Hi! Some beginner's questions.

[Canardia]

I can't upload anyting in the Forum, it says: "This upload failed".

[Josh]

That's strange, I just tried uploading your .doc file and it worked fine.

[Canardia]

I'll just put it here, I think it's good for people also who are considering buying Leadwerks Engine.

Here it is:

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/Documentation/LE2/tutorials/_/programming/quickstart-tutorial-r69

[Josh]

That's actually quite a good summary. I'm impressed.

[caustic]

Well yes, donations are a great way of showing gratitude, but personally I wouldn't offer them upfront (maybe that's just me). To be offered a donation afterwards without any indication in advance really makes you feel like you've gone the extra mile to help someone.... It's like paying your sister to iron your suit for you - you can, but she's probably willing to do it for free.

 

Wow that sounds great. Family atmosphere is a very nice thing.

But I got to know also other families where the sister would then say (without missing a beat): "ok, what do I get in return?" or "this will cost you your chocolate"

But yours obviously is better - there is no use in calcing the favors and summing them up and then compare...

I will keep that in mind.

 

I just won't go there. I'm the staff, I can't point out the obvious joke here...

 

Hehehe, very nice one!! I'm all in for these kind of "passive" jokes.

 

Ok, my QuickStart Tutorial is ready

It should help completely new people to Leadwerks Engine understand very quickly how Leadwerk Engine works and how it is used.

Download it from here:

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/files/file/209-leadwerks-engine-quickstart-tutorial/

 

I can't download from there!

But as if you did read my mind...

 

I'll just put it here, I think it's good for people also who are considering buying Leadwerks Engine.

Here it is:

http://www.siipi.com/public/leadwerks.nsf/files/quickstart/$file/LE242QuickStart_0.0.1.0.doc

 

Thanks!!

Looking good, I'm in the middle of page one.

Nice compilation! Will work through it today.

Short tip: put that stuff on the main homepage and for every point put up a small screenshot with the code for this one (from an easy example)... then one could also have a look how easy it is (or how well-implemented the functions are and work).

 

That brings me to my first question:

I see that the terrain is not streamable right now.

I think that matches with your entry in EN wiki in the section 'criticism':

There may also be only one terrain at a time, making it impossible to implement a paging system for unlimited sized worlds.

Let me say this one quick before you maybe think the wrong thing:

I don't know if I will get to the "end of the world" within my planned game. I see that the terrain can be very huge in LE.

 

Nevertheless my game would basically live from landscape which I would maybe (please don't kill me) build up using a semi-procedural algo (because I'm lazy) or from an actual landscape database (maybe this one, I need better and more accurate details).

So if I have to.... hmmm... let's say... (it's not this kind of idea or game) conquer germany :-) and I want to "zoom" left to conquer the french right afterwards I would need an overlay and a loading screen and try to build the next terrain in the background which would disrupt the "fun" .

Is there any kind of possible workaround or plan to upgrade the terrain system in the future? (I'm just asking! I don't want to give the impression of that the current system is bad or something!)

[Josh]

Leadwerks Engine 2 allows terrains up to 67 square kilometers, with a resolution of 2 meters per tile, and for whatever reason we seem to attract people who want even bigger terrains with fewer restrictions, so yes, lifting these restrictions is a priority in Leadwerks Engine 3. I don't want to make promises based on technology I have not yet invented, but I can tell you that a lot of people want the same thing as you, and that's what my goal is in the design of Leadwerks Engine 3.

[caustic]

Thanks Josh,

 

may I then ask the next -what all here want to know- question?

When (totally rough estimate) will LE 3 come out? Or let's say a nice beta for this?

 

67 km² with 2 meter per tile is not bad... but... uhm... the reason why all people asks for more is easy I guess:

There is too much data and too many free databases.

 

Just imagine: I have a database with the google-satellite-view like dataset of the earth with an accuracy of 0.2 meters.

Also I do have a heightmap of the earth (from laser measurement of some satellites) with an even better accuracy.

 

Sooo... I know thats much data! But it's pretty easy to think of putting those two together.

The new tech would need to stream the whole world.

Also the terrain would maybe not be flat, because we do live on a sphere (more or less).

So you can at least drop stuff behind the horizon. (Which is not so much when you are a normal person on a normal sphere it would take something like 4km to draw).

Of course maybe you would need to concurrently render meshes of far away mountains and put them into the scenery...

But: you can. And that's the problem. If I do have 4 cores in my CPU I want all of them working hard to give me the best experience also I would upgrade if it's neccessary - because some crazy guy decided to model the whole earth and I can fly wherever I like and it looks decent (no, I won't do that).

 

Also 'other engines' are continously raising the bar too.

Voxel terrains allow for breathtaking environments. (forgot where I saw it)

The infinity engine (which is maybe never going to launch) will procedural-build and show you a whole galaxy and it looks drop-dead gorgeous.

(watch from 1:14 - you can just "zoom in" on the planet and the details just keeps on coming )

 

Please don't get me wrong: LE has many many advantages to those (not even halfway ready) engines, but it's coming.

The flight simulators nowadays are showing a level of detail of the ground which is awesome.

So to come back to the limitations: if you sit in a jet its easy to fly over 67km² within a mission, also if you crash you want to see the ants on the ant-hill in the forest you just crashed into.

I guess the future is all about streaming big piles of data - or procedural creation of stuff - or somehow both.

[Canardia]

LE 2 has big enough terrains, and it makes no sense to use big terrains anyway, since then you have tons of stuff in memory which you don't even use, and the loading time is huge.

So LE 2 doesn't need bigger terrains, but positionable terrains. You can build a infinite streaming terrain scene out of small terrain blocks which are positioned when loaded and then removed from memory when they are out of range.

 

I'm testing next how it would work out when using meshes as terrains. It should be possible to use Blender's sculpt tool to create the terrain meshes, and then you can have also real 3D terrain with holes, loops and overhangs, and there is no limit on textures.

[caustic]

Using ultra-huge terrains and streaming them automatically or using just small pieces of terrains and putting them together as you continue to the end of the first piece of terrain is not that big difference.

It's just the question if the engine should do it or the programmer.

But I guess the engine could do this more elegant of course.

But either way is fine by me.

 

I'm testing next how it would work out when using meshes as terrains. It should be possible to use Blender's sculpt tool to create the terrain meshes, and then you can have also real 3D terrain with holes, loops and overhangs, and there is no limit on textures.

 

Post some some screenshots when you get it to work, Lumooja!

This will look faboulus.

[Josh]

The le3 beta is scheduled for release sometime in 2011

[caustic]

Hi Lumooja,

 

it's a very nice short starting guide - thank you very much - much appreciated!

I can see that LE has very much thought put into details - finely crafted programming art.

 

To be honest I have to evaluate (and disregard) two more engines before I start something with LE.

I never thought finding a 3D engine would be this complicated.

I'm coming from a language which normally provides frameworks for nearly everything - but is lacking 3D totally (how could that happen!)

 

So I'm not sure if I really should put up a big decision spreadsheet and then compare every bit of feature...

when this community is so nice. I just can't decide that :-( .

 

Does anybody maybe have any last incentive for me?

Can I participate in the beta once I bought the engine?

What will be other big new features in LE3?

If money wouldn't be the problem what could I get for LE?

[Josh]

Well, buying the current version now gets you the option to upgrade to LE3 for an overall cost less than the price of a new LE3 license:

 

LE2 + upgrade < LE3 license

[Canardia]

I have already made a engine comparison sheet:

http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/2AAC3EECC888AC57C22575F7004ADC16

It needs to be updated a bit though, but nothing spectacular has changed since.

 

Btw, Leadwerks Engine was long time on place 3, but after that it has been on place 1 for a few years. So it's not a biased LE fanboy chart as many would assume at first sight. And I actually own 20 of those engines too, but I only use LE because it's the best

[macklebee]

I have already made a engine comparison sheet:

http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/2AAC3EECC888AC57C22575F7004ADC16

It needs to be updated a bit though, but nothing spectacular has changed since.

 

no matter how many times i see that, it still always makes me laugh...

[Canardia]

I could put some imaginary engine on 1st place, just to calm down the prejudging people a bit

Actually that would be a nice idea, to put on 1st place an engine how I think a engine should be.

[Marleys Ghost]

no matter how many times i see that, it still always makes me laugh...

 

 

yeah ... still has comedy value. you missed two catagories Mika

 

1. Has the word Lead in the name

2. Developed by a man called Josh ..

 

Should etch the lead out a bit more and keep true to your overal criteria theme

[Canardia]

Nope, I think all the criterias are of great importance, and I've explained there also why. A criteria importance weight system is also a bit difficult to make, since different people have different importances for the criterias, so keeping them all equally important is not the worst choice. A people's opinion importance weight system would be by far easier to make

 

For me, as musician, OGG is VERY important. I can literally hear the difference between a MP3 and OGG song, and most of my songs don't even work as MP3 because they have very high pitched sounds. MP3 just removes them, no matter how high you set the bitrate.

 

Sure, WAV sounds as good as OGG, but also not always, since a WAV file can be HUGE and thus cause stuttering in the playback because it doesn't fit into the memory and the CPU can't keep up with the streaming speed of the huge unpacked data. And besides, OGG packs better than MP3 and lossless, and disk space is also important for musicians and gamers and everyone else.

[Marleys Ghost]

Nope, I think all the criterias are of great importance......For me, as musician, OGG is VERY important.....

 

Sums it up really.

[Rick]

A criteria importance weight system is also a bit difficult to make, since different people have different importances for the criterias

 

Which is generally why nobody makes such a chart.

 

 

Nope, I think all the criterias are of great importance......For me, as musician, OGG is VERY important.....

 

This is fine as long as you don't generally present the chart as fact. You might want to say, "here is what I think" and not give the impression that it's some kind of fact based research.

[Canardia]

But it works. People talk that it's wrong, but nobody can actually point out WHAT is wrong. I say it's not wrong

If someone finds an error in the chart, I will fix it immediately.

[macklebee]

I could put some imaginary engine on 1st place, just to calm down the prejudging people a bit

Actually that would be a nice idea, to put on 1st place an engine how I think a engine should be.

 

well since LE3 will not have a realtime editor and it will lose a point for that and Max3D doesn't actually exist anymore, i think you already have an imaginary engine at 1st place...

[Canardia]

Actually I'm not sure how realtime the Editor in LE3 is. I thought also at first that it was not realtime, but then I read that it's not realtime for some part only which nobody needs anyway.

[caustic]

Hi again,

 

nice list!

 

I certainly need to read more newb-threads - I see that many of my question have been answered already.

Sorry for the redundancy!

Problem with the list is: I would give totally other points for the importance.

 

Is there any list for the new features of LE3 (apart from having improved terrain support)?

 

Another question for lumjooa - "what" are you?

Owning 20 3D engines, keeping track on all of them, being online nearly 24/7 writing many posts, building new tutorials...

... how?

[Canardia]

well since LE3 will not have a realtime editor and it will lose a point for that and Max3D doesn't actually exist anymore, i think you already have an imaginary engine at 1st place...

Yeah, Max3D was long time the #1 engine, but it was never finished. But it had such good features that it even beat LE2 at that time.

So my imaginary engine will indeed have some features from Max3D

[Marleys Ghost]

This is fine as long as you don't generally present the chart as fact. You might want to say, "here is what I think" and not give the impression that it's some kind of fact based research.

 

 

Well that hit the nail on the head ... lol