Category: Game Development

Amazon have just released beta 1.20 of their Lumberyard game engine.  The release contains over 200 improvements, fixes and features with the biggest features being every day quality of life changes.  The lead two features are improved Asset Processor performance as well as performance improvements to the Event Bus system.

Highlight features from the release notes:

Asset Processor

Event Bus (EBus) System

EBus performance improvements have reduced the overhead of invoking functions through the EBus API by at least 20% in most cases. Using EBuses to send events between different game systems and components now performs closer to that of calling the event as a raw function call, thus reducing update time.

Audio

Audio has the following new features:

• Wwise External Sources – You can now use the Wwise external audio source feature to specify a loose collection of audio files to be played back dynamically.

  Note

  The Wwise External Sources feature isn’t supported in Wwise LTX.

• Audio System Component – You can now perform audio operations at a global scope (as opposed to entity scope).

• Input Streaming Support – You can now stream data from a variety of input sources for playback by the audio system. For example, you can play back the audio stream from a video file.

• Sound Duration – You can now obtain the duration of a sound at runtime by registering with the AudioTriggerNotificationBus function and overriding the ReportDurationInfo function.

• Setting the Panning Mode – You can now use the Wwise SetPanningMode method to shift panning between speaker mode (60 degrees) and headphone mode (180 degrees).

Animation Editor

The Animation Editor has the following new feature:

• Interrupting Transitions – You can now interrupt a transition that is in progress with another transition and smoothly blend into the new state. With this feature, you can quickly blend towards a new state without waiting for a transition to complete. A purple line shows the transition being interrupted. A green line shows the new transition in progress. The ability to interrupt a transition is useful when you want to rapidly interrupt a character attack with another attack, or interrupt a jump with a run forward motion.

Mobile

Mobile has the following new feature:

PhysX

The PhysX system has the following new features:

• PhysX Force Region Component – You can use the PhysX Force Region component to specify a region to apply physical force to entities. The component applies force at each frame to any entity that is in the bounds of the region. For example, if an entity moves into the force region of a sphere, force is applied to the entity.

  For more information, see the PhysX Force Region component in the Amazon Lumberyard User Guide.

• In Script Canvas, you can obtain the value of the net force exerted on an entity by using the On Calculate Net Force method of the PhysX Force Region Generation Notifications node. This callback is invoked when the force region calculates the net force exerted on an object.

In somewhat belated news, Amazon also released Project N.E.M.O, a complete demo game showcasing how to use slices and script canvas.  This is the source of the game data in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F76LJCjvt5U&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News CryEngine

---

AppGameKit Studio, the successor to the AppGameKit game framework was released today.  Available now on Steam and coming soon to the Game Creators website, Studio builds on top of the API provided in the AGK framework, bringing a full editor environment for designing, coding and debugging your game.

From the Steam description:

AppGameKit Studio is a fully featured game development tool set. We’ve re-imagined the game development user interface with an all-in-one work space. You can now quickly drag & drop assets to visualise your scenes, code with AppGameKit Script, easily browse app media, run live debugging sessions, access online help and lots more.

AppGameKit Studio allows you, in a few easy clicks, to quickly publish your games to Steam, iOS, Android and a host of other places! Get your apps and games in front of millions of potential players and make yours the next big hit.

Working with a pre-release version, we created a text based introduction and getting started crash course available over on DevGa.me, as well as the video version embedded below.  Either version should give you a good idea of the features that AGK:S bring to the table, as well as give you a good grounding on how to get started.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQH-30a7Bg&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Engine

---

Today, the Khronos group announced that Autodesk has joined the consortium, specifically the 3D Formats Working Group and the 3D Commerce Exploratory Group.  The Khronos Group is the regulatory body guiding such efforts as OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL and of course glTF.  This is a long winded way of saying that Autodesk, makers of popular 3D applications such as 3DSMax and Maya as well as industry standard AutoCAD, are moving to support the open standard glTF.

Details from the Khronos website:

Big news! 3D software developer, Autodesk has joined the Khronos Group. Autodesk is an industry-leading provider of 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, that joined the 3D Formats Working Group to support the Khronos glTF file format and the 3D Commerce Exploratory Group, a group of companies exploring standards and guidelines for the production and distribution of real-time 3D representations of products. glTF is an open standard for efficient and reliable encapsulation and transmission of 3D assets and scenes, including PBR materials and animations.

“Autodesk is committed to accelerating the adoption of open standards as industry-wide collaboration is critical to improving our customers’ workflows and advancing computer graphics technology,” said Henrik Edstrom, senior software architect, Graphics Technology at Autodesk. “As the need for interoperability and consistency between applications and across platforms becomes increasingly important, we see great value in open data formats like glTF. There is also more demand for richer experiences on web, mobile, and XR platforms, and new opportunities in areas such as general compute and real-time ray tracing. We’re excited to be part of the Khronos group and the evolution of computer graphics.”

Further support for the open and real-time friendly glTF format is a step forward in interoperability between game engines and DCC tools and away from proprietary and complicated formats such as Autodesk’s own Filmbox (FBX) format, or that of prior overly complicated open standards such as COLLADA (DAE).

Interestingly, there was no mention of MAX, Maya or games in general in the entire article, arguably the biggest sector impacted by this announcement.

GameDev News Applications

---

Ubisoft, or more specifically Ubisoft Animation Studio, has just joined the Blender Foundation as a gold sponsor.  The Blender Foundation Development Fund is a way for individuals and corporations to contribute financially to the development of Blender.  Additionally, UAS will be adopting Blender 2.80 for future animation projects.

Details from the Blender news:

Today Ubisoft announced that they will join the Blender Foundation’s Development Fund as a corporate Gold member. Not only will Ubisoft help funding online support for Blender developers, Ubisoft Animation Studio – a department of Ubisoft Film and Television – will also use Blender for their productions and assign developers to contribute to Blender’s open source projects.

Pierrot Jacquet, Head of Production at Ubisoft Animation Studio says “Blender was for us an obvious choice: Its strong and engaged community paired up with the vision carried by the Blender Foundation makes it one of the most creative DCC of the market.”

“Good news keeps coming” says Blender founder and chairman Ton Roosendaal, “it’s such a miracle to witness the industry jumping on board with us! I’ve always admired Ubisoft, as one of the leading games and media producers in the world. I look forward to work with them and help them finding their ways as a contributor to our open source projects on blender.org.“

As well as from Ubisoft:

For those that may not know, Blender has been around for quite some time as open-source animation software. Why has Ubisoft chosen now to become a Corporate Gold Member?

PJ: We believe that Blender 2.8, which will be released in the coming days, is a game-changer for the CGI industry. Blender has been on Ubisoft’s radar for a long time already, and in the past year, more and more of our artists have shown an interest in using it in production. The growth of our internal Blender community, as well as the innovations brought by 2.8 – e.g. a revamped UX, Grease Pencil, EEVEE real-time rendering – convinced us that this was the right time to bring support to our artists and productions that would like to add Blender to their toolkit. What better way to support that switch than donating to the Blender Foundation, so we can help Blender to continue to grow?

How does working with open-source tools balance out with in-house developed tools?

PJ: At Ubisoft Animation Studio, we will always have very specific needs, and in-house development is the most efficient way to serve these.

On the other hand, when we had our own DCC, we had to spend a significant amount of time to maintain and improve the core of the software; this was less time we could spend innovating. Working with open source solutions like Blender offers us more flexibility and frees some resources to focus on research and exploration of new ways and tools to create animated shows.

Our discussions with the Blender Foundation have shown us that our goals are aligned, making the open source collaboration the obvious choice.

The above is only a portion of the complete Ubisoft interview about their plans for using Blender and open source in the future.  If you are interested in supporting Blender, be sure to check out details on the Corporate Developer Fund available here or here (PDF).

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

GameDev News Blender

---

The cross platform open source Java based game framework libGDX just released version 1.9.10.  If you are interested in learning libGDX we have a comprehensive tutorial series available here and a video series available here.  While the tutorials are a few years old, libGDX is a mature framework that has stayed relatively stable over time, so they should still be perfectly valid.  This release updates several of the dependencies to newer versions as well as an update to the Gradle build system.

Highlight details of the release include:

• GWT update to 2.8.2
• MobiVM release 2.3.7
• Lwjgl 3.2.1
• Lots of QOL and bug fixes for GWT backend
• Better iOS backend customization
• PixmapPacker features like NinePatch and whitespace stripping
• InstancedRendering support via Mesh and InstanceBufferObjects
• SCENE2D (Standard tweaks and improvements across the board)
• Gradle updates to latest

Full release notes and details are available here.

GameDev News LibGDX

---

In addition to their already released 2D Gamekit  (and the more advanced 3D Gamekit), Unity have released three new Gamekits to their Unity Learn portal.  The new gamekits include:

Each Gamekit includes a complete project downloadable from the Unity Asset store as well as a full step by step tutorial that average around 1 hour in duration.  They are designed to introduce users to Unity without requiring art or programming ability.  Each Gamekit is designed to be extended or customized by the user.  Learn more about the new gamekits in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEzGn_dX-J4&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unity

---

As part of the Unreal Megagrant Program launched to:

…support game developers, enterprise professionals, media and entertainment creators, students, educators, and tool developers doing amazing things with Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community.

Of course “open source capabilities for the 3D graphics community” sounds like a very specific application doesn’t it?  Therefore today’s news should come as no surprise, the Blender Foundation is receiving $1.2M USD as part of the megagrant program.

Details from the Blender news page:

Epic Games, as part of the company’s $100 million Epic MegaGrants program, is awarding the Blender Foundation $1.2 million in cash to further the success of Blender, the free and open source 3D creation suite that supports the full range of tools empowering artists to create 3D graphics, animation, special effects or games.

The Epic MegaGrants initiative is designed to assist game developers, enterprise professionals, media and entertainment creators, students, educators, and tool developers doing outstanding work with Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community.

The Epic MegaGrant will be delivered incrementally over the next three years and will contribute to Blender’s Professionalizing Blender Development Initiative.

“Having Epic Games on board is a major milestone for Blender,” said Blender Foundation founder and chairman Ton Roosendaal. “Thanks to the grant we will make a significant investment in our project organization to improve on-boarding, coordination and best practices for code quality. As a result, we expect more contributors from the industry to join our projects.”

“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games. “Blender is an enduring resource within the artistic community, and we aim to ensure its advancement to the benefit of all creators.”

This is actually the second time Epic Games funded Blender, with a much smaller donation back in 2014.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wQLWK5g9g4&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Blender Unreal

---