Leadwerks Engine Released

Community Forums/Showcase/Leadwerks Engine Released

JoshK(Posted 2007) [#1]
After one year of hard work, I am finally releasing my engine.

Download:
http://www.leadwerks.com/ccount/click.php?id=41 (32.6 mb)

The complete features list can be found here. A BlitzMax SDK will be released shortly.

Purchase now. (Orders will be processed before Friday, March 23, at the latest.)

Thank you for your feedback and testing over the last year.




H&K(Posted 2007) [#2]
Well done ;)


Mustang(Posted 2007) [#3]
Cool - except your engine seems pretty featurless... or there's a bug in the webpage.


Knotz(Posted 2007) [#4]
Runs nice.

I'm using Vista Ultimate on a dual monitor setup and i noticed the following while trying to run the fps sample:

1. I must run as administrator otherwise the engine stalls and crashes.
2. The engine opens a window which positions itself partly on the other monitor.
3. The mouse cursor disappears for all the other windows/applications that are open and the engine seems to react to mouse input even if it's not the active window.

Overall, kudos. And i hope you'll get skinned mesh animation sorted out soon.


caff_(Posted 2007) [#5]
Congrats on releasing this.

Downloading now.

[edit] I had the same problem on multi-monitor setup too. Window is positioned right down the middle of the two monitors (half on left, half on right). It should centre in the middle of the primary monitor


IPete2(Posted 2007) [#6]
Congrats Josh,

Working at last on my ATI at 333 fps most of the time, goes down to about 50 or 60 fps on the high detail script.

Fabulous work - well done. I can't wait to get to grips with this. For those who haven't downloaded it yet, the script editor allows B3D like synatx to control Leadwerks BMax based engine. 3DWorld Studio levels should load right in, and the help file is there for you to explore.

Most of it is pretty self explanatory though.

The feature list on the Leadwerks page was half broken at time of writing this but is building nicely, with more features on their way.

FPS Player demo doesnt work on my pc but I guess Im missing something as everything else did. :)

IPete2.


Mustang(Posted 2007) [#7]
Oh yes, I got a blank page when I tried, but now there's lot's of stuff on the "features" page! Guess I was just too quick.


maximo(Posted 2007) [#8]
I hate that textures are repeating on the building... makes it look cheap and old tech


puki(Posted 2007) [#9]
Hurray for "halo".

That screenshot looks very nice - tree looks a bit bent though.


Sledge(Posted 2007) [#10]
Oh man, did it have to be an installer? Only just cleaned out my system and you go and release this... EDIT [Downloads & installs] ...oh, I see it pretty much did have to be an installer. [Runs demo] Sweet -- still get some graphical oddities on my humble laptop (Intel GFX) with some objects turning black at a certain distance*, but this looks cool.

*EDIT: Here's a screenshot. No idea if you intend to support these integrated thingies, but just in case... anything I can twiddle to resolve this already?



Tom(Posted 2007) [#11]
Hi Josh,

Congrats!

I might have a play with this. But one quick observation, the FPSPlayer script takes quite a while to load (twice I thought it hung and killed the process), uses 600meg of ram, and runs pretty slowly in places, as low as 8fps.

I know it's a first release, but I don't think that script does your engine any justice right now. I'd remove it or make the level smaller(?) so it runs better.

maximo: On the whole the level looks pretty playable in my opinion, and besides, people who admire walls in games are either: #1 wallhacking, or #2 about to get fragged! :)


Naughty Alien(Posted 2007) [#12]
I have just one question, is it possible to use 3DSMAX for whole level creation with this engine or not..for me is quite bizzare to purchase addition for engine in order to make level geometry, if I have 3DSMAX in my hands already..


Filax(Posted 2007) [#13]
Naughty Alien : I agree !

Can you clarify Leadwerks ? If it's ok i'll buy a licence now
:)


maximo(Posted 2007) [#14]
When he show us some levels that are as beautiful as Quake or Unreal levels then I'll take of my hat to him, right now technology used for mapping textures makes it all look very simple.

Buildings look so clean, no dirt (or effects of time on them) on them or any fine detail that is not repeating it self. When he does something about this (which I doubt he can since he is using same approach that Torque guys are, they have the same problem, architectrue in their games has same look) then he can show it off here and get more respect ;)

Counter Strike had better looking levels then what this tool we be able to output, and how old is CS? ;)


Tom(Posted 2007) [#15]
AFAIK the point of the script is to demo world-builder > engine integration, it works.

Eye candy alone does not make a game :)


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2007) [#16]
@Tom - was it you that created the awesome galaxy spacebox? Any chance of a few more - PLEASE!

@Leadworks, awesome stuff - sorry for hijacking the thread.


AJirenius(Posted 2007) [#17]
QUOTE: "When he show us some levels that are as beautiful as Quake or Unreal levels then I'll take of my hat to him ... then he can show it off here and get more respect"

@MAXIMO: Can you please be so kind to go through almost every thread in here and tell them that they shouldn't show it in here then as 99% of the games in here are build on DX7 (as Blitz is) and is totally outdated in your opinion.

I'm sure impressed by this work and he definitely get's my respect. It's in the end not a good thing to rant down like that when your own creations has a pretty long way to go to match the Quake/Unreal models as for today ;)


maximo(Posted 2007) [#18]
My point still stands, i expect much more from a gifted coder like Halo, especially since he claims that he's engine is comparable to todays top engines like Epics latest engines ;)


Mustang(Posted 2007) [#19]

gifted coder like Halo



Exactly. Now he needs talented artist(s) to show off his engines capabilities properly.


maximo(Posted 2007) [#20]
I think he has plenty of artists but his technology is not up to the task ;)


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2007) [#21]
If the engine supports shaders, you probably should show some of it. Also needs some screenies, other than "where's the darn codec" movies on the webpage IMHO. At least, congrats for releasing it.


ImaginaryHuman(Posted 2007) [#22]
You can't really criticise his engine based upon his choice of which textures are used in his small demo scene. Obviously that has nothing to do with the engine and everything to do with personal choice.


maximo(Posted 2007) [#23]
ok I'll back down, he's done really good job on this, i hope I see more quallity screenshots especially if he compares it to todays best engines :)


caff_(Posted 2007) [#24]
Like Tom I had to wait a very long time for the build of the FPSPlayer demo. The scene didn't seem overly complex so it did seem a very long time.


JoshK(Posted 2007) [#25]
Naughty Alien, it would be possible to create a terrain and place static meshes in the scene, to build an outdoors world. If you want lightmapped interior scenes, you'll need to use 3D World Studio, since it uses correct BSP geometry. It may be possible in the future to load .map files output from Hammer or something, but that would probably violate their EULA.

The build world time is the first issue I will be addressing. Hopefully, there is some oversight I made, and it can be sped up without changing anything. Otherwise, it will either require an intermediate compiled format, or it will require you to build your brushes already split up along portalzones...right now it automatically slices the level up into portalzones.

The comments on the texture mapping are pretty funny, since every engine uses tiling textures. I was actually thinking about doing something like Half-Life 1's 4-version textures, where the texture contains 4 slightly different versions. The shader would then randomly choose which version to draw, varying the texture across the face of an object.

Regarding shaders, support for GLSL shaders is in, if someone familiar with the language wanted to write one. I'm talking to a few people right now, and am adding another programmer to the team to just handle shaders. The default shader wasn't quite ready to release, so I just included the functionality, and will let the shader programmer add to it in the coming weeks.


SoggyP(Posted 2007) [#26]
Hello.

Congratulations, look like the effort's paid off.

Goodbye.


Pinete(Posted 2007) [#27]
Hi!,

Congratulations!! it's great!!

Please, put on the wish list:
- Postprocess effects
* Bloom
* DOF
* Blur
- "next-gen" water (as provided in ashadow package by andreyman)
:)

Thanks a lot and regards!


Jin(Posted 2007) [#28]
Looks very nice!

When will we get the ˇ°Skeletal animated models ˇ° feature? I think that's very important, for most games need characters.


JoshK(Posted 2007) [#29]
I changed some things so the BuildWorld() command at the startup went from 86 seconds to 32. I also have a private developer's area on the site with more information and articles on how to use the engine.


popcade(Posted 2007) [#30]
The demo craches on my FX5200 and ATI X800 computers with newest and stable driver, or doesn't start at all.

Can't figure why, 1G Ram(both), XP SP2(both), Athlon XP2200,/Intel CoreDuo 3G, FX5200/X800.


IPete2(Posted 2007) [#31]
Yoko,

I am running it on my ATI X800 - only problem I have is with the very big demo, everything else works beautifully.

IPete2.


popcade(Posted 2007) [#32]
I really don't know why, but these 2 systems running most 3D Engines(OGRE/IRR/B3D/TV3D/G3D...etc) without problems, I'm looking at other engines currently, but I mainly using IRR, learn a new thing should requires some more time though.


JoshK(Posted 2007) [#33]
I got the dll version compiled. I'll have a BlitzMax module of the engine ready soon.

This is actually what I will be using to write 3D World Studio 6.


JoshK(Posted 2007) [#34]
Here is an example using BlitzMax and the dll version of the engine:
http://www.leadwerks.com/ccount/click.php?id=42

Extract the files to your "Leadwerks Engine SDK" directory and run BlitzMax.exe.

Registered users can get the leadwerks.engine module in the private developer's area. I'll add an article to the wiki right now on using the engine with BlitzMax.


puki(Posted 2007) [#35]
Will there be a Blitz3D version of all of this?


JoshK(Posted 2007) [#36]
If you want one, I suppose that would be possible as well. Of course, it wouldn't interact with Blitz3D's engine at all, it would just run my engine on Blitz's graphics window.

For things like CreateCamera(), where my function interferes with a Blitz3D function, what would you like me to do? I could call it CreateCamera_(), but you might forget which functions have an underscore after them. I could call it lwCreateCamera(). Or I could call it CreateCamera_() and have an includes file that does this:

Function CreateCamera%(parent=0)
Return CreateCamera_(parent)
EndFunction

What do you think?


puki(Posted 2007) [#37]
Well, it is not vital - I just don't use BMax - I have it but never use it. I'd prefer a B3D version.

I like the 'lw' prefix idea - makes it easy as to what is what.

The great thing about the engine is it at least has its own scripting.


Gabriel(Posted 2007) [#38]
Since this is designed to integrate with 3DWS, I guess it's safe to assume that your engine allows me to have both a lightmap and a normalmap on the same surface?


Pete Carter(Posted 2007) [#39]
the Lw prefix is the best idea nice and clear


John J.(Posted 2007) [#40]
Very nice. The graphics look very nice and clear, the movement is very smooth, and I especially like how your dynamic shadows work. The only problems I noticed is a somewhat long loading time, and the chair in on of the rooms changes to black some times (same as Sledge's screenshot, but with the chair).

My specs are:
AMD Anthlon 64 3700
1GB RAM
GeForce 7800 GT
Windows XP Home