Ultra Software Company Blog

On 24/08/2017 at 5:03 PM, Yue said:

Nothing is free, if a product does not receive assets, late or temprando disappears, no one works for love of the air.

...

Free is good cause it can make game for commercial as ogre 3D and it looks professional ! But I don't know why ogre doesn't work correctly so I try irrlicht and it works nice.

Other thing, Godot is nice but Eevee (Similar to UE4) from Blender is A KILLER to next generation for games LOL !

Don't get me wrong I love LE but Free is very good too because there a lot contributor to keep to update for nice open source software and for all never DIE you know.

In the open source community, many people donate code, and projects. This is a major features in the GNU/Linux community, however many do get paid, whether as a wadge or donation, from one company, or organisation. Globally a lot of people will also donate code and spend time contributing to the free, as in speech, and open cause. Licenses such as the GPL, protect the freedom of code and distribution of code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

Hi!

Good news for the new engine, and keep up the work! Do you plan to have the new engine have it's own editor later, when the framework is made stable and most of the required features?

Unfortunately I will never subscribe to anything. Dropped Adobe the minute they switched to this, and decided to use Krita and Manga studio instead of Photoshop... 

If you would later on, offer like for payments for a full year (5$ month x 12 = 60$), and pay for renewal, I would take this immediately!

That's the only way I accepted to join and play with my friends on Eve Online. For me the problem with subscriptions and my low income, is that something could happen and I would be in problems. Paying "per year", would allow me to pay when I have sufficient funds and stay in control.

Since Adobe, Autodesk, and others drive from way of transaction, it's really good idea to try this out. It just that this mode of payment is not for me.

I think there are few who make a game regardless of the engine and market it. I think most of us are fond of this. When I say that nothing is free, is that there will always be a trap that takes cost of something, I put the example of video games for mobile, with ads, and the question is Are they really free ?. The fact is that if you are a person who has focused on marketing a project that you do regardless of the engine you use, you will be willing to invest money, therefore you will have the objective of recovering that investment. The majority of users take the engines and do nothing, those are the statistics, but for people interested in this, you can achieve something, it is a business model. For my part it is impossible to have access to a monthly payment, but there are many alternatives, and leadwerks is one of those alternatives that offers the possibility of developing a video game.

I think it depends on - mean there is a big difference - if you are a "hobbyer" game maker who is trying to build something between your family and your real life-job, or if you are a team of 50 artists working hard on a project. 

I have to say I have no hope making a game that will make me rich enough that it could support my life and let my children good study. So I will never go for a subscription.

The marketing is overfulled of very good games and even though litttle companys are going insolvency. It's just a capitalism law that the bigger are going bigger. 

That's a pity for the others smaller developppers like Deep Shadows (Xenus, the precursors) or Topware (II worlds) or THQ (STALKER, Metro, Homefront, Darksiders..) who get (got?) nice good games ideas and projects, definitiv have no money but would merit success.

16 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

After the beta there will be a buy once licence? 

Yes, a regular buy-once license will be available.  I personally am not a big fan of subscription software for myself as a customer, but a lot of people like to have that option, especially when the monthly amount is very low.  And from my perspective a steady monthly revenue is very appealing because I can hire people more easily that way.

8 hours ago, Christian Clavet said:

Good news for the new engine, and keep up the work! Do you plan to have the new engine have it's own editor later, when the framework is made stable and most of the required features?

Leadwerks GUI was created in anticipation of the Leadwerks 5 editor, which will use Leadwerks GUI on all platform.  Smart pointers also will make it a lot easier to handle all the complicated data management of the editor.  So yes, a new editor will be created, and things have been moving with a plan in this direction for a long time.

12 hours ago, Josh said:

a new editor will be created, and things have been moving with a plan in this direction for a long time.

Just asking to get clarity: Will we have the obligation to pay for LE5 or will this be sometime more in the future be a free update for the owners of LE4 ? Does this mean the end of LE4 and what we know of it ?

Not sure what you mean by "end" but like LE2, 4 will still be around but unsupported.  There won't be a free update but Josh said he was considering a discount for current owners to upgrade.

Josh has said that le 4 will still be available to buy.I hope this comes true. le 2 was not much protected when le 3 came out.

I still have a copy but cannot find the api examples. Not tooo worried about le 2 though as I love le 4. Will I buy le 5? Hurry up Josh I am 93 years old now.

With "end" I mean I have spent hours becoming able to master this engine enough so that I can build funny games like I enjoy to do it and I really do not need a revolution. Beacuse I'm not challenging with the modern technik, I just can have fun with LE4, it is at my level.

I mean I'm very happy each time Josh is repairing or helping with problems or bugs we encounter, updating the engine for a better quality, and 4.3 or 4.4 was just very good enough for me to want to use it all the time I want like a utility I paid for.

I paid for leadwerks 4 and I hope I can use it 20 years more if I want, you know ? Without having to subscribe anything, like it was told as I buy this great software.

I would be something sad to have learn all this for having to quit in 1 or 2 years. That's what I mean with "end".

So, is it possible to change the render type of the engine? I know this may seem vague, but would it allow me to create my own shaders similar to UE4 and cryengine without performance hindrances? I'm not entirely sure if I am able to do it with this current version of leadwerks. I just find that the renderer of this editor to be clunky or very similar to the FEAR series.

On 8/26/2017 at 4:50 AM, Josh said:

Yes, a regular buy-once license will be available.  I personally am not a big fan of subscription software for myself as a customer, but a lot of people like to have that option, especially when the monthly amount is very low.  And from my perspective a steady monthly revenue is very appealing because I can hire people more easily that way.

I got a little nervous when I read your post at first, but now that a buy-once model is still gonna be used when it's release, I feel better. I see the subscription model for beta software like a Patreon of a sort. Best all, you know you're doing something right or wrong based on number of subscriptions, so you can dynamically change things based on real feedback rather than assumptions. 

I will be back in the office in Kiev tomorrow, but the quick answers are LE4 will continue being supported and available on Steam, and the documentation will simply move to a /learn/4 folder on this site.  Code changes for most games to run in LE V/5 are actually going to be pretty minimal for most people.  The biggest thing will be the elimination of addref/release and declaring all objects as shared pointers:

This doesn't even affect Lua code since those variables are dynamically typed, and you can save some trouble by using the auto keyword in C++.

That's really cool Josh that you tell and plan this, so if we build a game and would like in a few years add or change a feature, this should be possible... Sorry but everything else would be nonsense when you consider how much time it costs making a game.

" Leadwerks 5 is designed to be the most advanced game engine in the world "

LE4 is a great engine, but I mean come on.

For me the great thing about Le4 is the clean, consistent and easy to remember Api functionality.

Other engines are more complex in that redard.

8 hours ago, Crazycarpet said:

" Leadwerks 5 is designed to be the most advanced game engine in the world "

LE4 is a great engine, but I mean come on.

I said what I meant.  The performance will be totally revolutionary.

Can we upgrade leadwerks 4 projects to leadwerks 5  when it is out ?

On 8/30/2017 at 6:43 AM, tumira said:

Can we upgrade leadwerks 4 projects to leadwerks 5  when it is out ?

Yes, but there will be some programming changes.

8 hours ago, Josh said:

Yes, but there will be some programming changes.

There will be have PBR and what tag price is for, please ?

8 hours ago, khotan said:

There will be have PBR and what tag price is for, please ?

Yes.  Access to the beta will be available for those who want it with a subscription plan for $4.99 / mo.  The final version 5 will have options for a subscription or a one-time purchase.

On 1.9.2017 at 6:55 AM, Josh said:

subscription plan for $4.99 / mo.  The final version 5 will have options for a subscription or a one-time purchase.

That sounds fair I guess, if you can choose between subscription or one-time purchase. I am pretty excited to see LE 5

LE 5 will be windows and linux or windows only?

Will it has 2 versions, i mean Lua only and PRO: C++ and Lua?