TOOLS // MOBILE | BUILD EPIC GAMES | USED IN: Infinity Blade series, Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, Borderlands Legends, Injustice
THE POWERHOUSE BEHIND the ambitious Infinity Blade series offers two solutions for mobile games developers. Firstly, its full source Unreal Engine 3, which includes complete access to the integrated Unreal Editor suite, C++ source code and direct support from its engineering team. In addition, it provides the free edition of Unreal Engine 3, the Unreal Development Kit, which has had more than 2.25 million unique installs to date. Both products come with a set of
industry-leading middleware packages and integrations at no additional cost. The elegant upgrade path from UDK to the full source UE3 is a particularly strength, allowing you room to grow and stretch your wings without having to learn new technologies. The vibrant Unreal Engine dev community also means that there are plenty of resources availble, whether you’re
looking to have a question answered or seeking members for a virtual team. Epic provides additional information on its
developer network and also produces video tutorials to teach you more about making mobile games with UDK on its Twitch TV (
www.twitch.tv/unrealengine) and YouTube (
www.youtube.com/unrealengine) channels online. Epic Games European territory manager
Mike Gamble says: “Unreal Engine technology provides a tried and tested high-quality development environment for mobile development. Teams using Unreal are equipped with tools that help them produce the quality necessary for standout titles to compete in the crowded mobile app space.” Unreal Engine 3 is available and priced upon application. UDK is free.
www.unrealengine.com
AUTODESK
| USED IN: (Product just launched)
LAUNCHED IN AUGUST this year, Maya LT is Autodesk’s bid at opening its floodgates to mobile developers. Maya LT has been designed from the beginning specifically for the needs of start-up and mobile developers. Autodesk tell us that the product went through extensive testing and everything from its feature set down to its UI has been optimised to meet the unique needs of the mobile community. With Maya LT on Mac or PC, artists can use the Nex toolset, alongside essential animation features, such as keyframing and rigging tools via Autodesk HumanIK rig and skeleton generation. The product also has advanced material creation and the Turtle tool for texture baking and simulating realistic lighting as well as ShaderFX, a node-based shader editor. Furthermore, Maya LT supports Unity, Unreal Engine and CryEngine. An SDK for Autodesk’s FBX file
format is available to let devs adapt environments to the FBX format. Before the launch of this new package,
Autodesk released its Scaleform Mobile SDK and Unity plug-in for iOS, Android and Windows Phone last year. The former enables developers to use the SDK as a standalone Flash runtime to port games to mobile platforms, while the plug-in brings Autodesk’s popular UI tools to Unity developers. Autodesk director of game solutions
Frank Delise says: “We really believe Maya LT combines the best tools for game asset creation at a price that can be as flexible as the developer needs. Budget doesn’t have to cripple the development cycle and with Maya LT, artists can easily create better art using industry standard tools.” Autodesk Maya LT £700, Autodesk
Scaleform Mobile SDK/Unity (plug-in) £195.
www.autodesk.com
UNITY | USED IN: Bad Piggies, Deus Ex: The Fall, Leviathan Warships, Temple Run 2, The Room
FROM 2D PUZZLE games to complex 3D action titles, Unity continues to be a favourite among developers for its accessibility, dependability and cross- platform capabilities. For mobile, Unity’s integrated development environment allows developers to port between all major mobile platforms, and soon Tizen and PlayStation Mobile. Games can also be ported to the web (via Unity Web Player), PC, Mac, Linux and all major consoles, including PS Vita with relative ease, giving you greater potential to reach the widest audience possible. The fundamental Unity tools are available
for free and you can currently use those free tools to publishing games to iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Store for no cost, collection fee or royalties. However, once you or your company starts to bring in revenues over $100k a year, Unity asks that
DEVELOP-ONLINE.NET
you upgrade your licences to Unity Pro. The professional version includes extra features designed to add extra value for high-end production, including more advanced lighting, code and editing options. And Unity’s own asset store also means further time and cost-savings can be made. Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason
says: “Unity’s power, efficiency, elegance of design and massive cross-platform capabilities make it the best option for developers looking to create games for any range of mobile devices. With ancillary bonuses such as the Asset Store and recently announce Unity Cloud and sharing services, Unity is by far the most complete package in the market.” Unity 4 is free, Unity Pro (plus optional iOS,
Android, BlackBerry add-ons) priced from £470 ($750).
www.unity3d.com
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