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ShaderMap 4 Hands-On

ShaderMap 4 is a Windows based commercial application for rapidly creating texture maps. You can start from a single diffuse map and rapidly generate normal, height, ambient occlusion and other maps. You can also generate maps from a 3D object, using a very quick and easy workflow.

Key Shadermap 4 features include:

  • Fast Map Generation

Select a mode and source type then load the source file – ShaderMap will create a project generating maps from the source. It’s that easy.

  • Bake Maps from 3D

Load a 3d model into the project grid and render normal maps, AO, curve, color ID, and depth from the model geometry.

  • Speed and Memory

Maps are rendered using 32 bit floating point pixels and stored in 16 bit memory to ensure both speed and efficient memory usage.

  • Editor Exchange

Export any map to your favorite image editor at any time. Once done, save the map and the it will be brought back into ShaderMap.

  • Scripting with LUA

Export LUA scripts for any project. Control batch scripting of multiple source files, map rendering, setup lighting and more with the LUA API.

  • Map Filters

Use the Filter Tab to add additional filters to any Map. Auto Edge, Brightness, Contrast, Blur, High Pass, Shadow, Highlight and more.

  • Normal Map Editor

Paint normal and displacement to the SM4 layer system. Transform, scale, paint, and use tools to modify normal vectors.

  • PBR Materials

Generate Roughness and Metalness maps. The Start screen PBR Mode automatically packs maps into RMA and RMAD formats.

ShaderMap has a free version available with a Pro version available to buy for $49 USD. You can check Shadermap out in action in the video below.

GameDev News


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Blender 2.83 LTS Released

Blender 2.83 is now available now in LTS or Long Term Support version.  Described a few months back, the long term support version of Blender is meant to remain stable but well supported for two years:

The first proposal is to do one Long Term Support (LTS) release every year. This release would be supported for two years with important bug fixes and updates for new hardware, while strictly maintaining compatibility.

A good reason to do an LTS now is the focus on fixes and patches of the past months. The next release (2.83) although big, will be relatively less experimental, thus a good candidate to keep supporting for a while.

LTS versions also will help to ensure that a project that started with an LTS version can be completed with the same version in a reasonable amount of time. Nice for studios with large projects, but also for add-on maintenance.

So if you are on the verge of starting a long term game or movie project, Blender 2.83 LTS may be the ideal version for you.

Of course long term support isn’t the only new feature in Blender 2.83, with highlight features including:

  • New Cloth simulation sculpting brush, as well as other sculpting improvements
  • NVIDIA Optix denoiser now works in the viewport as well as renders
  • A completely rewritten faster and more powerful Grease Pencil
  • Import and render OpenVDB files
  • Initial VR Support, specifically the ability to navigate around your scene in VR
  • New face set system enabling new visibility options
  • EEVEE improvements
  • Updated shader nodes
  • Performance improvements across the entire application
  • Updates to several modifiers
  • Video sequencer improvements
  • Much, much more

You can learn more about Blender 2.83 in the release notes here or by watching the video below.

Art GameDev News


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Gwent’s next expansion is coming out this month

There’s some good news if you’re looking to freshen up your Gwent deck with some new cards. CD Projekt Red has revealed that the game is getting another free expansion for iOS and Android. The Gwent Master Mirror release date is set for June 30, 2020, so there’s not long to wait at all.

The new Gwent expansion adds more than 70 new cards that are themed around Witcher 3 baddie Gaunter O’Dimm and his role in the events of the Continent’s history. In amongst these new cards, you can find faction-specific ones and a new Legendary card type that evolves in both appearance and power as your fight rumbles on. You’ll also find 11 neutral cards that can be used in any of Gwent’s factions. If that’s not enough, the Master Mirror update also introduces new statuses and abilities. So there’s plenty of new tools for strategising.

While the Gwent Master Mirror release date is a wee bit away, pre-order offers have already been added to the Gwent store in-game. If you check out these offers, you’ll find packs that will grant you new cards from the expansion when it comes out, alongside a unique Gaunter O’Dimm leader skin. There’s also a Master Mirror-inspired cardback and title in certain packs that are ready to equip in-game after you get ’em.

In case you’ve been out of the loop, Gwent is a turn-based card game that was initially playable in The Witcher 3 before it got a standalone release on iOS and then Android. Each game is played between two people and lasts three rounds. Each deck has at least 25 cards and comes from a different faction that affects your playstyle. You can check out Sean’s Gwent review for more of our thoughts.

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If you’re looking for a deck builder to keep you busy while you wait, then you may find something in our best mobile card games list. Alternatively, you can read our Gwent guide if you really want to study up and be ready for your opponent.

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AudioMass Web Based Audio Editor

AudioMass is an open source browser based audio editor in the same vein as Audacity, designed to run in the browser but to not behave like a typical web applications.

Features of AudioMass include:

  • Loading Audio, navigating the waveform, zoom and pan
  • Visualization of frequency levels
  • Peak and distortion signaling
  • Cutting/Pasting/Trimming parts of the audio
  • Inverting and Reversing Audio
  • Exporting to mp3
  • Modifying volume levels
  • Fade In/Out
  • Compressor
  • Normalization
  • Reverb
  • Delay
  • Distortion
  • Pitch Shift
  • Keeps track of states so you can undo mistakes
  • Offline support!

The source code is available on GitHub but unfortunately does not currently have a license attached rendering it dangerous to use for now.  Hopefully a license is added in the future.  You can learn more about AudioMass and see it in action in the video below.

GameDev News


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Command And Conquer Source Code Released

EA have just released the game client source code for Command and Conquer, both Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn versions.   This code is used to generate a DLL that is then hosted in the game engine and will enable modders to create new content for the about to be released Command & Conquer Remastered.

The source code is available on GitHub under the GPLv3 license.  This is not a complete release, it does not include game assets, nor does it ship with the game engine itself.  Instead you can use this source to create game DLLs that are run in the engine.  The code however is extremely well documented and is a nice peek behind the curtain of a successful commercial game.

You can learn more about the code release in the video below.

GameDev News


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Dota 2 Update – June 1st, 2020

We’ve read feedback from the community that leveling feels harder this year. We looked into how things compare so far to last year. For battle pass players of all levels, on average players have earned 1.95% more free levels than last year. If we consider only players who after a week were below level 200, on average they have earned 7.91% more free levels than last year. However, we recognize that players still feel that they wish playing granted more, so we have a few changes included in this update:

– Wagering battle point rewards are now increased by 50%
– Guild contract battle point rewards are now increased by 100%
– Sideshop gold for Recycling is increased by 65%
– Sideshop gold for Guild contracts and upgrades are increased by 100%

All these changes are effective as of this update. For sideshop gold earned through previous recycles, we will be granting the extra gold over the next few hours.

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Optikon Love2D Level Editor

Optikon is a free Windows based ( Mac and Linux can run via Wine ) level editor that takes a WYSIWYG approach to creating game levels using the Lua powered Love game framework.

Details of Optikon from the website:

Drag and Drop Level Design

Optikon is a simple drag-and-drop level designer which makes stunning 2D level design in LÖVE possible for everybody.
Optikon generates Lua code in real-time as you create your level, so that you don’t have to write a single line of code. Simply copy and paste this code straight into a .lua file to run your game, or click “Run” in Optikon to play your level in an instant.

Built-in Code Editor

Optikon comes with a built-in Lua code editor so that you can do all your level design and coding in one place. The code editor comes with automatic Lua syntax highlighting to help boost your productivity.

Quick & Versatile Level Design

Optikon will give you the tools and performance needed to easily build large and complex levels. Add rulers as a visual aid, layer and quickly duplicate components to speed up level design.

Optikon is ultimately a code generator, creating Lua code for the Love framework.  If you want to learn more about Lua and Love, check out our complete tutorial series available here.  To see the Optikon editor in action be sure to check out the video below.

GameDev News Design


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Looks like a Slay the Spire mobile update is coming soon

Details on Slay the Spire‘s mobile release date have been thin on the ground since game developer Mega Crit Games revealed it would be delayed past 2019 late last year. That could all be set to change, however, as one of the developers working on the project reveals we should get an update soon.

Anthony Giovannetti replied to someone on Twitter late last May explaining that an update “should” arrive this month. “We should have an announcement on mobile within the next 30 days,” he explains. That was tweeted May 22, so if you want to get super technical about it, you could say we should hear something by June 21. That said, you never know what might happen with unforeseen circumstances, so it’s probably best to sit tight.

Our last update from Mega Crit games came back in January after the developer told another fan that the mobile port was going “through the QA pass” and was “solely in our publisher’s hands at this point”. The final QA process in games development can take a while, but we should hopefully get a better idea of when we can play Slay the Spire on iOS and Android soon.

In case you’ve yet to play Slay the Spire, it’s a rogue-like card battle that fully launched on PC in 2019. You try to make your way up the titular tower, battling hordes of goons as you go. There’s no room to get used to things, though, as the tower will change each time you die – so you’ll need to be good at thinking on your feet.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, then you can check out our guide on the best games like Slay the Spire on mobile to get a feel of what it might play like once it comes out. There’s a fair few games you can choose, from Dimensions of Dreams to Meteorfall: Journey.

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Godot Running In a Browser

Thanks in part to a $50,000 award from the Mozilla foundation, the Godot game engine is gaining the ability to be run in a web browser.   You can try it out right here if you have the latest version of a Chrome based browser, or Firefox Nightly.

Explanation for the rationale for Godot in a Browser from the Godot news page:

Godot Engine supports exporting games to the HTML5 platform (i.e. browsers). Given that the editor itself is written using the Godot Engine API it should be possible to run the editor in browsers as well.

The reason why the editor wasn’t able to run in browsers up until now was due to some historical Web browsers limitations, mostly lack of support for threading, but also file system access.

With the introduction of WebAssembly, WebAssembly threads, Javascript SharedArrayBuffer, and possibly an upcoming Native FileSystem API, it should now be possible to have an almost-native user experience when running the editor on the Web.

This will be beneficial in many ways to the engine itself for multiple reasons:

  1. It will lower the barrier for new users, which will be able to try out the engine without the need to download anything.
  2. Any modification towards reaching that goal will also improve the HTML5 export itself (given that the editor is made like a Godot game).
  3. It will allow to use Godot in a reasonable way in environments where installing/downloading applications is not an option (e.g. schools’ computers and tablets), fostering the usage of the engine for educational purposes (which is something we, as an open source community, deeply believe in).

This DOES NOT mean that Godot will move completely to the Web, nor that the Web browsers version will be the recommended way for professional development, but it will be an additional option for cases where it might be useful (again, pick the education sector as an example).

Perhaps the most interesting part is the future plans for mobile usage:

  • Virtual keyboard in the HTML5 plaform, for working text input in mobile devices.
  • Persistence support, WebDAV integration.
  • Gestures for the editor, allowing using the editor from touch devices (this will also be beneficial to make native Android or iOS versions of the editor for example).

These features, as well as Dropbox support, could truly bring Godot to Android, iOS or ChromeOS devices in the future!  You can learn more about Godot in the Browser in this video.  This is the second project to bring Godot to the browser, details of the first ‘Godot.Online’ is available here.  Note, Godot.online is not an official Godot project.

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A new Legends of Runeterra character concept is being created in a ‘Draw with Riot’ art stream

Riot Games has announced the first ‘Draw with Riot’ art stream is running tonight, creating a new character concept for Legends of Runeterra. The stream follows Runeterra’s principal concept artist, Chris Campbell, as he draws the character live. We’re extremely excited to see the new concept, since Legends of Runeterra’s art is out of this world gorgeous. But we’re also excited because in the notes for Patch 1.2, which dropped a little while back, it was hinted that this livestream might also give us info about future content coming to Legends of Runeterra.

Could this livestream also reveal the concept for the next expansion pack? Or will it reveal a solo character coming to the game? We have absolutely no idea, but the best way of finding out is by settling down to watch the livestream.

For those that don’t know, Riot Games’ card battler, Legends of Runeterra recently came to mobile, launching at the same time as the expansion pack, Rising Tides. It’s wowed a lot of people, especially us – read our Legends of Runeterra review if you want to know why!

Riot also revealed a new roadmap for Legends of Runeterra today, introducing three new game modes: Labs, Gauntlets, and Events. The video also reveals that Runeterra will get a new region expansion every six months, and new cards every two. Full details can be seen below:

It sounds as if ‘Draw with Riot’ is going to be a regular feature from now on, and these streams are a really great way of learning more about how the game’s concept art is created. But since Runeterra’s art is so beautiful, you really won’t hear us complaining.

If you want to catch the stream, it’s just started, and is happening over on Riot Games’ Twitch channel as we speak. For those reading this later, as with most streams, the video will be available for you to watch after the fact.

You can download Legends of Runeterra on Google Play and the App Store, and if you want some help getting started, be sure to check out our Legends of Runeterra tier list and our Legends of Runterra decks guide.