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Ultra Engine Benchmarks Revealed - 10x Faster than Unity, Leadwerks

A few years ago, some folks at NASA asked for my help with some VR projects they were working on. They had switched to Leadwerks and were getting better performance with that, but it still wasn't fast enough for what they were trying to do. I flew from California out to Goddard Space Flight Center to meet with them. When I saw what NASA was doing with my software, my jaw hit the floor. Goddard Space Flight Center Rendering performance in VR is critical because if the framerate dr

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Ultra App Kit: Let's Solve the Desktop UI Problem

The foundation of our new game development tools is here, with a close-to-the-metal framework for building desktop applications. Close-to-the-Metal Framework for Desktop Applications We're approaching the end of a loooooooooong cycle of research and development...several years, in fact, have been spent building the fastest game engine in the world. A great game engine needs a great user interface, and Ultra App Kit provides exactly what we need. This will provide the backbone of o

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Leadwerks 5 Feature Spotlight: glTF Models

Leadwerks Game Engine 5 will be backwards-compatible with asset file formats used in version 4. In addition, we are adding support for glTF 2.0 (GL Transmission Format), a new open-spec model format from Khronos with support for skinned animation and PBR materials. glTF will be our main 3D model format, for both development and final published models. What's so great about the glTF file format? Documented and Human-Readable Unlike the "black box" FBX file format, which can only be re

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Ultra App Kit 1.1 Adds Support for Cross-Platform Development

Ultra App Kit 1.1 is now available on our website and on Steam. This free update brings cross-platform development to our fast resolution-independent GUI toolkit. To download the new installers, click on your account purchases. In addition to Windows, Mac and Linux are now supported, which means you can code once and compile everywhere to easily create cross-platform GUI applications. Builds on Linux use minimal dependencies and will work on virtually any distro without any additional

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Plugin SDK now available

The GMF2 file format provides the fastest possible load times for 3D models. A preliminary specification and SDK for loading and saving files in the GMF2 file format is now available on GitHub here: A Quake 3 MD3 model loader is included as an example.

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Leadwerks 3.1 Pre-orders Now Available, Indie Edition coming to Steam January 6th

Leadwerks 3.1 is nearly ready for release! In Leadwerks 3.0, we focused on making a solid cross-platform art pipeline and editor. In 3.1 we're adding graphics that go above and beyond the capabilities of Leadwerks 2.   New Features in 3.1 OpenGL 4.0 deferred renderer with up to 32x hardware MSAA. Geometry and tessellation shaders. Support for the Linux operating system, for both the engine AND editor.   Leadwerks 3.1 is now available for pre-ordering in the Leadwerks s

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Ultra App Kit Released

Built to power a new generation of game development tools, Ultra App Kit provides an easy-to-use C++ programming SDK for creating desktop GUI applications. Unlike other alternatives like Dear ImGui, the Ultra App Kit GUI renders in retained mode rather than immediate mode, and is specifically designed for desktop GUI applications. This makes applications snappy and responsive when resizing or refreshing a window. DPI scaling is baked into the design for resolution-independent

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"Concealment" horror survival game released

Developer @Ghost has released his excellent Leadwerks-powered game Concealment. Your life is in your hands Go to an abandoned village to find your missing brother. Explore the objects that come in your way. Solve the terrible mystery of this mysterious place. Concealment is a first-person psychological horror game. A game in which you need to solve the mystery of an abandoned ancient village. Story You receive a strange letter from your brother. He asks that you ur

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Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 Released

Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 is now available on Steam! This free update adds Steam peer-to-peer networking, lobbies, voice chat, and more. A new multiplayer game template makes it easy to get started with your own multiplayer games, adding new depth and interactivity to the fun. We've also added over 100 bug fixes, making this the most stable release ever to build your game on! New classes: Lobby P2P Voice Other changes: New parameters for bet

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Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 Updated

A new update for Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 is available on the default branch. This fixes a physics bug that would cause boxes to float into the air after the player stepped on them.

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Virtual Texture Terrain

The Leadwerks 2 terrain system was expansive and very fast, which allowed rendering of huge landscapes. However, it had some limitations. Texture splatting was done in real-time in the pixel shader. Because of the limitations of hardware texture units, only four texture units per terrain were supported. This limited the ability of the artist to make terrains with a lot of variation. The landscapes were beautiful, but somewhat monotonous. With the Leadwerks 3 terrain system, I wanted to reta

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Website refresh and Leadwerks 5

Back around February I started working on a website update that included the following: Responsive design everywhere. SSL everywhere. Visual improvement of website. Updated documentation system. Tutorials for C++ programming basics. Update forum software to new major version. Forum moved to new URL. All of that is now pretty much done.  These changes improve the online Leadwerks experience and are independent from the software itself, so it

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Plugins in Leadwerks Game Engine 5

Internally, Leadwerks Editor uses an EventHandler class for every interface in the program. The material editor is a class extended from the EventHandler. So is the little window that has all the controls to calculate normals. So is every viewport. The event handler class has one important function: Event ProcessEvent(Event) Every EventHandler has access to events as they occur. This is how all program actions are handled in the editor. The plugin system will work by hooking int

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Ultra Engine SDK Now Available

I'm pleased to announce that Ultra Engine SDK Early Access is now available. Four years ago, I set out to solve the performance problems I was seeing while working on virtual reality projects at NASA. Ultra Engine is the product of a lot of intense research and development during which I invented a new architecture designed for the way modern graphics hardware works. The results exceeded my wildest expectations, providing Ultra Engine with order-of-magnitude faster rendering performance than Lea

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Leadwerks 5 Beta Rollout

Today I am excited to announce plans for the release of the first Leadwerks 5 beta version.  Leadwerks 5 will roll out sooner rather than later, employing an extended beta period during which versions 4 and 5 will live side-by-side, using the same code base, with preprocessor definitions to compile each version.  This allows me to fix small problems without forking the code, while I can implement new changes in version 5.  The first features implemented will be the use of smart pointers for all

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Data Loss Announcement

First, so you don't have to read through all my rambling, the website database is set back to November 2010, and there is no way around it.   I was working with the forum software on Sunday, 4-17, and I was just very pleased with how things were working. I saw there was an update for the bug tracker application, and the change list just mentioned some bug fixes, so I felt okay installing it. The new version removed custom issue fields, which we use extensively for listing hardware, drivers,

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Leadwerks Engine 2.43 Released

Leadwerks Engine 2.43 is now available. This version features improved raycast performance, a new DRAWEACH entity callback, and a few small bug fixes. Registered developers can download the update by running the Leadwerks Updater.

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What Makes a Good Brand Name?

In evaluating possible company names I have come up with the following criteria which I used to choose a name for our new game engine. Spelling and Pronunciation The name should be unambiguous in spelling. This helps promote word-of-mouth promotion because when someone hears the name for the first time, they can easily find it online. Similarly, the name when read should be unambiguous in pronunciation. This helps the name travel from written to spoken word and back. Can you imagine telli

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Leadwerks Standard Edition Brings C++ Game Development to Steam

Following the successful debut of Leadwerks Game Engine: Indie Edition on Steam, Leadwerks Software today announced the launch of Leadwerks Standard Edition. This DLC on Steam adds support for programming in modern C++11 with Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2013.   C++ is the game industry’s leading programming language, due in large part to its superior performance and flexibility. However, the language is sometimes considered to be too complicated for indie developers to take advantage of. Lead

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Leadwerks Game Engine for Linux Launches on Steam

Following completion of their successful Kickstarter campaign to bring Leadwerks’ game development software to Linux, Leadwerks has announced the release of Leadwerks Game Engine for Linux on the Steam distribution platform. This provides Linux users with a powerful tool to easily create their own 3D games.   Over the last year, Leadwerks has focused on desktop Linux as a platform for creating and playing games. For many users, Leadwerks provides the last missing application they need to mov

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Creating Realistic Skyboxes with Vue

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a high-quality skybox for Leadwerks Game Engine using Vue. Download Cloudy Blue Skies.zip FixVueCubemap.zip Required Third-Party Programs Vue Esprit Exporter Module Loading the Example Run Vue and select the File > Open menu item.  Extract the zip file above and open the file "Cloudy Blue Skies.vue". Atmosphere and Clouds You can modify the appearance of the sky with the Atmosphere Edito

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Leadwerks Game Engine 4.5 Released, Enables Easy VR Development

Today we are pleased to announce the release of Leadwerks Game Engine 4.5. Version 4.5 introduces support for VR headsets including the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and all OSVR-based hardware, allowing developers to create both room-scale and seated VR experiences. The Leadwerks virtual reality command set is robust yet incredibly simple allowing you to easily convert your existing 3D games into VR titles. To help get you started the source code for our Asteroids3D game has been updated for VR a

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Leadwerks Software to Assist NASA Building VR Applications

TLDR: I made a long-term bet on VR and it's paying off. I haven't been able to talk much about the details until now. Here's what happened: Leadwerks 3.0 was released during GDC 2013. I gave a talk on graphics optimization and also had a booth at the expo. Something else significant happened that week.  After the expo closed I walked over to the Oculus booth and they let me try out the first Rift prototype. This was a pivotal time both for us and for the entire game industry. Mobi

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Building Multiplayer Games with Leadwerks

A new easy-to-use networking system is coming soon to Leadwerks Game Engine.  Built on the Enet library, Leadwerks networking provides a fast and easy way to quickly set up multiplayer games.  Each computer in the game is either a server or a client.  The server hosts the game and clients can join and leave the game at will.  On the other hand, when the server leaves the game, the game is over! Creating a Client You can soon create a client with one command in Leadwerks: clien

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Leadwerks Game Engine Launches in Ubuntu Software Center

Following completion of a successful Kickstarter campaign to bring Leadwerks’ game development software to Linux, Leadwerks and Canonical have joined forces to make Leadwerks Game Engine available in the Ubuntu Software Center. This provides Ubuntu users with a powerful tool for rapid game development.   Bringing Leadwerks Game Engine to Ubuntu also means that existing games can be more easily deployed for Ubuntu. The lineup of featured games on the Leadwerks website covers a diverse range o

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