Epic Games have acquired Twinmotion, a archviz solution built on top of Epic’s Unreal game engine technology. Even better, Twinmotion is being made available for free Until November of 2019, with the license remaining valid past that date.
We’re excited to announce that Epic Games and Twinmotion have joined forces! Powered by Unreal Engine, Twinmotion, a high-quality, easy-to-use real-time visualization solution, is now part of the Epic family. And the best news? Our new version of Twinmotion is absolutely free to download and use for all customers until November 2019.
Twinmotion makes compelling design visualization easy! Whether you’re in the architecture, construction, urban planning, or landscaping industry, its highly intuitive interface enables you to assign PBR materials, set up lighting, and even choose the season and the weather with just a few clicks. Populate your scene from a library of ready-to-use assets, including animated characters, and trees whose foliage blows in the wind. With as few as two clicks, you can create paths of walking people or moving cars, and then vary their appearance to suit your scene.
Twinmotion can be downloaded using the Epic Game Launcher, under the newly added Twinmotion tab. Learn more about Twinmotion on the recently updated UnrealEngine site. You can see Twinmotion in action in the video below.
Discord App For Switch Would ‘Need Nintendo’s Blessing’
The makers of voice and text chat app Discord were vocal with their enthusiasm for bringing the service to Nintendo Switch back in 2017. It seems that they’re still keen to help out players who are perhaps less than happy with the Kyoto company’s official solution to voice chat on the console.
After the official Discord Twitter account posted an adorable Animal Crossing Mother’s Day pic, a fan asked when we’ll be seeing the app come to Switch:
Discord responded thusly:
So, although the company is still enthusiastic, a greenlight from Nintendo would be needed, and that doesn’t appear to be forthcoming. While it’s nice to see that Discord are ready and willing to integrate their solution – an app with which a great many people already solve their Switch voice chat woes – into the console itself, it seems that Nintendo is more than happy to continue using the convoluted Nintendo Switch Online app in supported games. Somebody there seems to think it ain’t broke, so a fix seems unlikely.
With Vivox, another voice and text chat specialist, having released an SDK for developers to use on Switch, some games are circumventing Nintendo’s convoluted system with titles like Fortnite, Paladins and SMITE all using the same tech to provide an in-game solution. We still dream of a slick, system-wide set-up, though! Is that too much to ask?!
What’s you experience with voice chat on Switch? Would you be happy to see Discord integrated on the console? Let us know below.
Random: Modder Makes Ganondorf A Playable Fighter In Smash Bros. 64
When Super Smash Bros. started out life in 1999 on the Nintendo 64, there were only 12 fighters to select from. As “all-star” as this original cast was, unfortunately, Link was unable to duke it out with Ganondorf.
Now, 20 years on, a modder by the name of JSsixtyfour has released a new ROM hack referred to as “Smash Remix” which replaces Captain Falcon with Ganondorf in the Nintendo 64 release. It’s not just a simple re-skin, either. This Smash Remix version of Ganondorf has drawn inspiration from future versions of the fighter and added in all of his trademark moves.
The Falcon Punch is swapped out with the Warlock Punch and the Captain’s A-button attack is now an electric jab. The weight, size, speed and jump have also been adjusted to better reflect Ganondorf in battle. JSsixtyfour intends to continue creating characters for the classic game, with hopes of eventually working out how to add them to the roster rather than replacing existing fighters.
Ganondorf originally made his debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee on the GameCube. Since then, he’s become a regular on the roster and has paved the way for various other antagonists such as Ridley from the Metroid series.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 05-14-2019, 10:02 PM - Forum: Windows
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5 ways tech is changing how people with disabilities experience the world
For the past eight years, Microsoft has brought together people from different parts of the company at the Ability Summit. This year’s gathering is taking place May 30 to 31 at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash.
The summit, designed to empower all people – including the more than one billion people with disabilities–has been a place for accessibility innovation. In 2015 it helped give way to the Xbox Adaptive Controller.
Artificial intelligence is bringing descriptive detail to people in the form of an app, Microsoft’s Seeing AI.
Seeing AI is designed for people who are blind or with low vision. It augments the world around the user with audio descriptions. And it reads short bursts of text and scans product barcodes. Documents can be photographed and their content readback. Seeing AI alsoscans and reads handwritten notes
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Soundscape
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MicrosoftSoundscape goes beyond immediate proximity to build a 3–D sound map of the user’s world.
It uses data andsound to add layers of information and context. In short, it helps users feel more comfortable when making their way around. Landmarks, road intersections and the places regularly visited can all be allocated a sound beacon so they can be clearly detected upon approach.
Soundscape’s synthesized binaural audio adds realism to directions, taking the map on a user’s phone and, effectively, creating an audio version.
Translation and captioning
Douglas Adams’s“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“ described the“Babel Fish.”These clever creatures, once inserted into someone’s ear,would translate any language.
Being able to participate in multilingual conversations is no longer the preserve of fiction.
Microsoft Translator acts as a real-time translation hub sitting between people speaking different languages and translating onthefly. It can do this when multiple languages are being spoken at the same time.It can also be set English to English and provide real-time captioning for people who are deaf or hard–of–hearing.
Gaming gets serious
The global gaming market isa multibillion–dollar industry. To help make gaming more accessible, Microsoft introduced the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a product of the company’s Hackathon in 2015.This controller has large, programmable buttons and can be connected to a range of external devices. The combination of large and customizable switches, buttons, mounts and joysticks empower all gamers.
Code you can hold in your hands
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Microsoft Code Jumper is the physical manifestation of a programming language that’s helping children who are blind or with low vision learnto code. Code Jumper is made of a series of programmable, tactile plastic switches, or pods. Each pod is an instruction, and can be joined together to create a line of code.
It means all children studying coding as part of their school curriculum can benefit. Childrencan learn about sequence, iteration, selectionand variables. And they learn how to solve a problem by thinking algorithmically — breaking a process down into its constituent parts and looking for different routes to the best solution.
Darkwood is a game about survival, exploration and fear, set in mysterious woods somewhere in the territory of the Soviet Bloc. It is a top-down, free-roam, surreal horror experience with a randomized world, taking cues from classic games, where oftentimes you had to figure things out for yourself. By blending RPG, roguelike and adventure elements together with a challenging difficulty, Darkwood aims to please players craving for a deep and rewarding experience.
The fear of unknown is powerful and the unknown will try to remain unseen, forcing you to watch your back. Your senses will be deceived, your sight fooled, your smell tricked by Darkwood's surreal terrors. No answer will be given to you for free, yet somewhere in the woods lies the truth, an explanation to what has happened in this godforsaken place.
Looking for your weakness, your inner demons, only to devour you. Welcome to Darkwood.
Hundreds Of PC Games Discounted In Huge May Madness Sale
It's been a great few weeks for PC game deals at Fanatical recently. The digital store's big Ubisoft sale is still going on until Wednesday, and it's already kicked off an even bigger sale on hundreds of more PC games. Dubbed the May Madness sale, the promotions are running all week long with new flash deals and other game discounts revealed every day.
Even better: There's an available coupon that'll slash an additional 10% off the current sale price, dropping many of these games even cheaper. The promo code to use is MAY10, and you can use it on most of the games, excluding pre-orders, Star Deals, bundles, and new releases like Rage 2 and Mortal Kombat 11.
Here's an overview of what's available right now; we'll continue to update this story as more deals are revealed throughout the week.
Remember that you can use the promo code MAY10 and take an additional 10% off the discount price shown here (except for the bundle). These flash deals run for 48 hours or while supplies last, and you'll receive your Steam key immediately after purchase.
More PC game deals
Besides daily flash deals, over 1,000 PC games and DLC will be on sale by the end of the week. More than 600 titles are available now, with more deals coming soon. Some notable bundles are marked down right now, including the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics Bundle, which is currently on sale for $7.49 and includes nearly 60 classic games; the DotEmu Classics Bundle, which normally sells for $62 and is down to just $2; and the Dreamcast Collection, which is available for $7.19.
Check out more of our picks from the sale below, and browse the full offering of game discounts at Fanatical. Note that Ubisoft titles are available to redeem on Uplay, rather than Steam. The 10% off promo code MAY10 will make the below prices even lower, excluding certain games and bundles.
A classic game of pixelated graphics and amazing chiptune melodies inspired by classics such as Space Invaders, Galaga, and Centipede. Travel back in time with this classic shoot 'em up with mechanics from arcades of the 80s.
A Plague Tale: Innocence offers an adventure supported by an original scenario, with gameplay that blends action, adventure and stealth phases. Follow our protagonists Amicia and her little brother Hugo, both orphans and on the run from the terrifying Inquisition. Our young heroes will also need to survive against an even greater danger: supernatural swarms of rats that appeared with the great plague infecting across cities and countryside. [Focus Home Interactive]
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 05-14-2019, 11:19 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Rage 2 aims to encourage streaming through interactive Twitch extensions
“I do believe this is actually the future of gaming, to have viewers participate more in the experience.”
– id Software studio director Tim Willits explains why the team paired Twitch extentions with the game
id Software’s Rage 2 is launching alongside a Twitch extension that lets viewers revive downed streamers and see their own names show up in-game.
As studio director Tim Willits explains in an interview with GameSpot, one of the goals of creating an extension like that is to encourage players to stream the game, something he says can be difficult with open world games.
“But we feel that with both the nature of the gameplay of Rage 2, and some of the fun stuff that we added in, we’re hoping to draw some more streamers,” Willits tells GameSpot.
This initial extension allows viewers on Twitch to complete a little defibrillation mini-game to revive players that die while streaming. More participants mean that more health is restored. Willits says that he thinks both the random elements of the game and its pacing lend themselves to an all-around steamtable game, and the team has more extensions planned to hopefully encourage others to think the same.
We know you’re busy and might miss out on all the exciting things we’re talking about on Xbox Wire every week. If you’ve got a few minutes, we can help remedy that. We’ve pared down the past week’s news into one easy-to-digest article for all things Xbox! Or, if you’d rather watch than read, you can feast your eyes on our weekly video show above. Be sure to come back every Friday to find out what’s happening This Week on Xbox!
Ghost Recon Wildlands Free Weekend Begins With New Story Content There are new mysteries to uncover in the massive open world of Ghost Recon Wildlands, and this weekend, Xbox Live Gold members can investigate them for free. Starting 10:01 a.m. PDT on May 2 through 10:00 a.m. PDT on May 6… Read more
New Games with Gold for May 2019 Welcome to another Games with Gold reveal for Xbox One and Xbox 360! In May on Xbox One, mix up the fun and party with friends in Marooners, then pick up your driver and hit the links in The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA Tour… Read more
Battlefield V: Introducing Battlefield Currency and Elites Battlefield V on Xbox One continues to evolve, with each new chapter bringing players maps, modes, and more. Chapter 3: Trial by Fire is heating things up with the recently-unveiled Firestorm mode – battle royale, reimagined for Battlefield… Read more
Horus and Set Arrive in Smite: The Battleground of the Gods Horus and Set — the legendary Egyptian rivals — are now playable characters in Smite on Xbox One and we’re excited to share a few details about what makes these new gods unique and fun to play. Our design for Horus and Set started with their mythology… Read more
Enjoy Great Deals During the Focus Home Interactive Publisher Sale Starting today and for one week only, from April 30 to May 6, Focus Home Interactive has a fantastic sale on its diverse collection of Xbox One games on the Microsoft Store. From hardcore RPGs and driving simulators to narrative horror and detective games… Read more
Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age Arrives Today on Xbox One We’re proud to bring the world of Ivalice to Xbox One players for the first time ever, with today’s release of highly acclaimed RPG classic Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age! Since Final Fantasy XII’s debut in 2006, the game has been lauded for its gorgeous… Read more
Microsoft Solitaire Inducted into The World Video Game Hall of Fame Today, The Strong Museum of Play announced the 2019 class of World Video Game Hall of Fame, and we’re excited to share that Microsoft Solitaire is one of the inductees. For many people, Solitaire was their introduction to computer games… Read more
Borderlands 3: Hands-on with the Most Borderlands Game Yet The skyline is decorated with massive buildings and neon lights. Vehicles that look like giant rings roll through darkened city streets. One thing’s for sure: We’re not on Pandora anymore. This is Meridian, on the planet Promethea, and it is one of many new locations… Read more
Next Week on Xbox: New Games for May 7 to 10 Welcome to Next Week on Xbox, where we cover all the new games coming soon to Xbox One! Every week the team at Xbox aims to deliver quality gaming content for you to enjoy on your favorite gaming console. To find out what’s coming soon to Xbox One, read on below and click on each of the game profiles for pre-order details (dates are subject to… Read more
