I am looking for some straight talk
I own Leadwerks engine, and DarkGDK with almost all the addons for it... I have been playing around with these both for some time and need to make a decision.. I recently started a new project that I am designing into a finished FPS game, I started with DarkGDK, then because of how much I like the tools in Leadwerks (like editor) I converted all my code to run with Leadwerks, but now I am second guessing this decision.
There are several reasons for this...
1. I own 3DWS which is similar and in some ways more functional than LE Editor, although LUA is not supported. But 3DWS is a fine terrain and scene editor for DarkGDK.
2. Vector math (Specifically matrix) drives me nuts and EZRotate does an excellant job of taking the brain work out of the calculations.
3. Even using LE my MP Server solution is still using DarkNet which works very well..
4. I need an AI for SP modes, I have DarkAI and this works well but to use this with LE creates a massive code overhead and requires direct manipulation of the objects using LE.
5. LE raycasting has some glitches in it which cause some performance issues, Dark Physics does not have these issues...
6. I use many of the FPSC models for my scenery and although I have had some success in converting these to LE many of the animated models do not work without extensive vertex welding and manipulation which is not necessary in DarkGDK.
7. The graphics hardware required for LE is high, just to use the engine you have to have a NVidia 7900 or higher, which is not a major issue but I have had problems on laptops so I am limited to what machines I can develop on. which is a limitation to my available development time.
8. LE is about to come out with a new release, V3 which is rumoured to be a significant step on the current version. My concern is 2 fold, I will probably have to rebuild my code to work and it is rumoured that this will be an expensive upgrade...
9. Finally, LE uses opengl and whenever you want to control 2D objects or text you have to drop into native opengl code, where Dark GDK uses DirectX and the functions available in DarkGDK pretty much support anything you want to do in 2D.
All this said I really like LE but I keep changing direction and after rebuilding my progect in LE I am once again leaning towards DarkGDK. I understand that LE is a robust solution with many nice features, but there are many work arounds required that are not needed with DarkGDK...
Any input would be appreciated, as you probably can see I am leaning towards DarkGDK once again and I am looking for other thoughts on this so I can finally commit to a direction...
