Previously we looked at OpenGL alternatives shortly after OpenGL on Apple products was deprecated.  One of the technologies we mentioned was The Forge, a cross platform rendering solution.  It is an open source cross platform rendering framework with several game development building blocks created by Confetti.

In addition to taking are of the low level details of working with Direct3D and Vulkan, the Forge provides the following features:

• Asynchronous Resource loading with a resource loader task system as shown in 10_PixelProjectedReflections
• Lua Scripting System - currently used in 06_Playground to load models and textures and animate the camera
• Animation System based on Ozz Animation System
• Consistent Math Library based on an extended version of Vectormath with NEON intrinsics for mobile platforms
• Extended version of EASTL
• For loading art assets we have a modified and integrated version of Assimp
• Consistent Memory Managament:
  • on GPU following Vulkan Memory Allocator
  • on CPU Fluid Studios Memory Manager
• Input system with Gestures for Touch devices based on an extended version of gainput
• Fast Entity Component System based on our internally developed ECS
• Cross-platform FileSystem C API, supporting disk-based files, memory streams, and files in zip archives
• UI system based on imGui with a dedicated unit test extended for touch input devices
• Audio based on integrating SoLoud
• Shader Translator using a superset of HLSL as the shader language. There is a Wiki page on how to use the Shader Translator
• Various implementations of high-end Graphics Effects as shown in the unit tests below

The Forge is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and is hosted on GitHub.  You can learn more about The Forge in the video below.

The Clockwork Pi GameShell is a build it yourself hand-held console aimed at indie game developers and retro gamers.  Late last year I cove red the unboxing and assembly while today we are going more hands-on with the device.  In the second half of the video we show step by step how to develop and deploy Godot games on the GameShell device.  This tutorial should also work for most Raspberry Pi based boards that support Godot development.

If you are following the instructions to build Godot Engine games on your GameShell you will need a build template.  The two options mentioned in the video are the Clockwork export template or the more generic frt export templates for Pi devices.  I have tested with both export templates successfully.

The only documentation on building Godot games for the GameShell is this forum thread.  The Clockwork GameShell is available on Amazon currently for $139 USD.  Check out GameShell in action in the video below.

The comes a time in every project where you have to switch from a developmental Work In Progress branch to the main branch and that time just occurred for the Godot game engine.  The WIP Vulkan (and C++14) port is now the official branch on the Godot Github.

Details from the Godot news page:

The Vulkan port is not ready yet, but we need to get it merged into the master branch as a lot of further development planned for Godot 4.0 depends on it.

We plan to rework a lot of Godot's internals (core) to allow fixing long-standing design issues and improving performance (including GDScript performance improvements). Moreover, our long-awaited port to C++14 will also happen now that the vulkan branch is merged into master, and many other codebase-wide changes were waiting for this: code style changes, Display/OS split, renaming of 3D nodes to unify our conventions, etc.

The scope of the planned changes means that it would be impossible to do these changes in the master branch while keeping the vulkan branch separate, just as it would not be possible to do all those changes in the vulkan branch itself before merging into master: any rebase/merge would become extremely difficult due to the sheer amount of lines of code that will change.

Up until now, we've been very cautious with regard to what changes we allow in the vulkan branch, as well as what new PRs we merge in master, to ensure that the vulkan branch can always be rebased on top of master for a later merge. I've been rebasing it periodically over the past 8 months, and even though we've been very conservative in the scope of the changes, in later months a full rebase could easily take me a full day of work.

So we need everything in the main branch to stop limiting ourselves.

Moving the development branch from 3.2 to 4.0 has some side effects, specifically outstanding Pull Requests.  Unfortunately the simplest option seems to be the best in this case, to close those requests and hopefully “port” them to the new master branch.

While closing PRs may seem a bit abrupt, we ask all contributors to understand that this is done to help us cope with the sheer amount of proposals in parallel to having to refactor a lot of the engine's codebase. This closing does not mean that we reject the PRs, nor that we do not seem them as worthy contributions. But by asking the authors to re-assess their own proposals and make them compatible with Godot 4.0, we will save a lot of precious development time and get ourselves some breathing air in the current overcrowded PRs.

Closed PRs will have the salvageable label, which we use to denote PRs with code that could be salvaged to make a new, updated (and possibly improved) PR, either by the original author or by a new contributor. So we will not lose code in the process, since everything will still be accessible from the closed PRs and easily identifiable thanks to the salvageable label.

If you use a major release version downloaded from Godot’s download page or from Steam, this change doesn’t actually effect you.  If you want to check out the new Vulkan master branch but don’t want to build the code yourself, you can get a nightly build here.

Learn more about this change and it’s ramifications in the video below.

Today we are checking out TextureLab, a free and open source texture generation tool for Windows and Linux.  While fairly early in it’s development, TextureLab aims to be similar in capability to Substance Designer in function.

TextureLab features include:
- Export all textures at once or save them individually
- Unity Export
- 25+ nodes and counting
- Cross-Platform (It's built using electron and vue)
- Fast! All filtering and texture generation operations are done on the GPU
- Free and Open Source

TextureLab is licensed under the GPLv3 open source license with the code written in TypeScript and hosted in an Electron app.  TextureLab is not the only open source alternative to Substance Designer under development, we have already looked at MaterialMaker , TexGraph and Imogen in the past.  You can learn more about and see TextureLab in action in the video below.

Humble are running a new bundle of interest to game developers, this one is the Humble Best of POLYGON Game Dev Bundle.  It’s a collection of 3D model packs from Synty, with projects in both Unreal and Unity formats.  As with all Humble Bundles this one is organized into tiers, where if you buy a higher dollar value tier you get all of the lower value tiers as well.

Bundle Tiers

$1 USD

• POLYGON Prototype
• POLYGON Adventure
• Simple Town

$15 USD

• POLYGON City Pack
• POLYGON Samurai Pack
• POLYGON Knight Pack
• Simple People
• Simple Dungeons

$20 USD

• POLYGON SCI-FI City Pack
• POLYGON  Western Pack
• POLYGON Heist Pack
• POLYGON Vikings Pack
• Simple Military
• Simple Apocalypse
• $10 Synty Discount Code

When you purchase a Humble Bundle you decide how your money is allocated between charity, the publisher, Humble and if you choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS if you use this link.  Learn more about the bundle in the video below.

Nearing the end of 2019, Epic Games announced they had acquired texture provider Quixel and as part of that announcement, released 10,000+ high quality textures from the Megascans completely free for Unreal Engine users.  Around the same time Epic also announced the archviz product TwinMotion would be integrated into Unreal Engine 4.24.  Today, they took that one step further and released 1,000+ high quality textures from TwinMotion completely free for Unreal Engine users.

Details from the Unreal Engine blog:

Since Epic Games acquired Twinmotion last year and made the high-quality, easy-to-use real-time visualization solution freely available to the general public, we immediately started thinking about how we could best make it interoperable with Unreal Engine. While we’re excited to reveal more on how we’ll be integrating the two workflows together in the future, we wanted to begin bridging that gap today by offering Unreal users a free material collection that’s based on Twinmotion materials. There’s a wide variety of categories here including:

• Bricks
• Concrete
• Fabrics 
• Glass
• Grass and dirt
• Wood 
• Plastics

Available now on the Marketplace, we’ve ensured that these rich and powerful master materials support the latest ray-tracing advancements and have used best practices to define how the nearly 500 PBR materials were used. This work includes:

• Specific optimizations for ray tracing
• Advanced shading techniques, such as parallax occlusion mapping for materials needing relief, which is useful for surfaces like bricks 
• Ability to use an object’s UVs or to use tri-planar mapping, which can assist texture alignment by automatically aligning textures on objects that might not have been given proper UV coordinates 
• Ability to define real-world scale

The materials are available in a large 8GB+ download on the Unreal Engine Marketplace.  You need to be running the most current version of Unreal Engine (4.24.2+ ) for the assets to work properly and expect the importation process to take a fair bit of time, as over 4000 shaders need to be built.  If you want to check it out but skip the long download and importation process, you can see the new materials in action in the video below.

Just two and a half months after the release of Blender 2.81, Blender 2.82 is now available.  While nowhere near as massive an update as Blender 2.80, there are still a number of improvements to be found in Blender 2.82 including:

• New Mantaflow powered gas and liquid physics simulation engine
• Improved cloth simulations with support for internal air pressure and internal springs
• UDIM tiled texturing support (learn more here and here)
• PIXAR USD format export support
• Cycles improvements including new nodes, faster rendering on Windows and more
• AI DeNoiser support on RTX hardware powered by NVidia OptiX for faster cycles renders
• Preview pass support in EEVEE renderer including ambient occlusion, mist, combined, normal and more
• Transparent materials now blend properly with volumetrics
• Sculpting improvements including new multi-plane scrape brush and slide relax brush as well as pose brush improvements
• Grease pencil improvements including new polyline tool and multi stroke modifier
• Plus several other new features and improvements

For complete details on what’s new in Blender 2.82 be sure to check out the complete release notes available here.  You can also learn more and see several of the new features in action in the video below.

After several years of changing business models and ownership changes, Corona Labs have decided to shut things down.  Thankfully for Corona users they full open sourced the engine and tooling and changed to the MIT license.

Details of the closure process from the Corona Labs site (warning, it’s having trouble right now):

1. Some of the Corona Labs staff have expressed an interest in continuing to work with Corona as an as-available hobby project, so some engine development will continue. There is a possibility that engineers would seek funding through platforms like Patreon or Github Sponsors to continue work in larger capacity.
2. Appodeal will continue to fund infrastructure costs and work with the open source staff to keep the Appodeal plugin up to date.
3. The Corona open source license will change from its current dual license state (Commercial + GPLv3) to a single, much more permissive license: The MIT License will make building the open source version of Corona easier for you and lift distribution restrictions on your apps and games. If you are using the GPL version of Corona, you can continue doing so in your fork.
4. Corona Labs will remove Splash Screen restrictions and plugin license checks from Native and Simulator builds. All first-party plugins will be open sourced and be available on GitHub. Corona’s “daily” builds will be built using tools available for Open Source projects, and would be available on GitHub releases.
5. We will change the Corona Simulator to be an offline tool, building for all supported platforms using local storage as a source for plugins.
6. Marketplace sales will cease. Vendors will be paid what they are owed, and will have to distribute updates for their plugins themselves. Users will be able to download purchased plugins and assets before the store closure. Corona Labs will stop accepting new submissions to the Marketplace on February, 15. 2020. Self-hosted plugins will be turned on for everyone so community plugin developers can continue to provide plugins.
7. We will migrate the forums and coronalabs.com website content to another platform, since the current setup is tied to an expensive infrastructure. We may need several community members to volunteer to administer the new Forums. We are still working on what the coronalabs.com website access will become.
8. The community is welcome to spin up discussion forums. Possibilities include using GitHub’s Issues, Reddit’s /r/CoronaSDK page, a Facebook Group, etc. The community Slack will remain.
9. The Corona Labs maintained social media accounts will remain open, and we will turn them into sources of useful information for developers (i.e., industry news, development and monetization tips, etc.).
10. All these will not happen overnight. We are working on changes to the parts of the engine, and will release them gradually, moving the build process offline as well as migrating content to different platforms. We will post updates on the progress, as well as send out one more final email with all the details Feel free to follow Corona on Github or get involved in development. Progress will be reflected in this Github Project.

Learn more about the Corona Labs closure in the video below.

Cocos Creator, the free Cocos2D-x powered cross platform game engine, just released version 2.3.  The 2.3 release adds more 3D functionality to the previously 2D game engine including 3D physics and particle systems, as well as other improvements such as DragonBones and Spine mount point support, an upgrade to the material system and more.  Cocos Creator is available as a free download for both Mac and Windows.

Details from the Cocos Release Notes:

After a long period of development and preparation, and after a memorable Spring Festival, Cocos Creator v2.3 is officially released. v2.3 is a very important version that officially integrates support for 3D physics, collisions, and 3D particles, and is capable of developing more types of 3D games! At the same time, the material system has been upgraded from the experimental version to the official version, which can greatly improve the expressiveness of a game. It is recommended that all developers upgrade!Please perform the necessary technical evaluation and backups before upgrading.

Major new features include:

• Qutoutiao (QTT) mini game support
• 3D physics support(rigid body, Box/Sphere collision components, trigger and collision events, physical materials, ray detection, etc)
• 3D light weight collision system “Builtin”
• 3D Particle Systems
• Material System upgrade
• Spine& DragonBones mount node support
• Spine binary format support
• Build Scripts Only option
• 3D viewport options (Wireframe, Normal)
• Plus several other fixes and improvements

If you are interested in learning Cocos Creator, check out our complete tutorial series available here or our hands-on video available here.  To learn more about the 2.3 release check out the video below.

MyPaint 2.0.0 was released a few days back.  MyPaint is an open source natural media painting application that first started development in 2004, designed from day one to work with Wacom style tablets.  The 2.0.0 release adds several new features including:

• Linear compositing and spectral blending (pigment).
• Layer views.
• Brush strokes dependent on view rotation and view zoom.
• Additional symmetry modes: vertical, vertical+horizontal, rotational, snowflake.
• Expanded flood fill functionality: offset, feather, gap detection and more.
• New brush settings: offsets, gridmap, additional smudge settings, posterize, pigment.
• New brush inputs: barrel rotation, base radius, zoom level, gridmap x/y, direction 360, attack angle.
• Several other fixes and changes, see the full changelog for details.

The release also contains various different bug fixes and features.  MyPaint is available for Windows and Linux with binaries available here with the Mac OS X version available on MacPorts.  MyPaint is open source with the source code hosted on GitHub available under the GPL 2 open source license.  You can learn more about, and see MyPaint 2 in action, in the video below.

Google Summer of Code 2020 organizations have just be announced.  Every year since 2005, Google have sponsored the Summer of Code, an opportunity for university students around the world to contribute to open source projects and get paid.  In this years list of recipients, there are a few related to game development, including:

• Blender
• Godot
• GDevelop (Learn More)
• Inkscape
• SCUMMVM
• Synfig (Learn More)

As well as dozens of prominent open source projects including several programming languages such as Lua and Dart and plenty more.  Both Godot and Blender participated last year and it directly resulted in several improvements throughout the year.

If you are a student interested in signing up, that process begins March 16th and you can learn more in the FAQ available here.  Learn more in the video below.

Verge3D is a toolkit for enabling artists to create web experiences with minimal or no coding using Blender, Max or Maya.  Founded by team members from the Blend4Web project Verge3D allows you to create content using your graphics application of choice, then using their (locally installed) web based tools you can add logic using their visual programming language Puzzles.

Verge3D is available in a free fully functional trial version (watermarked) available for download here.  Verge3D is available for Windows, Mac and Linux for Blender 3D as well as Windows only for 3DS Max and Windows and Linux for Maya.

Check out Verge 3D for Blender in action in the video below.

The long running open source GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, just released version 2.10.18.  After skipping the release of 2.10.16 due to a critical bug, there is a fair bit in this release.

Release features include:

• Tools are now grouped in the toolbox by default
• Sliders now use a compact style with improved user interaction
• Vastly improved user experience for the transformation preview
• Dockable areas now highlighted when a dockable dialog is being dragged
• New 3D Transform tool to rotate and pan items
• Much smoother brush outline preview motion on the canvas
• Symmetry painting enhancements
• Faster loading of ABR brushes
• PSD support improvements
• Consolidated user interface for merging down and anchoring layers
• Update check to notify users of new releases available
• 28 bug fixes, 15 translation updates

You can learn more about the 2.10.18 release in the release notes available here.  GIMP is available for download on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and Solaris.  GIMP is open source under the GPL v3 license with source details available here.  You can learn more about GIMP and the 2.10.18 update in the video below.

Google have just released Android Studio 3.6.  Android Studio is Google’s recommended way to develop Android applications.  It’s an IDE derived from JetBrain’s IntelliJ IDEA IDE with additional tools specifically for Android development.

Android Studio 3.6 changes include:

• Updated design tools (split screen design view and colour picker)
• Updates to the Android Gradle plugin
• Win32 support deprecated
• Update to support IntelliJ 2019.2
• Multiple screen support in the emulator
• Kotlin support improvements
• Leak detection in Memory Profiler
• Emulator improvements
• New Automotive project templates

You can read the full release notes here.  You can download Android Studio for Windows, Mac, Chrome OS and Linux here.  Learn more about Android Studio and the 3.6 release in the video below.

Hot on the heels of Godot’s recent Epic winfall, ArmorPaint has become the latest recipient of the Epic MegaGrant program, first announced during the Unreal keynote at GDC 2019.  ArmorPaint is an open source PBR-based texture painting application, similar in function to Substance Painter.

Details of the megagrant were announced on Twitter:

You can learn more about ArmorPaint in our recent hands-on video.  ArmorPaint is open source and is free, but you need to build the binaries yourself.  For instructions on how to build ArmorPaint from source check out our guide available here.  For more details on the ArmorPaint Epic MegaGrant be sure to check out our video below.

Unity have just announced a new free student plan for eligible students. You get full access to Unity Professional features including teams, Unity Learn Premium, cloud analytics and yes, even dark mode. To enrol you need to be at least 13 years old, or 16 in the EU, and have been verified as a student on GitHub Education.

Details from the Unity blog:

That’s why the Unity Student plan provides access to professional resources and tools like cloud-based collaboration which enable students to use the same workflows that teams use on real-world projects:

Cloud-based Collaboration

Work on group projects with up to five teammates, manage versions, share work with teachers, and easily move between home and school computers.

Cloud Build

Speed up build and iteration cycles on complex projects using minimal hardware. See the impact of your changes quickly, and learn more effectively.

Learn Premium

Supplement in-class learning and dive into the topics you care about most with unlimited access to on-demand, industry-specific resources to solve problems on your own, such as this popular Introduction to XR: VR, AR, and MR Foundations course. 

Student Asset Pack
Prototype and iterate your game projects quickly with free access to the Snaps Prototype pack. Beginners can create 3D worlds with ProBuilder and Snaps, without having to use additional 3D modeling tools. These assets easily snap together with ProGrids.

Dark UI theme

Develop your game or project with an easy‑on‑the‑eyes, dark UI environment for those long hours, late-night cramming sessions, and game jams.

You can learn more about Unity Student here and apply for the GitHub Student Developer program here. If you want to learn more about Unity Learn, check out our video available here and Unity Learn premium here. Finally, watch the video below to learn more about Unity Student.

Quixel Bridge 2020 was recently released, the first major release since being acquired by Epic Games late last year. Quixel Bridge acts as a… well bridge, in between your 3D and texturing content and your games engines and tools of choice, with plugins for most applications including Blender, Max, Maya, Unreal Engine and even Unity. With the release of Quixel Bridge 2020, it is now completely free for everybody.  Even if you don’t use Megascans, Quixel Bridge can be an excellent tool for organizing and managing your graphics content, especially now that a subscription is no longer required.

Details from the Quixel release announcement:

Better, faster, and free forever

We’ve improved the 3D viewer to give you more accurate real-time PBR shaders, plus inertial rotation and zooming.

Additionally, we’ve also updated the Maya, Blender, and Cinema 4D integrations with new improvements and bug fixes. We have also finally introduced support for the Alembic file format, and you can start downloading and exporting .ABC files right away.

But most importantly, Bridge is now completely free for everyone, forever. A paid subscription is no longer needed simply to access, download or export your content at any time.

Free unlimited Megascans for use in Unreal

And finally, the entire Megascans library is now completely free for use within Unreal Engine. Just log in with your UE account and you are all set!

We’re beyond excited to offer the entire Megascans library, Bridge and Mixer completely free of charge. And, in combination with Unreal Engine, creating any world imaginable has never been more exciting!

Check out the video below to learn more about Quixel Bridge, including how to install and use Bridge with Blender and Unreal Engine 4.24.

Humble are running a new bundle of interest to game developers, specifically artists, the HUMBLE SOFTWARE BUNDLE: NATURAL & DIGITAL PAINTING KIT bundle.  This bundle is a collection of software and addons for creating digital art as well as replicating natural media.  As with all bundles this one is organized into tiers, if you buy a higher dollar value tier you get all of the tiers below it.

1$ Tier

• Inspirit

18$ Tier

• Flame Painter 4
• Amberlight 2
• Several particle brushes for Flame Painter 4

20$ Tier

• Rebelle 3
• Flame Painter Connect Photoshop Plugin
• Several Papers for Rebelle 3
• More Brushes for Flame Painter 4

Rebelle is a natural media painting application, Flame Painter 4 is a particle system brush based painting application (that can be plugged into Photoshop), Amberlight is extremely interest but hard to describe, while Inspirit is basically just a toy.

As with all Humble bundles, you can decide how your money is allocated, between the publisher, humble, charity and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS if purchased using this link.  You can learn more about the bundle and see the four main applications in action in the video below.

Serif have released the 1.8 update for the entire series of graphical applications, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher, including the iOS versions (see Affinity Designer for iPad in action here).

Details of the 1.8 update from the release announcement:

Continuing with our focus on the professional workflow, our latest update adds some killer new features and improvements to the Affinity line-up, with something for everyone.

Convert and handle Adobe files better with Smart Object import in Affinity Photo and IDML import in Affinity Publisher, take advantage of the improved ability to share your work with collect linked resources, and output with confidence using the new preflight pro print feature.

Graphic designers will love the accuracy of our re-engineered expand stroke feature and massive improvements to our vector capabilities, while Affinity Photo lovers will be pleased to see the addition of manual lens corrections, much improved metadata handling as well as support for Nik Collection 2.5.

The entire Affinity suite of applications offer an economic alternative to Adobe’s line of applications without the need for a subscription.  If you are an existing Affinity customer, the 1.8 update is free!  You can learn more about the 1.8 updates in the video below.

Hot on the heels of Quixel Bridge 2020, Quixel have just released Mixer 2020.  Just like Bridge 2020, Mixer 2020 has also been made completely free!  This version contains a massively updated UI, a revamped 3D brush system, the Smart Material system and most importantly, the ability to directly paint on your own imported meshes, making Mixer much more of a competitor to Substance Painter in functionality.

From the Quixel announcement blog:

The wait is over! We’re excited to share with you the first Mixer 2020 preview release introducing the first look at early 3D support.

This first release unlocks features for texturing single objects and restyling Megascans assets, with Multi-channel 3D Painting, Megascans Smart Materials, Real-time 3D Curvature, Material ID Masking, Seamless Texture Projection and so much more.

For some odd reason, all of the download links on Quixel.com currently point to the 2019 release.  If you want to try the 2020 version it is available for download here.  Windows and Mac versions are available.

You can learn more about Quixel Mixer 2020 and see the new painting functionality in action in the video below.