To buy or not to buy

[andy_s]

Hi,

 

I have just downloaded the LE3 trial. I really like the engine so far. However, there are still a few important features missing, like particle editor and terrain editor.

is there somewhere a roadmap available so I can see which features come with which version?

 

I think the new website should be improved a lot...it's not really clear what features the engine supports right now.

 

Thanks

 

Andi

[Josh]

FYI, there is a particle editor:

 

Terrain is not yet implemented, but it's something I will turn my attention to soon.

[Rick]

I didn't even know the particle editor existed Nice!

[karmacomposer]

Hmmm. I did not know the particle editor was there either. I have to read the manual one of these days!

 

Mike

[Admin]

This is where we should add that info:

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/documentation/_/user-guide/scene-browser-r675

[karmacomposer]

By the way, to the OP - Buy It! It's a great engine only to get even greater and Leadwerks is a standup company with a decent reputation and creates seriously cool engines and tools. This one is sure to be a game changer once all major features are in there. For me, at this point, all they need to add is terrain and water and it's ready for serious games.

 

Mike

[Pancakes]

LE3 is the Kate Upton of game engines if game engines were swimsuit models.

 

Buy it.

[andy_s]

Thanks for the replies. But is there some roadmap somewhere? I am just concerned I buy now and then have to buy soon upgrades only to get the features I might need.

[Josh]

Terrain will be supported in 3.0 at no additional charge.

 

Beyond that, I'm not going to put a rigid plan in place. There's a lot of different areas we can focus development effort on, and we're still learning who our main customer is.

[Juggernaut]

In the current particle editor of LE 3 I do not see all the features mentioned in this video

 

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/videos/_/-r160

 

Will those get implemented - different types of emitter shapes, particle attraction, particle deflection etc. and other things mentioned in that video ?

[cassius]

is deffered lighting still on the menu or will that depend on where your main customers are?

[beo6]

Will those get implemented - different types of emitter shapes, particle attraction, particle deflection etc. and other things mentioned in that video ?

 

It might not be in the editor yet like some other things but it should be usabe with code using the Emitter class:

http://www.leadwerks...erence/emitter/

 

//Edit: have looked at the editor and i haven't found anything missing from the Particle Editor except the attractor and detractor.

[andy_s]

I have one more question. In the demogame, it looks like it is completely scripted. Is this how the engine is intended to use? Is there an example of a game created in C++ and the game objects are scripted objects?

[YouGroove]

There's a lot of different areas we can focus development effort on, and we're still learning who our main customer is

Some GUI system and GUI editor should be planned before terrain perhaps ?

 

About the customers, i think this is talking about some game companies specially some that would need to move their PC game to mobile ?

 

[cassius]

How do we know if we are "main" customers" and if we don;t come into that category will our requirements be overlooked? This engine needs to be at least as good as le2 was for us pc only users just as much as for mobile developers.

[YouGroove]

I don't know, but even big company customers will need terrain and GUI system at some point.

And also a refined editor (Gizmos for camera and lights, better Gizmos for rotation etc ...)

 

Finally LE 3 have some great script system. Flowgraph seems to not be anymore something that will be interesting or developped, C++ mobile taking the lead.

 

What point is lacking to LE3 and that could have boosted it's popularity is some oepn editor , letting people easily control the 3D content and add custom panels, and people could make editor plugins and extensions.

But LE 3 way is not to copy what all is done elsewhere and shine in his own areas and prices.

 

Let's wait some months patiently for a GUI system and editor.

[karmacomposer]

+100 for gizmos for the camera and lights.

 

Mike

[OutragedSuburbanAmerican]

Leadwerks 3 seems good, except by a recent controversial review by someone on Wikipedia who slammed Leadwerk 3 as a weak engine:

http://en.wikipedia....ngine#Criticism

[AggrorJorn]

Note that that page is about le2 and not about Leadwerks 3.

[Josh]

The engine is written primarily in BlitzMax not C/C++. This is a barrier for console support, limiting access to a much larger customer base.

Leadwerks 3 is written in C++.

 

Another constant point of criticism is about the built-in terrain system. Although this allows to have a terrain of 4096² gridpoints in size (heightmap resolution), it supports only 5 texture layers due to hardware limitations and speed concerns. There may also be only one terrain at a time, making it impossible to implement a paging system for unlimited sized worlds.

The GPU only has so many texture slots available. The Leadwerks 3 terrain system is going to use a different technique for texturing.

 

Furthermore, the SDK's API commands can not be called in a multithreaded manner, complicating the implementation of streamed media loading.

There is no game engine in the world that does this, because it's impossible.

[Josh]

How do we know if we are "main" customers" and if we don;t come into that category will our requirements be overlooked? This engine needs to be at least as good as le2 was for us pc only users just as much as for mobile developers.

I'd say Leadwerks 3 is already light years ahead of Leadwerks 2, in terms of actual game development. Unless you were willing to put in a lot of your own code to build a gameplay system up, it was hard to make a game with Leadwerks 2. With Leadwerks 3, all that functionality is provided out of the box. Setting up advanced game interactions is simple with the flowgraph system, and the built-in AI features relieve the programmer of so much extra work.

[cassius]

Thanks Josh. I look forward to using le3 very soon now my le2 game is almost finished.