Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to SafariWhen comparing Leadwerks vs Esenthel, the Slant community recommends Esenthel for most people. In the question“What are the best 3D game engines?” Esenthel is ranked 19th while Leadwerks is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Esenthel is:
Esenthel has a built-in code editor which drastically simplifies the programming process. Programming with Esenthel is based on C++, however, when using the code editor there's no need to make separate .cpp or .h files. Code can be written once and the editor will be separating definitions and declarations automatically in the background allowing for quicker development.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Very good entity system, did have GUI functions, easy to use terrain editor with vegetation system.
Good API tutoials, workshop elements which can be loaded from steam.
Pro Both Windows and Linux supported
Pro Built-in level editor
Has an acceptable 3D map editor that is easy to use.
Pro Versatile flow diagram script model
Leadwerks's flowgraphs resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish.
Pro Community forum offers plenty of support
It makes game developing much easier if you have someone backing you up when you run into a bug or other issues, and get replies within hours .
Pro Decently sized library of tutorials for both Lua and C++
Pro Very clean and easy C++ API
Pro Lua scripting support
Pro Reasonably priced
Standard edition of Leadwerks costs 92,99€. Additionally, it often goes on sale on Steam.
Pro C++ scripting support
Pro Terrain editor
The terrain editor allows sculpting, paint, vegetation placement and importing of external maps. Especially the painting is done very well and can lead quickly to very professional looking results.
Pro Easy to use API and scripting language
Pro Quicker development by using the integrated code editor
Esenthel has a built-in code editor which drastically simplifies the programming process.
Programming with Esenthel is based on C++, however, when using the code editor there's no need to make separate .cpp or .h files. Code can be written once and the editor will be separating definitions and declarations automatically in the background allowing for quicker development.
Pro Can be easily extended
Built in pure C++ so it is easy to use and extend however needed.
Pro Available on Steam
Pro Can be used for collaborative development
Esenthel comes with tools allowing for multiple developers to work on one project at the same time in collaborative mode. Every change made is instantly visible by other team members.
Pro Engine issues are resolved quickly
The author is very device minded and able to handle any problem quickly and effectively and he has a good track record of listening to requests.
Pro Access to full source code
Having easy access to the full source makes it possible for any skilled developer to add features that a project requires.
Pro Attractive licensing
Free to try, with license as cheap as 9.50$/month (with yearly subscription), 11.40$/month (monthly subscription) or full source code license 228$/year.
Pro Incredibly stable
The engine is rock solid and stable which, considering its extensive feature set, is a huge plus for game developers
Pro Helpful and responsive forum
Pro Good support for Android and iOS
Android and iOS support is pretty stable and easy to develop on. It's possible to, for example, develop the entire game on Windows or Mac and then easily compile for Android and iOS.
Pro Can import a wide variety of formats
- 3D - FBX, DAE, OBJ, 3DS, B3D, MS3D, BVH, ASE, PSK/PSA
- 2D - BMP, PNG, JPG, TGA, DDS, TIF, WEBP, PSD, ICO
- Videos - VP9, Theora
- Sounds - OGG, WAV, MP3 (once decoding patents expire)
Pro Constant development and progress
New features or update to features are provided monthly.
Pro Supports in-app purchases
IAP support for both mobile and desktop devices.
Pro Supports multiple compression libraries
LZMA, LZHAM, LZ4, ZLIB, Snappy, RLE
Pro Oculus Rift native support
Oculus Rift API integrated into the engine platform.
Pro Supports modern graphics and sound APIs
- Graphics - DirectX 9/10/11, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, WebGL
- Sound - DirectSound, OpenAL, OpenSL
Pro Rock solid
Cons
Con Little to no support
This product relies on community support, although some members are helpful and quite approachable they don't like to share their secrets with people that are new to programming.
The product is sold as a Full featured platform but it seems to more in the Alpha stage of development as a lot of the good aspects where taken out in previous versions.
Con Has a track record of broken promises
Con Forums are poorly run and censored
Con Highly misleading advertising
Con Only prefabs made with the Leadwerks IDE could be used.
The two main problems for me is that C++ is not as easy to use like LUA. The IDE should also support C++. The secons is that only prefabs can be used which are made with the IDE. So you can not easy made a game that can be modded by the user.
Con Weak out-of-the-box AI
The only AI movement function is going in a straight line.
Con Very buggy
Leadworks is a not complete, it's a work in progress. As such many parts of the engine are clunky, especially the level editor.
Con Lack of in-depth tutorials
There are plenty of beginner coding tutorials which serve as a basic introduction for a new user to get up to speed, but once having passed that stage there is a real lack of free more advanced tutorials/examples/code snippets demonstrating the finer details of the vast and varied API functions.
Con One-man developer
Although the complete engine is maintained by a single, highly-skilled individual, he can be limited to what he is able to see or perceive, and sometimes he doesn't recognize broken or incomplete features until he sees it firsthand and sometimes doesn't recognize valid reports from his users. But when he does recognize the gap in the engine's feature-set, he is quick to make adjustments and updates.
Con Slow roadmap implementation
Bugs are fixed promptly, but the developer maintains a growing 'roadmap' of features with no indication to users of time frame and priority of feature implementation.
Con Lack of editing tools
Con Web support practically non-existing
Web support exists only on paper. The way it works is that Emscripten is used to convert an entire project to unreadable Javascript. That practically only works for very simple demos, no real-world projects.
Con Expensive
