Ultra Engine testing

[Josh]

You can try out the new client app if you would like:

https://ultraengine.github.io/files/UltraClient.exe

More info here:

 

 

 

 

[reepblue]

At 1080p with 100% scaling, my wholesome avatar is distorted although the client downloaded it as 200x200.

I also find it weird that it reports that I don't have full community features and 2GB of space despite me being a customer of Leadwerks for 8 years. 🤪

Otherwise, it's really nice. 

[Josh]

1 hour ago, reepblue said:

I also find it weird that it reports that I don't have full community features and 2GB of space despite me being a customer of Leadwerks for 8 years. 🤪

Some of that is just stuff to fill up the page right now.

[Josh]

Note the color fade transitions on the side panel, and on those blocks in the "community" and "learn" pages. (The content there is just filler for now too). When you hover over them with the mouse there is a nice smooth color change. The fade is very fast on the side panel, because otherwise it creates too much of a "trailing" effect.

[Josh]

@reepblueWhat version of WIndows do you have? That is very strange.

[Vida Marcell]

oh, i'm just gonna, acquire that.

[SpiderPig]

Looks good.  Just the logo issue for me too.  I've got Windows 10.

[reepblue]

On 8/7/2022 at 3:31 PM, Josh said:

@reepblueWhat version of WIndows do you have? That is very strange.

 

[klepto2]

1. For me the avatar is distorted as well:

2. Windows Defender marked the zip file as a thread, but a more advanced scan with other scanners don't;

3. The spinner animation looks a bit off, I mean it isn't spinning at the center, It looks like the center is off by one pixel or so.

[Josh]

It actually looks like the edges of the exclusion curves are sort of going inside each other, like the radius is bigger than the radius of the circle.

Yeah, I think the spinner SVG frames are a little off-center. I made them myself. You can see these in Icons/spinner.

[Josh]

Okay, I had hard-coded the radius for my display scale. Easy fix.

[Josh]

Here is an update:

 

[SpiderPig]

Icon still looks the same for me.  In fact it's slightly worse.

Oh and I can't download UltraEngine either... 

[Josh]

This version finishes project creation and updating. (Only works if your account can access the install files):

 

[Josh]

Big improvements:

• Editor is always installed to the same directory as the client, to prevent potential hacks that could trick the uninstaller from deleting the wrong directory.
• Keeps track of all installed files, even ones extracted from zip archives.
• Installed files list uses relatives paths and a character whitelist. ".." is searched for in each file, in order to prevent potential hacks that could trick the uninstaller into deleting the wrong file.
• No longer using server-side compression. If a zip file is uploaded, the installer automatically decompresses it after downloading.
• Console windows are hidden when batch scripts are run.
• Window icon does not need to be stored in an external file.
• Run scripts manually option is back and working
• Install / uninstall bat files are much more human-readable now

client4.zip

[Josh]

Version 5:

client5.zip

This update fixes some edge cases in the install / uninstall / update process and adds a new step in the project update workflow. You can view all changed or missing files, and show a diff on all text files with VSCode. In the future I hope to add checkboxes next to the files so you can permanently disable updates of certain files or prevent deleted files from getting re-copied.

The text files extensions (for both diff and copying special project variables) and the diff command are both editable, so you can integrate a different diff tool if you wish:

[trashcanuseful]

Okay, thought the game engine is already integrated into the environment but still no. 

[Josh]

The diff feature is extremely useful if the Visual Studio project files are ever modified, like adding a new file in the base configuration. Previously this would have ruined your project or required very detailed instructions to update your project, but now you can easily see the difference side by side.

This update fixes some bugs and will support special strings in the template files, like $PROJECTNAME, which gets replaced with the name of the new project.

Those of you who have access to the SDK can now build and run the engine in debug mode.

I also discovered that separate .lib files are no longer necessary for Newton, OpenAL, etc. They all get packed into the UltraEngine.lib file now in Visual Studio 2022. This is a big improvement!

The program now only asks for admin permission if it is not able to create a test file in the target directory.

Finally, the program now uses C:\ProgramData\Ultra Engine to store special files instead of C:\Users\(USER)\AppData\Local\Ultra Engine.

 

[SpiderPig]

Quote

I also discovered that separate .lib files are no longer necessary for Newton, OpenAL, etc. They all get packed into the UltraEngine.lib file now in Visual Studio 2022. This is a big improvement!

Does that make compiling faster?

Have a release date in mind?  I'm ready to give you money.

[Josh]

27 minutes ago, SpiderPig said:

Does that make compiling faster?

It could, but it's also using precompiled headers in a way that makes compilation very fast, about one second.

[reepblue]

9 hours ago, Josh said:

Those of you who have access to the SDK can now build and run the engine in debug mode.

Weekend Plans:

• Start development on Cyclone 2.

[Josh]

The release build is now working.

Here is an example of exactly what I mean about project updating:

[SpiderPig]

So this means you can see what the differences are in the newer files and decide if you want to update them or not?

[Josh]

Yes, exactly.

Looks like release builds are coming in at less than 5 MB after UPX compression. Release build does not require any DLLs except Lua, and I think I can get rid of that too.

 

[Josh]

Okay, I eliminated the need for the lua dll. The one thing my updater does not do is handle file deletion, so you can just delete Lua51.dll from the Templates/Common folder.

The debug build uses the Newton DLLs so that physics can still be debugged externally, but the release build requires no DLLs. In fact, it doesn't require any extra files at all. You can put the EXE in a folder by itself with no other files and it will work, because it packs the required shaders and BRDF texture into the executable and loads them if those files are not available on the hard drive.