dev tools

Havok Goes Free In May

Trying to create your own PC game of you and your friends shooting up your high school but lacking the physics and animation technology to bring the whole project together? Well if you can wait a few months, you can use the same tools you've seen flashed countless times on your TV and computer monitor over the past several years - Havok. Havok is releasing their industry-leading Havok Complete toolset completely free in May. Havok Complete combines the Havok physics engine with Havok Animation, and is already used in over 200 triple-A titles on the market today.

"This is fantastic news for commercial PC game developers as well as the independent game development community, who will really benefit from this move," said Mark DeLoura, creator of the Game Programming Gems series.

Indeed fantastic news, as having powerful tools freely available can really help foster creativity across the industry, while also expanding the market for Havok's add-on products, like the recently announced Cloth and Destruction apps. An extremely long press release follows. More »

dev tools

Havok Gets Cracking, Fluttering

The Havok engine just got a much-needed kick in the fluttering cloth pants with the unveiling of Havok Cloth and Havok Destruction at GDC, two products that will provide developers unprecedented control over cloth and destruction in their games. Havok Cloth, as seen in the video above, allows for scalable clothing that will stretch and flow as a character moves, while Havok Destruction is all about breaking stuff - dynamic fracturing, shattering, and deformation of objects. While just a nifty video clip to the layman, this is exactly the sort of thing that gives game developers - male and female alike - intense, uncomfortable erections. Hit the jump for the full press release. More »

dev tools

AcroGames Licenses Unreal Engine 3

The only thing that surprises me about Unreal Engine 3 license announcements anymore is that everyone doesn't already have one. Now Korean developer AcroGames has licensed the engine from Epic, and thanks to some digging done over at Gamasutra, we know they are working on an online PC title. AcroGames is an amalgam of talent that have worked on both NCsoft's Lineage II and Softmax's Magna Carta RPG for the PlayStation 2, so it really could have gone either way.

Said Epic vice president Jay Wilbur, "AcroGames is a promising team comprised of top talent and we look forward to working with them. We are committed to supporting the Asian game market with best of breed development tools, and our agreement with AcroGames marks a significant achievement in this effort."

Aside from the engine they are using and the platform the game will be appearing on, all we know is that with those two titles under their collective belts we can expect some very pretty androgynous characters to be making an appearance, more than likely in little to no clothing.

AcroGames Licenses Unreal Engine 3 For Online PC Title [Gamasutra]

the power to move you

Cryptic Animation Rig For Everybody!

Hey, high school kids! Having trouble working on the animations for your latest first person shooter video game? Anyone can map their favorite learning institution into a game level, but to create realistic animations, you need tools, and now Cryptic Studios is giving you those tools, free. In an extremely kick ass move on their part, the creators of City of Heroes and developers of the upcoming Marvel Universe Online game have released their Cryptic Animation Rig for download under the GNU General Public License. Not a demo, and not a crappy Lite version, these are the actual production tools used by the studio itself.

"Our goal is to foster a community of animators by providing them the power to generate animations without having to worry about supporting a toolset. Since we were already developing the rig for our core technology team, we decided to release it to the public under the GNU GPL," said Shayne Herrera, Art Development Director for Cryptic Studios. "We feel that the development and gaming communities will benefit greatly from a professional tool like the Cryptic AR."

Unbelievably cool move. Cryptic is even creating forums on the website to foster a community of animators that can support each other and exchange ideas. Cryptic AR 1.0 can be downloaded right here, right now. Michael Fahey More »