It's December, which means Leadwerks for Linux is nearly here! Last week I had to get into more depth with our tutorials. We're creating a series of maps that demonstrate simple game mechanics. The goal is to show how to set up game interactions by attaching scripts to objects and connecting them in the flowgraph editor, without getting into any actual programming. These lessons center around a first-person shooter, but are applicable to many types of games.
I had to get my hands dirty i
I like the idea of being able to add dynamic properties at run-time. The following code shows how you can set this up. Instead of declaring a hardcoded amount of variables in a class you could just give it 1 Properties class and it can be dynamic!
#include <string>
#include <map>
using namespace std;
class Prop
{
public:
virtual ~Prop()
{
}
};
template<typename T>
class Property : public Prop
{
private:
T data;
public:
virtual ~Property()
{
}
Property(T d)
{
data = d
There have been a lot of lessons learned now that I’m finishing my first large project. RTS games continually push the limit on unit and structure counts and with the latest OpenGL features I would argue it’s now possible to have hundreds of thousands of units.
The strategy is simple, the implementation can get tricky. Keep all movement and calculations on the GPU and use textures as data structures (optional). The concept borrows a similar idea of a lot of modern particle systems in that ea
How many simultaneous projects can you manage until your productivity begins to drop?
This has been inspired from my own decisions and mistakes of over dedicating myself to numerous projects ending up ultimately being very unproductive.
If I have 4 projects and I split my available time evenly across these 4 projects the productivity is not split evenly. Additional time is taken closing previous projects and opening and prepping other projects. Will power, state of mind, and vision for e
An update has been posted with the following fixes:
http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/7847-undo-does-not-refresh-gizmos/
http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/7842-bsp-mesh-export/
[EDIT]
Now with sound!
I'm making a game that revolves 100% around old school final fantasy battle style fighting. I thought about what often slows me down and kills my motivation in games I've tried to make in the past. My conclusion was that dealing with graphics (models, UI, animations, etc) often slows me down in various ways. So as an experiment for this game I'm going to first code the entire core gameplay in a console application with a basic text based interface first.
I'm ho
Leadwerks 3.0 has been updated with bug fixes and productivity enhancements. To get the update, run the Leadwerks Updater. Use the Project Manager to update your project with the latest files.
Resolved bug reports are listed in the Bug Report Forum. This release fixes a few issues including Android multitouch indexes sometimes not working right, sphere casting that was sometimes wrong, and several other small problems.
Some new enhancements have been made to improve productivity. Cam
Things have gone so remarkably smoothly so far in the process of building Leadwerks Linux, that it makes sense we would encounter some issues sooner or later. In this update I will talk about some of the challenges recently encountered.
GDB
I was able to get GDB to debug an application built with the Leadwerks static library, in this case our editor. It took me a while to realize you have to hit "continue" once or twice when the application starts, because GDB pauses the program when it conn
As a single developer on a relatively large project that has taken much time to develop, the progression of technology can prove to be quite an enemy. 4 years ago the technology considered cutting edge is now legacy and the dependence on such technology can prove to be quite a headache when attempting to upgrade.
A common practice when the underlying implementation of particular technology is expected to change is to create interfaces that act as contracts all implementations must abide by.
Leadwerks 3.1 has entered the beta testing phase on schedule according to our development plan laid out in the Leadwerks for Linux Kickstarter campaign. Supporters who chose the SUPER BACKER reward have been granted access to try the early builds of Leadwerks for Linux.
We chose to use the excellent Code::Blocks IDE for Linux development. Beta testers can access the full Leadwerks API to program graphics, physics, and gameplay, along with a few new functions like Camera::SetMultisampleMode
Compiling Leadwerks on Linux using the Code::Blocks IDE wasn't very hard. I particularly like the way Code::Blocks handles files in projects. Instead of creating your own "fake" file system in the project explorer, you just add the folder or files you want, and they are organized in a hierarchy that matches the file system.
I found the X windowing system to be extremely easy to work with. I've implemented windowed OpenGL contexts on Windows, OSX, iOS, and Android, and Linux was by far the mo
Several people have asked me for my hardware recommendations for a new Linux gaming machine. I get rather frustrated by PC manufacturers who load computers up with expensive Intel CPUs and extra RAM you don't need, and then forget to include a graphics card. Or they proclaim PC gaming is not dead and proudly announce their "gaming machine" with a shoddy GPU, that costs more than my first car. I've been building my own PCs since high school, and I know you can build a PC with superior performa
The OpenGL 4 renderer for Leadwerks 3.1 is well underway. I began implementing deferred lighting in earnest last Friday. Previous work included setting up MSAA on deferred buffers, as well as implementation of the Leadwerks Buffer class, which functions as a thin wrapper around OpenGL FBOs (frame buffer objects). The engine already tracks relationships between objects and lights, and this system was able to be used to provide a list of shadow-casting objects for each point and spot light.
Last week Valve founder and CEO Gabe Newell took to the stage at LinuxCon and proclaimed that "Linux is the future of gaming". Gabe talked about Linux gaming capabilities and promised to unveil something "on the hardware side" the following week. Today, Valve announced the upcoming release of SteamOS, a living-room operating system designed specifically to compete directly with the XBox, Playstation, and Wii console ecosystems. SteamOS will being openness to the console gaming world. This will h
Hello Leadwerks Community!
In the game industry everyone is always shuffling around between companies as projects reach different stages of development. Since my senior year of college I have been striving to get on board a production team. So, when Telltale offered me a production internship I jumped at the chance.
One of my favorite parts of the transition is that Telltale uses Lua as their scripting language so if I ever run into a production problem that involves scripting I could al
So.. Recently i had a small moan to myself and on the forum, requesting (for the second time i think) for more CSG features. Boolean operations would be amazing but even simple features such as Vertex editing and extraction would be Good and make workflow much easier. And also Texture Locking!!
Anyway, I asked because i have this idea for a game in mind and i know in my head how i would like it to look and I know with the current CSG features it would be long winded and limited. The options
Leadwerks 3.0 has been updated with bug fixes and new support for joint motors. Hinge and slider joints can have an optional motor enabled that will rotate or move the joint to a specified orientation, at a speed determined by the new Joint::SetMotorSpeed command. This is great for making doors, elevators, as well as complex machinery made possible by the speed and stability of Newton Dynamics, the physics library powering Leadwerks (as well as the Amnesia series).
All joints can also have
The last year of my Game Development study has already started. With only one year to go it is time so look ahead and view the possibilities that are available.
Focus
The coming 20 weeks I am following a minor in advanced software engineering and Game Technology itself will be put in the background. Game development will mostly be something I will do in my spare time. I thought that this year would be really busy one but so far it has been very quiet. The focus of the minor lies on Java, t
All stickers have been shipped, and they look absolutely fantastic:
I've never been a "sticker on my laptop" kind of guy, but I am putting one of these on mine as soon as I get home.
Physical items are a little different from getting software to customers. With software, there is at most a delay of a couple hours between the time I have it ready to go, and the customer is using it. I did not anticipate much of a turnover time for the shirts, and I still don't have all the ones I need
A bug fix patch has been uploaded. Run the Leadwerks updater to download the new files. You may need to update projects (see File > Project Manager) and recompiled.
Recent bug fixes can be viewed here:
http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/forum/80-bug-reports/
Additionally, the following improvements were made:
Physics interpolation will be much smoother now.
Character controller was adjusted, works great on terrain.
A bug in the PhysicsSetRotation() command was fixed, though
3 Years and 35,000+ lines of code later I can look back and see many things I would of done differently.
I started my project more than 3 years ago which was when Leadwerks was at version 2.2x and unfortunately I was in to deep to switch to Leadwerks. My software is a game creation tool that is specific to creating Real Time Strategy games like Command and Conquer and Starcraft.
I've learned a few lessons about developing game creation software that if I were to do it again I would not s
A new update to Leadwerks 3.0 is now available. Registered developers can run the Leadwerks updater to download and install the patch. This update adds terrain, bug fixes, and a few small feature enhancements.
Our new terrain system, described in our Kickstarter campaign to bring Leadwerks to the Linux operating system, is based on a unique "dynamic megatextures" approach. This technique renders sections of the terrain into virtual textures and places them around the camera. The terrain pre
Compatibility testing for the new terrain system ended up taking an entire week. Most of the problems revolved around OpenGL ES and some iOS driver bugs. Once I got it running on iOS, Android was able to run it with only one small change. The quality settings in this video are lowered for mobile, but the new Google Nexus 7 can actually handle quite a lot, at an impressive 1920x1200 resolution! With a price tag of only $200, this is a great choice for an Android tablet.
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