Tag: GameDev News

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Vulkan Unified Samples Repository

The Khronos Group have just released the Vulkan Unified Samples Repository, a single location for the best tutorials and code samples for learning and using the Vulkan API.

Details from the Khronos blog:

Today, The Khronos® Group releases the Vulkan ® Unified Samples Repository, a new central location where anyone can access Khronos-reviewed, high-quality Vulkan code samples in order to make development easier and more streamlined for all abilities. Khronos and its members, in collaboration with external contributors, created the Vulkan Unified Samples Project in response to user demand for more accessible resources and best practices for developing with Vulkan. Within Khronos, the Vulkan Working Group discovered that there were many useful and high-quality samples available already (both from members and external contributors), but they were not all in one central location. Additionally, there was no top-level review of all the samples for interoperability or compatibility. This new repository project was created to solve this challenge by putting resources in one place, ensuring samples are reviewed and maintained by Khronos. They are then organized into a central library available for developers of all abilities to use, learn from, and gain ideas.

The first group of samples includes a generous donation of performance-based samples and best practice documents from Khronos member, Arm.

The repository is hosted entirely on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 source license.  The code samples are located here.

You can learn more in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McpET2clPS0&w=853&h=480]

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Epic Unreal Giveaway Continues Another Year

Two great pieces of news for Unreal Engine developers today.  First off, Epic Games have announced they are continuing the monthly Unreal Engine asset giveaway that they have been running for the previous year.   This means on the first Tuesday of each month, you have the opportunity to “buy” 5+ assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace for free.  Once “purchased” they are yours to keep forever.

The second news is that Unreal Engine are giving away $4 Million worth of assets from the game series Infinity Blade.  Details from the Unreal Engine blog:

In addition to renewing the program for another year, we’re celebrating this milestone with the release of five new asset packs from the award-winning Infinity Blade franchise, valued at $4 million in development investment. Along with seven previously released Infinity Blade packs, these free Infinity Blade assets are now available for use in Unreal Engine projects, for free, permanently.

Going forward, new featured free Marketplace content will be released on the first Tuesday of every month, and the catalog of permanently free assets will also continue to grow.

Lastly, mark your calendars for the Creator Appreciation Event, a special sale launching on Tuesday, November 5 in recognition of alumni who have contributed to the free content program in its first year.

It is not entirely clear if there will be free content on November the 5th, or if the Infinity Blade content is considered this months entry.  Regardless, stay tuned to GameFromScratch for ongoing coverage of Unreal Engine marketplace giveaways!  To learn more and see the new assets, check out the video below.

EDIT: In the official media release, it was clarified that there will in fact be a release on November 5th!

Epic Games today announced a year-long extension of featured free content via the Unreal Engine Marketplace, providing assets, tools, and plugins to accelerate the production of high-quality 3D games and experiences, at no cost to creators. New featured content will be released on the first Tuesday of every month beginning on November 5.

Stay tuned for ongoing coverage of the next year of UE4 content!

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

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Humble VR/AR GameDev Bundle

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]

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Haxe 4.0.0 Released

The Haxe Programming Language just hit a major milestone with the release of version 4.0.0.  The programming language gains several new features such as:

  • New function type syntax
  • Arrow function syntax
  • final keyword
  • New and faster Haxe built-in interpreter
  • Unicode support on all targets
  • Key-value iterators
  • Auto-“using” for types
  • IDE services protocol for better IDE support
  • New high-performance run-time HashLink, a successor of Neko
  • .. and much more!

Check the complete What’s New Guide for a full list of changes in this release, including possible breaking changes from Haxe 3.x.  There is a thriving ecosystem of game engines and frameworks for Haxe which we showcased here.  Of particular interest are the Blender based Armory3D engine (tutorial series here) and the popular and mature 2D frame HaxeFlixel (tutorial series here).

You can learn more about the Haxe 4.0.0 release in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KW6P9JaqTc&w=853&h=480]

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Unity Release New FPS Template And Tutorial Series

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]

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GDevelop 5 Beta 82 Released

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]

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Talos Particle Engine

Talos is an open source Java based particle system creation tool powered by the LibGDX graphics framework.  The source code is available on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 open source license, while the executable is available here in JAR format.  Currently there is a LibGDX runtime with hopefully more game engines to follow in the future.

Version 1.05 was just released with the following features:

  • legacy libgdx particle file importer full functionality
  • Modules can now be renamed with double click on the title
  • Full Copy/Paste functionality for modules from emitter to the emitter. Works between different talos windows.
  • Additive blend mode support in renderer and config properties for emitter
  • Global dynamic user set vars (global scope input)
  • Dynamic Drag point support for visualizing vector2 values in the preview window
  • Filtered search drop-down for module creation
  • Dropping curve in empty location auto-open’s module popup.
  • Preview supports background and foreground images.
  • Viewport width can be changed with exact numbers in input box instead of just scroll for zoom
  • Particle in the preview window can be moved with right-click
  • Module multi-select with rectangle hit, with SHIFT, and with Ctrl+A
  • Categorized module list
  • Some modules now have their default values exposed as input fields
  • Performance numbers such as triangles, particle count, render times and more shown in preview
  • Runtime: attached mode
  • Runtime: loopable effects and support for API methods such as pause/start/stop allow completion
  • Batch legacy import functionality
  • Export for runtime format
  • Settings dialog for default asset location
  • Module Grouping with Ctrl+G, color and custom text for module groups
  • Up & Down positioning for emitters.
  • Fixed samples list to work, now you can see 3 example .tls in File->Samples menu
  • Offset dynamic shape module
  • Module to script in java code and manipulate inputs/outputs
  • Beam Renderer module
  • Random Input slot module
  • Perlin Noise module
  • From To to Position/Size/Rotation converter module

Given the new ability to import existing LibGDX particle effects, you can download plenty of examples to play around with in this project.  If you are interested in learning LibGDX be sure to check out our complete tutorial series available here.  To learn more about Talos and see it in action, check out the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXse8XQ1IQQ&w=853&h=480]

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NeoAxis 2019.3 Released

NeoAxis 2019.3 was just released.  NeoAxis is a free C# powered 3D game engine with an editor capable of targeting Windows and UWP platforms currently with more planned in the roadmap.  The 2019.3 release brings several major new features such as a new terrain system and a built in 3D building for assembling geometry directly inside the game engine.

Details from the changelog:

  • API of the engine and the editor have been updated. Now they are considered complete.
  • Terrain.
  • Builder 3D. Fast level creation tools, 3D modeling tools, constructive solid geometry operations.
  • Three ways to create objects in the scene are now available: Drag & Drop, By Click, By Brush.
  • Tools for creation a huge amount of objects.
  • Surface component. A definition of surface type which contains material, set of meshes and other objects. Surfaces are used for painting and object creation by means brush.
  • Group Of Objects component. An object in a scene designed to store and display a large number of similar objects.
  • Decals.
  • Material: Advanced blending. The ability to configure which channels to write to the G-Buffer. Used for decals.
  • Per-object motion blur.
  • Smooth LOD transition.
  • Area component. Represents an area in space defined by the set of points.
  • Layers in the scene.
  • Package manager has been added.
  • Support for creating a build for the target platform has been improved. Now scripts and engine add-ons are supported. The process of creating a build is simplified. The page about build in manual has been added.
  • Build for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) has been improved.
  • Engine DLL assemblies management has been improved. Now unnecessary assemblies are not loaded into the simulation, thereby reducing the load on garbage collector.
  • C# Editor: Work with CS files has been improved. Now changes are synchronized between files. Now there are no invalid warning markers.
  • C# Editor: The ability to customize the visibility of markers has been added.
  • Occlusion query API has been added.
  • Lens flares now use occlusion queries to detect visibility on the screen.
  • Lens flares now appear and disappear smoothly.
  • The ability to change video mode, fullscreen mode, vertical sync in the player app.
  • Editor: Tool tips for events.
  • Editor: Many small fixes.
  • Material Editor: Access to TexCoord 2 and 3 from the shader editor.
  • Material Editor: DitherBlending function.
  • Objects Window: Search.
  • Scene Editor: Select same objects in sphere area by mouse double click.
  • Vignetting screen effect: Noise.
  • Bug fix: Physics: No collision between soft bodies and rigid mesh shapes.
  • Bug fix: Scene Editor: Unable to detach the object when it contains collision body.
  • Bug fix: Screen Space Reflection effect fixed.

You can learn more about the release and see NeoAxis in action in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcJBAuhPoyI&w=480&h=270]

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AppGameKit Particle Editor Released

The Game Creators have just released the AppGameKit Studio: Particle Editor, which despite the name will work with both AppGameKit Classic and the newer AppGameKit Studio.  It is a combination editor and runtime making creating and controlling particle systems for AGK a breeze. 

Key features include:

  • Create effects with as little as 1,000 to 1 million particles
  • Emitter types include box, circle, disc, filled sphere, spherical shell, line
  • Burst emitters for explosions and sparks
  • Particle type settings from size, colours, lifespan and more
  • Animated image particle support
  • Particle blend modes supported, opaque, alpha, additive
  • Particle colouring controlled using gradients
  • Particle orientation control
  • Turbulence system
  • Vector field controls, paint, push, attract, repel, swirl
  • Function packed runtime code for your projects (Win, Mac & Linux)
  • Custom textures and gradients supported
  • Reflector system used to bounce particles off floors and walls

The Particle Editor is available as DLC with an MSRP of $30 USD.  If you are interested in checking out AppGameKit Studio, be sure to check out our hands-on getting started tutorial series available here or check out the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQH-30a7Bg&w=877&h=493]

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AMD Joins Blender As A Patron

2019 has been a massive year for the open source 3D application Blender.  Back in July Blender 2.80 was released, perhaps the biggest release in Blender’s history.  Just a few days later, Epic Games announced that they would be giving Blender 1.2M dollars as part of their Mega-grant program.  Then earlier this month, NVIDIA became a Patron level sponsor, the highest tier possible.  Today another company joined that tier, announced in the following tweet:

image

No formal details of the partnership have been announced by either Blender or AMD as of yet, but a patron level sponsorship means that AMD will be giving the Blender Foundation at least 120K Euro/month, enabling the hiring of at least two developers full time!

Learn more about this and prior announcements in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuecgWCP13g&w=853&h=480]

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