HUD, water body, Modeled and divided Terrain with LOD, and more

[amit]

Firstly,

Great Engine, simple as it should be. I have also used unigine, also great but cost is unbeatable for LE.

The LE tree sample and its animationis are the best I suppose!

 

Secondly,

1) I would want to model a 15km X 7km urban area.

2) fly through from the point to see the whole level to through the ground level.

3) 30 types of trees, shrubs and plant.

4) 200 types of building.

5) Own framework for GUI.

6) Have 8600M (Laptop) and geforce 240.

7) Going to have 460Gtx

8) Using C/C++ (if possible with QT4+)

 

 

Questions,

1) We have our own 2d UI framework, and outputs an array of char*, with RGBA format, where A is blend value. How do we overlay it?

2) How is the waterstuff in LE, is it eye candy?

3) Require LOD for level ground/terrain, from far a single mesh and from near a collection of different mesh, which are nearest.

4) Would be doing lot of light mapping and stuff in DCC (3dstudio Max), would pure light help? Would it let me save a lot in pipeline process?

5) Scenemanager == world() == FrameworkLayer, seems FrameworkLayer betters World system? Right?

6) Using c/c++, i would not be losing on something right?

7) approx time when LE3 launch.

8) Approx cost of LE3 (just to know, would anyhow buy LE 2.0+)

9) Hope pre-baked material is good with LE, without any dynamic light?

[Canardia]

1) You can simply use OpenGL commands in LE, like glColor4f(0,1,0,0.5); and glVertex3f(100,100,0);. You need to #include "GL/glut.h".

2) It looks nice, but it's just a flat plane. But you can dive also. It's possible to make your own waves though, by replacing the default flat plane with an procedurally animated mesh.

3) Terrain LOD is done automatically. For models you can have up to 9 LOD levels, and you can adjust the LOD distances.

4) You don't really need static light maps, but you can use PureLight, it has native support for LE.

5) Framework is just a ready built-in class which does lots of things you can also do manually using worlds and cameras. For example for simple mirror and realtime map rendering, it's often better to use manual world rendering, because you don't need all the post-effects in those small render buffers.

6) No, but you only win: maximum speed, minimum compile times (using Code::Blocks+MinGW), maximum 3rd party library support, maximum respect from customers and other programmers, maximum fun with programming

7) Possibly 2011Q4

8) Possibly more than 0, and less than 1000.

9) Yeah, but you can also mix pre-baked materials and dynamic lights. Pre-baked AO looks always good, but realtime AO is good too.

[amit]

Thanks for the reply, really helped me.

1) 9 LOD are good enough.

2) 2011Q4 is good, my b'day is in Q4.

3) I bet price of LE is going to be above 199,

 

 

For Gui, already tried that,

in the game loop,

1) setup Ortho mode in OpenGL.

2) made a opengl 2d texture from the GUI buffer,

3) rendered a rectangle, with the above texture.

 

It didn't work, it was just no effect of openGL code. So i searched for more gentle-man way using the provided API, no luck, anyhow the point of using LE is to avoid doing OpenGL .

Anyways, maybe I did something wrong in the above and would try it again. (I am using evaluation version)

 

 

Water bodies are going to be small lakes and pools, hopefully it is possible to achieve good water rendering like those AAA games by some additional work.

 

The terrain is going to be a static mesh, and at near LODs, I would like to replace one big mesh with small detailed multiple subparts. How is that done, using Editor?

Not going to to use "terrain generator", hope that does not hit the performance or functionality?

 

Can we integrate the engine as a QTWidget in QT?

[Guest Red Ocktober]

2- yes- look here--> waves in Leadwerks

 

video is from Leadwerks 2.26 modifications... still having a few reflections issues getting it to work properly in 2.43 but the waves and logic are in...

 

--Mike

[Canardia]

For OpenGL textures you need to use BindBuffer and two GL texture format commands. They can be found in the community OpenGL tutorial. You also need to put the OpenGL commands after RenderFramework(); and just before Flip(0);.

 

You can use submeshes as terrain too, then they're just Models which LE can handle very effectively with instancing. You can place them in Editor too.

 

You can run LE in a custom buffer too, so you can run it in a Windows Form or Qt4 canvas.

[amit]

2- yes- look here--> waves in Leadwerks

 

video is from Leadwerks 2.26 modifications... still having a few reflections issues getting it to work properly in 2.43 but the waves and logic are in...

 

--Mike

 

 

looks great, good enough for me!

[amit]

For OpenGL textures you need to use BindBuffer and two GL texture format commands. They can be found in the community OpenGL tutorial. You also need to put the OpenGL commands after RenderFramework(); and just before Flip(0);.

 

You can use submeshes as terrain too, then they're just Models which LE can handle very effectively with instancing. You can place them in Editor too.

 

You can run LE in a custom buffer too, so you can run it in a Windows Form or Qt4 canvas.

 

 

thanks,

 

I am a bit off on "TBuffer", how to implement custom Buffers.

Also if I can implement TTexture structure for being dynamic and use "DrawImage( TEntity texture ..." to draw it, wouldn't that be more logical and easier.

There is some thing here "http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/resources?record=19" on opengl drawing, but i am not allowed here.

[Canardia]

Yeah, you can also use DrawImage, but if you want to use PNG textures, you still to bind the texture to a TTexture buffer.

[amit]

Yeah, you can also use DrawImage, but if you want to use PNG textures, you still to bind the texture to a TTexture buffer.

 

png? I didnt get it.

 

TTexture ui2d = CreateTexture( 100, 100, TEXTURE_RGBA );

so ui2d is a char array of RGBA ?

[Canardia]

Yes, but for loading the packed texture file from disk, you can't use LoadTexture() if you use PNG, because it supports only DDS.

[amit]

Yes, but for loading the packed texture file from disk, you can't use LoadTexture() if you use PNG, because it supports only DDS.

 

oh ok,

so, if I do

 

TTexture ui2d = CreateTexture( 100, 100, TEXTURE_RGBA );

 

while( !KeyHit() && !AppTerminate() )

{

memcopy( ui2d, buffer_form_2d_gui_framework() , 100000);

DrawImage( ui2d, 0,0, 100, 100 );

}

 

 

This should do the work?

[Canardia]

You don't need to copy the whole buffer in each frame, that would be too slow. You can just use BindTexture once and it stays connected to your custom texture.

But you should see the example, and to see it you must buy the engine. There's lots of resources on Werkspace which you get for free with the engine

[amit]

You don't need to copy the whole buffer in each frame, that would be too slow. You can just use BindTexture once and it stays connected to your custom texture.

But you should see the example, and to see it you must buy the engine. There's lots of resources on Werkspace which you get for free with the engine

 

Oh, Ok thanks for all.

 

Working on a 2D level editor, after that I would be able to test perfectly the core functionality of the engine (for my requirement).

I'll play a bit more with evaluation and purelight evaluation. Hopefully I'll buy it, seems just good and simple.

[Canardia]

LE3 looks to be a even better, because it would be the first engine on the market which supports C++ programming on Android. And when you already have LE2, it's must cheaper to upgrade than to buy it directly.

[amit]

LE3 looks to be a even better, because it would be the first engine on the market which supports C++ programming on Android. And when you already have LE2, it's must cheaper to upgrade than to buy it directly.

 

 

Yep, If thing go well, I would buy it in next week. I just want to make sure that i don't wall struck on some show crasher small issue!

[Canardia]

LE2 is quite good in supporting workarounds too. No engine is perfect, but in LE2 I can at least workaround problems which I can't in other engines, because they don't have an open programming API.

 

So that openness allows you to continue working on projects, even if you encounter some bugs and limits with the engine.

 

For example if you have problems with Newton, you can use Bullet or PhysX. I tried Bullet with LE2 once, and it worked.

If you have problems with parenting entities to others, you can use GetEntityMatrix/SetEntityMatrix.

There are many other examples of similar problems, when you get further in advanced game development, and usually you can do a workaround.

I have even the source code, but haven't needed it for workarounds yet, so the standard engine has been good enough for supporting workarounds for me.

[amit]

LE2 is quite good for workarounds too. No engine is perfect, but in LE2 I can at least workaround problems which I can't in other engines, because they don't have an open programming API.

 

So that openness allows you to continue working on projects, even if you encounter some bugs and limits with the engine.

 

 

Ok, buying now,

Does it have something of 30day refund option, just incase ....

[Canardia]

Yeah it does, not sure if it's 30 days or more. I think I have seen only 1 person asking for refund in the 5 years I've had the engine, and not sure if he bought it again later on

 

Ah yes now I remember, he wanted a refund because his graphics card was too old to support SM3, and at that time there wasn't a demo available or it didn't demonstrate all features, or it was from the edge of LE 2.0 to 2.2 where LE got deferred rendering which needed SM3.

[amit]

I do not want to be second .

 

 

Hey, do they have google checkout? i read it in some forum, its just check and cc. I prefer ggl checkout.

[Canardia]

Yeah, there are also digital payment options, I don't know why they're not listed on the page.

Josh needs to send you a link for those.

[amit]

and coupons anyone ... B)

[amit]

Yeah, there are also digital payment options, I don't know why they're not listed on the page.

Josh needs to send you a link for those.

 

now what to do, mail it to support ??

[Canardia]

Best to catch him on the chat or send a PM, dunno where he went right now, he was here just 30 mins ago B)

[amit]

$50 only, woah .... oh wait that upgrade.

I prefer google checkout thou .

[Canardia]

It's 138.93€ only also B)

I think US dollar is bad for marketing, because it makes prices look so high.