Things that I need clarified for Leadwerks 2.5

[GameMaker]

I have a few questions regarding Leadwekrs 2.5 -

 

1. Is it possible to apply parallax occlusion mapping ( the one that comes in the material editor ) shader to the texture layers of the terrain created within Leadwerks 2.5 sandbox ?

 

2. Can I create my terrain in an external terrain editor like Earth Sculptor and then use it in Leadwerks 2.5 just using code ? Can I apply material to the terrain through code ?

 

3. Can I have collisions on tress that are placed individually in the sandbox or using code at runtime ? (without using the vegetation layer )

 

4. Is it possible to have paging terrain as found in cross country racing games ?

 

5. Can I apply parallax occlusion mapping to my skinned meshes ?

 

6. Can everything - every settings and features available in sandbox be applied / manipulated / changed using code at runtime (including run-time terrain generation using lightmap) ?

 

7. There are lots of pre-made shaders available in the material editor including eye candy effects like volumetric light scattering. Can I use them directly on my game objects ? For example volumetric light scattering happening at a desired screen location instead of the default directional sunlight ?

 

8. Do I get guide / manual on how to do the above stated 7 things ?

 

9. I want to apply the effects -

• Distance fog
  
• Skyboxes
  
• HDR / Iris adjustment
  
• Bloom
  
• Antialias
  
• Near and far depth-of-field (DOF)
  
• Volumetric light scattering (God rays)
  
• Screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO)
  
• Transparency and refraction.
  
• Water with reflection, refraction, physics, and full-screen underwater effects.
  

 

without using the "Framework" or in other word build my own framework. Do I get a guide / manual on how to do that ?

[Canardia]

All of the above is possible when you use a mesh terrain.

[Pixel Perfect]

1. I believe we used to be able to, but I have not done so myself. Someone else will advise

 

2. You can import a heightmap and apply textures in code, otherwise its a mesh

 

3. Yes

 

4. Not without writing your own system

 

5. I suspect not but havn't tried that, Probably would need to amend the shaders

 

6. Pretty much

 

7. Some come as default with the engine but no volumetric light scattering, people have done their own

 

8. There is some help but it won't include all those features

 

9. No you do not ... you're on your own

[Josh]

I have a few questions regarding Leadwekrs 2.5 -

 

1. Is it possible to apply parallax occlusion mapping ( the one that comes in the material editor ) shader to the texture layers of the terrain created within Leadwerks 2.5 sandbox ?

No.

 

2. Can I create my terrain in an external terrain editor like Earth Sculptor and then use it in Leadwerks 2.5 just using code ? Can I apply material to the terrain through code ?

Yes.

 

3. Can I have collisions on tress that are placed individually in the sandbox or using code at runtime ? (without using the vegetation layer )

Yes.

 

4. Is it possible to have paging terrain as found in cross country racing games ?

No.

 

5. Can I apply parallax occlusion mapping to my skinned meshes ?

Yes.

 

6. Can everything - every settings and features available in sandbox be applied / manipulated / changed using code at runtime (including run-time terrain generation using lightmap) ?

We don't use lightmaps. There's a few things like vegetation that only can be created in the editor.

 

7. There are lots of pre-made shaders available in the material editor including eye candy effects like volumetric light scattering. Can I use them directly on my game objects ? For example volumetric light scattering happening at a desired screen location instead of the default directional sunlight ?

Not really.

 

8. Do I get guide / manual on how to do the above stated 7 things ?

There's a link to the docs in the site header.

 

9. I want to apply the effects -

• Distance fog
  
• Skyboxes
  
• HDR / Iris adjustment
  
• Bloom
  
• Antialias
  
• Near and far depth-of-field (DOF)
  
• Volumetric light scattering (God rays)
  
• Screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO)
  
• Transparency and refraction.
  
• Water with reflection, refraction, physics, and full-screen underwater effects.
  

without using the "Framework" or in other word build my own framework. Do I get a guide / manual on how to do that ?

I don't understand this. You want the effects set up for you, but you don't?

[GameMaker]

Yes, the framework is all right for basic need. But suppose I need volumetric light scattering happening from the magic wand of a wizard character then the default volumetric scattering implemented in the framework does not come into use. In such a case I want to know if I can apply the godrays frag shader that comes within the material editor's dropdown list.

I may also need to alter the color, intensity or noise of the emitted god ray and have shadows cast on the floor when a character walks beneath it ( without using a spot light source ).

 

Apart from this there are many shaders included in the material editor. The wiki video and pdf tutorial about materials cover diffuse bump map specular and parallax occlusion mapping. But they do not cover all the settings and combination for the rest of the shaders available

in the material editor. Do I get a table / chart that covers settings for each of the available shaders ? ( I am totally novice in shader programming )

 

As for point number 6, I meant to write - runtime terrain generation using heightmaps ( instead of light maps ).

 

For point number 1, "applying parallax occlusion mapping to terrain texture layer"s - can it be done if I import my terrain from other terrain making softawre into leadwerks ? Or applying surface detail shaders like detail mapping is not possible in Leadwerks 2.5 ?

[Josh]

Everything you describe is technically possible, you just have to be a GLSL expert to do it. We don't provide tutorials for customizing the renderer.

[GameMaker]

All right ....

[GameMaker]

How long will I get support for Leadwerks 2.5 before everything gets closed down officially ?

[Canardia]

Nobody knows exactly, but I estimate 9.83752 months.

[Josh]

How long will I get support for Leadwerks 2.5 before everything gets closed down officially ?

We'll keep doing bug fixes, but Leadwerks 3 is going to be our new foundation for building on.

[GameMaker]

Does Leadwerks 2.5 have inbuilt feature to make sure that all kinds of character animation, camera movement, entity movement and rotation takes place at the same speed on different CPU and GPU ?

[Canardia]

Yes, you simply multiply all movement and animation speeds with AppSpeed().

[Josh]

In Leadwerks 3 the function is Time::GetSpeed(). Does the same thing.

 

The physics system in both automatically runs at a constant framerate and interpolates between frames.

[GameMaker]

In Leadwerks 2.5, AppSpeed() doc states it is for framerate-independent entity motion. What about animation speed of rigged characters ? How do I ensure that rigged characters display their animation at a desired constant speed across diverse CPUs and GPUs ?

 

And what about entity movements influenced under the inbuilt Newton Physics system ? How do I ensure that physics simulation occurs at the desired constant speed across diverse CPUs and GPUs ?

[Canardia]

Physics uses internally something similtar to AppSpeed(), so you should not use the AppSpeed() multiplier for physics commands like AddBodyForce(), AddBodyTorque(), etc....

 

Animations are kept at computer independant speed also using the AppSpeed() multiplier, in the Animate() command.

Like:

frame+=0.1*AppSpeed();

Animate(model,frame).

[Admin]

In Leadwerks 2.5, AppSpeed() doc states it is for framerate-independent entity motion. What about animation speed of rigged characters ? How do I ensure that rigged characters display their animation at a desired constant speed across diverse CPUs and GPUs ?

I always use the current time as the frame number, divided by some number to make the speed faster/slower.

 

And what about entity movements influenced under the inbuilt Newton Physics system ? How do I ensure that physics simulation occurs at the desired constant speed across diverse CPUs and GPUs ?

It just works. You can add forces without worrying about modulating them.

[gamecreator]

It just works. You can add forces without worrying about modulating them.

It would be great for Leadwerks 3 to do this just in general. Some engines/libraries let you set an FPS and you don't have to worry about adjusting every variable. I don't know how they do it but it is oh-so-very convenient.

[Josh]

You can use Time::Step() and the program will run at a constant rate each frame. It will just slow down if the program lapses below 60 FPS.

 

I think it's most important that the API be unambiguous and predictable. Second-guessing the programmer usually causes more problems than it fixes.

[ChrisMAN]

I think it's most important that the API be unambiguous and predictable. Second-guessing the programmer usually causes more problems than it fixes.

 

Where I come from we call it 'Principle of Least Surprise'

[GameMaker]

According to OpenGL org http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Detecting_the_Shader_Model

 

GLSL versions went through some interesting number changes.

Until version 3.30, the GLSL version number and the corresponding OpenGL version number were different. Here's a table: OpenGL

Version GLSL

Version 2.0 1.10 2.1 1.20 3.0 1.30 3.1 1.40 3.2 1.50

For all versions of OpenGL 3.3 and above, the corresponding GLSL version matches the OpenGL version. So GL 4.1 uses GLSL 4.10.

Direct3D Shader Model 4.0 is equivalent to GLSL version 3.30. Earlier GLSL versions for OpenGL 3.x provide subsets of this functionality, based on the available functionality in the OpenGL version, though 1.50 is almost feature-identical to SM4.

Direct3D Shader Model 5.0 is equivalent to GLSL version 4.30.

For earlier shader models, GLSL versions less than 1.30 are used. Because GLSL is a high-level language, many of the differences between SM 2 and 3 are not exposed to the user.

 

 

And the Leadwerks 2.5 system requirements state -

 

 

 

System Requirements

 

Minimum:

• Windows 7, Vista, or XP
  
• Nvidia GEForce series 7000 or ATI Radeon series 3000 graphics card (Shader Model 3)
  
• 1.0 GHz CPU
  
• 512 MB RAM
  

Recommended:

• Windows 7, Vista, or XP
  
• NVidia GEForce 8800 or ATI Radeon 3870 graphics card (Shader Model 4)
  
• 3.0 GHz CPU
  
• 2 GB RAM
  

Please ensure your graphics drivers for NVidia and ATI cards are up to date.

 

Intel integrated graphics chips are not supported.

 

 

I am confused tallying between MIcrosoft's Shader Model 3.0 and 4.0 and Leadwerk's supoorted OpenGL and GLSL version.

 

Can you please confirm which versions of Open GL are fully supported by Leadwerks 2.5 and which GLSL versions are fully supported in Leadwerks 2.5 engine ?

[shadmar]

That depends on your hardware I'd think.

[GameMaker]

I thought if an engine is written in OpenGL version 2.1 then the GLSL version that can be used is 1.2.

 

But you are saying it all depends on the hardware. So if I have a GPU that supports OpenGL 4.2, will I be able to write GLSL code that confirms to GLSL version 4.20.6 and use it within the Leadwerks material files without any problems ?

 

Additionally this wikii page http://www.leadwerks...OpenGL_Commands

shows that one can use OpenGL functions directly within Leadwerks and draw on the screen. Can I use OpenGL 4 functions to do such thing ?

 

So again please confirm

 

1. What GLSL versions are supported by Leadwerks 2.5 ?

 

2. What OpenGL versions are supported by Leadwerks 2.5 ?

[Pixel Perfect]

From all these questions I can only infer you are an experienced game designer. Care to share your background and examples of previous work with us and a brief outline of what you are planning to maybe use LE2 for?

 

Always interested in new members and what they can potentially bring to the community.

[GameMaker]

Read post number #5. If you still infer the same I have nothing further to say. But would surely like answers from the creator of the engine regarding my questions stated in post #22

[Pixel Perfect]

Well post #5 revealed little. I see it states 'I am totally novice in shader programming' but little else to be honest! No worries, I'm sure josh will get round to answering your latest questions when he has the time.