Humble are running another bundle of interest to game developers, this one is the BIG Royalty-Free Music Bundle, a collection of “albums” containing game ready music in WAV and MP3 formats. The music is licensed in a way that enables you to distribute the music in your games, commercially or otherwise. As with all Humbles, this one is organized into tiers:
1$
Dark skies and other disasters
Haunted
The vanishing of Elisabeth Rose
Chronicles of the illusion world
Archives vol 1: the dark side
15$
Chuck kick ass
Shadows guild
The monster that lies within
Cult
Mindhunter
Forever and a day
Imagine
Archives vol 2: the love
25$
Chaos logic chaos the butterfly effect
The 29th planet
Black sails
Darkventures
Jotun
Pandemonium
Once upon a nightmare
Witchcraft
Slasher
The Lab
Dreamagination
Pixel: faster stronger harder
Superheroes
As with all Humble Bundles, you decide how the money is allocated, between Humble, Charity, the publisher and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS by purchasing with this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.
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.
There are only a few days left in Unity’s 10th Anniversary MegaBundle X that we previously discussed here. Taking a quick look through the assets in the bundle it becomes clear that there are a number of assets that would be perfect for people looking to create a racing game. Today we are going to look at the following assets from the bundle:
Quickly and easily create and populate road networks using a simple spline based approach, both in the editor and dynamically at run-time, with a terrain aware system.
A collection of toon shader styled racing cars, rally cars and monster trucks. It also contains several props, track pieces and more for creating a full racing game with a consistent art style.
They’re trees. Oak trees. There are 5 of them, enough said.
The above links contain affiliate codes that pay GFS a small commission if you purchase anything (thanks so much if you do!). Of course be sure to use the Bundle Link and not individual asset links to get the savings, at least until November 12th. You can learn more and see all the above assets 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.
YouTube is an incredible resource for game developers, but sorting the gems out can be a challenge. Today we are going to highlight 6 excellent game development channels, especially if you are a Godot developer, as well as general game development guides, Blender, GameMaker and more.
AskGameDev is a collection of game developers that set out to answer your questions about game development. They cover many of aspects of gamedev that are often not covered, such as how to run a Kickstarter, how to get or deal with a publisher, as well as several game development themed compilations. AskGameDev also have a website available here.
GDQuest are home to dozens of Godot tutorials, in fact Nathan from GDQuest is a member of the Godot documentation team. In addition to Godot coverage, GDQuest has tutorials on all kinds of FOSS software such a Blender and Krita. The GDQuest website is available here.
HeartBeast started out as a GameMaker tutorial channel, of which there are dozens of high quality long form tutorial series. In more recent years, Heartbeast has been instead creating high quality multipart and stand-alone tutorials on Godot. HeartBeast also has a website available here.
BornCG has been making high quality Blender YouTube tutorials on his channel created in 2008! In more recent years BornCG has been increasingly covering the Godot game engine, as well as creating modern Blender tutorials as well.
DevDuck is the newest channel on this list, less than two year old and already over 100K subscribers, an impressive feat! DevDuck is a professional developer that is documenting his indie game development experience on the side. He started off with Unity but switched to Godot and of course did videos explaining why and how.
KidsCanCode have the project mission to get kids started in coding as young as possible, often through the process of creating games. Early on they did mostly Python and PyGame tutorials but then switched to Godot in recent years. They also run the Godot Recipes on their site, a collection of snippets on how to accomplish specific tasks in Godot and GDScript.
You can learn more about all the above channels in the video below.
Every month for the last couple years Epic Games have given away several assets for Unreal Engine with today being no exception. While the assets are completely free, they are only free until the first Tuesday of December. Once “purchased” the assets are yours forever.
This months free assets include:
Permanently Free Additions:
Unfortunately there is no video yet as YouTube Studio for creators is currently down and nobody can upload or edit videos right now. Once YouTube errors are fixed we will upload a video.
There is another Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, the Mastering Animation by CRC Press bundle. This is a collection of e-books around the concept of animation, from traditional to digital, comics, manga and anime, as well as animation related subjects such as legal and writing. The bundle is organized into the following tiers:
1$
Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation
Animate to Harmony: The Independent Animator’s Guide to Toon Boom
Voice Over for Animation
Layout and Composition for Animation
Frame by Frame Stop Motion
How to Make Animated Films
8$
Animation from Pencils to Pixels
Designing Sound for Animation
The Art of Fluid Animation
Hybrid Animation: Integrating 2D and 3D Assets
Reel Success: Creating Demo Reels and Animation Portfolios
Acting and Performance for Animations
Animated Life
Making Toons That Sell without Selling Out
15$
Writing for Animation, Comics and Games
Directing for Animation
Acting and Character Animation
Animation in China
The Pocket Lawyer for Comic Book Creators
Animation: From Concept to Production
Independent Animation
Comics for Film, Games and Animation
Japanese Visual Culture
Lighting for Animation
All books are provided in PDF, EPUB and PRC(?) formats. As with all Humble Bundles you can decide how the proceeds are allocated between Humble, the Publisher, charity and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS using this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.
The Godot game engine recently released a developer update of their Web export development progress. This blog post discussed some of the upcoming features of the new WIP web exporter, including work to support GDNative on the Web, which would be a huge step forward.
Of perhaps more interest though is the new version of Godot Online, a version of Godot that runs entirely in your browser. Getting started is remarkably simple, go to Godot Online url, then upload a zipped copy of the project you want to edit by clicking Choose File then selecting the zip, once done hit the Start Godot Editor button:
Next click the Import button, then navigate to the zip file containing your project.
Next you need to create a project, this is the same process as normal Godot, create a new empty folder in your projects directory then click Import & Edit:
At this point everything else should be exactly like using normal desktop Godot. The only major difference is exporting your project. When you are done you can export your project as a zip file using the Project->Tools->Download Project Source.
You can learn more about Godot Online and see it in action in the video below.
The 001 Game Creator game engine is currently featured in the Game Dev STEM Humble Bundle that just launched. 001 Game Creator was previously featured in a Humble, so be sure to check your library to make sure you aren’t purchasing it twice. If you are interested in learning more about 001 Game Creator, check out our hands-on review available here.
As with all Humbles, this bundle is organized into tiers:
1$ Tier
Misc design documents
10$ Tier
001 Game Creator Engine
001 Basics E-Book
001 Resource E-Book
20$ Tier
Point and Click Adventure Kit
Dragons Den Resource Pack
Retro Fantasy Music Pack
Sound Effects Pack Vol 1
25$ Tier
Enhanced RPG Kit
FPS Kit
MMORPG Kit
Visual Novel Kit
As with all Humble Bundles you get to decide how your money is allocated between the publisher, charity, Humble and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS using this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.
Recently updated, today we are checking out the free and open source ODIN 2 synthesizer. It is built on top of the JUCE audio framework (also open source). ODIN 2 is described as:
Ever dreamt of a kickass synthesizer which is available on every platform? With a deep synthesis engine, endless modulation capabilities and it is literally for free? Look no further, Odin’s got you covered!
The sound of this 24-voice polyphonic beast will take you from your studio right to Valhalla. Earth shattering basses, exquisite leads or mad FX, Odin’s got them all! Use the classic sound of analog waveforms – or draw your own. High quality emulations of legendary analog filters like the Moog-ladder or the Korg-35 further shape your signal. Round your sound off with four onboard FX, or get crazy with modulation. There’s much to discover in Odin 2.
The source code for Odin 2 is available on GitHub under the GPL 3 open source license. Odin 2 is available for Windows, MacOS and Linux operating systems and is implemented as an VST compatible with most modern DAWs. If you are looking for a DAW to host Odin 2, check out our coverage on Reaper, LMMS, Mixcraft or ZRythm.
You can check out Odin 2 in action in the video below.
