A game engine is a software-development environment designed for people to build video games. Developers use game engines to construct games for consoles, mobile devices, and personal computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine ("renderer") for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and may include video support for cinematics. Implementers often economize on the process of game development by reusing/adapting, in large part, the same game engine to produce different games or to aid in porting games to multiple platforms.
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California, and features a gallery of its customers' work in its San Francisco building. The company has offices worldwide, with U.S. locations in Northern California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Michigan and in New England in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and Canada locations in Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.
Havok is a middleware software suite developed by the Irish company Havok. Havok provides a physics engine component and related functions to video games.
Autodesk Media and Entertainment is a division of Autodesk which offers animation and visual effects products, and was formed by the combination of multiple acquisitions. In 2018, the company began operating as a single operating segment and reporting unit.
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.
Unity is a cross-platform real-time engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Inc.'s Worldwide Developers Conference as an OS X-exclusive game engine. As of 2018, the engine has been extended to support 27 platforms. The engine can be used to create both three-dimensional and two-dimensional games as well as simulations for its many platforms. Several major versions of Unity have been released since its launch, with the latest stable version being Unity 2018.3.12.
Havok is an Irish software company founded in 1998 by Hugh Reynolds and Steven Collins, based in Dublin, Ireland and owned by Microsoft. They have partnership with Activision, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Bethesda Softworks and Ubisoft.
Darkworks S.A. was an independent video game developer and technology company based in Paris, France. The company is known for its games that include Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare and Cold Fear.
BigWorld is an Australian company formed in 2002 by John De Margheriti that develops and licenses a middleware development tool suite for the creation of massively multiplayer online games (MMO) and virtual worlds. It was the first company that developed such a middleware platform for the MMO market. In 2007, BigWorld was recognized as the industry leader in UK's Develop magazine. On 7 August 2012, Wargaming acquired BigWorld middleware firm for $45M.
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.
Trinigy was an independent company focusing on the development of advanced 3D graphics technology with its headquarters in Southern Germany, with offices in Austin, Texas (US) and Seoul, South Korea.
Illuminate Labs is a Swedish software company based in Gothenburg, founded in 2002 and specializing in video games lighting. The company produces two middleware products called Beast and Turtle, based on their LiquidLight technology.
Fork Particle is a computer graphics visual effects modeling and software development kit (SDK) developed and sold by Fork Particle, Inc. Fork Particle uses its real time particle system technology to simulate visual effects or particle effects such as CGI explosions, fire, rain, smoke, dust, etc. Fork Particle is used in video games and visual simulation software such as a flight simulator. It has been licensed to game developers for Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Silicon Studio is a Japanese computer graphics technology company and video game developer based in Tokyo. As a technology company, Silicon Studio has produced several products in the 3D computer graphics field, including middleware software, such as a post-processing visual effects library called YEBIS, as well as general real-time graphics engines and game development engines, such as OROCHI and Mizuchi, a physically based rendering engine. As a video game developer, Silicon Studio has worked on different titles for several gaming platforms, most notably, the action-adventure game 3D Dot Game Heroes on the PlayStation 3, the role-playing video game Bravely Default on the Nintendo 3DS, and Fantasica on the iOS and Android mobile platforms.
Autodesk Gameware is a discontinued middleware software suite 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. On July 12, 2017, Autodesk removed Scaleform, Beast, HumanIK and Navigation from their online store, and announced the ending of support for the products.
Scaleform GFx is a game development middleware package, a vector graphics rendering engine used to display Adobe Flash-based user interfaces and HUDs for video games. As a result of Autodesk's acquisition of Scaleform Corporation in March 2011, Scaleform GFx has become part of the Autodesk Gameware line of middleware. Scaleform GFx is no longer available for purchase.
Bitsquid is a discontinued 3D game engine with support for Linux, Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Android and iOS. It uses the Lua scripting language.
