LE3 Release date when..?

[Roland]

You just happened to be the trigger of a flood of feelings.

But in fact this was the first time I realized that LE3 summer version would not be LE2 upscaled.

 

Anyway. Some hours after the chock, I have calmed down and it will probably be good in the end.

I don't want to throw away my current code invenstement anyway, so I guess all is good.

[Benton]

No a game has to look like Battlefield 3 for me to consider it AAA GRAPHICS. It does not have to be realistic like Battlefield 3 for it to be AAA graphics, it just needs to have Battlefield 3 art quality and attention to detail. An AAA GAME needs AAA ART AND GAMEPLAY.

[Guest Red Ocktober]

LOMAO @ MG's comment

 

yeah GP... what did you expect

 

at least we got some solid info from the ceo... people can now go ahead and update their development calendars based, based on factual information as opposed to the spin coming out of the rumor mill...

 

good that you did ask the question...

 

--Mike

[Benton]

Yeah Josh does a pretty good job keeping the community informed.

[Roland]

In the end this was a good discussion I think

[Flexman]

That'll teach him

 

 

I did come away with the knowledge that there IS indeed a coffee made from a bean that monkeys poop and that wasn't even in this thread.

[Marleys Ghost]

No a game has to look like Battlefield 3 for me to consider it AAA GRAPHICS.

 

So you are using your opinion as to what "AAA Graphics" are .... which brings us back to what is the rule of thumb for "AAA" anything? I like this definition ..

 

"The distinction is deceptively straightforward. When you tell your parents (who are still baffled about quite what it is that you do) about a medium-budget game project, they - trying to be appreciative and supportive - will say 'Aah'. But if it's a larger-budget game project they, to indicate they realise it's a bigger deal, will nod and say 'AAAh'"

Ed Stern

 

I think AAA is more a marketing thing thats a function of budget in IMHO, but graphics? Dear Esther ? (not a game in my opinion), others,Orcs Must Die,Trine 2 and

? ..

[Roland]

Whats AAA ???

[Canardia]

AAA means American Anti Alcoholics. I think they have even a website.

[Roland]

Aha... Metadron... that like "A-laget" in Swedish

 

Hmmm time to end this thread maybe ...

[Benton]

Yeah it's only 5 pages too long...

[Flexman]

AAA means American Anti Alcoholics. I think they have even a website.

 

Nah, AAA is actually a freak weather-storm off the coast of Argentina.

 

OK who had the correct definition? Let's find out after these messages....

[Benton]

AAAhhhhhh

[Canardia]

LE3 alpha supports GreenPeace, because less CPU and GPU power means less destruction of nature and children.

And all the hot girls are in GreenPeace, so I want to be part of it too!

[Benton]

Sign me up.

[Naughty Alien]

LE was never an graphics engine, which for example Ogre3D is.

An graphics engine doesn't have these features, which LE has:

- Sound

- Bitmap fonts

- Networking

- Loading of 3D models

- Loading of textures

- Loading of sounds

- Loading of fonts

- Editing of scenes

- Loading from pak files

- Creating a main window

- Lua scripting

- Keyboard input

- Mouse input

- Physics

..you joking?? Soon as you put sysyem under pressure, pretty much everything you see on this list will die or become useless, except renderer..

[Rick]

..you joking?? Soon as you put sysyem under pressure, pretty much everything you see on this list will die or become useless, except renderer..

 

So you're basically saying LE2 as it stands is not 'AAA' game ready unless you modify/customize every aspect of it except the renderer (in your opinion anyway, which is valuable seeing as you're the one to likely release an actual game with LE)? That's not very promising for the rest of us schmucks.

 

It leads to the question, how much credit can really be given to LE in NA's game(s) if a large portion of it isn't even really LE?

 

NA, you've made the comment before that LE2 is very capable of making games and to not wait for LE3. But above your saying that 95% of LE's systems are **** when "under pressure" and if we want to be serious about game dev with LE2 that we should write 95% of the LE features ourselves? I trust your word, and hearing this is pretty discouraging. I mean I didn't buy LE so that I could rewrite 95% of it. Can you clarify your statement above more?

 

be careful following Rick around... he is easily seduced by the new stuff, and his eyes will open up wide at the promise of "new and better"...

 

I like exploring new ways of doing things. It's fun

[Benton]

I am also interested in what NA classifies as "pressure"...

[Naughty Alien]

@Rick

I still stand my word about LE2 being capable..it is and it serves me so well..it can produce stunning visuals, as we all know..however, i said VISUALS, and its tied back to renderer...newton physics is something ill not recomend to depend to (I use Bullet), if you switch to AAA product..network provided as it is is NOT something you wanna rely your multiplayer code on to ( i use RakNet), Sound system is good for basic stuff, and soon as you enter in to some other things, like basic syncing between animation/sound, you will understand that you will have hard hard time to use it, or play certain sounds based on frame of animation, reverse, etc..in my pretty much all previous posts and some requests, i was always asking for 'isolated renderer only', if possible, and i never claim anything over whole package as it is..state machine and any form of AI is not there (i like that by the way as it giving me clean access to what i want), unless you bild yourself (I prefer that)..

 

So, all in all, LE2.x is my main PC workhorse and it will remain that. Its VERY capable, and I personally will use it long as it is possible for my PC games. Simple as it is. And again, I will be super happy if i could have renderer only (LE2.x) without any other support but renderer related parts of system. Hoodwink and Hidden Dawn uses LE2.x and it will continue (on PC). So, there is nothing discouraging, im just saying how it went for me, from my observation, thats all..

 

EDIT:

And if i could mark LE2.x in my book, ill give it 8.5-9 out of 10, and its just because 10 is perfection and there is no such thing..LE2.x is first system i came accross that gave me exactly what I wanted, and flexible enough to let me ignore some parts of it (Physics, sound, basically things I dont want and its not forcing me to use it)..

[shadmar]

If the shaders we use in LE2 are usable in LE3 you won't really notice any worse graphics.

The AAA look is just shaders and textures. Gameengine provides gamelogic and shaderinput, shaders and textures provides eyecandy for our games.

I take it that the shaders won't be reusable since we get abit "worse" graphics.

But I hope we still can use custom shaders in LE3?

[Josh]

But I hope we still can use custom shaders in LE3?

Of course. If no shader is explicitly assigned, the engine chooses one for you based on textures and animation properties.

[Benton]

OpenGLES 2.0 allows shaders so yes. Once Josh writes a renderer for OpenGL 3.1, or OpenGL 2 or some better OpenGL then the OpenGLES 2.0, then we should be able to write AAA shaders. I am hoping for OpenGL 3+, it irons out the bugs that OpenGL 2 had and also allows that AAA look pretty easy. At least thats what I heard. And I think you are right, it is the shaders that make an AAA game. if you look at something like Halo you don't see any godrays and stuff like that. It is good art.

 

From Wikipedia

OpenGL ES 2.0

 

OpenGL ES 2.0 was publicly released in March 2007.^[2] Based roughly on OpenGL 2.0, it eliminates however most of the fixed-function rendering pipeline in favor of a programmable one, in a move similar to transition from OpenGL 3.0 to 3.1.^[3] Almost all rendering features of the transform and lighting pipelines, such as the specification of materials and light parameters formerly specified by the fixed-function API, are replaced by shaders written by the graphics programmer. As a result, OpenGL ES 2.0 is not backward compatible with OpenGL ES 1.1. 2.0 also goes agnostic on the handedness of the coordinate system, and many implementations seem to be left handed, in contrast to OpenGL history. API incompatibilities between the desktop series and OpenGL ES 2.0 persisted until OpenGL 4.1 added GL_ARB_ES2_-compatibility.^[4]

 

This is what OpenGLES 2.0 can do,

 

 

It may not look great, but the screenies are from android, and so that means low res textures and low poly counts. Res up the textures and triple the poly count and it will look just fine. We can write our own shaders, so for a short time when we only get OpenGLES 2.0 we can always write our own AAA shaders. This has been blown out of proportion...we are not getting this

 

but rather this

 

[Pixel Perfect]

With all due respect Benton I don't think anything has been 'blown out of proportion'. All some of us are saying is that we have no desire to go backwards in terms of graphics support and especially not have to pay for that when little of the new features are particularly attractive to us. That is not a complaint, just a simple statement of fact.

 

I have no issue with anyone buying LE3 or even being excited by it, if that's what you are looking for. Josh has made a change of direction and good luck to him with that, but it's not for everyone. I will stay with LE2 as there is little to no 'added value' for me currently in LE3, which is actually good news for me as there is no additional outlay required

[tjheldna]

Sorry to ask a dumb question, but will LE3 run on intel video cards?

[Josh]

Compared to the work I've done more recently, graphics are actually relatively simple and minor. A lot of the Leadwerks3D high-end graphics work has been laid out already.

 

The biggest challenge will be a new terrain system that gets rid of the constraints of the old one. Because it's a big challenge, and there's already a ton of work done to make the new engine multiplatform and easy to use, it seems like a good first step to release the first version with one graphics module that runs across the board.

 

There's a long-term plan here, and I love good PC graphics better than anything, so please be patient. I want to build a really easy and useful tool with lots of gameplay features, and not just have good graphics.

 

Sorry to ask a dumb question, but will LE3 run on intel video cards?

I haven't tested any yet. By default, my core i7 only supports OpenGL 1.6, so either we'll have to add a basic DX renderer, or an OpenGL 1 renderer.