Epic Games have released another round of free assets for Unreal Engine developers. These assets are yours forever, as long as you “purchase” them before the first Tuesday of June 2020. Interestingly this month there was no addition to the permanently free collection.
This months free content includes:
Currently the SciFi Robot pack does not appear to be showing up in the Epic Game Launcher, hopefully a problem that is rectified soon. You can learn more about this months giveaway in the video below.
First launched in 2003, the open source cross platform vector graphics application Inkscape just hit the major 1.0 milestone! Inkscape is open source with the source code available on GitLab. Details of the release from the Inkscape news page:
After a little over three years in development, the team is excited to launch the long awaited Inkscape 1.0 into the world.
Built with the power of a team of volunteers, this open source vector editor represents the work of many hearts and hands from around the world, ensuring that Inkscape remains available free for everyone to download and enjoy.
A major milestone was achieved in enabling Inkscape to use a more recent version of the software used to build the editor’s user interface (namely GTK+3). Users with HiDPI (high resolution) screens can thank teamwork that took place during the 2018 Boston Hackfest for setting the updated-GTK wheels in motion.
Smoother performance & first native macOS application
This latest version is available for Linux, Windows and macOS. All macOS users will notice that this latest version is labelled as ‘preview’, which means that additional improvements are scheduled for the next versions. Overall, 1.0 delivers a smoother, higher performance experience on Linux and Windows, and a better system integration (no more XQuartz!) on macOS.
So many new bells and whistles
One of the first things users will notice is a reorganized tool box, with a more logical order. There are many new and improved Live Path Effect (LPE) features. The new searchable LPE selection dialog now features a very polished interface, descriptions and even the possibility of marking favorite LPEs. Performance improvements are most noticeable when editing node-heavy objects, using the Objects dialog, and when grouping/ungrouping.
You may encounter some challenges downloading today. I was unable to download the Win64 version, but the 32bit version worked fine. Hopefully these download issues are fixed soon. You can learn more in the video below.
Today Unity Technologies purchased the rights to the visual scripting solution Bolt 1 & 2 from Ludiq. The asset is already under the Unity name on the asset store and community and development efforts will be shift to Unity Montreal going forward.
Ludiq is proud to announce that its flagship visual scripting solution Bolt has been acquired by Unity Technologies. This acquisition will empower Unity developers worldwide with a production-ready visual authoring tool that helps artists, designers and programmers collaborate on their game or application. Thanks to Unity’s involvement, Bolt will benefit from a wealth of resources and experience in middleware development, while its users can continue to rely on the same level of quality support and trusted new releases they had come to expect.
As the lead developer of Bolt to this day, I am thrilled about the potential of putting this tool in the hands of more creators and allowing them to concretize their ideas in a visual way. Bolt started as a solo endeavor nearly four years ago, and over time, our team and community grew to welcome thousands of visual thinkers. Today, passing the torch to Unity means Bolt will enter an exciting new phase of its life. While letting go of a project you love is never easy, I have met the amazing people at Unity who will carry it forward and I am confident that Bolt is in the best of hands.
We are working closely with Unity Montreal to ensure a seamless transition. Support for Bolt 1 will continue uninterrupted and development of Bolt 2 is progressing on track. We want to make sure there are no sudden or unexpected changes for existing users. In the meantime, we want to address any question or concern you may have.
It is important to realize that Unity have just acquired Bolt, not the entire company for other technologies such as Peek. There are more details of the acquisition over on the Unity forums. With Bolt 2 currently in development and offered as a free upgrade by Ludiq, people are obviously concerned if this is still the case, rest assured it is.
Ludiq pledged to make Bolt 2 free for users of Bolt. Will Unity honor this pledge?
Yes. Bolt 2 will be free for current Bolt users as well as those who purchase Bolt on the Asset Store before 11:59:59 pm PST on May 31, 2020. Bolt users will receive an individual license for Bolt 2 when it becomes available.
You can learn more about the acquisition in the video below.
What beauty or horrors await Alice in her adventures? This is the question you must answer as you create a game-ready environment to fit this theme. We have gathered concept art from Alice Asylum to inspire your work.
All entries must be created in Core, our new, free to use game and world creation platform, powered by Unreal, that gives you all the tools you need to turn your vision into reality. To learn more about Core, visit coregames.com or read “Art Directing the Multiverse” by Dan Fessler, Core’s art director.
The contest ends May 31st, 2020 and has several prizes available, including:
If you are looking for guidance on how to create art using Core, be sure to start with this tutorial for the basics. They also launched a new learning portal available here. You can learn more about the contest in the video below.
Core is a new game creation platform built upon Unreal Engine that recently went into open alpha release. Core is a game creation platform in a similar vein as Dreams, Roblox and Second Life. It comes packed out of the box with models, audio and materials and can be coded using the Lua programming language.
Core is described as:
Core is an endless universe of games and worlds designed by a global community of creators. It’s a radically accessible game construction kit, content exchange, and game-playing platform, all in one. With Core, you can create multiplayer games, using the power of Unreal Engine, with no coding or art skills required. When you’re ready to share your creations, publish them to the Core platform where they’ll be instantly available to play.
Core is in Open Alpha which means anyone can start building, sharing, and playing games. However, Core is not complete, and we will be adding several features and making improvements over time.
Plans exist to add monetization, enabling creators to make money with their Core creations. There is also the possibility that Core games will be publishable to other platforms, but for now Core games are published on the core website. Core is well documented for developers, with that documentation available here. Words do a poor job of describing Core, watch out the video below to see Core in action.
Welcome to another NewsFromScratch game development news round-up. Today we have 2 different game engine releases, a new asset pack from Kenney.nl, as well as an update to AssetForge.
Diligent Engine is a cross platform rendering framework that abstracts away the complexities of dealing with OpenGL, Vulkan, DirectX and Metal APIs. This new release adds Vulkan support for Android and more. You can learn more about Diligent Engine in our previous feature available here.
PlayCanvas just released a new version, 1.27. PlayCanvas is a complete 3D game engine with tooling that runs entirely in the browser. The 1.27 releases biggest new feature is a new procedural mesh generation API, enabling a huge swath of new functionality. You can learn more about PlayCanvas in our multipart tutorial available here or in video form here.
Kenney.nl have released another free 3d model asset pack around the concept of Nature, now with over 330 low polygon game ready assets. Additionally a new version of AssetForge was released, with improved sprite rendering features and more. AssetForge is a 3D modelling application that takes a kit-bashing appraoch. You can learn more about AssetForge here.
Learn more about all of these announcements in the video below.
This release of the Phaser open source HTML5 game framework brings an important milestone in reaching 100% coverage of the entire API, including private members. This task also resulted in better Typescript bindings as well. New features were also added to the framework, including a new Rope object for deformation effects.
The Defold game engine is a free and cross platform Lua powered game engine. It just received a minor update in the form of the 1.2.168 release, which includes the ability to run the engine while iconified, as well as finer tune control over URL handling. If you want to learn more about Defold, be sure to check out our Defold Crash Course tutorial hosted over on DevGa.me.
Verge3D is an engine for exporting Blender scenes to the web, while adding logic using their simple Puzzle system. This release adds support for VR Controllers, new Vector logic blocks, an improved physics engine including a new lighter and faster WebAssembly version and more. You can check out Verge3D for Blender in action here.
You can learn more about all three releases in the video below.
There is a new Humble Bundle available today of interest to game developers, specifically C# programmers. It is the C# & .NET CORE Humble Bundle by Packt Press, a collection of e-books and training videos around the subjects of C#, .NET Core, Azure and more.
As with all Humble Bundles, this one is split into tiers:
1$ Tier
· Hands-On Mobile Development with .NET Core
· Modernize ASP.NET Web Apps with Azure App Services
· Hands-On Network Programming with C# and .NET Core
· C# 8 Programming in 4 Hours (VIDEO)
· C# 8 and .NET Core 3.0 New Features (VIDEO)
8$ Tier
· Beginning ASP.NET Core 3.0
· C# 8 and .NET Core 3.0 (VIDEO)
· Hands-On Object-Oriented Programming with C#
· Hands-On Design Patterns with C# and .NET Core
· Learn Modern App Development with C# 8 and .NET Core 3.0 (VIDEO)
· Programming in C#: Exam 70-483(MCSD) Guide
· Hands-On Software Architecture with C# 8 and .NET Core 3
· Hands-On Parallel Programming with C# 8 and .NET Core 3
15$ Tier
· ASP.NET Core 3 and React
· ASP.NET Core 3 and Angular 9
· Hands-On RESTful Web Services with ASP.NET Core 3
· C# 8 and .NET Core 3 Projects using Azure
· Hands-On Domain-Driven Design with .NET Core
· Build a Real-World App with ASP.NET Core MVC
· Hands-On Web Development with ASP.NET and Angular 7
· C# and .NET Core 3.0
Buying a higher dollar value tier gets you all of the items in the lower priced tiers. As with all Humble Bundles, you decide how your money is allocated, choosing between charity, the publisher, Humble or if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS purchasing using this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.
The long running open source C++ framework Ogre just released Ogre 2.1 Baldur. Performance optimizations, a new compositor and shading system and more top the list of features.
Refactored Ogre 1.x to increase performance by several factors; using cache friendly techniques (Data Oriented Design), SIMD instructions, AZDO (Approaching Zero Driver Overhead), auto instancing, and multithreading
Windows Vista/7/8/10 support, macOS via Metal and OpenGL, iOS via Metal, Linux via OpenGL
Many new features: Area lights, Parallax Corrected Cubemaps, Forward Clustered lights, HDR, Exponential Shadowmaps and more
Ogre is open source under the MIT license and available here on GitHub. Learn more about Ogre and the 2.1 release in the video below.
There have been several minor stories in the world of game development. Too small to be covered on their own, but significant enough to be covered in this summary.
This week’s game development announcements include:
The Xenko open source game engine has just been renamed to Stride. This was due to Trademark issues with previous Xenko owners Silicon Studios. In addition to the Stride rename, we have been told to expect Xenko… er, Stride 4.0 shortly. You can learn more about Xenko/Stride here.
Another open source game engine, Corona from Corona Labs, has just been renamed to Solar2D. This name change is for obvious and unfortunate reasons. Additionally, they announced progress on their migration to a completely open source project. Learn more about the open sourcing of Corona/Solar2D here.
Godot have just released their showreel for 2020. In fact they just released 2, one for Desktop/Console and one for Mobile. Compiled from over 200 submissions, they highlight games in development using the Godot game engine.
Upon hitting 100K subscribers, we just launched the GameFromScratch official discord, and we have already got a community of 2K+ like minded game developers. Come join in the fun with this invite link. We have cake.
Learn more about all these stories in the video below. Also let me know what you think of this compilation format for minor game development news?
