September 2011
1 post
3 tags
BIZ :: IRRATIONAL GAMES GAME PITCH SAMPLE
What makes a studio differente from another, is the quality of its creative workforce, and that talent and quality is usually revealed in several occasions during the process of creating a videogames.Right from the concept phase, you may feel the expertise and experitse of the team by the way an idea is generated, discussed, documented and iterativly evolved into a game able to make thousands of...
August 2011
1 post
TECH :: CRYENGINE3 SDK RELEASED
Crytek has finally released the SDK for the Cryengine3 game engine. The SDK is located at http://www.crydev.net and needs registration before being ran,although not needing it for the download of the SDK which is aproxmatly 650 Mb.The license is free of all non commercial applications and developers are welcomed to contact Crytek for other licenses. I am not sure the plataforms for which...
June 2011
1 post
5 tags
NEW AUTODESK 3D LITE
Autodesk has launched a free 3D modeling tool for Windows. This software allows wannabee artists to create three-dimensional objects in a relatively simple way . The product is associated with a bigger community support service, that is allowing people to get more attention and help on dealing with common problems or bugs. On the Web you have access to free models available for...
April 2011
3 posts
5 tags
BIZ :: SMARTPHONES EATING AWAY PORTABLE CONSOLES ?
No, you are not reading the header of a new “pacman” clone, where a small smartphone runs along a blue maze eating off some portable consoles ;) No, what you are reading is that the gaming applications for smartphones are eating way the portable console gaming market, doubling in one year the revenues.The reasons behind such growth are basically associated with the appstore and...
4 tags
TECH :: XNA TOWER DEFENSE
Ever dreamed about developing your own Tower Defense Game, but always thought that it was to hard, or to complex to learn? Well if it is the case, and not because you are too lazy, here is the opportunity to learn about it in a very simple way. http://xnatd.blogspot.com/ Through, more or less, 15 articles, the author will guide the reader through the process of building a Tower Defense...
6 tags
Untitled
Although you could think that, with the amount of game engines already available, most people would avoid the effort of trying to implement a new game engine from ground 0. But the truth is quite the opposite, as for all the tech people around the world, the challenge of developing a game engine from scratch is something so important as a climber to try to climb to the top of the Everest, even...
March 2011
7 posts
6 tags
BIZ :: MIRROR, MIRROR IN THE WALL, TELL ME WHAT IS...
Over the last years, with the rise of digital downloads and digital commerce, there as been a very intense discussion about whatever the future of videogames is only digital, or still purely retail. Some say, that retail is dead, and that it is a question of time before, all the games will be sold online via portals like Steam, Xboxlive, Playstation network, or many other portals that have been...
3 tags
ART :: INCREDIBLE PIXEL ART
A very interesting work from Eric Boulton (http://www.whereismyeyeball.com/2d.html) which has left most of the people commenting the picture simply astonished. The author is also responsible for a very good version of a Steampunk Star Wars that can be found at http://www.whereismyeyeball.com/2d/starwars.html More at www.game-developers.org Incredible
4 tags
FUTURE :: MAPPING PROJECTION
Could this be part of the future of videogames? A mix a augmented reality at large scale with mapping projection on the walls of cities or of your living room? The video is certainly impressive and the possibilities of this for game are really impressive, can you think of playing a tetris in a building your city, or just to be surrounded by throusands of enemies inside the confort of...
4 tags
TECH :: NEW VERSION OF JMONKEYENGINE
The java Monkey Engine, jME3, has just released the first release of 2011 with many improvements and additions like lighting support for terrain, post-process water and physics controls which bring jMonkeyEngine3 a big step closer to its final release. The SDK steps into a whole new dimension of visual editing with a new terrain editor plugin for jMonkeyPlatform and many internal...
4 tags
TECH :: CG_GL ENGINE
From time to time you are able to find really interesting new engines developed by people trying to create some groundbreaking new technology, or to just learn how engines work.Most of those engines cannot be used, and have an added value to the game developers community a zero value, and could be only used to learn on what mistakes should be avoid when developing and engine. But there are a...
5 tags
TECH :: NEWTON GAME DYNAMICS MOVING TO OPEN SOURCE...
Most of you out there, that have been developing indie games, already know the Newton physics Engine, a very well implemented game engine, that was being used by several developers to manage the physics simulation in their games. From their home page, you can read that the description of the engine is as follows: “Newton Game Dynamics is an Open-source zlib-licensed integrated solution...
4 tags
TECH :: UDK MARCH RELEASE
Epic has just released the March release of UDK which includes the new features that were demonstrated during last week San Francisco GDC, “the samaritan”. The size of the forward leap taken by Epic with this release is only possible to understand by having seen with his own eyes the the realtime demo of ”the samaritan”, which was really impressive. Parallely to...
February 2011
17 posts
5 tags
TECH :: NEW VERSION OF 3D ENGINE KOCHOL
KGE (Kochol Game Engine) has reach its 0.0.6 version with new features added to the engine like: tile terrain, physics, particle systems, shadow maps, … This version has more than 1180 KB of source code. The authors of the engine have added tutorials and an API document but the engine is still lacking most of the documentation that would make it more developer friendly. Watching...
6 tags
BIZ :: EPICGAME REDUCES PRICES FOR UDK
According to a news story published at gamesindustry.biz, Epic Games has decided to lower the fees for indy projects made with their free version of the award-winning Unreal 3, UDK. Previously to this measure, any project that generated revenues above 5 000 $ was to pay to Epic a 25% of the game revenues. With the new pricing, the threshold is raised to 50 000$, but in turn you have...
5 tags
TECH :: NEW VERSION OF PIXELLIGHT AND SPARK
There is a new version of the free open-source, cross-platform 3D framework PixelLight , which includes also the new version of the plugin SPARK_PL integrating the free open source particle engine SPARK, and includes new demos, one of them shows how picking works. . From the project webpage: “PixelLight is an open-source framework that allows you to create 3D applications...
4 tags
TECH :: GOOGLE RELEASES HONEYCOMB SDK
After a couple of months about buzzwording about the Android 3.0, Honeycomb, and after teasing everyone with the news about the news tablets and the new features that will be coming into the market; and after a first preview version promptly removed from the site; Google has finally release the final version of the Honeycomb SDK.From now on developers, and this case, game developers, will be...
3 tags
TECH :: MICROSOFT OPENING UP KINECT SDK
As read back at slashgear.com is opening the Kinect SDK to the community in march, as to support non commercial applications, being followed in September by the commercial SDK that will allow developers to start to create their own commercial application, for one of the more interesting devices released into market during the last years. With this news, all the developers that were until using...
8 tags
TECH :: UDK TUTORIALS AND TRAININGS
There is no doubt that Epic Games has done something very interesting for the videogames industry, when they decided to release for free their version lite of Unreal3, the UDK. The framework is really powerful and lets you really develop high content materials that you can use to generate your game with high quality. High quality if you are able to understand and to master the tool, as if not,...
2 tags
TECH :: OPEN SOURCE GAMES
Usually when you talk with other developers about the possibility to get the source code of older games, you get a mixed type of answers: i) the most experienced ones, will say, that there is no value in getting the source code, as it will take more time to try to understand the code, than to actually code it. ii) the less experienced ones, will say that this is great as it will help them...
6 tags
BIZ :: HOW TO PUT A PRICE ON YOUR GAME
:) From time to time I am asked very interesting questions that have the goodness of making me think in things that I thought I already knew. So, when usually asked about it, the first thought is “trivial” but when you start to answer you suddenly realize that you are not actually 100% about the answer, and you stop surprised by the fact that you don´t know immediately the...
6 tags
DESIGN FOR SUCCESS
If you are not an expert game designer, you will probably think that game design is just a formalism to document your extra—valuable-mega-success-idea, that will put you in the sky of megastars of game development. If you know a little bit more, just a little bit more, you will know that to actually develop a game that is able to sell more than it has cost is already a success, and...
4 tags
BIZ :: MARKETING TIPS FOR GAME DEVELOPERS
Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE When you start to develop a game, you usually think that this is the most difficult part of it, and that you don´t need anything else, a part from your technical skills to...
3 tags
TECH :: A FLASH GAME DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT
Another game development framework developed in flash and that allows for a rapid authoring of games in flash. The engine, FLIXEL, is more oriented toward 2D game developement and seems to be very intuitive to use, which is always nice thing to have when developing. From the homepage of the tool: http://flixel.org/ A revolution in Flash game production. An amazing new way for man to...
5 tags
BIZ :: YET ANOTHER XBLIG BUSINESS CASE
Although the title of the article may lead to the idea that the article is boring, the reality is quite the opposite, as the information is very valuable for all those who want to make their living from the videogame industry, while keeping a certain amount of freedom, that working for bigger studios don´t allow. I have already posted a couple of times, the experience of indie...
6 tags
TECH :: UNREAL 3(UDK) SCRIPTING TUTORIAL
Over the last months, with the release for free of the UDK framework, there has been a a lot of buzz about the tool and how to use it to create impressive games. The main problem relies on the fact that UDK is a very powerfull and very complex tool, and although a lot of resources are available to learn it through videotutoriales or text tutoriales, most of them are focused in using the UDK and...
5 tags
Untitled
Although the title of the article may lead to the idea that the article is boring, the reality is quite the opposite, as the information is very valuable for all those who want to make their living from the videogame industry, while keeping a certain amount of freedom, that working for bigger studios don´t allow. I have already posted a couple of times, the experience of indie...
4 tags
TECH :: MARATIS A NEW OPENSOURCE GAME CREATION...
Everytime that a new game development tool becomes available, us game developers, should jump of joy, because we have the opportunity to test new features and new functionalities that can open new ways to improve our products; and if, on top of it, it is a open source tool to create multiplatform games, than we should clap our hands and our ears while jumping of joy ;). Maratis is a new...
3 tags
TECH :: XNA OPEN SOURCE MAP EDITOR
One of the main problems with XNA as a framework, is that when you want to develop maps for your game, you are have almost no option to be used confortably, and end up coding it by hand or to use any incomplete tool that you can put your hands on. The problem seems to be on the edge of becoming past, and there is a very interesting map editor being cooked up at Codeplex.com. Natur...
3 tags
HISTORY :: THE VIDEOGAME HISTORY BASED ON LITTLE...
I don´t like to use ads to show interesting things of videogames, but I have to say, that the Little Big Planet ad revisiting the history of videogames is very fun to watch, and for those who don´t have seen it, a must, as it reflects where we have come from, but from a look where we are going to.<div><br><div>Retrogaming is a very popular trend, and there have been several...
January 2011
18 posts
4 tags
TECH :: UDK WHIZZLE SOURCE CODE & GAME CONCEPT
Since EPICGAMES has released its first version of the UDK game engine for free, that the gaming development community has been using it, with great success in some cases, and with some difficulties in some other cases.THE UDK is a very powerfull development environment, but as everything that is powerfull, usually the same thing happens with complexity in using it, or at least starting to use...
4 tags
BIZ :: UNION, THE UNITY3D BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT...
One of hardest tasks,when creating a videogame project or studio, is to actually be able to have access to publishers that could be interested in the game, buy it and fund it. If you have commercial experience industry, it could be easier, but then you have the problem, that without a good demo in PS3 or XBOX360, your chances to finally signed the deal are low. Unity3D is a very good tool to...
6 tags
BIZ :: WELCOME TO THE PSP2
No, I will not make a viral post about how fantastic is the new PSP, how great hardware it has, and how cool or not cool is its form factor. There are plenty of posts about it going crazy over the net. I will rather concentrate on a couple of points that I think are important from a game developer point of view: i) The new console is aproximatly the size of a 5 inch tablet, and will have...
6 tags
TECH :: XNA LIGHT PRE-PASS
I have posted at least two versions of deferred shading using XNA, and while seaching for more references about it, I have found another option with Light pre-pass, another method to achieve good results. I have seen already another approach a couple for months ago with Wolfgang Engel , but Jorge Coluna, a brazilian programmer has revisited it with great results.The discussion between pros and...
8 tags
HISTORY :: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF VIDEOGAMES....
For a videogame developer it is very important to know it is roots, where he is coming, where he is, and where he is heading. The last option being the most difficult because it is always more difficult to imagine the future than to read the present and the past. And it is even more easier, if you have means that allows you to see it in action. Youtube is full of videos that compiles the history...
5 tags
TECH :: DEFERRED RENDERING WITH XNA 4.0
A couple of months ago, I have posted here an article about a implementation of a deferred rendering function developed in XNA by Catalin Zima . Now some some has taken on the code, and ported it to the XNA 4.0 Framework, and released again the code in open source, which represents a very good opportunity to understand how deferred rendering works, and all the post-processes functions that can...
4 tags
BIZ :: FINDING GOOD SOURCES OF VIDEOGAMES RELATED...
All game developers goes to heaven ;) ? Maybe if they access to a good and valuable source of information that is usually very expensive and out of reach from the hands of games developers. You can find loose information referring to the past, our expired estimations regarding the future, but when you actually look for a good and updated information about the industry, you are always faced...
4 tags
TECH :: LIST OF JAVASCRIPT ENGINES
User bebraw at reddit, has been creating a very interresting list of all the javascripts engines available in the internet organized by type and functionality. The list is a valuable source of information for all of those who wants to have a try at very lightweight engines that can be used not only to create webbased games, extremely flexible and able to use most of the new features available in...
7 tags
FUTURE :: ALTERNATE AND AUGMENTED REALITY AS A...
We all know that Augmented reality is here to stay, as the platform as a lot of useful applications, not only on the gaming space, but in other important spaces like advertising, commerce, tourism, and others. We also know, that games are basically about creating alternative realities that will immerse the player in a make-believe universe, where he can project all his dreams and...
5 tags
BIZ :: SALES DATA
When you are trying to setup your own business, or if you are already managing a business, you will understand how important is the access to good and valuable sales data. Sales data allow you to have rough estimations of how the industry is “breathing” and how easy it will to sell that AAA game that you are planning, or how much copies you will be able to sell across the different...
6 tags
TECH :: REALTIME EFFECTS VIA KINECT
Kinect Hadouken from Elliot Woods on Vimeo. A very interesting video about the integration done between Kinect (hacked), a video projector and some imagination, and that could point us to a possible of the future. In the video the researcher is able to use the kinect and the video cannon, to create in realtime a fireball interacting with all the elements in the scene. The effect is...
7 tags
BIZ :: MARKETING FOR INDIEOTS
To be an indie developer seems to be fun, but it is in reality quite a big challenge, struggling constantly against the lack of funds, the lack of visibility and trying to make your game to be bought or by a publisher or by the community of players.
Once the game is developed, you feel that all obstacles are cleared and the path ahead of you is straight toward success, but nothing more wrong....
5 tags
TECH :: FUTURE IN GAME CONTROLLING
While reviewing some tech site, my attention was caught by a small news about a new kinect hack for the PC, where a programmer had been able to mix together the Wii controllers + Kinect + Call of Duty, and was able to bring a new gaming experience.
The video was a little deceptioned me, as I have been for a while thinking that Kinect could be used to reproduce a nice effect that I saw a...
TECH :: WHAT IF YOU COULD PORT YOUR C/C++ GAME...
The question is: What if you could port your C/C++ game directly to Android, without any other modification, and make available your game in the Android Market?Is this interesting? For a newcomer maybe not, but for a studio with some back catalogue developed in C or C++ this would be like a dream, as it would allow to recover those games without major costs, probably graphical and some graphics...
BIZ : WHAT PLATFORM SHOULD I TARGET
There is no doubt that the videogame industry has come back to its garage(chamber) stage. As big studios close their doors unable to cope with the pressure of producing huge budget AAA games, the laid off peope or new comers are putting all their efforts in creating their own studios producing smaller innovative games that are changing the face of the industry, if not now, surely in the years to...
BIZ :: AMAZON ANDROID MARKET, THE NEW KINDLE?
Android has been growing at an incredible pace over the last years, and from being a system without installed based, then without an “appstore” like way to install application as easy as the apple appstore, everything seemed to be harder. But even this aspect of the platform is moving on, and now Amazon is joining the fun with its own market store for Android. Knowing the ways of...
Game Developers and the social networks
Game Developers is now available on the major social networks. I have been syncing the posts on http://www.game-developers.org with the major social networks as to make it easier to follow the posts and as to reach more readers. During the new weeks, the site will be suffering a facelift as to make it more inline with the current webdesign trends. http://www.game-developers.org
TECH :: IS KINECT THE FUTURE TODAY
For those who have been paying attention to the way Kinect has impacted the hacking community, it is already possible to start thinking about the possibility of what is behing kinet, to become the future of games control. Right from the moment where the drivers were hacked and put in the public domain, the number of application of the kinect has being growing quite fast, it left very soon the...
