Help me...

[Chiblue]

My story is, I have been using DBPro for a few months and got relatively far in developing a game concept, but then just when I start refining the game and interface I run into several bugs in the language and plugins, so I move to gdk thinking how bad can that be given the ms IDE and compiler. Well now I am running into things within plugins that don't work like Ray cast in dark physics to mention one.

 

So here I am at a crossroads of sorts I feel that having to code work arounds for bug in plugins that I have to pay for is unacceptable so this is my question. If I move to leadwerks engine does it work as advertised? the $200 is not the issue I just don't want to throw more money into another bunch of problems.. Your candre would be appreciated.

[Josh]

What kind of game are you making? FYI, our raycast commands have an optional radius parameter, but as of now it doesn't do anything since it isn't implemented yet.

[Niosop]

So far I'm pretty happy w/ LeadWerks. Like all engines it has some issues, but w/o knowing exactly what you need I can say if they'd affect you. Type of game, graphics quality required, target system specs, features needed, etc would all be helpful to give you useful feedback. You'll find the people here are pretty honest about both the advantages and drawbacks of LeadWerks vs other engines.

 

As far as graphics quality goes, LeadWerks is probably the best you'll find in an Indy engine, and better than a lot of higher priced commercial engines. The only things it's missing right now is MSAA and GI, but Josh is working on both of those so they might be available by the time you're ready to launch. Its use of instancing can help give a significant performance boost but can make it a little harder to do some things. This might be addressed soon as well.

 

LeadWerks has steeper requirements as far as graphics cards go, so if you're targeting lower spec machines it's not the best engine. Unity might be a better bet in that case, but you'll loose realtime shadows unless you want to pay $1500 for Pro, and even with the Pro version it's graphic quality doesn't match LeadWerks.

 

LeadWerks doesn't include a graphical physics editing system to help you visually construct joints and constraints like Unity and the UDK do, but I think one of us might end up writing one soon, and you might be able to use Scythe to do so, but I haven't tried it yet.

 

The community here is smaller than some of the other engines, but there are quite a few very active members who are glad to help answer questions in the forums and Josh is good about chiming in and helping when others don't know the answer.

 

Anyways, all in all LeadWerks is more than worth the $200 price tag and is suitable for most projects in any genre. If you'd like any info about specific features or it's suitability for a specific task just ask and you should get an honest answer.

[Naughty Alien]

...you should consider me as a person who has almost everything out there regarding rendering engines in range up to 2500US$ ... i have tried most of them more/less and after that journey only 2 engines took my full attention and im using it both..its LE and Phyre...since you asking about LE, i can only say that I HIGHLY recommend it, and if you willing to spend some money, go and get Bmax with it and you will not regret one single second of time and money spent on to this system..be ready for some small nervous moments because of tutorials , but soon thats going to be fixed, and in main time, here is nice and friendly community, so no harm done...anyway, go for it, you will not make a mistake...

[Chiblue]

Thanks guys, I have been using 3dws for a while, I am looking at a high end fps, I spent the last 2 years as a member of cod extreme crew and built many of the mods you see in x4 and x5 mods for cod. My focus is on 2 g fps game types multiplayer sniper and tactical realism. This said I am not concerned about low end system support as my target audience are used to high end gaming requirements. My critical features are

 

Raycast for shooting

real time animation

high end graphics

collision and physics

map/level editor

real world environments

ai - passive

3ds and x model support

 

hope this helps to clearly define my goals

[Naughty Alien]

..well..here is what i think about features you exposed..technically, its all covered nicely with LE..however, you have to understand that LE is NOT a game engine, its still nicely tuned Rendering engine with physics support..having said that, here is my view over your requests:

 

-Raycast for shooting

this working out of box

 

-real time animation

I guess you mean character animation..yes it does work just fine(skinned/bones/bipeds), no morphing targets yet(ahh i wish for this)

 

 

-high end graphics

well..while renderer does its job nicely, at the end its depending on your artistic skills/media used..so, its your call, not renderer..

 

-collision and physics

works out of box

 

-map/level editor

you may use provided Editor (its included with SDK), but since your game will have specific needs/features, its better if you build your own tool for such things..

 

-real world environments

im not quite sure what you mean by this, but far as i can see, its in hands of designer/artist/programmer...engine providing enough horsepower to do massive and huge worlds with very nice visuals

 

 

-ai - passive

you will have to code AI by yourself..

 

-3ds and x model support

engine can 'chew' only its own format (gmf), but its not a drawback since with SDK are provided tools for conversion between all major 3D formats and GMF..

 

 

I hope this helps..

[AggrorJorn]

Thanks guys, I have been using 3dws for a while, I am looking at a high end fps, I spent the last 2 years as a member of cod extreme crew and built many of the mods you see in x4 and x5 mods for cod. My focus is on 2 g fps game types multiplayer sniper and tactical realism. This said I am not concerned about low end system support as my target audience are used to high end gaming requirements. My critical features are

 

Raycast for shooting

real time animation

high end graphics

collision and physics

map/level editor

real world environments

ai - passive

3ds and x model support

 

hope this helps to clearly define my goals

 

- Raycasting is used in one the example scripts. For example by turning on and of a switch or when shooting a weapon.

- With leadwerks engine 2.3 you can do realtime animations inside the editor using Lua.

- high end graphics. The engine has the power to do so, however you need good models and textures to use that power.

- Leadwerks has Newton physics integrated, although you could use your other physics systems. no support for that though.

- the sandbox editor is used for editing levels, terrain creation, vegetaion placement

- the SDK comes with a couple of tools to convert your models to the leadwerks engine format: gmf. The tools you need are 3ds2gmf.exe and coonvertmesh.exe.

[Pixel Perfect]

I too came from a DarkGDK background, left for pretty much the same reasons and moved to Leadwerks. Enough has been said above on the individual points I'd just like to add my own endorsement and say from my experience that what you are proposing seems quite achievable with Leadwerks given that you are prepared to write your own AI and toolsets where required. Just as a final note, you will find the community here a great asset.

 

Hope to see you on board at some point in the future, failing that good luck with whatever engine you finally settle with.

[Chiblue]

Thanks, I sent my money so if it does not work I will hold you all responsible...

 

My needs in AI are simple, I want to have path following and some environment responses, this is for none combatents.. like someone gets shot at or near they run away or hide kind of stuff... Level editing is not an immediate requirement jsut so long as I have the tools available to build maps and distribute them...

 

Just one side question, does anyone see a reason why the Dark AI GDK would not work with LE?

[Pixel Perfect]

I have never used the Dark AI pluggin but if it's functions are completely abstracted from DarkBasic and it's entity/object structures then it might work. I seem to recollect that most Dark Basic pluggins come in the form of some altered DLL so may require a little massaging to access it. I think the interface is published on their site though (I probably have a copy somewhere from my days of working with it).

 

If the pluggin is designed to directly take control of animation and movement of NPCs then its likely it won't work!

 

[EDIT] Having looked at the source code of their AI Demo (which reminded me why no one should ever write code with Dark Basic) I have concluded that the chances of using this with Leadwerks are precisely zero as it appears to control DarkBasic objects directly internally and auto generates the path maps from loaded DBO files!