Today marked the release of Microsoft’s seminal IDE Visual Studio 2019. It is available for download right now at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/. The community edition of Visual Studio 2019 is completely free to use so long as your company makes less than $1M USD annually or has > 250 PCs. Free trials for the Professional and Enterprise versions are also available. For more details on the differences between versions, be sure to check here.
There are several new improvements and features available in Visual Studio 2019 including improved performance and start up times, a new AI driven code tool called IntelliCode, .NET core 3.0 support, C# data breakpoints, tighter integration with GitHub and Azure, multiple improvements to mobile development using Xamarin, a new remote coding interface called Live Code and much more. You can read the complete Visual Studio 2019 release notes here.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac also received a new release, including intellisense support taken directly from Visual Studio. You can read the full release notes here and download here. (be sure to click the MacOS tab if required).
You can watch a condensed to under 10 minute version of the keynote in the video below. In addition to the keynote, Microsoft have a series of training materials and more in-depth sessions available at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs2019-launch/.
Humble are running another bundle of interest to game developers, especially C# developers. It’s the Humble Microsoft & .NET Bundle by APress which contains 3 tiers of programming books, many about C# but all about Microsoft .NET technologies. As with all Humble Bundles (including the ongoing Coder’s Bookshelf bundle) it contains multiple tiers of books with proceeds split between Humble, the publisher, charity and potentially GFS (thanks!) at your discretion. If you buy a tier, you get all of the books below that tier.
This Bundle consists of:
$1 Tier
C# 7 Quick Syntax Reference
Visual Studio Code Distilled
Microsoft Computer Vision APIs Distilled
Beginning Xamarin Development for the Mac
Modern API Design with ASP.NET Core 2
$8 Tier
Cosmos DB for MongoDB Developers
Modern Data Access with Entity Framework Core
Azure and Xamarin Forms
Beginning Entity Framework Core 2.0
Developing Bots with Microsoft Bots Framework
Essential Docker for ASP.NET Core MVC
Pro C# 7
$15 Tier
Hardening Azure Applications
Beginning XML with C# 7
Modern Algorithms for Image Processing
Xamarin.Forms Solutions
Deep Learning with Azure
IoT, AI and Blockchain for .NET
Practical Bot Development
Introducing Microsoft Teams
You can grab the bundle here or learn more in the video below.
Epic Games have released the April 2019 round of free content for Unreal Engine. Every month Epic releases new content free for Unreal developers from the Unreal Engine marketplace, that is completely free so long as it is “purchased” during the month of the promotion. Additionally some new marketplace content is released free forever with no time limitations.
Autodesk have released the newest version of their popular 3D application, 3DS Max 2020. This is an incremental release bringing new features such as an improved chamfer modifier, new and improved Open Shader Language (OSL) shaders and more.
3ds Max 2020 highlights include:
– Performance enhancements support more accurate playback in the Viewport Framerate, faster playback speeds with Validity Intervals, accelerated SetNormals MaxScript function, and more.
– New Create Animation Preview features enhance the user experience and enable faster local drive creation, AVI codec selection and unlimited capture resolution, among other capabilities.
–Chamfer Modifier updates, includinga Fixed Weight Chamfer, presets, inset feature, end point bias and added depth, facilitate efficient, predictable modeling.
– OSL Shader improvements like an enhanced viewport display of OSL maps, automatic conversion of OSL shaders to viewport shaders, Quicksilver Hardware Renderer support for OSL Maps, and new and extended OSL mapsintroduce greater rendering flexibility and customization.
– Enhanced Revit import functionality accelerates data imports and simplifies scene management and organization, delivering options to combine files by material more selectively, the ability to import older Revit files into 2020 without upgrading, more accurate conversion of imported IES lights, and other features.
– 3ds Max to Arnold (MaxToA) integration updates streamline workflows, offering the ability to export Export Points as Arnold point primitives, faster PFlow instance rendering, and distribution of the Python API to edit, write, and render .ass files without relying on kick only.
A new game developer friendly Humble Bundle is currently running, this one is the Humble Book Bundle: Coder’s Bookshelf. As always, Humble bundles are a collection of similar themed items, often Books, Games or other media, increasingly of interest to game developers. Portions of the proceeds go to charity, humble, the publisher or to support GFS. Each bundle is broken into tiers, and if you buy a higher tier item, you get all of the items below it.
At GDC 2018, Microsoft unveiled DXR, or Direct X 12 Raytracing, an SDK enabling real-time raytracing, followed closely by NVIDIA announcing hardware support. This year at GDC 2019, those technologies have come of age, with major raytracing support coming from 3 major game engine manufacturers. Additionally NVIDIA have announced some potentially game changing news as well. Let’s break down the announcements and demonstrations one by one.
CryTek started the raytracing announcements off with their amazing real time demo Neon Noir. Even more impressive, it was done using an AMD card without real-time raytracing support! Unfortunately, the demo was never released to the public.
Unity showed an impressive demo Reality vs Illusion which intercuts real world footage and real time raytraced BWM footage that is nearly impossible to discern the difference. Unity’s technology is sadly several months from being available in a future HDRP release.
Unreal is the closest with their real time raytracing implementation, in fact it’s available now in Unreal Engine 4.22. They also had a presentation in the form of the short movie Troll.
NVIDIA also had a real time raytracing demonstration in the form of Project Sol, Part 3. Their announcement may have been the most significant however, as they announced that DXR driver support will be shipping in April to older generation NVIDIA GPUs, such as the 1060/1070 and 1080 cards.
Earlier at their GDC 2019 keynote, Unity announced the beta release of Unity Distribution Portal, or UDP for short… thank goodness that acronym isn’t taken! So what exactly is UDP? Its a combination of a beta package in Unity that integrates with their existing analytics and IAP packages and enables you to submit to the UDP. The UDP itself is an online portal for managing publishing, IAP and tracking of multiple different online stores around the world.
Described succinctly as:
Create once, publish everywhere
UDP reduces the engineering complexities associated with publishing to multiple app stores, enables you to distribute and operate games in local markets, and connects you with hundreds of millions of players worldwide through participating app stores.
Currently limited to the Android platform and only a few live app stores ( Catappult and MOO Store), with more coming online soon. Essentially it allows you to publish to more stores with very little extra effort, all managed and reported in a single interface. More interesting, is the following question and answer pair from the FAQ:
Does UDP support non-Unity games?
Currently, UDP only supports games made with Unity. However, in the future, UDP will be engine-agnostic. More details on this will be coming soon.
For more details on the Unity Distribution Portal beta visit here. See it in action in the video below.
After doing keynotes for Google, Unity and Unreal, some people have been asking when the Godot keynote is going to be. The answer is basically never… these things cost millions of dollars and that’s just not compatible with the way Godot’s open source development works. That doesn’t mean that exciting things haven’t been happening in the land of Godot, some big and some small enough they didn’t merit their own coverage. So here we are!
Godot 3.1 Was Released
Obviously the big news is, after a year in development, Godot 3.1 became a reality last week! You can watch our video on the subject here and read the official blog here. Usability improvements across the entire engine, a GL ES2 renderer, CSG support, optional static typing and much more were added to the engine.
Rust Language Bindings
Want to use the Rust programming language in Godot? Now you can thanks to this set of GDNative language bindings available on Github.
GDScript Playground
It’s an interactive browser based way to run and test GDScript. Check it out here.
Got spotty internet or just want an offline copy of the Godot documentation? Now you can get it from this nightly build source. It’s basically the online documentation built for offline use.
Today at GDC 2019, Allegorthmic, recently acquired by Adobe, announced the open beta of Substance Alchemist to existing Substance customers. Alchemist is a tool for authoring and managing materials and is part of the Substance subscription.
Details from the press release:
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – March 19, 2019 – Today at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019, the Substance team announces the start of the Project Substance Alchemist open beta. Effective immediately, all current Substance subscribers have exclusive and unrestricted access to the latest Substance material tool, uniting the Substance ecosystem like never before. Artists now have a playground for creating and augmenting entire libraries of materials with ease.
Project Substance Alchemist advances the art of making and managing 3D materials through instinctive simplicity. Creators can rely on a powerful, streamlined workflow and an intuitive user interface. It’s simple, fast and it uses some of the most advanced technology around. By hiding its complexity through easy-to-use tools like parametric sliders and filters, Project Substance Alchemist brings efficiency to artists and designers, without giving up any of the power that helps them thrive.
Starting today, artists are able to leverage the power of a tool that can quickly be adapted to meet their needs. Users can access materials in several ways, including downloading materials directly from Substance Source, find materials offered up by the Substance community or even upload real-world photographs. From there, they can quickly elaborate their own libraries of materials. For instance, a cobblestoned street can be honed to an artist’s exact specifications within Project Substance Alchemist, whether they desire a brand-new look with polished surfaces, or a broken down feel with moss and damaged tiles.
Project Substance Alchemist puts powerful tools into the hands of artists who work with scans, with quick and reliable tiling, as well as an AI-powered delighter. Trained with thousands of images, the delighter can instantly balance the shadows and light tied to photos and scans, so that lighting remains even and consistent. Designers who need to iterate rapidly on a material can also enjoy a vast array of variations with the instant creation of material collections based on a single image or a moodboard. Project Substance Alchemist can analyze the artist’s material and automatically generate suggestions on colors and textures, ensuring compatibility and additional creation options.
Although it is designed as a standalone tool, Project Substance Alchemist is deeply tied to the existing Substance ecosystem. Artists can search through their Substance Source downloads, import materials and filters made in Substance Designer or swap creations through the Substance Share artist exchange. Imported materials can then be added to the artist’s personal library for later use, or applied to an asset in Substance Painter. Thanks to the standardization of the Substance format, materials created in Substance Alchemist can be exported and used in every major 3D tool, including Unreal Engine, Unity, 3ds Max, Maya and many others.
Based on years of industry-leading research, and built with the help and feedback of the Substance community, Project Substance Alchemist will continue to develop in order to adapt to the evolving needs of artists and designers. The open beta is available now. For a video walkthrough, click here.
Pricing/Availability
Project Substance Alchemist is available at no cost to current Substance subscribers. Subscriptions come in Indie or Pro plans, priced at $19.90/month and $99.90/month respectively. Enterprise and education pricing is available upon request. Students and teachers can request a license at no cost.
In addition to the release of Alchemist, Allegorithmic also did a blog post on the status of their acquisition by Adobe and the effects it will have on future licensing terms. The key details are as follows:
Since the acquisition, we’ve heard lots of questions from our community about licensing and pricing. Our goal with licensing and pricing has always been to be fair to everyone and we’re continuing that philosophy. We’re planning to introduce new offerings late this year, but until then, our licensing and pricing structure will not change.
These future offerings will be primarily subscription-based, but we will continue to offer indie perpetual licenses. We believe that when the content and services offered in a subscription package evolve and improve at a steady pace, the subscription model is the best way for us to innovate fast, continuously improve your tools, and bring you more value.
I know perpetual licensing is important, especially in the indie space, so this should be taken as good news. That said, it’s Adobe calling the shots now so who knows what will ultimately happen.
Following on the heels of Google GDC reveal of the Stadia platform, both Unreal and Unity Technologies have announced their support for Stadia game development. Stadia is a new server side platform for hosting and streaming games to any Chrome supported device. Below are details from both game engine manufacturer.
“We’ve been building our support for Stadia to ensure that developers using Unreal Engine can hit the ground running and be successful on the platform,” said Arciel Rekman, Senior Platform Engineer at Epic Games. “Today we’re releasing a fully-featured integration with Stadia to help developers bring their games to an even broader spectrum of players.”
Designed with cross-platform support in mind, Unreal Engine leverages Stadia features through familiar interfaces, resulting in an easy setup, with visual quality and workflows that are consistent across all target devices.
Thanks to Unreal Engine’s cross-platform capabilities, developers can iterate on their game code locally on their Windows PC for Stadia, a Linux and Vulkan-based platform, before deploying to the cloud.
One of our core missions is democratizing game development. That means enabling developers to build for the platforms of their choice with accessible tools and workflows that make the process of creating easier.
Though we still have technical and engineering work ahead to ensure Unity developers have a smooth experience building for Stadia, here’s what our community needs to know.
What can I expect in building Unity games for Stadia?
Developers familiar with Unity today can expect recognizable tools and a very similar development process when building for Stadia.
What unique Stadia or Google features will be supported by Unity?
We expect to support all native features unique to Stadia that are required to publish your game and make use of platform capabilities. Stay tuned for more details on feature support later this year.
With either platform, before you can start developing for Stadia you need to be a registered Stadia developer, you can apply here. You need to have a Employer Tax ID if American, and an email with a custom domain address (ie, not Hotmail or Gmail). Once registered with Stadia, you can then confirm your credentials with Unreal here, while Unity developers have no additional steps to perform. The Unity Stadia SDK is expected to ship toward the end of 2019.
