Where can I find some amazing demos that show off the engine?

[karmacomposer]

When I was deciding to buy Leadwerks (again), there were all kinds of really amazing scenes in the gallery and videos.  I was hoping Leadwerks (through STEAM) came with these demos - but it didn't. I bought the nature pack and the sci-fi corridors DLC and no demos showing those off (and I think I double purchased because I THINK these packs are the work of a 3D artist I have unlimited downloads for (Arteria 3D).

Where can I download these demos - for example, the nature / forest scenes.  I want to be wowed.  More importantly, I want to wow my team and convince them that Leadwerks is the right engine for our projects.

Unity has been a total pain in the tush, I don't like UE4's workflow, Coppercube just cannot be used for serious games, Game Guru is great but lots of things keep getting broken after updates and S2 crashes every 2 minutes but looks freakin AMAZING! Please tell me I can create games that look as good as any of S2's demos!!!

I looked on the workshop, in the store - no amazing cool knock your socks off demos.  Long ago, (pre-STEAM) Leadwerks came with cool demos.

Where are these elusive demo projects?

Mike

[Genebris]

You want scene like this? It's easy to create yourself if you already bought these models.

[Josh]

I am considering turning the Zone into a DLC and a standalone flythrough you can play.

[karmacomposer]

All I know is a long time ago there were really good samples and projects - right now, there's nothing.  I cannot find a single good demo project to load in and show my team.

Mike

[TWahl]

What about the fps demo that comes with leadwerks? With the crawlers and the elevator in it?

[karmacomposer]

I have not seen that one - just the fps tutorial.  Every time I try a new FPS level, the maps are the tutorial ones.  What is the name of the map that has the 'crawlers'?

On the other hand, I did find the terrain tutorial and added the nature assets I bought and have done some cool stuff with all of that.  I also moved over models I bought from Unity and Game Guru and those come into easily.  No problem with static meshes at all.

Mike

[mdgunn]

You want the map called '07-AI and Events.map' in the FPS sample project.

 

 

[TWahl]

If you really want to create something stunning then you also have to have good art/3d skills as well. You won't get great results if you don't have good 3d assets to create a scene with - if you are fairly adept at 3d modeling and texturing you might want to look into some tutorials on the internet (or paid) for how to create next gen style assets and/or scenes.

[mdgunn]

I think there was a fairly full example of a previous leadwerks project converted to work on Leadwerks 3/4 but I'm sorry I can't remember what it was called to help you find it.  

If someone else reads this they may remember the name.

Try searching the forums for 'competitions' and you might get an idea of what people have done recently. Usually there is at least an EXE version you can download. The competitions usually lasts a month. However, at least for myself I usually struggle to find much time so anything I submit is usually composed of a few hours of patchy work here and there and a couple of days of more focused time.  Basically it's usually possible to get together a basic concept in a few days with Leadwerks.  A full price style game of course takes much, much longer.

You're right it would be good to have some more accessible and abundant sample projects.  Josh is aware of this and planning some steps to address this.  As a number of beta work has now made it into 4.4 it may be one of the next things on the list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mdgunn]

Maybe there should be a project or demo category or something on the workshop (not sure if there maybe was one in the past too).  With more content it's hard to find these and not much incentive for people to upload an example without a sensible matching category.

 

[karmacomposer]

I'll tell you.  I created a beautiful landscape with assets I brought in from another engine as well as flora and fauna from Leadwerks. Once I turned on SSAO, Blur, godrays and other effects, the engine started to really look good.

Water needs to be improved, but everything else looks really good.

Mike

[mdgunn]

Yeah Leadwerks is by default quite conservative in it's initial setup. Lightprobes are nice too when you're indoors (and possibly outdoors?)

If you haven't already you may wish to check out PBR implementations.   There is one in the workshop but also one on github.  I think it is still correct that the default shipping shaders don't have PBR  (in LW5 - as we have some implementations maybe this might be soonish) but Leadwerks is open to writing your own so a couple have been done...

Think this is PBR: https://www.leadwerks.com/workshopitem?tags=Material&queryType=1&fileType=0&fileid=658772226

And this stuff definitely is....

 

 

[karmacomposer]

That looks amazing.  I assume it's all in the shaders then.  Do we assign the PBR shaders to materials?

Mike

[mdgunn]

Yeah shaders are powerful but you usually need a good understanding of some more advanced maths to write your own.

The association between material shader slots (the UI) and the shader  (code/file) is kinda loose. E.g. I think the emission shader, or one of them, internally in its code needs you to set it in slot 4 in the material UI, though slot 4 isn't specifically named as Emission in the UI.

For PBR shaders I think they replace the existing shaders and I think use some additional slots as there can be more maps in a PBR workflow.  Should be enough info around if you dig a bit

  

[karmacomposer]

I'll likely play with PBR after I create the games we are working on.  Right now, I need to create what I can realistically get done now, but thank you for the really cool links and next-gen Leadwerks engine graphics.

Mike