Librelancer 2019.08

[Ichiru]

Someone probably asked this (might have even been me, lol) but why not go with an existing engine such as Unreal or Unity?

A few reasons:

1. Neither Unity nor Unreal are FLOSS projects. That means that I'm at the mercy of any API deprecation, new bug, or changes in behaviour released in any update. This makes it pretty hard to maintain over time.
   
2. Freelancer's assets aren't really very compatible with modern rendering techniques. Stuff like the ALE engine rely on abusing GPU blend modes in order to get the effects they want. Combine that with a complete lack of any normal maps or proper material information (no specular highlights!), and I'd be re-writing all the standard shaders and stuff anyway, which is what I do now.
   
3. DX9 is being killed off in mainstream engines, and DX10 was never really much of a thing. While the DX9 support in Librelancer is very terrible at the moment, I'd like to at least try not to lock out those who can't afford DX11 GPUs.
   

TL;DR: Unity and Unreal don't fit the needs of the project.

Also, new screenshot!