown would come about when the stress is heavy. I then switched to using a mechanism that relied on AppTime() as the base, but not in the same way that it was used for the basic AppTime() frame incrementing code for looping animations. There was still some breakdown under heavy load but not as much as the AppSpeed() based script.

Utilising this script with other aspects to add extra randomness to same type character animation playback I made a few tests. The results are in the video below, in the first part the “Red Bugs” are running the original script and the “Blue Bugs” the new one. In the second half of the video I applied the template to some “Fast Horde” zombie AI I had been working on previously:

Some synchronisation still occurs but that's just inevitable given the constraints of the character models used, that is, how many frames per loop are used in a cycle of animation and indeed how many animation types per action there are. Even slightly interrupting the “Chorus Line Syndrome” has much nicer results. I added some small mechanisms to the “Fast Horde” zombie script to continually mix things up over time. But all in all I am much happier with the results than not having addressed it. There is still some translational movement patterns, like the "flying V" the Zombies exhibit in the video now and again, but I already have a solution involving types of same entity types to add a few extra parameters to help limit the occurrence.

As for Furious Frank, I'd like to say a big thank you to Paul Thomas for his contribution to this little side project. Paul kindly integrated into Furious Franks source code one of his older basic cloud and ToD (Time of Day) systems. It will need tweaking for the project but it was most generous. Heres a little look at the current stage of integration:

When more time is permitting I will continue with working toward a release of Furious Frank V0.03

The current version of Furious Frank can be found here:

Furious Frank V0.03

Previous entries for this project:

MAGIA .. Monday

MAGIA .. Monday ... and a little bit.

MAGIA .. Monday .. a little bit .. and beyond

MAGIA .. Monday .. a little bit .. and beyond

2011-04-01T14:03:00.002+01:00

Furious Frank V0.01 came about from my requirement to have a simple application in which to test code in my code archives from the last year. It What was supposed to be a simple cleaning out the harddrive exercise got a little side-tracked. This version was achieved in about 14 hours on a Monday.

MAGIA .. Monday

MAGIA .. Monday ... and a little bit

Furious Frank V0.02 is the 10 or so hours I have worked on it since. With the prospect of a whole 3 days ahead with nothing to take up my time, I wanted to get Furious Frank V0.02 uploaded and start on Furious Frank V0.03. It has so far taken the best part of 3 hours to wrestle out that which was required for this demo from my oh so tidy development folder.

I have coded the settings to make this still an easy "game", but as its still in development with feedback on the functionality and performance being more important, if you died in a few seconds then there would be nothing to report, except maybe "its too hard ".

When you die you die, so keep that health topped up.

Not had anytime yet to code and develop a spawning system for the Bugs so I kind of just drop them in on the player, so, wear a hat.

Showcase Page & Download Link Here.

UDK - Hawken

2011-03-30T11:33:00.003+01:00

Hawken is a FPS multiplayer mech combat game. The team behind the development is Adhesive Games, a small independent game studio located in Los Angeles.

"When the Adhesive Games team set out to create Hawken, they had almost no experience using Unreal Engine 3. For Khang Le, art director at Adhesive Games, the focus was on finding a robust solution that could deliver the graphically intense vision he had for the game on a tight schedule and with triple-A quality.

Le and his team decided to use UDK for the game because, when it came to Unreal Engine 3, he says, “We were familiar with its reputation as possibly the most licensed game engine in the industry. Being able to begin production using a cutting-edge game engine with no start-up cost offers an important opportunity to indie developers like us.”

Adhesive Games considered other options before choosing UDK, but Le explains that it quickly emerged as the frontrunner."

Hawken UDK - Showcase

MAGIA .. Monday ... and a little bit

2011-03-28T12:34:00.003+01:00

Just a little update, I have managed only to grab a few hours here and there to spend on this since last Monday, and its now looking like it will not be until thursday when I can get into it like I did last monday. So heres a quick low quality video of how it stands at the moment.

Have a good week all.

I hope to get V0.02 uploaded by the end of the week.

MAGIA .. Monday

2011-03-22T11:57:00.003Z

Feeling the need to finally start sorting through my storage HDD's I came across my Blitzmax code library. I needed to test the code snippets and sort through what was worth keeping and what was broken. I found a FPS framework I had been working on but the code got broken with the release of 2.32, so before I binned it I thought I'd have yet another go at getting it at least to run. This was about 6.00 am monday morning, well I did have the whole of the day to myself, quite a rare occurrence. At around 11.00 am it was up and running, took an hour to locate all the assets it utilised lol. Still full of bugs and problems, I thought what the ... Heck .. and sat down with a gallon pot of coffee and tinkered with it ... and tinkered.. and tinkered a little more .. by the afternoon I was down to two issues, both to do with parenting objects in the transparency world. I left this and started looking through other code and slowly began to add different proof of concepts I had worked on over the last year or so...

Don't you just hate it when that happens ...

OOP's I did it again ....

I continued to tweak and tinker and add ..at around 10pm .. I had an Idea how to tackle the original transparency/parenting problem whilst chatting with Paul. At around 11.30pm I realised, the makings of a game had been born ... that game is currently known as:

Furious Frank

Well, its quite an easy "game" at the moment with infinite ammo and infinite life even if the HUD is telling me its running down .. but not a bad days work I felt .. hopefully next monday I can wrangle some more time and tweak it and add to it.

If I get time today, I will upload a demo to the showcase under the title, MAGIA Monday (as I Dont have time to spend a month on it).

Crytek to release UDK-like version of CryEngine 3

2011-03-16T14:16:00.003Z

Last April, I blogged about the news that Crytek might be releasing a free version of the CryEngine, much in the same way that Epic did with UDK and the Unreal 3 engine and also Unity licensing the indie version of their engine as free. Well, it seems that this will happen with CryEngine 3.

According to Crytek co-founder Anvi Yerli, "The barriers for entry will be very low, and perhaps [it will be distributed] for free." Details and a release date for this CryEngine 3 Lite SDK have yet to be announced. It seems resonable to speculate that such a release could be similar to what Epic Games did when it released its UDK tools in 2009.

Full Article Here

Sean Tracy also mentions this at the end of an interview recorded at GDC 11.

It is turning out to be an interesting year for indie developers.

Unreal Engine 3 Samaritan Real-Time Demo

2011-03-08T10:56:00.000Z

Revealed at the 2011 Game Developers Conference, the real-time demo of "Samaritan" shows what Epic wants to see in the next generation of games.

The features demonstrated in this video are available now in UDK

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Official Trailer

2011-02-24T11:05:00.005Z

"We're pleased to share the first ever in-game trailer for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the next installment in The Elder Scrolls series from award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3, Bethesda Game Studios. "

You might find you need to log into Youtube to view the trailer for age verification.

It seems Skyrim will be released world-wide on 11.11.11 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC ... so something to look forward to at the end of the year other than the cold weather. If they release another instalment of Fallout at the same time ... then hibernation this coming winter will just not be an option

I'll Take What's Behind Door Number 3

2011-02-10T14:49:00.015Z

Time is proving to be a most scarce commodity at the moment. So having a few hours spare I set myself some tasks and as usual did something completely different :rolleyes: I started work on a room and ended up on a new 90 degree section, corridor doorway section (with separate reusable door frame / doors and simple placeholder keypad switch box all to need textures), a few WIP scripts for the doors and some hashed together sound FX for them to and a short corridor "Door Plug" section to allow the standard sections to fit the door frame. Part of the plan for this modular approach to the level is that as many sections/parts as possible will be able to "plug" into each other. I also wanted to test out some new base metal textures to try and break up the "monotone" look. The door keypad switch would also require some sort of 3rd person object interaction functionality which was hastily coded and again as with everything else, still very much a WIP.

Simple keypad switch prop:

Development in Silo PRO:

A quick medium resolution video to show the "worksite" test scene. I can't take credit for the blue and yellow textures they are curtesy of Paint.NET's floodfill tool..

Hopefully next week I will be able to free up more than only a few hours to get fully back into this "adventure", but I was not unhappy with the progress I made in only two hours.

Scale to the chief

2011-02-05T20:04:00.011Z

With the basic texture workflow pretty much sorted for the modular level design (see here), I have turned my attention to getting a scale I am happy with. When this is done then after each section is modelled and then UV mapped it should be just a simple case of converting to .gmf format (famous last words). Scaling seems to be an issue that crops up across all the engines I use. But truthfully it matters not what others scale to, but that the relative scaling used in a scene is consistent for all static and animated meshes from props to scene to characters. LE has a scale of 1 unit is about 1m, I simply use 1 unit as 1m, therefore a character needing to be 6 foot tall would simply be a "metric" 6 foot.. or 1.8 units. This is the rule of thumb I use for all scenes and corresponding code. But sometimes its also good to check how it looks by eye. In a 3rd person situation its not just the scale of the level and the characters but having to remember the camera offset and how this would be effected. I normally do two tests, a simple static scene with characters and props placed to get a simple overall picture of the scaling.

And I like to knock up a quick app with a basic 3rd person collision cam and have a quick walk through (HD available):

So far I am happy with the results which means when time permits I can get on with creating the rest of the sections/rooms ect. I have also checked the scaling to make sure I can easily "block out" the level and run it through my pathfinding mapdata generator app which I had some success with in earlier tests of A* pathfinding (see here).

Bumping ..... Adventures in Textures

2011-01-31T17:59:00.002Z

Firstly, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a belated happy new year. I hope you all have had a great start to it.

I have not been doing much on the coding front for the last few weeks. I decided to get some assets created and try and develop my texturing skills a little further.

I also purchased Silo 3D Pro over the Christmas period as it was on offer. I had used the demo and was impressed at how "comfortable" it was to use. I now use this package as my main modeller but in conjunction with AC3D and UU3D. Basically Ultimate Unwrap 3D is the junction where all my modelling and art packages meet. Not only for Leadwerks with its .gmf export for both static meshes and animated assets but for all the engines I use, for me its an invaluable tool and a good investment for the minimal cost.

I have need of a modular corridor/room set, and decided to set about seeing just how low you can go with the poly count and how much you can offset the inherent "flatness" of a low poly environment with normal mapping and "hand painted" textures. This would be moving on directly from a previous flirtation with texturing which can be found here. Some more incriminating evidence can be seen in the gallery as well, fairly obvious I am no artist.

Another aspect of texturing I have been playing with is bump mapping. I use ShaderMap Pro which is great but making bumpmaps from diffuse textures can have horrible "side effects" when creating panelling.

Diffuse only:

Diffuse and Normal map created directly from the Diffuse texture by ShaderMap Pro:

Not really the effect I was after. After a few ideas and some testing I found hand crafting a Normal map "template" from which a Normal map would be generated by ShaderMap Pro gave much better results for this exercise.

I then made the first test section of the low poly modular level pack:

The textures were then UV mapped onto the section in UU3D and then converted all over to .gmf .dds and created the .mat files using ADN ... I love ADN truly one of the most useful tools written by a community member ever!!

I Lined a few of them up just for show .. 480 polys not bad .. considering the default rusty oildrum is 256.

Encouraged by the result thus far I moved on, making the section bigger but retaining the tilable nature of the textures

Unfortunately real life commitments caused a pause in my endeavours until a day ago so I have spent the last few hours refining some aspects and making a few more test sections:

The overall effect of the technique I am developing can be seen better in this video (HD available):

This is currently the point I am at, With some preliminary drafts for doors/doorways rooms and elevators/elevator shafts ect. I am trying to reach a point where variation is only a texture change away on standard section low poly models. I am still getting my templates organised and fine tuning the work flow and still very much a WIP, but so far I am quite pleased with the results.

Unreal Engine 3 - Environments Features Overview

2010-11-24T10:59:00.002Z

"Gorgeous tech demo trailer showcasing the features of Unreal Engine 3 and its free counterpart, the Unreal Development Kit, that help make lush environments."

Next.. Ambient NPC population

2010-09-08T20:15:00.000+01:00

Working on two principles K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid!) and more for less.

I spent a lot of time researching (read playing) certain games that have what I call an ambient NPC population. This is specifically those NPC's that reside in the background and generally have no real or very limited interaction with the player. Two such areas of research included Assassins Creed and Fable 2. Although both of these games have a far more complex general NPC population than what I am setting out to create, but the "research" was most enjoyable.

First Step:

Machine Intelligence "Kinda Almost":

Machine Intelligence "Kinda Almost", simply gives an illusion that there is intelligence at work but there is not, sort of like, the lights are on but no ones home. There are several subsets to this group but the obvious one is simple animation. Also this can include proximity reaction behaviour, a posh and complicated way of saying when the player is near, stop what you are doing, and do this instead. But that's as far as interaction goes for those NPC's in this group. This simple ambient NPC type could also use lua scripts, loaded with the level and be left to attend to themselves.

For example, just two chaps having a chat:

Having a chat is basically all they do, its simple per character animation's controlled by lua scripts. The purple block volume is the walkable area that would be utilised by more "advanced" ambient NPC's, typically those that move about, particularly those that would use Pre-Loaded and Pre Calculated path routes for this particular level. The purple block volumes are simply required by the application I wrote to generate the route node data for the pathfinding tools I created and have demonstrated here. Not that this is a level just something thrown together for testing but I think I should unarchive some of my GMF format models and put together a small town/Village for testing this, rather than another simple "BlocksVille".

There are obvious limitations to consider with this approach to the first tier of the Ambient NPC population for a "busy" town/village. The NPC's need animation's, most come with maybe 15 animation's (if you're lucky). My intention is to surmount this by adding animation's to them, primarily Mo-Caps. This will require a little work but will be the bedrock for the construction of this "tier". There are some very good applications on the market for achieving this. For me I prefer Fragmotion, there is also a free alternative that I also use on occasion called Pacemaker. But don't be fooled though, none of these applications will do it all "for you", you will need to skin the mesh to the correct rig for the plethora of free to use Mo-Caps, or indeed ones that can be purchased. It will all depend on budget and or requirement.

This is still only a very basic outline for this "packing" stage, it will still require a lot of work but my goal is to get the impact of it at runtime to an almost negligible effect even when including proximity reaction behaviour.

Attack of the Killer pathfinding butterflies!

2010-08-30T16:00:00.001+01:00

Just a little bit of fun with A* pathfinding using Blitzmax and Leadwerks, and some Butterfly/Insect AI I had been working on.

A* Pathfinding Using Blitzmax And Leadwerks Engine

2010-08-29T19:51:00.001+01:00

Following on from:

On The Right Path, A* Pathfinding In Leadwerks.

The Way Forward ... Making Blitzmax Trax ...

I decided to give the testing a few more hours. First off I wanted to create a new NPC Type which would have its own control flags and most importantly its own path storage buffer.

After a little thinking (a little thinking is what I excel at lol) and a few hours of coding and tweaking, I managed to get 32 new NPC Types all pathfinding their individual way around "BlocksVille".

For those interested I will try and get a demo.exe up later onto the showcase thread:

Pathfinding With A*

Demo now added: Hide And Seek Demo 2

The Way Forward ... Making Blitzmax Trax ...

2010-08-23T09:45:00.002+01:00

Following on from "On The Right Path, A* Pathfinding In Leadwerks" I thought before I archive the code, I'd have a little "dabble" with a basic function to get an NPC reading the path data and then following it to the "target" I had a couple of ideas on how to do this but as time for playing in leadwerks was running out I opted for a basic idea.

1. Target Position Selected
2. Path from NPC to selection calculated.
3. Path transfered to a temp storage array for that particular NPC
4. An NPC Pilot reads that data.
5. NPC follows the pilot.

Think of the "pilot" as the plastic stick thing on the underside of a scaletrix car .. it follows the groove in the track and the car follows right along. This was the quickest and dirtiest method but solved a variety of issues in one. Plus I just wanted to get the NPC moving and the sands of time were running out.

So an hour later and I have not only the NPC following the generated path but the path is updated with a repositioning of the target and the pilot takes the NPC off onto the new track.

This is all still quick and dirty, when I can remember what the code does and does not need, I will up a small demo.exe to the thread Pathfinding With A*

EDIT: I have uploaded a demo.exe here : Hide And Seek Demo

On The Right Path, A* Pathfinding In Leadwerks.

2010-08-20T09:38:00.000+01:00

Well, it has been a while since I made a blog entry, let alone done any work in LE. But I do keep an eye on the forum and Leadwerks in between Daily life and working on my project(s).

I have also been going through my Blitzmax code archive, where I stored all my Blitmax/LE projects and code snippets (finished and not completed). One idea I had been playing with before, was basic NPC AI. I had some small success with some Bugs using autonomous logic.

See Here

In my "treasure trove" of unfinished and messy development code I found what was going to be the next step (for me) with AI functionality. The dreaded "pathfinding". I have read that Naughty Alien said he will be doing a two part tutorial on this and I am looking forward to that, having followed his work with Hidden Dawn I expect the tutorial to be top notch. But I wanted to get to grips with the in's and out's myself. So I started with the basics. I spent some time looking for code snippets and A* lib's in any language that had them to see of I could follow along what was being done ... Not a good place to start, in the end I spent some time reading "A* Pathfinding for Beginners", very helpful.I decided it would be best to start with a "2D" approach and maybe use nodes. Most 2D implementations use a grid based on the X and Y co-ordinates of the screen and tiles to represent an "unwalkable" tile. So I thought I would translate this approach to a 128 x 128 flat terrain with some primitive models to define the "unwalkable tiles". As this was a time limited "side-track" in LE from my other projects, it was all going to have to be quick and dirty. I wrote an app to calculate which "tiles" of the 128 x 128 terrain did not have an obstruction and then squirted this data out to a text file to be read into another app as a 2D array. The map data loads in a few milliseconds so this eliminated having to wait for the same data to be generated by the application I wanted to use to try and get the pathfinding working. One problem I did encounter was that I ended up trying to reconcile three different centre of origins for the co-ordinates. The map data had 0,0 at the top left, the terrain of course has 0,0,0 in the centre and my maths managed to get the A* to read 0,0 at the bottom left, after some profanity meditation I used some quick and dirty and hastily constructed math functions to bring them all into focus, thus as per usual the dev. code was a complete mess, atleast on that score I am consistent lol

This version of pathfinding is very limited, mainly due to the way I created the node info. But for a first attempt I was quite happy.

I have uploaded a demo App to the Leadwerks Forum showcase , the picking can be a little temperamental and sometimes the quickest path is not always found and some "sightseeing" seems to find its way into the route. But on the whole I think it is definitely a platform on which to build.

Grunge Bob Square Pants ....

2010-05-01T13:13:00.005+01:00

Currently I am taking a small break from actual coding right now, give or take the odd few hours now and then I thought it best to start construction of my testing level, or at least get the main parts of it built as the testing scene/areas are blueprints for a project I have had in mind for a while, basically some nasty persons do some nasty things which in turn brings about a whole lot of nasty and the player is the antidote to nasty in general. Yeah, not much of "game description" but radically indepth compared to one by our very own Gordon ... but as usual, I start on one thing and somehow get sidetracked .. not my fault though, honest, it was Epson's! They made my printer, and it got clogged, and if I had not spent 15 mins cleaning it out with A4 paper I'd have never have thought, hey look .. grunge textures. Well, I am no artist that's for sure, and I hate texturing, but I thought might as well make a start. So after the ink had dried I scanned them in and spent a few hours working on a connecting corridor section, heres a few screenshots of how it has progressed so far. Still very much a WIP, but slowly coming together.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

2010-04-16T23:04:00.003+01:00

I started out this morning looking to update a test scene that I used for some first person tests I did in C++ after only having the engine for a few weeks and coding in C++ for even less time. Well, that was the plan. I managed to redesign the layout using 3DWS, and threw a few Dexsoft crates and Barrels in. The plan was then to work on textures but as usual after about an hour I had set sail on the good ship "unrelated" for a voyage across the bay of tangents. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

The scene under modification was for my FPS prototype code in Blitzmax, whilst sorting through my code "archives" I came across my basic code for NPC creation with basic Seek : Pursue : Attack Behaviour (an NPC Type using methods which I wrote about here). Integrating it into my FPS prototype was easy enough and an hour and a few more dozen tweaking "tangents" later I had it all working quite well. The video basically shows 3 "settings" for NPC toughness.

Best viewed in HD

Player Control was a bit "twitchy" as I have yet to tweak the Xbox 360 gamepad functions for smoother action, also the screen capture lag did not help.

It all still needs a lot of work but I was happy with the results thus far.

I guess tomorrow I will do what I was intending to do today ... or maybe not.

Crytek Planning a Free CryEngine Release?

2010-04-12T23:01:00.002+01:00

It seems Crytek maybe planning a free CryEngine release.

"The developer behind Crysis 2 and the engine behind it, CryEngine 3, has plans to release a free version of their game engine that will be "up to speed" with CryEngine 3. This should help Crytek to further compete with Epic Games and Unity, both of which offer free versions of their respective game engines, Unreal Engine 3 and Unity. "

http://www.1up.com/d...ory?cId=3178763

I suppose it was only a matter of time considering the route both Unity3D and Epic have taken. But will be worth keeping an eye on.

OOP I did it again ...

2010-03-11T22:40:00.001Z

I started out yesterday morning looking to improve my understanding of types and methods in Blitzmax, and figure out how to use object-oriented programming (OOP) with it. I have only been programming in Blitzmax since the beginning of December last year, and only programming with C++ since the middle of October last year and The Leadwerks Engine since the beginning of October last year. So I am still on a very high learning curve in this regard.

As usual, for me, I started out on one thing and ended up on another. I found a link on the old forum for a small tutorial on Object-Oriented Programming in BlitzMax By John Judnich. But by the time I had got to page 6 of 21, I was already off on a tangent and found myself working on a simple NPC type containing a creation method and simple seek behaviour method, after all I was now an expert after only 6 pages lol.

I had already been "playing" around with some simple AI which showed vague promise, for an Idea for a small project.

An hour and a few more "tangents" later I had managed to restructure the basic code for NPC creation and basic seek behaviour into an NPC Type using methods. This now allowed the easy creation of an NPC, in this case a rather nifty bug, created by ‘Psionic’, with its walking animation handled by its Lua script on load.

The test scenes buildings are by GIMPY73 and the Freebeast model is by ‘Psionic’.

Updated:
Test of Basic NPC creation : Seek : Pursue : Attack Behaviour using OOP in Blitzmax running the Leadwerks Engine. Extra flags added for behaviour to the NPC Type with extra methods to communicate with the NPC model's Lua scripts for animation control. Although I did manage to hardcode a typo in the "Pursuit" flag.

Of course this basic AI is nothing like the calibre of AI work being done by Chris Paulson or Pixel Perfect, but I had to start somewhere and this seemed the best place, so far I am pleased with my meagre results.

I recall Josh showing interest in integrating Recast into the editor, this would truly be a useful addition. Leadwerks could really use an integrated AI starting point. Thats not a complaint just an observation. Recast integrated into the engine and editor could be that starting point.

SSAO, SSDO or NO in Leadwwerks.

2010-03-03T21:57:00.001Z

I have not entirely made my mind up on the new SSDO (screen-space directional occlusion). I liked, in some circumstances, the effect SSAO gave, especially on bump mapped brick textures. But I find SSDO to be quite "fizzy" possibly from the curve on the camera look values. This may well be down to settings but so far try as I might I still get this. Not sure it will be useful in an FPS situation as the HUD model seems to interact.

It does however have a very pleasing effect on "organic" assets.

I think I will "play" some more with it, see if I can reduce the "fizzing".

A superb addition

2010-03-02T19:03:00.002Z

The new Indoor Lighting Optimization is truly a fine addition to the Engine. It has taken a little while to get into the habit of automatically setting the lights to Dynamic, Dynamic + Static, Static or Dynamic + Static + Buffered, as well as the needed setting for the objects in the scene. Objects that would normally always be static I have, for the time being, simply added an ini file to set them to static automatically. This will later be set via their scripts but for now it suffices.

Finally

2010-02-28T18:48:00.005Z

Well, after much testing I have decided on an actual 3D modelling app to use in my workflow. I already have Blender, and while there are some very skilled users of this on the forum (Niosop and afecelis spring to mind and their tutorials are definitely worth checking out), I still find its user interface awkward and clumsy. So I demo'd a few different ones that would not break the bank. In the end I decided on AC3D. I find it simple to use and has enough features for what I wanted it for. 3DWS is still my main application for creating architecture, but I needed something for what I call redundant decoration, and so far AC3D has proved to be just what I was looking for.

Redundant Decoration is simply my term for low poly non functional assets, like in the picture below, filing cabinets, desks, fake PC's ect.

Filing Cabinet: 12 Polys
Desk: 192 Polys (currently, still room for "pruning")
PC Screen & Keyboard: 70 Polys

The textures still need some work, but using a combination of ShaderMap Pro and manual editing on the normal maps has produced some promising results.

So far I am impressed with AC3D, and would recommend to those who were looking for a low priced 3D Modeller to check out its 14 day demo. Combined with 3DWS, Blender and UU3D I think I have this side of development sewn up application wise.

Weather or not

2010-02-12T18:41:00.006Z

Well nothing much to report, that does not mean nothing much has been going on though.

I have decided that as and when I make an emitter for a specific purpose, I will now create its own editor entity to save time by not having to create the exact same settings over and over. Also not every setting available needs to be adjusted so I will now re-write the properties to reflect what they effect and remove the ones not requiring adjusting for a particular effect and simply hard code them into the script.

This sort of came about when thinking about trying to get weather effects into the editor and eventually into an app. This is one I did for snow. It's a simple emitter used to create a localised snow effect in the Leadwerks Editor, using a custom .dds file for the snow flake created in Paint.NET

CCTV using Leadwerks Engine 2.3

2010-02-01T10:32:00.003Z

CCTV using Leadwerks Engine 2.3 from an app. written in Blitzmax as a proof of concept.

* The switch script being used to allow text and icons was created by Macklebee
** Best viewed in HD

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

2009-12-31T19:00:00.003Z

Josh (the CEO of Leadwerks) reported Christmas eve that There was a crazy sale on Steam and if you hadn't played STALKER, you could get it for $10.. well I had replaced my damaged copy only two days before that via steam .. and had cost me a whopping £1.39 ($2.22).. well if the $10 (£6.99) was still too steep a price for you, get over to steam now as its now only £2.00 ($3.24).. http://store.steampo...d.com/app/4500/

Ignore the date on this entry it was posted today (Jan 3rd 2010) but the Blog date system only goes up to 2009 for me there must be a switch around here somewhere ..

EDIT: Too late, price now back to full (£13.99 or $22.70)

Happy New Year!!

2009-12-31T16:58:00.003Z

Nothing much to report at the moment, still tinkering with some ideas, but thought I would take this opportunity to wish everyone, a happy, safe and rewarding new year.

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Terrain Holes Test in Blitzmax

2009-12-29T18:39:00.000Z

I was informed yesterday that the terrain hole functionality was working in Blitzmax, so I did a quick half hour test. This is a feature I find very attractive for level design. The ground cover (small bushes and ferns) is just place holder art, and all the foliage was just "slapped" in for effect. The concept is a simple, hole in the ground which gives access to (eventually) a large underground modular bunker system. A simple hole cover/access/room model was knocked up in 5 mins in 3DWS. The terrain is something I have been working on and have yet to finish.

Almost a week now .....

2009-11-29T10:55:00.000Z

Well, its been almost a week since the release of 2.3 and although I have been working away at it there is still so much new functionality I have not had a chance to fully explore yet. I decided the best approach would be to go back to basics, so to speak. Investigate how the new lua scripting and other features would cross over to C++ and Framewerk, this is still on going for me, and I am mixing that aspect in with getting to grips with the new functions in the editor. All in all I am impressed.

The only real problem I have at the moment is do I continue learning C++, I have after all only been coding in it for about two months, or change to Bmax or just concentrate on scripting. I am trying to decide which would be best for the new functionality of 2.3

For me this is key and the basic building block for any venture, especially an actual game. I am looking forward to the tutorials on lua and how it can be used. I do think we have entered a very exciting time with LE, and patience is still needed.

As I always say " Grant me patience lord .... but hurry up!! "

5 Hours !!!!

2009-11-23T22:52:00.000Z

5 Hours ago I started "playing" with the road feature in the new editor .. 5 hours ago !!! no, not because there is a problem its just been way so much fun. if you recall the video Josh did of this function, let me say its way more fun driving than being the passenger, but that aside this feature is simply great, and will suit a project I have in mind down to a tee. Took a while to figure out a few things I was doing wrong but the end results have been exactly what I was after. Top marks for this, I think I will need a few more days off to try out all the other features, oddly I feel a bout of flu coming on

Leadwerks Editor 2.3 for those Monday blues

2009-11-23T19:49:00.001Z

Well that was a nice surprise, having resigned myself to the fact that even though it was the 23rd today, the time difference between myself and Pacific time meant I would have to wait until 8pm tonight to upgrade to 2.3

But on awaking I found Josh had already sent the emails for upgrading .. Having today off means I can now spend it in its entirity "playing" ..

Leadwerks Editor 2.3, New forum, Blogs, gallery, file storage, customizable profiles, videos...

Who needs Christmas?

Leadwerks Engine 2.3

2009-11-20T18:05:00.001Z

Well it is finally here, pre orders are being taken and due for release Monday, 23rd Nov. (23rd? 2.3?)...

Textures

2009-11-19T19:32:00.001Z

I recently asked one of my nieces who is currently doing media and photography courses at college to keep an eye open for some "Gnarly Wood" textures. She emailed with a few images she had remembered to take. I spent an hour or two playing with them and quickly knocked up a place holder model in 3DWS to try out the two textures I had made from the images:

I then placed the model in an island scene I had built to test post processing effects using an application I have written in C++ using Leadwerks Engine 2.28, I was quite pleased with the result.

Whilst my texturing skills still need development (as with everything else), I found it a very interesting exercise.

Scene Patrol v1.00

2009-11-11T19:49:00.001Z

Test of an application written in C++ using Leadwerks Engine for testing scenes created in Leadwerks Sandbox.

Unreal Development Kit (UDK) Launched.

2009-11-09T15:06:00.001Z

Epic have released a free development kit powered by the award winning Unreal Engine 3.

The Unreal Development Kit, UDK, has all the features of the Unreal Engine 3. Experience the power and potential of the Unreal Engine 3 for yourself.

Check it out at http://www.udk.com/

Watch the video to wet your appetite.

Veggie Shadow Test

2009-11-06T19:53:00.001Z

With the recent update (2.28) I decided to test out the ability now to have vegetation layers cast shadows, it certainly adds a great deal of depth.

Test of concepts in Leadwerks Engine using C++

2009-10-14T19:58:00.001+01:00

This is basically a test of concepts in Leadwerks Engine using C++ after a few weeks of using it (and even less time coding in C++). Using mainly information learned from the online tutorials and help from the community on the Leadwerks forum.