Category: Game Development

Back at GDC 2019, Unity announced Havok Physics would be coming soon.  Yesterday, Havok for Unity was released as a preview package in the Unity Package manager.  The Havok physics implementation is built on the DOTS framework therefore you will require Unity 2019.1 for higher to run it.

Details of the Havok preview from the Unity blog:

When we first set out to define what the future of physics would look like with our Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS), we sought a partner that shared the same core concepts and values as us. Through our partnership with Havok, we were able to leverage DOTS to deliver the highly optimized, stateless, entirely C#, and performant Unity Physics. We also knew that some of you would have more complex simulation requirements, needing a stateful physics system. For that reason, we knew Havok would be the perfect solution to integrate into Unity for those high-end simulation needs.

Some of you might be asking, “Ok, but why did you make two systems instead of just one?” We know that our users have a plethora of different use cases, and we wanted to give everyone a choice based on what their needs are. For some, Unity Physics will suffice, while others will want the benefits and enhanced workflows of Havok Physics. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong choice, as we illustrate later in this blog post. You can switch between either solver without having to reauthor all of your content completely.

An obvious question you may have is, why should I choose Havok over the new Unity physics engine?  This is explained in the Havok documentation:

• Higher simulation performance : Havok Physics is a stateful engine, which makes it more performant than Unity.Physics for scenes with significant numbers of rigid bodies, due to automatic sleeping of inactive rigid bodies and other advanced caching techniques (typically 2x or more faster).

• Higher simulation quality : Havok Physics is a mature engine which is robust to many use cases. In particular, it offers stable stacking and a solution for smoothing out contact points when rigid bodies slide quickly over each other (known as “welding”).

• Deep profiling and debugging of physics simulations using the Havok “Visual Debugger” standalone application (available on Windows only).

You can learn more about the Havok preview in the video below.  In addition to an overview of what Havok physics is all about, it also covers the installation process and illustrates how to configure and run the Havok Visual Debugger.  The example repository used in the video is available here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJgB2Q5URvY&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unity

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Excellent news for Unreal Engine developers, we have another year of Unreal Asset Marketplace giveaways!  This consists of 5 assets free for the month (and yours forever if “purchased”) as well as 3 asset packs that are free forever.

This month’s content consist of:

Free For November

Free Forever

In addition to the giveaway, they are running an appreciate sale on Nov 5th and 6th, featuring assets from last years giveaways for 50% off.  If you are interested in learning more about these assets, be sure to check out the video below. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCXjYVGximc&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unreal

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The Godot open source game engine is growing at a massive rate.  To properly manage that growth and to set expectations of community behaviour, Godot have released a code of conduct.

From the Godot blog, details of why they created a code of conduct:

During the past five years of free and open source, collaborative development, we’ve been blessed with one of the best-behaved online communities that I have been in contact with. The vast majority of users on all our community platforms dearly care both for the Godot project itself, but also for all their fellow participants.

Yet there are occasional outliers, and to properly moderate an ever growing community (more than doubling in size each year) we need a written statement for the de facto guidelines that our moderation teams have applied until now. This will give users a clear overview of our expectations for positive and respectful behavior. Community moderators, who are also participants donating their free time to ensure a safe environment for all users, will therefore be able to back their decisions with common guidelines.

You can read the specifics of the new code of conduct here.  You can learn more about the change in the video below.  If you are interested in learning more about the Godot Engine be sure to check out our tutorial series or our complete 2D game in Godot tutorial.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ErcdjaGEw&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Godot

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TexGraph is a free procedural texture generation tool that runs on the Windows platform.  TexGraph is described as follows:

TexGraph is a procedural texture creation tool that let you create textures by connecting nodes in a graph. It is designed to be similar to other tools in the market but at the same time be very simple and easy to use and extent by users.

If you are a shader programmer you can create your own nodes or edit the existing ones. Check the github page https://github.com/galloscript/TexGraph-Public and the Programming Custom Nodes section of the user manual for more information.

TexGraph is available for download on Itch.io here.  While not open source, TexGraph is very easy to customize.  New nodes are simply GLSL scripts, while new models and HDR maps can easily be added to the project.

You can learn more about TexGraph and see it in action in the video below.  Another similar tool to TexGraph is the Godot based Material Maker project that you can learn more about here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1YbshJYkBY&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Tools

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Humble are running a new bundle of interest to game developers, the Humble Learn and Play VR-AR Game Dev Bundle.  This is a collection of courses by Zenva on the topics of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality development using the Unity game engine.  Additionally it contains several VR games as well, each redeemed on Steam.

As always the bundle is broken into tiers, this bundle’s tiers are:

1$

• Intro to Augmented Realitry
• Intro to Game Development with Unity
• Create Your First 3D Game with Unity
• VR Game Development for Beginners
• VR Game Development with Controllers
• Insect Revolution VR

11$

• AR Projects – Job Training App
• AR Projects – Geology App
• VR Pointers – Space Station App
• VR Projects – Night with Mosquitos Game
• VR Projects – Space Invaders
• Intro to ARKit
• Intro to ARCore
• AR Projects Science App For Kids

20$

• Project Based Oculus Avatars and Platform SDK
• VR Projects 360 Photos Experience
• VR Projects 360 Video Quiz App
• VR Projects Puzzle Game
• VR Projects Fitness Game
• VR Projects Cabin Experience
• VR Projects Third Person Platformer Game
• VR Projects Underwater Shark Experience
• VR Projects First Person Shooter
• VR Projects Build an RPG
• AR Game Development Space Shooter
• VR Projects Exploration Game
• Stunt Kite Masters VR
• Devil and the Fairy

As with all Humble bundles, you can decide how your money is allocated, between the Publisher, Humble, Charity or if you choose (and thanks if you do!) GameFromScratch by using this link.  You can learn more about this bundle in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo-SqSwkJDw&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News VR

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Unity have just released a new resource for game developers, the FPS Microgame.  It consists of two parts, a project available for download on the Asset Store and a set of courses available on the Unity Learn platform.  The project is structured around teaching game development buy modding an existing game.

The courses are structured around extending the game in the following manner:

• Add new power-ups and enemies – add loot items (such as a jet pack) and new weapons (like a sniper rifle), make weaponized projectiles (like chocolate chip cookies), create custom enemies, and boost your player’s lifespan with health (or cookie) packs.
• Design your own levels – reconfigure the battle arena, build new levels with easy-to-use snap-in assets, set constraints for enemies’ movements, and customize the game’s look with props and level art.
• Mod the look – change the sky, create your own title screen and menus, and give your game a unique splash of color.
• Test, tune, and optimize – adjust hit points and damage, modify player mechanics like speed and jump strength, optimize your game’s performance, and create a WebGL build to share your game online

More details are available on the Unity blog.  You can learn more about the template and see it in action in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bifmXHsNVU&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unity

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GDevelop 5 beta 82 was just released.  GDevelop is a completely open source game engine with a very beginner friendly visual programming language and a complete set of tools for creating 2D games.  A new tool addition this release is integration of a Yarn dialog editor enabling your game to support complex and branching dialogs.

Details on new features from the release notes:

• The Yarn Dialogue editor is now embedded in GDevelop (thanks @blurymind!). Yarn is a powerful editor allowing to create advanced and dynamic dialogues with multiple choices.

  • When choosing a dialogue to load using the Dialogue Tree actions, you can edit or create a json file containing a dialogue in Yarn format.
  • Read the help page about dialogue trees to learn more about how to use them.
  • See the example “Dialogue Tree with Yarn” to see how to use dialogue actions. You can also try the example online.

• Improved Shape Painter object with new shapes and advanced features (thanks @Bouh!).

  • Add ellipse, rounded rectangle and star to Shape Painter
  • Add support for other advanced shapes (arc, bezier curves), and shapes composed of multiple shapes.

• Various new smaller features:

• Add condition to check for WebGL support (thanks @Wend1go!)
• Add “Scene just resumed” condition (thanks @Wend1go!)
• Add menu item to extract events into a new group (thanks @Bouh!)

Be sure to check out the complete release notes for a full list of improvements and changes in this release.  If you are interested in learning more about GDevelop be sure to check out our hands-on video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lWGUI_xj0U&w=877&h=493]

GameDev News

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