Source Code

[fuego]

Is source code of LE available for SDK owners? If it has a separate license how much does it cost?

[Laurens]

The source code is a separate license. You'll have to inquire with Josh for the price.

[fuego]

Thanks Laurence. You seem to be the only person who responds to my questions so far

[Marleys Ghost]

MouseZ() ?

[fuego]

Oh, you are right Marley's Ghost. I have to admit this in the public, I have forgotten to write about the help of few other people, and Marley's Ghost is one of them. I don't know, may be because I am asking questions about the things not commonly being searched, or may be they are about some advanced topics, I do not get much response. Only few people share what they know without regard to the level of their knowledges, they share what do they have, just to make a contribution without expecting me to return anything. Two of them are Laurens and Marley's Ghost. May be I should I ask simpler questions like "Should I use C or C++" to get more responses

[Canardia]

Usually when you don't get a response on these forums in 5 minutes, it means that nobody knows the answer

[Paul Thomas]

Or we're busy

[Roland]

And some of us lives in a country with 8 hours time difference

so we are sleeping when you are not

[fuego]

Main reason of us to prefer LE instead of a free and open source engine is to get the proper support. We have paid 200 bucks to get response from some qualified people when we are in need of quick information. I can't say I am extremely satisfied about the response stuff from the forums. Please don't take this wrong, I don't intend to put a blame on people, they may have reasons, but I am running a business here and paying people without having return on my investment. I cannot afford to sit and wait for having information about (for example) a simple texture blending operation. I have a tight deadline and a limited budget. But the sources of information is very limited here. So my message which says "Thanks Laurence. You seem to be the only person who responds to my questions so far" and the other one that I wrote for responding Marleys Ghost were to thank people for sharing what do they know, not blaming Josh or some other people. I appologize if I sounded like that

[Paul Thomas]

There is a search feature on this forum. I'm not sure if you've been pointed to the original forum: http://forum.leadwerks.com which also has a search feature and is much older than this forum; so there is a lot more information there. There are even several posts about people asking about source over at the other forum.

 

I think sometimes the lack of responses could also be because some questions were asked so many times. I can't even count how many times Macklebee or Marleys Ghost wrote: "Did you add mass to the character controller?" Sometimes replying to the same question that has been asked so many times just gets ignored.

 

However, since this is a great community, questions will eventually get answered even if the answer was given several times.

 

You're also looking at a community a little wrong. You're acting like a customer who demands immediate responses to your questions. Instead, I suggest acting more like a customer in a community of customers. Talk to people, get to know people, befriend people; message friends, ask friends questions, and so forth. I ask Macklebee questions all the time just to see if he may happen to know the answer and I'm sure by now he wouldn't mind smacking me around a bit

 

Anyways. Check out the old forums if searching comes up with nothing here.

Use http://www.leadwerks.com/wiki frequently.

 

One of your questions earlier was about the mouse wheel.

 

Wiki -> Input -> Mouse -> MouseZ() = "Returns the mouse's current Z position. This is the delta value of the mouse wheel."

[Michael Betke]

Remember this is a common forum and not a paid support hotline.

[Canardia]

But someone could start a paid support hotline, if Josh doesn't mind

Most of us here are freelancers, indies, entrepreneurs, and little teams, who are often looking for new business ideas.

 

I see sometimes requests for code examples, but going after each such request takes a lot of time, and I want to get my own projects also done. However, I wouldn't mind to get few bucks if someone wants me to do a demo with source code. Smaller code examples are of course usually answered on the forum for free, I'm talking more about more complex demos which need several hours of work to do, even when using gamelib.

[Paul Thomas]

Start it up Lumooja; $200 per hour (Isn't that what Torque asks for?)

[fuego]

I did not know about the old forum, it would surely help. And you are right, asking questions to right people could save time a lot. I already did that as much as I can, I can count Chris Paulson's navigation mesh as an example of this, I have sent a private message to him whther he can share the source of his application of Recast implementation and he shared it with the community for free. I am also sharing what we have learnt in the blog for free although I am paying for people to find them. Next time trying the old forum would certainly be an alternative, thanks for giving this hint.

 

Finally, I have to admit one thing, if everything should be in a friendly manner in this community, if no commercial stuff should take place, then I think the engine itself could be free too. I am not here for fun, or for having new friends. Of course meeting with new people is cool, but this is not my intend when I type leadwerks from my browser. May be your opinion "if you are asking for support, you are in the wrong place" could be true, may be I should send a direct message to Josh we we need urgent help. I think I will do this more often. But I will keep writing the blog on how we managed (or how we could not manage) the things.

[Marleys Ghost]

Or we're busy

 

 

<googles "busy" .... really people suffer with that?!?>

[Rick]

may be I should send a direct message to Josh we we need urgent help. I think I will do this more often.

 

I'd advise against that actually. It'll probably only make you more angry. The wiki and/or forums are your best bet. Sure you paid $200, but that doesn't entitle you to get instant one on one support from Josh. He's a one man show here and if he gave one on one support to us all he'd never get anything done. Plus he tends to put "humor" into some of his responses, which some people don't take well. So don't take it personally.

[fuego]

I don't intend to get INSTANT support, I still have topics which have never been replied. May be I have used some words wrong, my concern is not the speed, I don't say people respond late. One hour, one day, one week I don't care, my concern is to get help. And in the wiki, all I can see is the listing of all functions which are already visible from the intelliSense. On the other hand, those PDF's and videos placed in the wiki page are very helpful, I believe putting additional ones to there and some more tutorials will help the SDK owners a lot. Once we finish our project, we are planning to contribute to them as much as we can.

[wh1sp3r]

to be honest, there are some topic, that i just don't understand to them, so i ignore them perhaps, other people do same.

[Pixel Perfect]

Again, this is a forum of Leadwerks users and people will respond if they can and when they can, but there is never a guaranteed response. I think given the cost of the engine you are probably expecting too much in terms of the level of support. If I was licencing the CryTek engine @ 50000 euros or what ever then I'd expect someone to be at the end of a phone to answer my every question as I get up to speed. For a $200 engine you are pretty much on your own apart from minimal documentation and community support.

 

People will help but sometimes we might need a bit of a nudge to get us to respond as we all have busy lives and Leadwerks development projects too! The search facility is your greatest friend as most questions will have been asked before. I do know it can be frustrating at times and the documentation could be better but it's human nature, as you yourself pointed out, to contribute to the documentation once our projects are complete. Most of us havn't got to that point yet! Good luck and by all means keep asking questions if you cannot find the answers.

[fuego]

If $200 is a negligable amount, if you say it is not much, then make the engine free. If you set some price, customers will surely have demands. I don't think if a manufacturer/provider should ever say "the amount you have paid is very little" when a customer is asking for support.

[Canardia]

Basically you have 3 levels of support available when you buy the engine:

1) Tutorials, Documentation and Forum Search

2) New answers from people in the Forum

3) Bug Tracker and Leadwerks support mail

[Pixel Perfect]

If $200 is a negligable amount, if you say it is not much, then make the engine free. If you set some price, customers will surely have demands. I don't think if a manufacturer/provider should ever say "the amount you have paid is very little" when a customer is asking for support.

I guess the answer to that is 'you pays your money you takes your choice'. If Josh were to have to provide the level of support I guess you are looking for to every one of his customers he would need to employ at least a couple of developers in order to provide that level of support. That now puts the cost of the product up substantially.

 

Josh does not refuse to support the product, it is in fact very well supported given the fact that he is a 'one man show' and has to address bugs and issues reported in the product, provide baseline documentation and tutorials and continue core development of the product.

 

If he were to give the product away will you pay his wages (support his development and living costs) for the foreseeable future. How does that work?

 

Like most things in life, the service you get is commensurate with the amount you pay.

 

No one is saying there is not room for improvement but your expectations need to be realistic.

[fuego]

I am asking for someone to respond my questions, is that not realistic?

[Canardia]

I am asking for someone to respond my questions, is that not realistic?

So far all your questions have been answered in decent time,

the question about terrain blending can be answered only by Josh,

which he has also already done,

"so what's the problem?" --Rammstein