[Detecting shadow]

2 hours ago, IceBurger said:

To get that effect one could probably make an object that positions itself so that the player is in-between it and the lights. And then check if the guards can see that object.

I would say you project from a light into player bone and then further into first surface hit. This is basically a point inside player's shadow and you can check it's visibility now. But it might also be inside some other shadow 🙃

[Detecting shadow]

Thief also had very much approximate shadow detection so I don't think it was much more complicated than couple raycasts. I remember light indicator randomly changing while moving in an evenly dark hallway.

What's much cooler is that supposedly the guards in Thief 3 can see your shadow even if they don't see you directly.

[Optimizing question]

One loop is always better but 40 is still nothing so don't bother in my opinion. Do what's more maintainable for you.

[Enttity classid]

Wait if that's so simple why not just provide a decalless shader with Leadwerks or have a checkbox in material?

[Enttity classid]

I wonder how they make deferred decal in other engines and give very straightforward layers system so you can exactly choose which objects are affected by decals.

[Lua in UltraEngine?]

Have you tried just going though a list of classes and method in Leadwerks? You will see what you can do and example show you when you can use it. Try reading various methods of Entity class.

https://www.leadwerks.com/learn?page=API-Reference_Object_Entity_AddForce

[Gta 5's terrain is made up of models]

Heightmap is just a method to define a mesh

[Release on Steam vs Website or Both?]

I don't even know a single successful indie game selling outside of Steam or at least Epic. It's well worth 30%.

If you convince Steam that your game is worth marketing by doing your own marketing first, it will help you a lot.

 

By the way, a good guide I recently found: https://gamesensor.info/guide/1

[Decals trembling]

I guess it's not as bad because they are all identical draw calls and renderer doesn't switch materials and shaders.

[Decals trembling]

Did you have vsync enabled? Also it's possible that amount of them doesn't matter as much as coverage of pixels on the screen. Josh knows if it's true.

[Decals trembling]

https://www.leadwerks.com/learn?page=API-Reference_Object_Entity_Camera_SetRange

No idea what default numbers are, so use GetRange first

https://www.leadwerks.com/learn?page=API-Reference_Object_Entity_Camera_GetRange

[Decals trembling]

Have you tried lowering camera far clip / increasing near clip? Just in case this is due to depth buffer precision somehow.

[Vegetation shader making grass asset invisible]

Show us your textures. Best I can guess is you lost your alpha channel, maybe by choosing wrong compression format.

[Gta 5 has a Concave terrain]

That's just modeled geometry. Typically all cliffs are extra geometry on top of smooth terrain hills

[Collision types]

There's this method to set collision types, but it's missing from documentation. I really hope Ultra doesn't suffer from these undocumented methods that Leadwerks has so many of.

 

Collision:SetResponse(type, type, response)

 

[Found some training on base lua... where to after that?]

Just copy what others have done, adapt it to your need and ask questions like you just did in the process. Everyone has done it this way, it doesn't mean you need a codeless "engine".

 

Script. is a table defined by Josh in Leadwerks. You add functions and variables to it indicating that they are part of this script and nothing else. You can create a variable without "Script." and it will simply be global across every script.

Script.number = 1	--Accessible inside this script
number = 1	--this is global in your entire game

 

[Found some training on base lua... where to after that?]

If you understand functions, tables, variables and loops, you are ready to go. Lua is that simple. My advice is to read Leadwerks' default scripts and see how those concepts are used there along with Leadwerks API. Then you try to adapt example scripts to your needs. And after that you are ready to program everything yourself.

[Where do they get all that speed from?]

1 hour ago, havenphillip said:

Subquestion how much do you think texture resolution plays into the speed? Like high res up close but low res far away.

 

I think resolution theoretically has some effect on speed, but in practice I've never seen it have any noticeable effect at all. Just make sure you don't run out of  vram and ram.

[Ultra Engine pricing]

With Maya it's an easy call because Blender is just superior. But what if Ultra has no competition? Josh can charge us whatever he wants.

[Release date for ultraengine 5?]

1 hour ago, Mortiss Coffin said:

Hello, I have a question...Where can I get the latest version of Leadwerks/UltraEngine? I went to the website & only found Leadwerks 4.1...Is there a more recent version or is this the only one  at the moment? 

Thank you!

If you want Leadwerks, it's on Steam. Latest version is 4.6.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/251810/Leadwerks_Game_Engine/

[Where do they get all that speed from?]

8 hours ago, havenphillip said:

A lod system basically looks like three copies of the models and textures with varying degrees of polygons/resolution, right? Is any other thing to it? I always feel like I'm probably going to miss something obvious.

Yes, but there are also HLOD systems where different levels might have different hierarchy so some objects aren't even present on some lods.

[Where do they get all that speed from?]

I just checked screenshots on google and they don't even seem to have many polygons. They seem to enclose you in tiny hallways with corners to keep objects on screen to a minimum.

[Pseudorandom Generator]

I don't get it, it returns the same value for the same input?

[Object in view]

That returns true for both frustum and occlusion culling? What if you only need frustum?

[Ultra Engine pricing]

Every engine with subscription has already given up on that and made a free option for regular indie users. And they make money from large companies. I honestly have no idea how to profit from us small indies, but subscription is definitely a hard sell for us in today's market.