Tag: GameDev News

CocosCreator, a free Cocos2d-x powered cross platform game engine, just released a version 2.4.0.  If you are interested in learning more about Cocos Creator, check out our complete Cocos Creator tutorial series available here.

Details of Cocos Creator 2.4.0:

This update brings more new features, optimizes performance and improves stability. Efficiency is everything! This version contains many new features and updates, such as resource management system refactoring, asset bundles, optimized the performance of graphic rendering.

The key new feature being the new asset manager with the following features:

• Supports loading and pre-loading of all resources, pre-loading can run silently in a lighter way, without affecting operation efficiency.
• Supports Asset Bundles.
• Supports a more secure automatic release mechanism, no need to consider its reference when releasing resources, to avoid mistaken release of resources.
• Support download failure retry, download priority, download concurrent number and other settings, which can be adjusted according to various situations.
• Support more convenient custom loading process to achieve special effects.

More details of the Cocos 2.4.0 release is available on the blog here.  You can learn more about Cocos Creator and this release in the video below.

GameDev News Cocos2D

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The Defold Game Engine (complete tutorial available here), recently transferred to the Defold Foundation, just announced support for the Nintendo Switch platform.

Details from the Defold website:

The Defold Foundation today announced the immediate availability of Nintendo Switch support for the Defold game engine. Nintendo Switch is the first console supported by Defold. Approved Nintendo Switch developers can request access to Defold through the Nintendo Developer Portal. Access will be granted to Defold community members with Nintendo Switch included in their membership tier. Source code access is available as a separate membership tier.

“When the decision was made to work on console support for Defold it was an absolute no-brainer to start with Nintendo Switch. Not only had our community asked for Nintendo Switch support for quite some time but the capabilities of Defold also seemed perfectly suited for the Nintendo Switch. It also turned out to be very easy to port to the platform and it was a real pleasure to work with the Nintendo Switch SDK. We can’t wait to play some great Defold games on Nintendo Switch!””, said Defold Product Owner Björn Ritzl.

Nintendo Switch support is available to Defold backers, although it also requires a Nintendo developer account.  You can learn more details about Nintendo Switch support here and by watching the video below.

GameDev News Defold

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Late last week CryTek released their development roadmap for the future of the CryEngine game engine.  Sadly it seems the next major release has been pushed back into 2021, although the feature list in the next version is pretty impressive.

Details from the CryEngine blog:

Mobile Support and Next-Generation Hardware: We’re working with Google and ARM to bring CRYENGINE to mobile and, of course, we‘re preparing CRYENGINE for upcoming hardware releases. We can’t wait to see what you can do with CRYENGINE on mobile, and, of course, we’re excited about seeing your CRYENGINE games running on more powerful consoles. Find out more about our mobile plan and register for our beta.

Scaleform 4 Update: CRYENGINE was previously limited to Scaleform 3, which meant that only older software and ActionScript 2 were viable methods for creating engaging UI. In the future, we are including Scaleform 4, which means you’ll be able to use both Adobe Animate and ActionScript 3.

Visual Scripting System: We’re as excited about this as you are. Almost all of our teams are working on and integrating with this new feature at the moment. As part of this process, we’re also undertaking a clean-up and separation of other systems, such as the Generic Reflection and Messaging systems.

Razer Chroma RGB Support: We’ve partnered with Razer to enable the Razer Chroma RGB effects API in CRYENGINE. This allows you to enhance the atmosphere and ambiance of your player’s experience by lighting up Razer Chroma-enabled hardware devices as the game is played.

More details, as well as future release features are available on the roadmap here.  They are running an early private beta available here.

GameDev News CryEngine

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There have been a lot of changes at Quixel since being acquired by Epic Games in late 2019, almost all for the better for developers.  Quixel Mixer 2020.1.2 is another example of that, with the texture generation tool getting a huge number of completely free smart materials, along side a new installer and resource manager.

Details of the release from the Quixel blog:

Earlier this year we introduced 3D texturing and Smart Materials support in the first Mixer 2020 release. This release comes with 50 new Smart Materials, a handy new Asset Manager and a new installer that lays the groundwork for regular releases of Smart Material packs. We are also working on new feature updates including Multiple Texture Set Support, slated for later this year.

50 premium scan based Smart Materials have been added to Mixer’s expanding collection of free top-quality assets. Mixer’s Smart Materials are crafted based on your requests by Quixel’s art team, using Megascans to ensure a world-class look and feel to your assets, instantly.

The new release includes Metals such as aluminum, oxidized iron and gold, Fabrics such as denim, linen and camo gear, and a plethora of Plastics, Rocks, Woods and Leathers. All these are ready to go and are completely free to use.

Quixel Miser is a completely free download, as are the new Smart Material packs, while the MegaScans library is available for free to Unreal Engine users.  You can learn more about the release in the video below.

GameDev News 3D Applications Unreal

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Today we are looking at the game engine/framework combo WebGLStudio, an entirely browser based game engine with a complete visual editor.

Key features of WebGLStudio include:

• A full 3D graphics engine (LiteScene.js) that supports multiple lights, shadowmaps, realtime reflections, custom materials, postFX, skinning, animation, and much more.
• An easily extended, component-based system for controlling the rendering pipeline and interaction event hooks
• An easy to use, what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor that provides a single interface for all coding, graph compositing and timeline features.
• A graph editor for controlling behaviours, shaders and post-processing effects, using LiteGraph.js.
• Supports the LiteFileSystem.js, a virtual file system that allows drag-and-drop storage of resources on the web, with configurable quotas, users and shared folders.
• Export and share your work by sending a single link.

The entire technology stack behind WebGLStudio is open source under the MIT license and available on GitHub.  You can learn more about WebGLStudio in the video below.

GameDev News Engine HTML5 JavaScript

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Fanatical have several e-book bundles of interest to game developers and recently updated the Unreal Game Development Bundle to include several new books, making it an even better deal.

The bundle now consists of:

• Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine
• Unreal Engine Physics Essentials
• Unreal Engine 4 AI Programming Essentials
• Building an RPG with Unreal 4.x
• Unreal Engine Game Development Blueprints
• Learning Unreal Engine Game Development
• Unreal Engine 4.X by Example
• Unreal Engine 4.x Scripting with C++ Cookbook
• Hands-On Artificial Intelligence with Unreal Engine
• Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects
• Unreal Engine Virtual Reality Quick Start Guide
• Unreal Engine Blueprints Visual Scripting Projects
• Mastering Game Development with Unreal Engine 4
• Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Quick Start Guide
• Game Development Patterns and Best Practices
• Mastering Unreal Engine 4.x
• Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Essentials
• Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook

This entire collection is available for $10 USD.  Additionally Fanatical are running similar book bundles for other game development technologies including Unity, Blender, C++ and Photoshop.  You can learn more about these bundles in the video below.

GameDev News Unreal Unity Blender Sale

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Reported on Venture Beat by respected games journalist Dean Takahashi, Epic Games are looking to raise an addition $750 million dollars, valuing Epic Games at an eye watering 17 BILLION dollars.

Fortnite maker Epic Games is raising $750 million, according to two sources who spoke to GamesBeat. Bloomberg reported the news first, but we have independently confirmed the details in our story.

The deal would give Epic a pre-money valuation of $16.3 billion, with a post-money valuation (the value of the company after the deal is done) of $17 billion. Epic Games is the developer and publisher of Fortnite, which has more than 350 million users. And it is also the creator of the Unreal Engine, a fundamental toolset for building many games (and increasingly, making movies and TV). Epic declined to comment.

A valuation on 17B would mark a hefty return on the earlier $825M Tencent investment, which resulted in Tencent holding a 40% minority stake in Epic Games.  Epic Games are not the only company looking to raise further capital.  Unity have long been rumoured to be looking at an IPO, with recent discussions heating up again.  You can learn more about both companies in the video below.

GameDev News Unreal Unity

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Today on the Unity Asset Store, they are running the Fantastic Fantasy bundle, a collection of Unity assets around a common medieval/fantasy theme with a consistent low polygon art style.  The bundle is organized into tiers, purchase a higher value tier you get all of the asset in the tiers below it as well.  The bundle assets consist of:

10$ Tier

• Simple Fantasy UI
• Fantasy Village Pack
• Interface and Item Sounds

20$ Tier

• POLYGON Fantasy Characters
• 2000 Fantasy Icons
• Low Poly Medieval Castle Pack
• Tower Defence Pack
• Fantasy Game (Sound FX)

30$ Tier

• Stylized Fantasy Forest Environment
• POLYGON Knights Pack
• Fantasy Adventure Environment
• Fantastic Village Pack
• Low Poly Animated Animals
• Emerald AI 2.0
• Low Poly Terrain Polaris V2

The bundle runs until the end of June 2020, purchasing the bundle using this link provides a small commission to GFS (and thanks if you do!).  You can learn more about this bundle on the Unity blog or watching the video below.

GameDev News Unity Sale

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