Autodesk Gameware

Last updated

Autodesk Gameware is a discontinued middleware software suite [1] developed by Autodesk. The suite contained tools that enable designers to create game lighting, character animation, low level path finding, high-level AI and advanced user interfaces. [2] On July 12, 2017, Autodesk removed Scaleform, Beast, HumanIK, and Navigation from their online store, and announced the ending of support for the products. [3]

Contents

Products

The Gameware suite consisted of the following modules:

Beast

Autodesk Beast
Original author(s) Illuminate Labs
Developer(s) Autodesk
Type Middleware
License Proprietary commercial software
Website gameware.autodesk.com/beast

Beast is a content pipeline tool used for advanced global illumination and dynamic character relighting. Beast is developed and sold by Swedish games lighting technology company Illuminate Labs (acquired by Autodesk in 2010). Beast is used to make light maps, shadow maps and point clouds with advanced global illumination. [6] Beast can precalculate lighting for light maps, shadow maps and point clouds, to bake occlusion or normal maps or to generate light fields for dynamic relighting of characters and objects.

Beast has built-in integration with Gamebryo Lightspeed [7] [8] and Epic's Unreal Engine, [9] Evolution and several other in-house game engines. In March 2010, Unity Technologies announced that the next version of Unity would feature built-in Beast lightmapping and global illumination off the shelf. [10] There is an API available for projects working with Beast but not ready for integration. The Beast API is a programming interface designed to make it as easy as possible to create a Beast integration with any game engine. [11]

Beast has been used in games such as: Mario Kart 8 , [12] Mirror's Edge , CrimeCraft , Army of Two: The 40th Day , Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Alpha Protocol .

The new Beast was presented at GDC 2010 in San Francisco. [13] The new version of Beast features two entirely new modules called DistriBeast and eRnsT. DistriBeast is an extremely fast and easy to use distribution engine for managing render farms. eRnsT is a real-time visualizer that allows artists to explore and control the lighting set-up without having to run a complete bake. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software industry.

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has offices worldwide. Its U.S. offices are located in the states of California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its Canada offices are located in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual programming language</span> Programming language written graphically by a user

In computing, a visual programming language or block coding is a programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used either as elements of syntax or secondary notation. For example, many VPLs are based on the idea of "boxes and arrows", where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities, connected by arrows, lines or arcs which represent relations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CryEngine</span> Game engine by Crytek

CryEngine is a game engine designed by the German game developer Crytek. It has been used in all of their titles with the initial version being used in Far Cry, and continues to be updated to support new consoles and hardware for their games. It has also been used for many third-party games under Crytek's licensing scheme, including Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 and SNOW. Warhorse Studios uses a modified version of the engine for their medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Ubisoft maintains an in-house, heavily modified version of CryEngine from the original Far Cry called the Dunia Engine, which is used in their later iterations of the Far Cry series.

COLLADA is an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available specification, ISO/PAS 17506.

Reality Lab was a 3D computer graphics API created by RenderMorphics to provide a standardized interface for writing games. It was one of the main contenders in the realtime 3D middleware marketplace at the time, alongside Criterion Software's RenderWare and Argonaut Software's BRender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PhysX</span> Realtime physics engine software

PhysX is an open-source realtime physics engine middleware SDK developed by Nvidia as a part of Nvidia GameWorks software suite.

SpeedTree is a group of vegetation programming and modeling software products developed and sold by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV) that generates virtual foliage for animations, architecture and in real time for video games and demanding real time simulations.

gameswf(pronounced "game swiff") is an open-source public domain library for parsing and rendering SWF movies, using 3D hardware APIs for rendering. It is designed to be used as a UI library for video games.

FMOD is a proprietary sound effects engine and authoring tool for video games and applications developed by Firelight Technologies. It is able to play and mix sounds of diverse formats on many operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubisoft Anvil</span> Game engine developed by Ubisoft Montreal

Ubisoft Anvil is a game engine created by Ubisoft Montreal and used in the Assassin's Creed video game series as well as other Ubisoft games. The engine is used on Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia. Ubisoft Anvil is one of the primary game engines used by Ubisoft along with Disrupt, Dunia, and Snowdrop.

Wwise is Audiokinetic's software for interactive media and video games, available for free to non-commercial users and under license for commercial video game developers. It features an audio authoring tool and a cross-platform sound engine.

Kynogon was a computer software company that provided AI middleware to the video game and the simulation industries. The company was acquired by Autodesk in February 2008, and its flagship product was titled Autodesk Navigation. Autodesk ended the sale of Navigation in July 2017.

Scaleform Corporation is a developer providing middleware for use in the video game industry. As a result of Autodesk's acquisition of the company in March 2011, Scaleform has become part of the Autodesk Gameware line of middleware.

Simplygon is 3D computer graphics software for automatic 3D optimization, based on proprietary methods for creating levels of detail (LODs) through Polygon mesh reduction and other optimization techniques.

xaitment is a German-based company that develops and sells artificial intelligence (AI) software to video game developers and simulation developers. The company was founded in 2004 by Dr. Andreas Gerber, and is a spin-off of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence, or DFKI. xaitment has its main office in Quierschied, Germany, and field offices in San Francisco and China.

Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scaleform GFx</span> Discontinued game development middleware package

Scaleform GFx is a discontinued game development middleware package, a vector graphics rendering engine used to display Adobe Flash-based user interfaces and HUDs for video games. In March 2011, Autodesk acquired Scaleform Corporation and Scaleform GFx became part of the Autodesk Gameware line of middleware. On July 12, 2018, Autodesk discontinued Scaleform GFx, and it is no longer available for purchase.

References

  1. ↑ "Autodesk debuts its Gameware group". Graphicspeak. 16 March 2012. Retrieved March 16, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Autodesk Introduces Updated Gameware". Tom's Hardware. 5 April 2013. Retrieved April 5, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Middleware Products End Of Sale". Autodesk.com. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  4. ↑ "HumanIK (HIK) character solving". Autodesk. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Autodesk unveils new AI tech Gameware Navigation". MCV. Develop. 18 September 2012. Retrieved September 18, 2012.
  6. ↑ Autodesk Beast Archived 2012-03-11 at the Wayback Machine , Autodesk
  7. ↑ "Illuminate Labs joins Emergent's Partner Programme". MCV. 2 January 2009.
  8. ↑ "Gamebryo LightSpeed Integration — Illuminate Labs". Archived from the original on 2010-08-15. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  9. ↑ "Unreal Engine 3 Integration — Illuminate Labs". Archived from the original on 2010-07-26. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  10. ↑ "Unity - Products". Unity. Retrieved 21 April 2018.[ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ Alexander, Leigh. "Illuminate Labs Announces Beast API, Tiered Pricing". Gamasutra.com. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  12. ↑ "Mario Kart 8 : WiiU Manual" (PDF). Nintendo.com. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
  13. ↑ "Archived copy". www.illuminatelabs.com. Archived from the original on 30 March 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ↑ "CGSociety Maintenance". Archived from the original on 2015-01-20. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.