Pre-Purchase & Branding Questions

[Vitus]

This engine is interesting but I'd like to confirm a few things before I dive in. 

1. It seems like the level editor is a modern "brush" editor (as opposed to say Unreal where basically everything is a mesh), similar to Valve Hammer, is this true? I'm most curious about this and would appreciate any details about it anyone can provide as this would be a massive selling point for me.

2. On the Steam page for Ultra Engine it seems like Visual Studio is required for C++ development. Is this a hard requirement? How does C++ development work for Linux or Mac users?

As for the branding, it seems like everything is in a bit of a limbo? I saw a post saying Ultra Engine is a rebranding on Leadwerks but all the ultraengine.com links take me to leadwerks.com which makes me think it's being rebranded back to Leadwerks? Buying Leadwerks 5 on this site is $99 for early access and on Steam Ultra Engine Pro is $99. Can someone please break it down for me?

[Josh]

1. Yes, this is correct, but our version of brushes has some pretty big advances. Each face can have edge-turn bevels toggled on and off to make smooth rounded corners, and we support face subdivision and per-vertex material painting, similar to what id Tech's latest tools support.

2. Visual Studio is required for C++ programming. A built-in IDE is provided for Lua programming. At this time, only Windows is supported.

[Vitus]

Thank you for the reply, Josh! It looks like this is exactly what I've been looking for in a modern game engine (that doesn't cost upwards of $25k to license). 

Can you provide clarification on the branding for Ultra Engine / Leadwerks? I'm assuming Ultra Engine Pro is what I should be getting? Are there any benefits to going with Leadwerks 5 or are they the same thing?

[Josh]

1. Originally, there was Leadwerks.
2. People constantly mispelled and mispronounced the name.
3. For version 5, I thought calling it "Ultra" would eliminate this problem.
4. Name is super-generic and doesn't catch on.
5. I decide to call the full release Leadwerks 5 once it gets out of early access.

Ultra Engine and Leadwerks 5 are the same thing. If you get Ultra Engine you will be upgraded to Leadwerks 5 at no charge, when it is ready.

The Pro version includes C++ support, and the regular version does not.

Sorry for the confusion, but that's the way it happened and we are almost through the change.

[Vitus]

Thanks for the clarification! 

[Josh]

Fun fact: I was going to call the engine "Turbo" for a while. Fortunately, the drugs wore off.