Game Development

Unity Engine 5 Goes Free

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Yesterday Unreal announced they are offering Unreal Engine 4 for a 5% royalty fee only payable when quarterly sales reach $3,000 per quarter. This isn’t just the engine they are offering. It is sample projects, asset packs, and tutorials.

Today I am seeing they are releasing Unity Engine 5. So, if your tired and haven’t eaten, like me and confuse Unreal and Unity, it starts to make sense why they would release a free older version. Still pretty awesome. But, not so awesome after food and a nap.

But………..  there is a Personal Edition and a Pro Edition of Unity Engine 5. The Personal Edition is FREE, no royalty. However, if your game nets sales of US$100,000 then you are expected to upgrade to Pro ($75/month), which at that point should be no problem. 

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Massively Closing?

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Massively-that-was

It seems the gaming news site Massively is being closed down, in spite of a 40% per year readership growth rate. Click the link above to learn more.

I used to follow Massively’s section on Second Life. But, as SL coverage there decreased, so too did my interest in Massively. While I am not certain of the future of Massively (will someone buy it?), it seems doomed. If it does pass, I’ll feel the loss.

Oculus Rift Crescent Bay

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The Road to VR CEO Brendan Iribe has announced Oculus releasing news of Crescent Bay, a new Oculus Rift prototype. The specs available are impressive but contain some speculation:

  • Higher Refresh Rate (confirmed as 90Hz)
  • Higher resolution (likely 1440p)
  • (Possibly) Higher FOV
  • Integrated Audio
  • 360 Degree Tracking (LEDs now on back of headset too)
  • Oculus licensed Real Space 3D Audio Specialisation (10 years in development)

Follow Road to VR for more breaking news  on Crescent Bay.

LEAP Motion Controller 2014-35

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This hands free controller is thought by many of us to be the answer to how to deal with hand movement while wearing a HMD (like an Oculus Rift). Jo Yardley has an article on the progress LEAP Motion is making with their VR effort. See: Leap motion announces VR related progress. She includes a video LEAP made (1:30 min) and a link to the source article at LEAP Motion’s site.

Oculus Rift - Image by: Franklin Heijnen - Flickr
Oculus Rift – Image by: Franklin Heijnen – Flickr

Like many LEAP Motion controller owners, Jo does not use the controller often. Mine mostly sits in the box too. You can find LEAP controllers on eBay cheap. I am hoping that changes when the Oculus or another HMD unit go retail. 

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Understanding the Render Pipeline

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This isn’t a Second Life specific article, but SL is all about getting our world rendered and concepts are similar in all rendered worlds. Arton Rotaru found the blog page and posted a link in the SL Forum. So, if your are curious and wonder how hard can it be to render a world? Then this is something for you.

Lost-Eden_003
Lost Eden 2014

Also, if you are a creative type and hopping to optimize your builds to reduce lag, there are concepts you will likely find interesting.

See: Render Hell 1.0 – For discussion see the SL Forum: A lovely explanation of how a Render Pipeline works.

On the blog the top video is just the author’s explanation of what is come and why he made the page.

The rest of the page is an illustrated text. Some illustrations are pictures. Others are short animations or videos.

 

Bits of News 2014-28 #2

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Iris Ophelia has an article up on New World Notes (NWN) about her experience in the as yet unreleased SIMS-4. It is a long article for NWN. See: The Good, the Bad, and the Unclear: My First Impressions of The Sims 4 Create-a-Sim Demo. (Translating for non-SIMS people, Create-A-SIM means create an avatar.)

She writes about what she liked and didn’t. For instance the SIMS developers are going for a CG look not a photo-realistic look. Hats can be worn over hair… apparently any hat over any hair. I wonder how they did that? I would love to be able to wear hats with any of my do’s.

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