Babylon.js, the open source 3D web based game engine, just released version 4.2 with a ton of new features and tools. Key features of the 4.2 release include:
New particle editor for direct creation of particle systems in the Inspector
New Node System in Babylon.js
new Sprite Editor built into the Inspector to create, control and save sprites
new Skeleton viewer to visual bones and bone weights in Inspector
texture inspector for debugging texture issues
PBR support in the Node material editor with access to metallic, roughness, clearcoat, sheen etc when creating materials
new Procedural Texture, Particle Shader, Post Processing modes added to the Node editor
reusable frames in Node Material editor, enabling you to reuse shader code between projects easily
playground templates, essentially quick access code snippets in the code editor using Ctrl+Space
direct support for pre-filtered .hdr files
support for React Native for creating native applications
KTX + Basis U texture compression support
much, much more
You can learn more about the release in this article here or by watching the video below. Babylon.js is an open source project under the Apache 2 license with the source code available on GitHub. If you are interested in learning more about Babylon, be sure to check out our older Babylon.js tutorial series.
In Godot 3.2 FBX support was improved by implementing the open source AssImp library. In the upcoming release of Godot 3.2.4 we are getting an all new FBX importer. While based on AssImp initially, this project took over a year to developed, removed over 50K lines of non-FBX related code and made improvements across the board.
Developer Gordon MacPherson recently wrote about the experience on the Godot blog and detailed the following changes:
We rewrote all the mesh code to support all formats of FBX meshes correctly.
We built an entire abstraction for the FBX transform information, which was a very complex and convoluted undertaking to get working properly.
We designed a better handler for the animations which can compensate for the complex transform information, which means that we can handle animations correctly.
The project is ready for use but there are some plans in the pipeline:
Finish porting the rewrite to Godot 4.0 (we use the 3.2 branch in production, so that’s where this was developed and quality controlled by many users).
Locator bones. Right now, you need to bake your animation before exporting.
Improve material mappings (most are supported, some need mapping).
Fix bugs in the beta phase, we expect them.
Be sure to check out the blog post for details on the project, why they did it and why you should care. In the video below we put Godot 3.2.4 through the paces with a couple FBX tests, including this scene from Sketchfab. Unfortunately until Godot 3.2.4 is released, you will have to build Godot from source, just be sure to checkout the 3.2 branch from GitHub. Special thanks to IMVU for sponsoring the project.
GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, just released version 2.99.2 beta, a giant step toward the upcoming 3.0 release. The heart of this update is the move to the GTK 3 UI toolkit from the existing GTK2 version. This has many advantages, especially when it comes to increasingly common HiDPI devices.
GTK3 based user interface, with native support for Wayland and HiDPI displays.
Major refactoring and cleanup
New plug-in API
Plugins now possible with Python 3, JavaScript, Lua, and Vala
More (color) space invasion
Render caching available for better performance
Be sure to check the complete release notes for further details on this release. You can also learn more about the 2.99.2 release and see GIMP in action in the video below.
LDtk, or Level Designer Toolkit, is an open source MIT licensed Haxe based 2D level editor from the creator of Dead Cells. If it looks familiar that is because we recently covered it when it was known as LEd. In just a few short months though, LDtk has come a long way, including community ports to Linux and MacOS. With the 0.5 release (the re-brand version number), tons of new features were added to LDtk including:
Tiles flipping: in Tile Layers, you can mirror tiles before painting them by pressing X or Y (or Z). This also works from group of tiles.
Tiles stacking: you can now optionaly stack multiple tiles in a single cell of a Tile layer, reducing the need for multiple layers. For example, you could paint a brick wall, then enable stack mode (T), and add details like cracks or vines over the same wall. Be careful though: erasing of stacked elements can be tricky, so you should use a mix of multiple layers and stacking to get the best results.
New editing options bar: Grid locking, Single layer mode and Empty space selection moved to a new more streamlined button bar.
File association: project files now use the extension *.ldtk instead of *.json. Therefore, on Windows, double-clicking such files will open the app accordingly. If you prefer the .json extension, you can force it in each project settings (but will lose benefit of the file association).
Auto-layer rule preview: when you move your mouse over a rule, you will now see which cells in the current layer are affected, making their testing MUCH easier.
Tiled (TMX) export: this optional export now generates proper standard tile layers. However, to support LDtk stacked tiles feature (see above), multiple Tiled layers might be generated per single LDtk layer. Also, IntGrid layers are now properly exported to Tiled (as standard tile layers, with an auto-generated tileset image).
New color picker: it supports copy/paste, manual hex value editing and a much better UI (thanks to simple-color-picker).
Flood-fill fixes: if you hold SHIFT while clicking in a Tile layer, it will flood-fill the area using currently selected tiles (randomly, or by stamping group of tiles, depending on the current mode).
Flood-fill erasing: just use SHIFT+Right click to erase a whole contiguous area.
The layer Rule editor now overlaps left panel and allows level editing while being open (makes rule testing much easier). Press Escape to close it.
In Tile layers, you can press L to load a saved tileset selection (using S key)
Renamed the Level panel to World (for the 0.6.x future update).
It’s now possible to change the tileset or even the source layer of an Auto-Layer without loosing your rules.
Auto-layer baking: turn a complex Auto-Layer into a standard Tile layer (think of it as the flatten feature in Photoshop). Be careful, it’s a one-way operation.
Unified “Show/hide grid” and “Grid locking” options. You can now just press G to toggle grid (which also implies “grid locking” in supported layer types).
All options (such as “Grid on/off”, or “Compact panel mode”) are now saved to a JSON file in your app folder, in userSettings/.
Help window is now a side panel.
Opaque tiles are detected in tilesets for use in various optimizations (mostly related to the new tile stacking feature).
Fixed a crash when deleting IntGrid layer while an AutoLayer uses it as source.
Added some colors to UI buttons
New exit button icon.
You can learn more about LDtk releases here, including an even newer 0.5.1 beta release. As mentioned earlier the project is open source with the code released under the MIT license and available on GitHub. You can learn more about LDtk here with downloads available on Itch.io. You can learn more about LDtk and see it in action in the video below.
The Machinery by Our Machinery is an in development professional game engine that just entered open beta. We went hands-on with The Machinery earlier in the year when it was still in closed beta if you want an in-depth but slightly out of date hands-on experience. With the move to open beta all you need to do is register an account and download the engine to get started.
In a world dominated with game engines, what makes The Machinery unique? This engine is being developed by members behind the Stingray/BitSquid engines, used in such titles as Magicka and Warhammer Vermintide. The engine is light weight, modular and written in the C language with a focus on customizibility. Details from the open beta announcement:
If you are still wondering what The Machinery is, it’s a new lightweight and flexible game engine, designed to give you all the power of a modern engine in a minimalistic package that is easy to understand, extend, explore, rewrite, and hack. Beyond games, the API can also be used for simulations and visualizations as well as building custom tools, editors, and applications.
Some of the things that make The Machinery more hackable than other game engines are:
The Machinery’s API is written in C. It’s easy to understand without learning the complexities of modern C++. And don’t worry, you still have type-safe vectors and hash tables, just as in C++.
We use a modular design that is completely plugin-based. This makes it easy to extend and replace parts of the engine.
The engine can be stripped down to a minimalistic core. Don’t need physics, animation, or sound? Just ship the engine without those DLLs.
Individual DLLs can be hot-reloaded. You can modify gameplay, UI, etc, while the editor is running.
The codebase is small, readable and well documented.
We offer licenses with full source code for both small and large developers.
You can learn more about The Machinery open beta and a quick hands-on/getting started guide in the video below.
Earlier this week the first beta of Godot 3.2.4 was released bringing several fixes and improvements as well as a few new features.
The primary features of the first Godot 3.2.4 beta from the Godot blog include:
Android App Bundle and subview embedding support.
2D batching for GLES3 (remember that we added it for GLES2 in 3.2.2), and improvements to GLES2’s batching.
A new software skinning for MeshInstance to replace the slow GPU skinning on devices that don’t support the fast GPU skinning (especially mobile).
Several smaller fixes and improvements
Downloads for all major platforms are available for download here. The major new feature of most interest to me is the new sprite batching, an optimization trick to improve 2D rendering speeds. In the video below we run the popular Bunnymark test on Godot 3.2.3 and the new Godot 3.2.4 and we saw respectable improvements.
Pixelorama and Material Maker are two very different programs that have an exceptional amount in common. One direct commonality is, they both received updates this week. In addition to new updates, Material Maker and Pixelorama are both open source game development related applications released under the MIT license and created using the Godot game engine.
Material Maker is a graph or node based procedural texture generation tool, perhaps the closest thing that exists to a free and open source Substance Designer alternative. Material Maker just released version 0.93 with new features including several new nodes and node improvements, support for custom meshes, an all new dynamic reference panel and more. The source code for Material Maker is available here.
Pixelorama is a pixel based art application with animation support. Pixelorama just released version 0.8.1 adding new tools for moving animation frames, a new purple theme, sprite generation improvements and more. The source code for Pixelorama is available here.
You can learn more about both releases in the video below or watch here on Odysee.
Previously expected in Unreal Engine 4.26 Preview 1, the new experimental water simulation system from Fortnite has finally shipped in Unreal Engine 4.26 preview 3. The new water simulation system enables you to quick create realistic and highly configurable water simulations, including oceans, lakes and rivers. Of course the key word is experimental, this is a feature that is nowhere near ready for prime time.
You can see a quick preview of the water system in action in the video below. Given the fact that there currently exists no documentation and it seems several of the features are currently broken, the video by no means showcases all of the new fluid simulation systems capabilities. Currently the only information available on how to use the new system come in the 2 1/2 Epic Games livestream available here. While early on, the new system does seem incredibly promising. For now however, the UIWS, or Unified Interactive Water System from the September monthly UE4 giveaway is most likely a better choice.
The free Cocos Creator game engine just got a heavy duty upgrade today, with the release of Cocos Creator 3D technical preview. This release adds an all new 3D game engine to Cocos Creator, which was previously a 2D only game engine. The new underlying 3D engine has a complete PBR based rendering workflow based on real world lighting and camera models, with a modular design with support for terrain and physics out of the box.
The technology behind games has grown exponentially since the birth of video games. Today with the creation of cloud computing, 5G networks, and faster mobile computers, the revolution to bring better 3D titles to your hands has become overwhelmingly apparent to game developers.
The Cocos engine started as a 2D game engine. In Cocos2d-x, we built the best open-source 2D engine in the world. We also tried to build 3D features upon the 2D-oriented architecture. But due to the lack of an editor and the challenge of growth on 3D features, it wasn’t very successful. That’s why we were determined to build an excellent editor tool: Cocos Creator. It was initially for 2D game development. But since 2017, we have already started to build a pure 3D engine for this tool. To push ourselves to give developers the best 3D development tool, we have re-designed the whole engine architecture and updated the editor’s core. On October 15th, 2019, we released Cocos Creator 3D, a dedicated experimental branch of China’s product. With a whole year’s effort, we have greatly improved the 3D engine architecture. We are finally merging the experimental 3D branch into the main Cocos Creator product to forge the awesome Cocos Creator 3.0, released later this year.
You can download Cocos Creator 3.0 preview for Windows and Mac now. Do be aware however there are a few caveats, especially for existing Cocos Creator developers:
Projects built in Cocos Creator 1.X – 2.X will not work with this demo.
Only 3D projects are available in this demo. Some 2D features like Spine, Tiled map, etc. are absent in this demo, but they will be included in the official 3.0 version.
All projects built in the demo are exportable to 3.0 when it is released. So go crazy!
We only recommend using TypeScript for future Cocos Creator 3.0 projects.
If you are interested in learning about Cocos Creator in general we have a tutorial series available on DevGa.me. You can see the new Cocos Creator 3.0 tech preview in action in the video below. A good place to start is the Cocos examples project available on GitHub. If you want to test Cocos Creator 3.0 using the same model as in the video, that model is available for free here on Sketchfab.
Amazon have just released a new version of their CryEngine derived game engine, Lumberyard. Lumberyard is free to use, with the source code available, so long as your multiplayer services are either self hosted or use Amazon technologies. The 1.26 release brings several new features, including several around quality of life and usability.
Key features of Lumberyard 1.26 include:
UI 2.0 with updates across the entire user interface
WhiteBox modelling tool improvements
Updates to dynamic terrain and landscape canvas
PhysX physics simulation now production ready
Improvements to Setup Assistant and Project Configurator
RAD Tools support for physics simulation telemetry
Updated and streamlined Viewport Interaction Model (needs to be enabled)
Improved documentation
You can learn a great deal more about the Lumberyard 1.26 release in the release notes or by watching the video below. A great deal of focus was also given to the documentation including a new Welcome Guide to get you up and running.
