Tag: GameDev News

MagicaVoxel, the cross platform completely free voxel editing application, just released a new version, 0.99.4 (and 0.99.4.1).  The release is focused heavily on adding new rendering functionality.

Details of the release(s):

• Renderer [0.99.4.1]
  • Sky->IBL: Image Based Lighting. use “.hdr” format panorama images to light the scene.
  • Fog: add Equi-angular sampling back to reduce noises. support fogs in othogonal views in a bounding volume.
  • Media: enable Sample->TR-Shadow to allow single direct lighting; enable Sample->MIS-Cloud to allow multiple direct lighting (very expensive).
  • Color all color options have their own color pickers which support HSV, RGB, H-Block and Hex values.
  • Palette Menu right click the palette view to show the pop-up menu.
• Renderer [0.99.4]
• Matter->Cloud: Media material which supports multiple scattering inside volume.
• Sample->MIS-GGX: Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS) for GGX surfaces (Metal/Plastic/Glass) for better reflection.
• Sample->TR-Shadow: Tranlsucent Shadow which allows light passing though glass and cloud voxels. Only Glass->Attenuation can affect the light color.
• can adjust Bounce->Diffuse/Specular/Scatter path depths separately.
• can assign glass/cloud materials to sphere/cylinder shape voxels (for experiments only).
• the renderer pipeline is refactored, which needs more time to improve, optimize and fix bugs.
• some features such as fog scattering requires more researches.
• frame drops and noises are expected.

MagicaVoxel is available here.  For the basics on getting started with MagicaVoxel check out our earlier video available here.  If you are looking for an alternative Voxel editing application check out our list available here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU-prvB7L7g&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News

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Announced a few months back at SIGRAPH, Maxon have finally released Cinema 4D Release 21.  Perhaps the biggest and most contraversial new feature of this release is the change to a single SKU, combined with a new subscription based licensing model.

Details of the announcement from Maxon:

Maxon, the leading developer of professional 3D modeling, animation and rendering solutions, today announced the availability of Cinema 4D Release 21 (R21). The next generation of the professional 3D application features a completely new Caps and Bevel system, new Field Force dynamics, interface speed enhancements, and numerous rendering, workflow and core performance improvements. With Release 21, Maxon initiates a new singular version of Cinema 4D and new low-cost subscription pricing plans to ensure easy access to creatives.

“Release 21 delivers innovations and efficiencies that extend our objective to help customers meet the shifting needs of the competitive content creation industry,” said Maxon CEO Dave McGavran. “Simplified access to Cinema 4D and low-entry pricing allow artists to focus less on budget and more on the creative process.”

You can learn more about Cinema4D r21 here with the full release notes available here.  Check out the video below to learn more about the new purchasing options and subscriptions available.

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

GameDev News 3D

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Humble Bundle have just released another bundle of interest to game developers, the Humble Book Bundle: Become a Game Developer.  The title is slightly misleading as the majority of content are actually video courses and tutorials, although there are also half a dozen current Unity books from Packt in the bundle.  As always, the bundle is split into tiers.  Buying a higher tier also nets you all the contents from lower value tiers.

Bundle tiers:

1$ Tier

• Unity 2018 Artificial Intelligence Cookbook **
• Hands-On Game Development with Unity 2018.1
• Mobile Game Development with Unity 3D 2019
• Game Design with Unity 2019

8$ Tier

• Unity Artificial Intelligence Programming **
• Practical Unity Game Development
• Hands-On Augmented Reality with ARCore and Unity
• Introduction to Unity
• Skeletons vs Zombies MOBA With Multiplayer in Unity
• Beginner and Advanced Lighting in Unity
• Cinematics and Animation in Unity

15$ Tier

• Unity Virtual Reality Projects **
• Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook **
• Unity 2018 Cookbook **
• Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 2019 **
• Master ARCore 1.3 Unity SDK
• Create an Image Target Based AR Experience Using Unity 3D and Vuforia 7
• Create Augmented Reality Apps using Vuforia 7 in Unity
• Create a Game Environment with Blender and Unity

Items marked with ** are books, all other items are videos.  You can decide how your money is allocated, between Humble, the publisher, charity or if you choose to support GameFromScratch (thanks!!!) using this link.  You can learn more about this bundle in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUcd0lBsO14&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unity

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Every month Epic Games release several free assets on the Unreal Engine marketplace and this September is no exception.  Keep in mind you need to “purchase” the assets during the month of September for free then you can keep them forever.  Additionally Epic make a couple free assets available forever each month.

September Free Assets

Free Forever Assets

You can learn more about the asset giveaway on the Unreal Engine blog or by watching the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nor2NMhGgo&w=480&h=270]

GameDev News Unreal

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Crytek have just released CryEngine 5.6 featuring over 1000 changes and improvements including several developers for the game Hunt Showdown.  There are a number of new features in this release including new project management features directly in the Sandbox editor, a new AI Behavior Tree tool, area lights, ragdoll physics and ADX2 support.  Details of the release from the CryEngine blog:

This major release packs in over 1,000 changes and includes production-proven features which have been used to deliver Hunt: Showdown. The entire team here at Crytek would like to thank the entire CRYENGINE community for all the feedback and suggestions that have helped shaped the direction of development. This engine is for you, and we couldn’t have done this without you.

CRYENGINE 5.6 is designed to put more power in your hands and make game creation quicker and easier. We’re sure you’ll agree that it marks a big step forward for the engine. As you know, work doesn’t stop, and we’re already looking at the roadmap for CRYENGINE 5.7. Make sure you keep your thoughts and feedback coming as it really does make a difference.

The full release notes are available here, additionally Crytek have released a short video trailer showcasing the new features available here.  You can learn more about this release in the video embedded below.

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

GameDev News CryEngine

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Unity have just released Unity 2019.3 beta.  A few minor changes have had a major impact on the user experience, including a new UI font and icons making HiDPI support easier while cleaning up the UI.  Additionally the LWRP or Lightweight Render Pipeline has been renamed to the Universal Pipeline (HDRP remains the same), the package manager is improved with the ability to show assets as well as download directly from Git.

Details from the Unity blog:

The last beta release of the 2019 cycle, Unity 2019.3b, is here and it comes packed with new features, improvements, and a completely refreshed interface. Download it to get an early look at these highlights as well as to explore the new Input System, post-processing in the Universal Render Pipeline (formerly LWRP), physics updates, faster in-Editor iteration times, and the debut of ray tracing in Unity.

They are also running a giveaway for NVIDIA GeForce 2080 RTX GPU, check the above link for details.  The full release notes are available here or watch the following video for more details and to experience the updated UI in action.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9h5Bc7i0po&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unity

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Epic Games have just announced an Unreal Engine marketplace sale running from August 27th through September 3rd, 2019.  Details from the Unreal Engine blog:

It’s officially the 5-year anniversary of the Unreal Engine Marketplace!
Celebrate with us by saving up to 50% on select products. Over 4,000 fantastic products have been discounted, ranging from environments, Blueprints, props,characters and beyond!

The sale runs now through September 3 at 11:59 PM EDT.

Thank you to all the amazing Marketplace creators who have contributed to the Unreal development community over the last five years by offering outstanding content and support.

Don’t forget to check out the currently free offerings for August if you haven’t already.  An asset of interest to many developers was the CCG Toolkit, previously featured for free, which is currently on sale for 50% off in the sale if you missed it before.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeBuADkV8f4&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unreal

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RPG in a Box, is an all in one voxel based RPG game engine built upon the Godot game engine.  It was just released in early access on Humble Store, Itch.io and Steam.  RPG in a Box contains all the tools you need to create your own RPG including voxel editing and animation tools, dialog creation tools, world editors and more.

Current features include:

Voxel Editor

Build tiles, objects, and characters from 3D pixel blocks (i.e. voxels) and easily animate them with the editor’s frame-based/stop-motion animation system. Importing from MagicaVoxel (.vox) or PNG sprites is also supported.

Map Editor

Create grid-based worlds with the tiles you’ve built, then bring them to life by adding interactive NPCs and objects using the editor’s intuitive navigation and interaction system.

Scripting

Set up and trigger in-game events with the visual, node-based script editor. Simply drag and drop the desired actions (no programming knowledge required), or manually code “quick scripts” using the custom, Lua-like scripting language.

Dialogue

Write conversations for your NPCs using a visual, flowchart approach similar to that of the script editor. Branching dialogue is supported via player choices and condition checking.

Camera System

Choose from three available camera types for your game: standard, first-person, and isometric. Stage dynamic cutscenes using the engine’s flexible camera scripting system.

UI Customization

Design one or more dialogue box themes and customize the appearance of many other interface elements such as the inventory, main menu, and credits roll.

Basic Items

Define basic items for the player to find in containers or earn through the completion of tasks. Attach scripts to trigger effects for potions and other consumable items.

Sound FX Generator

Generate fun, retro-style sound effects using the built-in tool based on Dr. Petter’s SFXR

Check out RPG in a Box in action in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCicdeIXI5A&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Engine 3D

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Unity just released a new sample “Spaceship” that demonstrates the new Visual Effect Graph showcasing it’s ability to create elaborate UI or in game special effects.

Details of the demonstration from the Unity blog:

The spaceship demo features many effects during its walkthrough. All these effects have been authored and optimized in-game production conditions with performance in mind, targeting 33.3 ms (30 fps) on Playstation 4 (base) at 1080p. All the effects are taking advantage of the many optimization settings we implemented in Visual Effect Graph and High Definition Render Pipeline.

Half-Resolution Translucent Rendering renders selected transparent particles at a lower resolution, increasing rendering performance by 4 (at the expense of little blurriness in some rare cases). We used it mostly for big, lit particles that are present in the foreground as their texel/pixel ratio is rather low, the loss in resolution is not noticeable at all.

Octagon Particles is an optimization of quad particles and enable the corners of the particles to be cropped.  where the pixels are often found transparent (invisible cost). Particle corners are often transparent, but the overlapping of these transparent areas result in unnecessary calculations. Cropping out these sections can optimize the scene up to 25% in situations where there is lots of overdraw. There is also the benefit of reducing the resolution of the translucent sections when they can’t be cropped away.

Simplified Lighting model: Simple Lit for HD Render Pipeline enables disabling properties of the BRDF – Diffuse Lighting, Specular Lighting, Shadow and Cookie Reception, and Ambient Lighting. By selecting only the features you want to see, you can decrease the lighting computation cost to close to none. For instance, particles can be lit using only Light Probes by selecting a Simple Lit Translucent Model, then disabling everything except ambient lighting. This optimization was chosen for many environment effects that did not require a lot of high-frequency lighting.

You can download the project from GitHub however you need to have git LFS support enabled.  You can also download a pre-compiled version as well as a zip of the complete source archive right here.

You can learn more about project as well as a complete capture of the Spaceship demo in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_uALK8SHv8&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Unity

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8BitWorkshop is perhaps the most approachable way I have seen yet for beginning retro game development, specifically for 8Bit systems such as the Atari VCS/2600, various arcade systems and now the Nintendo Entertainment System.

8Bit Workshop is a complete IDE and emulator that runs entirely in the browser.  You can launch it directly by clicking here.  8Bit Workshop supports the following platforms:

• Atari 2600
• NES
• Verilog
• VIC Dual
• Midway 8080
• Galaxian/Scramble Arcade
• Atari Vector
• Williams
• Apple ][

In most systems you can code directly using C or assembly language.  It also comes absolutely loaded with examples in a variety of languages.  Additionally they have several supporting books Making Games for the Atari 2600 and Making Games for the NES.

Even better, the entire thing is open source under the GPL v3 license on GitHub.  You can also download several samples to get started right here.  Finally, version 3.4.0 was just released adding NES support, a new book and more.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a50S_-VGIwo&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News

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