Concept Graph is perhaps the single most impressive plugin I have seen yet for the Godot game engine. It aims to bring the world of procedural content generation to the Godot game engine and quite frankly, even in an early experimental state, it succeeds. Even in my short hands-on time with Concept Graph, I can really see how this could be a game changer for many Godot developers.
Concept Graph is a free node based content creation tool integrated in the Godot game engine. The node graph is composed of many small independent nodes connected together to create a complex result.
Current status
This add-on is still in alpha. It’s not considered production ready, but if you want to play around with it, I’d love to hear your feedback on the UI, general usability, features or anything else. If you want to contribute to the code, head oven to the Advanced topics section to get familiar with the code-base architecture.
Quite frankly, Concept graph is really one of those things you should see in action to truly appreciate it. You can check it out in our video below including quick installation and getting started instructions. If it excites you as much as it did me, you can then learn more in this in-depth video tutorial by the addon’s creator @HungryProton.
Pose Animator is a free and open source implementation showcasing how you can animated an SVG avatar using either webcam driven face and bone data, or from analyzing a static image. On the GitHub repository, Pose Animator is described accordingly:
Pose Animator takes a 2D vector illustration and animates its containing curves in real-time based on the recognition result from PoseNet and FaceMesh. It borrows the idea of skeleton-based animation from computer graphics and applies it to vector characters.
This is not an officially supported Google product.
The GitHub page also includes two demos. The first one showcases using a camera to control an avatar, while the second one showcases how to accomplish the same thing with a static image. Please note there a currently a couple bugs that need to be addressed if you build this from source yourself, with the resolution details available here. I also walk through the process of building and running Pose Animator in the video below.
Yesterday we talked about Rider for Unreal Engine, but did you also know that Rider can be used to develop Godot games as well?
There are a few things you are going to need to get started. First off obviously is JetBrain’s Rider, which is available with in a 30 day free trial. However if you are a student or are an open source contributor there are free licenses available.
Next you are going to need to download and install the Godot plugin from the JetBrains plugin repository. Simply click the blue Get button to download the required zip file. By the way, there is also a community contributed GDScript plugin available here, but that is not what we will be covering today.
To install the plugin simply select File->Settings, locate the Plugins option on the left, then click the Gear icon and select Install Plugin from Disk…
Then select the just downloaded zip file. This will now required a restart of the IDE. You now have Godot support in Rider.
In Godot you do need to enable Mono debugging however. This is available under Project->Project Settings, then on the left hand side locate Mono->Debugger Agent, then turn on Wait for Debugger.
You can see the entire process in action in the video below. If you Rider isn’t your IDE of choice, perhaps you want to check out using Visual Studio Code with Godot instead.
Rider is a .NET IDE by JetBrains, currently heavily focused on Unity game developers. Recently JetBrains launched a early preview of Rider For Unreal Engine. Wait a minute you might say… isn’t Rider for C#, while CLion is their C++ IDE, and isn’t C++ the primary language for Unreal Engine developers. Why yes, you are correct astute reader. JetBrains however are focusing Rider toward game developers, which includes C++ and to a lesser degree Blueprint support, in addition to C#/.NET support that already exists in rider.
The top 5 reasons to choose Rider according to JetBrains:
1.
A Fast IDE with native C++ support
Rider is powered by ReSharper C++, which offers native and cutting-edge support for modern C++. Users are helped daily by its 250+ code inspections, 50+ context actions, solution-wide refactoring, and code generation abilities.
This is all combined with the IntelliJ Platform’s solid IDE features, such as super-fast navigation, integrated version control, and extensive plugin support. Rider provides this rich feature set without compromising speed or responsiveness.
2.
Knowledgeable about Blueprints
Rider for UE4 doesn’t just work with your C++ code. It also reads the Blueprints (BP) from your project and the Unreal Editor, along with plugins from both. This allows Rider to show the usages in BP files, as well as the values of the overridden properties. When navigating to BP objects, Rider opens them in the Unreal Editor.
3.
Assists with the reflection mechanism
UE4 reflection macros are more than just simple text! To speed up the process of game development, Rider provides code completion for reflection specifiers and shows the documentation in the Quick Documentation popup.
4.
Takes care of the UE4 code style
Rider accommodates UE4 naming conventions across all its actions, which helps keep your code easy to read. Inconsistent UE4 naming inspections detect names that don’t follow the rules and suggest a quick fix.
5.
Profound code analysis & RPC support
Rider ensures that your UE4 code is accurate with the help of specialized UE4 inspections for missing or incorrectly set UE4 reflection macros. Similarly, code navigation and generation actions are set up to deal with UE4 Remote Procedure Calls correctly.
If you want to check out Rider for Unreal Engine, the signup is available here. You can learn more about Rider for Unreal Engine and see it in action in the video below.
There is a new Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, this one is a collection of audio tracks and music loops. Called the Big Music for Games, Film and Content Creators bundle, it is a collection of zip files containing WAV soundtracks for use in your game or film project. As with all Humble Bundles this one is organized into tiers:
1$ Tier
Mystical Game Music Pack
Music Loops Mini Set
Scary & Mystical Music Pack
15$ Tier
Medieval & Adventure Game Music Loops
Cosmos Music Pack
Lyric Voices Choir Music Pack
Heavy Riffs Full Bundle
Big Casual & Arcade Game Music Bundle
25$ Tier
Big Action Music Bundle 1 (Action, Rock, Energy)
Big Action Music Bundle 2 (Powerful, Dynamic, Energetic)
Big Orchestra Music Collection
Universal Music Collection
Fantasy Adventure Game Music Pack
Epic Battle Trailers Music Pack
Space Adventure Music Pack
The content of this bundle are under this license which seems pretty straight forward and fair. As with all Humble Bundles, you decide how your money is allocated, including if you wish (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS if purchased using this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.
Unreal Engine 4.25 was just released today, with tons of improvements, new features and bug fixes. The biggest theme of the 4.25 release was production ready with several in development systems now considered ready to use in a production environment.
Major features of the 4.25 release include:
Niagara VFX system improved and production ready
Unreal Audio Engine improved and production ready
Real Time Raytracing Support production ready
Added support for Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 development
Hololens 2 support now production ready
Chaos Physics Engine improved and being used in Fortnite
New Thin Transparency shading model and a new Anisotropy material input property
LiDAR data support
much, much more
A summary of new features in Unreal Engine 4.25 is available here while detailed release notes are available here. You can learn more about Unreal Engine 4.25 in the video below.
Epic Games have released another round of free assets for Unreal Engine developers. These assets are yours forever, as long as you “purchase” them before the first Tuesday of June 2020. Interestingly this month there was no addition to the permanently free collection.
This months free content includes:
Currently the SciFi Robot pack does not appear to be showing up in the Epic Game Launcher, hopefully a problem that is rectified soon. You can learn more about this months giveaway in the video below.
First launched in 2003, the open source cross platform vector graphics application Inkscape just hit the major 1.0 milestone! Inkscape is open source with the source code available on GitLab. Details of the release from the Inkscape news page:
After a little over three years in development, the team is excited to launch the long awaited Inkscape 1.0 into the world.
Built with the power of a team of volunteers, this open source vector editor represents the work of many hearts and hands from around the world, ensuring that Inkscape remains available free for everyone to download and enjoy.
A major milestone was achieved in enabling Inkscape to use a more recent version of the software used to build the editor’s user interface (namely GTK+3). Users with HiDPI (high resolution) screens can thank teamwork that took place during the 2018 Boston Hackfest for setting the updated-GTK wheels in motion.
Smoother performance & first native macOS application
This latest version is available for Linux, Windows and macOS. All macOS users will notice that this latest version is labelled as ‘preview’, which means that additional improvements are scheduled for the next versions. Overall, 1.0 delivers a smoother, higher performance experience on Linux and Windows, and a better system integration (no more XQuartz!) on macOS.
So many new bells and whistles
One of the first things users will notice is a reorganized tool box, with a more logical order. There are many new and improved Live Path Effect (LPE) features. The new searchable LPE selection dialog now features a very polished interface, descriptions and even the possibility of marking favorite LPEs. Performance improvements are most noticeable when editing node-heavy objects, using the Objects dialog, and when grouping/ungrouping.
You may encounter some challenges downloading today. I was unable to download the Win64 version, but the 32bit version worked fine. Hopefully these download issues are fixed soon. You can learn more in the video below.
Today Unity Technologies purchased the rights to the visual scripting solution Bolt 1 & 2 from Ludiq. The asset is already under the Unity name on the asset store and community and development efforts will be shift to Unity Montreal going forward.
Ludiq is proud to announce that its flagship visual scripting solution Bolt has been acquired by Unity Technologies. This acquisition will empower Unity developers worldwide with a production-ready visual authoring tool that helps artists, designers and programmers collaborate on their game or application. Thanks to Unity’s involvement, Bolt will benefit from a wealth of resources and experience in middleware development, while its users can continue to rely on the same level of quality support and trusted new releases they had come to expect.
As the lead developer of Bolt to this day, I am thrilled about the potential of putting this tool in the hands of more creators and allowing them to concretize their ideas in a visual way. Bolt started as a solo endeavor nearly four years ago, and over time, our team and community grew to welcome thousands of visual thinkers. Today, passing the torch to Unity means Bolt will enter an exciting new phase of its life. While letting go of a project you love is never easy, I have met the amazing people at Unity who will carry it forward and I am confident that Bolt is in the best of hands.
We are working closely with Unity Montreal to ensure a seamless transition. Support for Bolt 1 will continue uninterrupted and development of Bolt 2 is progressing on track. We want to make sure there are no sudden or unexpected changes for existing users. In the meantime, we want to address any question or concern you may have.
It is important to realize that Unity have just acquired Bolt, not the entire company for other technologies such as Peek. There are more details of the acquisition over on the Unity forums. With Bolt 2 currently in development and offered as a free upgrade by Ludiq, people are obviously concerned if this is still the case, rest assured it is.
Ludiq pledged to make Bolt 2 free for users of Bolt. Will Unity honor this pledge?
Yes. Bolt 2 will be free for current Bolt users as well as those who purchase Bolt on the Asset Store before 11:59:59 pm PST on May 31, 2020. Bolt users will receive an individual license for Bolt 2 when it becomes available.
You can learn more about the acquisition in the video below.
What beauty or horrors await Alice in her adventures? This is the question you must answer as you create a game-ready environment to fit this theme. We have gathered concept art from Alice Asylum to inspire your work.
All entries must be created in Core, our new, free to use game and world creation platform, powered by Unreal, that gives you all the tools you need to turn your vision into reality. To learn more about Core, visit coregames.com or read “Art Directing the Multiverse” by Dan Fessler, Core’s art director.
The contest ends May 31st, 2020 and has several prizes available, including:
If you are looking for guidance on how to create art using Core, be sure to start with this tutorial for the basics. They also launched a new learning portal available here. You can learn more about the contest in the video below.
engine. The node graph is composed of many small independent nodes connected together to create a complex result.
