Some questions to be clarified before purchase.

[Mad.Hunter]

Hello there, call me Mad, I lead my custom space sim project which has finished it's initial phase of planning (writing project doc, program arch and module design), took about a year.

For now Im looking for an engine that will be used in next phase and ofcourse LE is likely to be this after some trial tests, but before purchase Id like to know some answers:

 

1) As I understand LE is supplied in a form of DLL only, which is likely to be vulnerable, like hooking calls when creating bodies and will eventually result in easy cheat hacks. So is there a single static library available to be used or is there's a way to obtain it's source code, maybe through special license?

 

2) Are there any stated internal restrictions of the engine, like mesh poly count limit or max light, shadow rendering distances. Maybe a list of those restrictions?

 

3) For how long LE2 will be supported and updated after release of LE3? Since our project can take 2-3 years to complete.

 

4) Since there will be different modules, it would be nice to have a shared wrapper interface over LE to be accessible from different places. Ofcourse it wont be a full copy of LE functions, but a single DLL with a single exported function to get access to some abstract interface, it wont be known how to use it without source header, but Id like to know if this violates license.

 

PS It's non-commercial project.

 

Regards, Mad

[Canardia]

1) Since you are still in 2-3 year development, you don't need a DLL, since LE3 comes as a static lib.

2) Shadow distance is a general problem of shadow mapping engines. But nobody seems to use stencil shadows anymore, although I prefer them. Yeah they are too sharp, but rather too sharp than too low distance. If I knew how to solve the shadow problem, I would write my own engine.

3) Just buy LE2 now to get LE3 cheaper.

4) I'd say just do single exe apps, without the need for any runtime DLLs. You need mingw64 for that.

[Josh]

1) As I understand LE is supplied in a form of DLL only, which is likely to be vulnerable, like hooking calls when creating bodies and will eventually result in easy cheat hacks. So is there a single static library available to be used or is there's a way to obtain it's source code, maybe through special license?

The source code license is intended for professional studios, and is priced accordingly. Yes, if someone went to the trouble of recoding a new DLL they could hack your game.

 

2) Are there any stated internal restrictions of the engine, like mesh poly count limit or max light, shadow rendering distances. Maybe a list of those restrictions?

It depends entirely on the hardware.

 

3) For how long LE2 will be supported and updated after release of LE3? Since our project can take 2-3 years to complete.

Bug fixes are ongoing, as long as they are being found.

 

4) Since there will be different modules, it would be nice to have a shared wrapper interface over LE to be accessible from different places. Ofcourse it wont be a full copy of LE functions, but a single DLL with a single exported function to get access to some abstract interface, it wont be known how to use it without source header, but Id like to know if this violates license.

I don't see any issue with this, as it is described. You'll be distributing the engine DLL with your game, anyways. Is this a game or a programmable library?

[Mad.Hunter]

Thanks a lot for answers here, things are much clearer for me now.