Game developers will be able to take a test drive of Autodesk’s new Stingray game engine beginning on August 19, 2015.
The new game engine is built on the Bitsquid engine, which Autodesk purchased in 2014, offering a new platform for making 3D games. The engine supports a number of industry-standard game development workflows and includes connectivity to Autodesk’s 3D animation software that can facilitate game development across a wide range of platforms.
Stingray feature highlights include:
- Seamless Art-to-Engine Workflow: Import, create, iterate, test and review 3D assets and gameplay fast with a one-click workflow and live link between Stingray and Autodesk 3D animation software.
- Modern Data-Driven Architecture: A lightweight code base gives game developers the freedom to make significant changes to the engine and renderer without requiring source code access.
- Advanced Visuals and Rendering: Produce visually appealing games with a powerful rendering pipeline, physically-based shading, advanced particle effects, post processed visual effects, lightmap baking and a high-performance reflection system.
- Creative Toolset: Stingray includes proven solutions like Beast, HumanIK, Navigation, Scaleform Studio (UI technology built on Scaleform), FBX, Audiokinetic Wwise and NVIDIA PhysX.
- Versatile Game Logic Creation: Stingray includes a wide range of development tools making game creation more accessible for game makers with varying levels of experience - including visual node-based-scripting and Lua scripting. C++ source code will also be available as an additional purchase upon request.
- Multiplatform Deployment and Testing: Quickly make and apply changes to gameplay and visuals across supported platforms: Apple iOS, Google Android, Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows 8, Oculus Rift DevKit 2, Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft XboxOne.
The Stingray engine can also be used in design environments and as an informative next step to further understand design data before anything is physically built. The engine’s real-time digital environment is programmed to look and feel like the physical world. Through the development tools and visual scripting system, developers can program objects, light effects, environmental elements, materials, and entourage elements to behave and react as they would in the physical world.
Connected to Autodesk 3ds Max, users can import Autodesk Revit data into 3ds Max, add content to the 3ds Max scene and then place that scene in the Stingray engine to explore, animate, and interact in the designed space.
Autodesk Stingray runs on Windows and will be available via an Autodesk Subscription starting for $30 US MSRP per month. Later this summer, Autodesk plans to offer its Maya LT Desktop Subscription customers access to the engine as part of Maya LT.