Ultra Engine - Early Access running on Linux

[CJO Games]

I thought I'd post this here for anybody else too impatient to wait for the official Linux release. This is my Wine based setup for a 'working with visual bugs'  Ultra game engine running on Linux.

The OS I use is Zorin-OS (Ubuntu) on Gnome Desktop. The most important part is to ensure that the launcher of choice (in my case it is Heroic but its also working under Lutris) is pointing to the downloaded Client and not the installed one - it needs to install the client each time but this doesn't have any effect on the saved game files its just the launcher being replaced I'm not sure why this is. It also seems to work best if you force the engine to save or import project files not from the 'C:/' drive that wine creates and instead one of your Linux folders home/desktop, home/documents or one of you other disks from /mnt 

 

I've altered some of the .bat files for creating shaders etc to run from Linux so that they are compiled within Linux but the .bat files are runnable from wine if its preferred. You can also point wine to download the Vulkan runtime from wine as well as the SDK on the Linux side - this seems to work well.

 

TXT.txt

[CJO Games]

I have switched OS to POP_OS as I find it more stable than Zorin even though I think Zorin is better looking. One of the things I noticed is that Zorin is heavily reliant on Flatpak and, it would appear that the desktop itself runs within a Flatpak container. Unfortunately, this can cause issues with SDK's and access - this is especially the case when using other disks and them appearing either under /media or under /mnt and the access to those positions through the Wine layer.

With POP_OS I've got Ultra running through Lutris and, it would appear, this has been less buggy than Heroic in terms of screen - refresh. When moving objects in the map all four screens were going blank which made interaction interesting to say the least! It's still an issue at the minute but less so.

If you install this way be certain to add the cmd app/module through Winetricks otherwise you won't be able to run the .bat files from within the editor.

The main benefit with all of this is that I don't need to continually install the client app as was required with Zorin and the Heroic launcher. With Lutris it's possible to permanently point to the installed client app and it will run.

The following tools have proven to be useful with all of this: SPIRV-Tools; Vulkan-SDK (Linux); SPIRV-cross-main. Godot Engine FBX2glTF converter; Lutris; Heroic Launcher; Proton-up and Wine/ Winetricks.

 

 

[Josh]

Screenshots?

[CJO Games]

[CJO Games]

And the app running as of right now...

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by CJO Games
email pop-up in original image with a thrid party's name on it - removed

[CJO Games]

And one final one with the map I'm currently working on in the editor...

[CJO Games]

Here are a couple more images as a sort of comparison of Leadwerks on Linux and Ultra on Linux. They show the same map loaded in both although admittedly at different stages - the Leadwerks map is fully painted and has a full vegetation layer too - because those tools aren't available yet in Ultra the vegetation layer is, obviously, missing. I do think it serves to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of both engines though - for my own part, Leadwerks' biggest strength has always been its lighting - there isn't anything quite like it not even Ultra (this is just my own opinion). Ultra's lighting, although nice is much softer and so the result is, as far as I can tell thus far - that from afar it all looks lovely but close up it loses some of the definition that Leadwerks has.

In terms of running on Linux - Leadwerks has the benefit of being a steam app and is running through their compatibility layer with Proton 8.0-4 this presents no issues and the long running LIBCURL error isn't a factor either.

As previously stated, the Ultra Engine is running through Lutris and is using the Wine compatibility layer, specifically this one: lutris- GE-Porton8-15-x86_64 - its fast and it runs but there are problems specifically with the editor in multi window mode whereby the back-buffer(?) will go blank this can be seen in the last image. If you click the mouse to regain focus on the window it comes back to life again but it does make interaction a challenge. I suspect this has more to do with the Nvidia driver implementation than it does the engine.

[CJO Games]

One more image in single view-port and with the terrain fully 'painted' in Ultra - it also includes my first iteration of a water texture as a stand in...

[Josh]

The lighting in Ultra is going to be quite bright by default.

• If global diffuse / specular reflection maps are enabled, they affect everything. You can darken this by lowering the IBL intensity value in environment settings, but that's probably not a good idea...
• Environment probe volumes should be used to make indoor areas darker.
• For accurate lighting, you should never use ambient light in Ultra. The environment reflection maps and probes should provide all indirect light.

See PBR Lighting here:
https://www.ultraengine.com/learn/pbrmaterials

You can get the same look as Leadwerks by settings IBL intensity to zero, but Ultra is supposed to provide accurate PBR lighting. To get the most out of it, you need to understand some details about PBR and lighting. Ultra is giving you a more realistic model of lighting, whereas Leadwerks was a more artistic "adjust-the-colors" kind of renderer. The fact is, if outdoor terrain is exposed to the sky, even on a cloudy day, it will look pretty bright everywhere except enclosed indoor areas.