Gavalakis Vaggelis

Publishing for HTML5 | The Creative Way. Game Engines & Tools

me — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:16:35 +0000

So, there has been a great fuzz about HTML5 and some of it’s capabilities lately. Intrigued by the idea that they can’t be wrong about it, I dug into it as of what it can offer to me as an artist and as a game developer wannabe . More and more software developers move to HTML5 as a deployment platform and what HTML5 means to graphics at least, basicaly has to do with it’s Canvas element which “allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D shapes” as well as WebGL which “is a context of the Canvas HTML element that provides a 3D computer graphics API without the use of plug-ins”. For a majority of people around the globe, it seems that this is naturally bad news for Adobe Flash, while for those same poeple, those news seem more than pleasing. I couldn’t agree more and it seems that even Adobe does by the looks of it. There are really many tools out there to help someone build for HTML5, but as usual in my posts, even if I knew them all (which of course don’t), I would only write about the ones I find best, based on my personal desires (which to be honest are very common) those being “I want results now”, “Less code would be better”, “Oh, here is how to draw a line” and “It looks cool” or in other words: Fast, Easy, Supported, Graphics Quality. Of course you could open up an IDE and start doing things directly in Java. Next!—> That being said and out of the way, I willl start with one of my top recommendations.

Game Engines

Construct 2

People reading my blog might well remember listing Construct 0.99 (now renamed to Construct Classic) in my “The Best Game Engines for Indie Game Developers” post. Construct 2 is Scirra Company’s second take on a game engine targeting the HTML5 platform as of yet. While Construct 2 is still in beta, having played around with Construct Classic before, I’ve seen what Scirra is capable of especially since Construct 2 is based on the same concept as Classic.

Construct uses a behavior and event driven system, essentially requiring no coding at all. This might remind people an old software named Multimedia Fusion. Major difference here being that Construct 2 supports new technologies. The guys at Scirra seem to work 24/7 there since I see a new release very often adding features and fixing bugs. At this rate I believe that Construct 2 will reach and surpass Construct Classic’s features very soon. The recent javascript SDK that allows anyone to write new behavior and objects for Construct 2 just enhances those thoughts of mine. Construct currently has an early adopter price at 32$ instead of the normal release 65$ price. Allthough there is a free version as well, some things do matter in the Standard paid license like for instance the Event limit of 100 in the free version. Since events are the way one controls the flow of the game, you can see how crucial this is.

Last but not list, Construct 2 comes with some assets ready to use. Thomas Gullen of Scirra was kind enough to give me access and review the whole Standard license, which includes those assets, which are of very nice and clean quality as far as audio goes. There are also sprites which are basicaly categorized into two type of games, a Jungle Platformer and a Space shoot ‘em up game. The Space sprites especially are well made and because of their nature of being generic space, they can be used in any type of space game. [There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

GameMaker HTML

GameMaker was also featured in my The Best Game Engines for Indie Game Developers, allthough similar to Scirra, YoYo Games has made a new version targeting HTML5. Those are great news, but unfortuantely there is no editor demo and I was very annoyed by the reply of one of their stuff when I contacted them in request for an evaluation. They replied totally irrelevant to my message:

“GameMaker:HTML5 is aimed at experienced developers (not entry level) who want to export their completed games. Unlike GameMaker Standard 8.1 which you can download for free. See the comparison table here – http://yoyogames.com/gamemaker.
GameMaker:HTML5 and GameMaker Studio (released later this year) will enable games to be exported in various formats including .exe, HTML5, and for iOS and Android. It is compatible with current GM Mac and Windows versions.”

Thank you. I know what it is, else I wouldn’t contact you regarding an evaluation O.o

With that out of the way, GameMaker HTML probably is a nice tool, allthough games made on GameMaker still look but most importantely feel old, due to GameMaker’s graphics tech supported.

GameSalad

GameSalad is another no-programming-needed game creator that is about to also move to HTML5 publishing. Unfortunately though GameSalad is MacOS only and while the video and features etc look good enough, I have no way to test it (yet

Rocket Engine

I’ve no idea whether Rocket Engine is released or not, or even continued. From the website it seems a “yes”, but I’ve contacted RocketPack, without getting a reply from them.

Javascript

Processing.js

Allright. Processing (not processing.js) is a programming language that was made with ease of use in mind for fast visual results. It has been used in many many projects. This is not a game engine but a plain programming language, which means there are no game specific libraries in there by default, no editor etc. BUT, Processing applications can be used for HTML5 cool and interactive animated graphics alla Flash, with the use of processing.js which makes possible to run processing code on web. There are a LOT examples and tutorials and documentation about it. Currently learning it and like it a lot. Also it’s free.

Three.js

Three.js from Mrdoob, is an easy javascript 3D engine, possible the best I’ve found and is able to render in Canvas, SVG and WebGL. Again, this is not game engine, just a graphics engine and it’s free as well. Syntax seems quite easy so far.

Impact.js

So another .js. This time Impact.js is actually a game engine. Don’t know a lot about it really, but I’ve listed here because from the rest javascript game engines (not listed here), it looks quite good, allthough it’s commercial at the cost of 99$ compared to the above.

Other Tools

Expression Blend for HTML

It’s been a long time ago that I’ve posted an article about Silverlight. One is able to create Silverlight applications from within Expression Blend, but now Microsoft seems to leave Silverlight back and move to HTML5 as well. As a consequence, the new Expression Blend is able to publish in HTML5 and support javascript coding, which….is awesome because I like Expression Blend as a tool a lot and javascript seems my favorite language so far. It’s not officialy out yet, but if it is as good as it looks in previews, I guess there is no need for Adobe Edge for me. The HTML version of Expression Blend can be found in the Windows 8 preview by the way.

Hype

Hype is an animation software available only for Mac. I could compare it to Adobe Edge, but Hype also support interactivity that Edge does not yet. (Reminder: Edge is still in Preview release 1)

Sencha Animator

Sencha is a great company overall following the current tech leaning towards javascript, HTML5 and mobile apps. One of their products, Sancha Animator is a tool similar to Hype from the looks of it (since I can’t try Hype), that also supports some minimal interactivity allthough custom javascript code is possible in the software.

Edge

Finally Adobe Edge at its preview 1 release, has a very similar to After Effects GUI, though don’t expect anything near AFX at it current state. Similar to Hype, one is able to make some simple animation, but no interactive as of yet (which I doubt it will ever be implemented cause then you wouldn’t need another Adobe software for that).

Now there is also Wallaby from Adobe, a tool to convert .FLA files to HTML5 as well as Google’s Swiffy for converting .swf files to HTML5. As far as Wallaby I’ve no idea what results it produces since I don’t use Flash, but for Swiffy, I tried a simple animated .swf and was fine. The downside of Swiffy is that it doesn’t support AS3 so don’t expect any complex projects to be converted.

If you know any other great tool or way for publishing to HTML5 similar to the ones I’ve listed here, please feel free and comment. I would also like to know your opinion on HTML5 as a platform for applications and games when seeing many develeopers turning to it……

Unity 3D – Billiard Game Template

me — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:10:35 +0000

I’ve made a billiard game template in Unity3D that can be used as a base for your own game. This is my first item to be selling at my website and if all goes well, more will come.I am selling this in my website , because here is possible to have a lower price instead of the official Asset Store which takes a 30% split.

A great amount of hours were spend in creating the ball physics behaviour as realistic as possible especially since the game project features backspin trick shots.

Included are everything you see and hear in the playable demo with clean commented code and the source PSDs as well. The price of the project is at 20 EURO and you will get the project as an instand download of 65 MB in .rar format. You can make and sell any product using this, but you can not resell it as a project, like I am doing here.

Go here for the playable demo. You will of course need the Unity Webplayer.

Alt pressed and move mouse for aim. Mousewheel to set strength. Click to hit ball. “z” to open top view.

Please contact me for any questions or support. Thank you.

iPad | A small Guide + apps for Creatives

me — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:23:17 +0000

So I got myself an iPad (16G, Wifi only) afterall having found it at about 360E. The 3G version didn't apeal to me since I believe that nowdays there Wifi almost everywhere and I don't plan go hiking but even if I did I would stay away from technology in such an activity. 16G seemed few but I couldn't afford 80E more at the moment for such luxury, and a luxury it is indeed.Let me not speak about buying an iPad 2 which apart from the two processors, nothing else draw my attention for paying it's higher price. Maybe if there was pressure sensitivity but there is sadly none.

Jailbreaking the iPad

So, as soon as I got the iPad, the first thing I wanted to do is to jailbreak it for two important reasons. First is that I could install applications that didn't make it to iStore through Cyndia, while the seccond most important is that I could use a simple software on my PC so I could exchange files with my iPad without the use of iTunes (which I find dragging) or Wifi (which is slow). So first things first, I updated my iPad through iTunes to the latest version 4.3.2 currently and then used this guide to jailbreak it. Jailbreaking was quite easy. Now apart from having Cyndia thus being able to install varius customization apps from it, I can use i-FunBox program to exchange files with apps on my iPad easily.

Battery Life

Some years ago I bought a laptop. Now, after 3 years, my laptop's battery realy isn't working anymore. Because I didn't want the same to happen to my iPad I researched how to go about my battery charging to keep it healthy for longer. I've found that you should charge the iPad on a dailty basis no matter the remaining battery percentage left and also do at least one charge cycle per month, which means depleting the battery to at least 20% then charging the iPad to 100% and then completly running it down. Unplugging the device when at 100% is also a good habbit instead of letting it charge overnight. Also there exist some apps that supposingly help maintaining the battery like Battery Boost Magic, but I realy can't tell whether those kind of apps actually do something or not. Lastly, turning off or down some settings, will guarantee that the battery will last longer in one charge. Such settings are:

Turning down the display brightness in Settings -> Brightness
Setting auto-lock to 1 minute in Settings -> General -> Auto-Lock
Turn off bluetooth when not in use.
Adjust data fetch settings in Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data
Disable iPod EQ in Settings -> iPod -> EQ
For 3G owners, disable 3G whenever possible in Settings -> General -> Network

Apps: Essential

So having an iPad is about the apps it has. Digging through many sites I've found those that suit me the best starting from the essentials. Evernote is essential especially since I'm using the desktop version too. Keep notes and audio recordings categorized. Clip webpages and save locations on google maps. Plus it works well with other apps. -FREE

Awesome Note is a very nice app for…taking notes, able to set priorities, due dates and categorize in nice looking folders. The ability to work along Evernote is the number one reason I use it. -3.99$

Penultimate is simple yet it has possible the best sketching feel I've found for a note taking app. -1.99$

UPad is another really great notetaking app, but this time with an also great writing engine, support for type, VGA-out and pdf annotating wich makes it possible to import forms and complete them in the app. Hmm. Character Sheets maybe? -4.99$

I've tried Twitterrific which rates high by users, but I feel like the original Twiiter clinet app to be the best. With it's slick design and features I use it al the time. -FREE

MyPad+ is a facebook client. With a slick design prety much like the one of the Twitter app above, it's an excelent facebook client. -FREE

It's Skype of course. In the time of this article there is not an iPad version out yet, but the iPhone version is just fine to use. -FREE

ReadItLater app is excelent especially since I don't have a 3G iPad version, since with it I can save things for later reading offline. -FREE

iFiles is a file manager for iPad able to view a numerous of file formats and do some operations with them. While that is nice, I believe that with a jailbroken iPad and the i-FunBox program there is no true need for such an app. -3.99$

While Safari is nice and fast, it lacks two important things and those are: Tabs! and downloads. iCab features both plus some other options such as save to Read it Later app. I've also tried the high esteemed Atomic Web Browser, but didnt find iCab lacking in any aspect compared to it. -1.99$

HitPad is an app for easily searching the web, tweets, videos simultaneusly in a nice and good looking manner. -FREE

OK. It's dropbox. The best (to me) online file sharing tool and it's on the iPad too. Best of all, many other apps work along with dropbox just fine. -FREE

For RSS reading I've tested many apps out there like Reeder, SlideReader and ReadPad, but the one most apealing to me was MobileRSS for it's effectiveness and style. -4.99$

Controling my PC from the iPad is very intriguing and may prove productive as well. Custom Keypad app is just great. One can create and save keypad layouts assigned to custom keyboard and mouse shortcuts, to wirelessly control the PC and any software with iPad. Great isn't it? -0.99$

If not to control a specific software or the desktop PC while able to watch it's screen, with iTeleport one can remotely take complete control of their's (or others if willing) desktop PC or Mac's over the internet. Teamviewer is another good option, but I ended up with iTeleport. -24.99$ !

Apps: Reading

Ok. I do a lot of reading and as such I really needed a good fast reader able to load and render big files with no lagging while I pan and zoom about the eBook. Also easy bookmarking and TOC is a must. Oh, and I forgot that I favor nice looks too . So After trying CloudReaders, PDFReader, GoodReader and some others, it came down that I use FastPDF+ only now. -2.99$

Some of the tested apps above also have the ability to load CBR files which is the standard format for comics which I like a lot (especialy the Conan series from Dark Horse and the Savage Sword of Conan). The app I ended up using though, was BookMan for it is able to categorize files in libraries. BookMan is also able to load PDF files but I sadly found it slow in big files like 50MB compared to FastPDF+. -2.99$

With 3DArtist and DigitalArtist being my favorite magazines nowdays, I'm happy that Imagine Publishing are releasing their magazines digitaly for 3,3E each through their apps.

Discover is just the best, at least for me, way to search and read Wikipedia and in a very beatifull way too. A must have for lore keepers :-0 -FREE

FlipBoard is the all in one place to read and keep track of Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and Flickr in a very stylistic magazine look. -FREE

I've tried many formats and encoded videos with various players on the iPad. oPlayer HD was the one that really played them all, with no lag whatsoever. Also the ability of oPlayer HD to load subtitles (.srt) was a big plus for my choice. -4.99$

Everyone knows Vimeo I guess and with this app you can search, watch and even edit videos. -FREE

Apps: Producing

Ok, thats the reason I bought an iPad in the first place. Sketching ideas on the go on this device. By sketching I don't necessarily mean actual sketching, but idea sketching, be it illustration, music, design e.t.c. And from what I've seen so far, I must say I'm quite happy with the iPad for that reason.

Qvik Sketch was one of those apps that made me buy and iPad. With it's procedural sketching brushes compared to Harmony online application, Qvik is one of my favorites. -0.99$

Sketchbook Pro is propably the most known app for drawing on the iPad. It has an intuitive interface and a nice lot of brushes to paint. Still, I don't think I can use the iPad for drawing rather than sketching without sensitivity. Maybe it's untill I get used to it. -4.99$

Layers and Brushes are both great alternatives to Sketchbook Pro, and I find myself using Layers more and more rather thatn Sketchbook. Sketch Club is great and I compare it to Qvik Sketch for it's procedural sketch brushes. It has layers and ability to import from iPad's photo library. amongst other features. Compared to similar (procedural) sketching apps like ASKetch and LiveSketch I find myslef using the most of the time. -1.99$

ASKetch and LiveSketch are both alternatives to Sketch Club and Qvik. Allthough less featured, they have their own style and feel, so give them a try if y Animation Desk compared to Animation Creator HD is much faster and easier to use with a slick UI too. Nice for studying animation principles on the go. -4.99$

Omnigraffle is a mindmapping app and the best one I've found from many out there. Thats due to it's control and it's wealthy library of stencils. -49.99$ !!!

QuickOffice HD is an office suit for the iPAD, able to create and open spreadsheet, documents and presentation files. It works prety well in comparison with others I've tried like Office² HD. -14.99$

Apple's Pages is but a text editor with easy layouting with support for images and controls. Nothing more, nothing less. Does the job so I am happy. -9.99$

Apple's GarageBand is a full fledged app for music composition. The fake velocity on the keyboard is really nice and amazed me. The sound quality of the instruments sound great as are the visuals looking great too and the smart instruments are quite a feature too. I've read that Garageband on iPad supports MIDI keyboard, but I've yet to try that out. Also it runs great on my first generation iPad. Only drawback really is that it doesn't have a MIDI note editor :-/ -4.99$

iSequencer is a step sequencer and sampler that has prety amazing sound quality and effects. Awesone to play around allthough it needs some getting used to. -14.99$

I believe that Music Studio is as far as a DAW in iPad is now. It has a lot of intruments to play with and also has a piano roll editor that allthough not intuitive it exists. -14.99$

chipPad is the best sampler and loop playback I've found. There are no instruments here, just importing clips and playback them with great control. -2.99$

The above apps are nice for inspiration on the go really. But because on the other hand, I still love Ableton DAW, I searched (and found) how I can use my iPad with Ableton apart from compositing sketching in an iPad app and exporting-importing to Ableton for finalization.

With TouchAble one can wirelessly control almost every aspect of Ableton from Clips, Mixer to Devices and even multitouch XYZ pads. I often have a bunch of clip ideas wanting to composite to a final mix and rather than sitting to my desk and getting "locked", I can lay down on my bed and easily improvise. Certainly TouchAble will have more uses for a live performer but that's not something I do (or possibly will ever do -24.99$ !

WOW! Konkreet Performer is just fantastic and I stumbled upon it completely random . It's actually a controller for any DAW with fastastic visuals and features that I believe is a milestone for multitouch software. -24.99$ !

Apps: Gaming

iPad offers a great platform for games and there are thousands out there. I will just list some of my favorites here and no I will not list Angry Birds once more like any other "Top iPad Games" post. On the iPad I favor gameplay and simplicity over graphics and really gate all games that have a crosspad style for control since I believe that such a device offers much more than conventional desktop controls conversions. So here it goes:

Battleheart is a simple combat RPG game where ypu control 4 characters through consecutive battles, while they level up and equip them in between. Fun and easy. -2.99$

I don't allways have a real chess with me, but frequently like to have a go with a friend. Checkmates is just that. A 2 player (or versus computer) chess game. -2.99$

Legendary Wars is kind of a strategy game with some truly minimal resource management in addition to some crpg elements. In it's style it's mostly a castle vs castle type of game. -2.99$

Superbrother: Swords and Sworcery is just as EPIC as its small. I can't say its a game rather than an interactive story, but it's fantastic nontheless. Just play it. -4.99$

It's the Secret of Monkey Island for the iPad. Need I say more? -2.99$

Civilization on the iPad. Allthough much simplified than the real thing, it's still civilization and it's fun to play. -6.99$

Cut the Rope is a puzzle game where you..er.. cut ropes so that the little froggy thing gets it's meal. Cute -0.99$

Osmos is a relaxing game with amazing music score where the player controls a comet orbiting larger comet masses and eating smaller. SImple yet great. -4.99$

Underworld is a full cRPG title, more of that hack & slash diablo styles, but still it's great to kill some free time.

Accessories

At least I, don't like my iPad exposed to hazards, dust and scratches so a case is a must. The things I was looking about wasa folio style leather case, which means to open like a book, while at the same time I wanted for the case to be able to fold in such ways as to become a stand for the iPad. Finally I bough a PURO Booklet Case – Black, but really there are so many out there thats comming down to personal taste.

If you are going to do a lot of typing on the iPad and want to waste your notebook (which I agree) then a case+keyboard solution might be better. There are a lot out there and most are cheap enough. In the end if you are going to buy a bluetooth keyboard later, why not buy both while they fit well together.

While there are a LOT stylus out there for the iPad, few make it to be good, especially for drawing and sketching which is what I was looking after. After a lot of research on the net and viewing videos on youtube with many stylus in live action, it came down that BoxWave stylus is the best.

The iPad camera connection kit is nearly essenstial. That is due to the important reason that with it, you are able to literaly expand your iPad's storage through the use of USB flash drive, but not only. You can connect USB keyboards or even mouses, and several other USB devices.

This is a must buy if you want to have more mobile storage! AirStash is an SD card reader that also has USB but most importantly has wifi and as such you can access the SD card's contents from withing the iPad, either by having the iFile app from Cyndia, or the official AirStash+ app. Either way you will be able to view a number of file formats and stream them from the AirStash drive.

As I've said before, I hate games on the iPad that make use of a cross pad for gameplay. On the other if you don't, and you want to rest your thumb a bit, there exist this Joystic-It device that simply "sticks" on the iPad surface and supposingly works fine. Maybe it doesn't considering that different games have different pad sizes, but anyway. Here it is nontheless.

Ok. I like RC a lot and this RC is something. It's a flying RC very stable at it's flight and control, that has 2 mounted cameras that feed to the iPad from which you also control the RC through wifi. Thats way cool (and a bit geekish) so here it is. The AR.DRONE. Oh and you can also make some firefight with your friend, considering you have 2 AR.Drones by virtualy firing through the iPad's camera, while in reality its some kind of tag detection system. Interesting.

Conclusion

Certainly the iPad is great. It's fast, reliable but most imporantly supported. I believe that it's the apps and the developers that made it what it is today and that wothout them, the iPad would be just a portable "web browser-while listening to your music". But that is true for ANY device isn't it? I praise the apps and then the iPad that has the capabilities of suporting them. Being able to do so much on your iPad make it an essential device for most modern people. With the apps, the iPad has almost touched every important aspect of a person's daily life. It's just a matter of taste whether one wants to implement this modern medium for notetaking, reading news, drawing, schedueling, colaborate etc etc. From an artist's point of view, or at least from my point of view, I find joy when using it, but the iPad needs some work and I will rant once more about it. It's the presure sensitivity (ok enough 'bout it). Also a few more inches would't hurt me, but it's ok as it is now. I see though, that the iPad has made a very strong enter especially into the music industry and thrives when more and more pople incorporate it into their rigs, but more about it possibly in a future post

Reborn

me — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 16:01:19 +0000

Small project done in Cinema4D and heavy use of After Effects. This video was also used as a title intro for a game project a friend of mine Goris Nikiforakis, did for college.

Best Creative Online Applications

me — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:47:12 +0000

In the last years online application have made a long way. Once not so powerful, now they almost compete with desktop software but most importantly one can access them from anywhere and any PC they go. I find online applications very useful and more than just a show-off, of what can be done in a web browser with the help of Flash, Silverlight, Java and now HTML5.

Sketch & Draw

SumoPaint

SumoPaint is a full fledged online application with everything you would expect from an image editing and painting software. Stamp, smudge, levels, curves, layers and all are there. It’s brush system and options are kind of unique and fancy while SumoPaint’s filters are it’s strong point. Also upgrading to PRO version costs only 20E and gives a wealth of additional features.

http://www.sumopaint.com/app/

Harmony

On a friends iPad I remember an application called Qvik Sketch and I immediately liked it because of it’s brushes that were quite unique. Later on I came across Harmony which have exactly the same brushes like Qvik Sketch and despite the fact that this online application doesn’t even have an undo, it’s one of my best.

http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/

Muro

Possibly the most well known online drawing application is Muro by DeviantArt. I can’t blame it cause it’s very nice with a lot brushes which unfortunately though most of the brushes need to be bought to use.

http://muro.deviantart.com/

SketchPad

SketchPad reminds Pixelmator in it’s style. Pixelmator by the way is a real great image editing software for Mac OS. SketchPad has a nice design and the most common tools and features. Nothing much special about it apart from it’s interface design.

http://mugtug.com/sketchpad/

Sketch & Paint

A very simple application. Sketch, paint, erase and save. But still I liked the basic brush a lot and so it’s here.

http://www.onemotion.com/flash/sketch-paint/

Myoats

Myoats is a unique application in style. It’s mostly focused on creating symmetrical designs but it can do more than just that. It’s tools are simple, but it’s graphical quality is great.

http://www.myoats.com/create.aspx

Micons

Well Micons is a vector drawing application with some nice feature and a big clipart library. The downside is that is gets a bit slow when using some tools, especially the draw freeform line tool.

http://www.mikons.com/create/machine/

Kraski

Kraski is in fact an application to create animated cards , so don’t expect that you are going to create your next piece of artwork in this little application. I just though that it a bit nice application so it made it here. The language is in Russian but that should not be an issue.

http://cards.yandex.ru/kraski.xml

Queeky Paint

Whats nice about Queeky Paint is that your creations can be playbacked by others, so you can also view how others did their paintings. As far as the actual application it has the most basic of tools.

http://www.queeky.com/app

Raven

Raven is a simple online vector drawing application but is one of the very few I’ve found so far.

http://www.aviary.com/online/vector-editor

CAD

HomeStyler

Home Styler by Autodesk is an easy drag&drop application to design a home, with a library of real brand objects and 3D previz. It’s quite nice to get started and is able to export to DWG as well.

http://www.homestyler.com/designer

FloorPlanner

Floor Planner is easy and also comes with a big library of things to drag&drop. It offers a 3D view much like Home Styler and there is a paid version as well that lets you save more than one project.

http://www.floorplanner.com/start

Audio

Myna

Myna is an application to mix and create music tracks. Featuring clipping tools, automation and effects in the usual interface of other DAW software but in the browser.

http://www.aviary.com/online/audio-editor

Jam Studio

Jam Studio is a simple application so don’t expect to create something great. You put chords in the bars, select the instruments and their sound and hit play. It’s nice to kill some free time but to save an MP3 out of it you must pay.

http://www.jamstudio.com/Studio/index.htm

Audio Tool

Now Audio Tool is possibly the best online application for music composition or at least the best I’ve found so far. It has some nice devices and a nice big library of sounds to create your track. The output quality is very good and also you are able to open other people’s compositions.

http://audiotool.com/app

Tony-b Machine

Well.. This nice application makes it easy to create beats. It’s far from anything else listed here as far as a full software goes, but it has a lot of features nontheless and nice quality to play around on your free time.

http://www.tony-b.org/

CutMP3

A simple tool to load and cut MP3s without decoding or loss of quality and also without even uploading the file.

http://cutmp3.net/

Other Tools

Peacock

Peacock is a node based visual effects editor. It has some cool generator and a lot of control nodes. Unfortunately though it doesn’t support animation as of now.

http://www.aviary.com/online/filter-editor

Smart Normal

Smart Normal is a very simple few on controls application to create normal maps from images. It also comes as an AIR application as well.

http://www.smart-page.net/smartnormal/fl10.htm

Screencast-o-Matic

This is possibly the best online screen recording software I’ve come across. There is no waiting time to generate your video like other online services, playback quality and frame rate is the best I’ve come across and finally you can download the movie to your HD or upload directly to Youtube with the possibility of adding notes as well. Exporting adds a little non distracting watermark which can be removed by buying the pro version for 9$

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Screenr

Screenr is another online screencast application that is cool if you use twitter, since you can’t export the video, rather you publish it on their servers where other can write comments connected to twitter.

http://screenr.com/

Kuler

Adobe Kuler is the application to create color themes based on color theory systems, find other people’s themes and export those themes to swatches

http://kuler.adobe.com/

Color Scheme Designer

Much like Kuler, although in HTML rather than Flash, Color Sceme Designer offets a slick interface, nice preview modes and many export options. I’d prefer this one over Kuler for it’s simplicity.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Rasterbator

What a name..Anyway, as the site says: “The Rasterbator creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. Upload an image, print the resulting multi-page pdf file and assemble the pages into extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size.” And it works.

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

Picnik

Picnik is a very nice online image editing application. No drawing, just retouching and editing but nicely. For premium effects one must pay 2$ per month.

http://www.picnik.com/app

BeFunky

Much like Picnik, BeFunky has a similar user interface and about the same philosophy. Just like Picnik, users must pay 2$ per month for premium effects and content. It’s up to you to decide which one is better if any.

http://www.befunky.com/create

Phixr

Another online image retouching and editing application, but this one completely free and with a lot of features.

http://www.phixr.com/

Vector Magic

This comes as an online application or a desktop one with more features. What it does is that it vectorize your bitmaps and it’s possible one of the best automated vectorization software out there and I’ve tried a lot. It’s not free to export the final trace in vector format, but rather only as a jpg. Of course the alternative could be to use inkscape or Xara to manual trace your image.

http://vectormagic.com/home

At the end, it all comes down to personal preference of course. I will be glad if you let me know any other good creative online application that you might use or know. With the rapidly advancing web, I believe it will not be long before we see professional desktop software ported as online applications.

The Cintiq Alternative

me — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:24:49 +0000

Following my previous post on Tablet PCs which are in fact alternatives to a Cintiq, I though of sharing some interesting findings I’ve had lately. To start of, there are two models of Cintiq by Wacom. The Cintiq 12WX and the 21UX at 1000 and 2000 Euros respectively. No doubt, those products are of exceptional quality and everyone loves them including me although I’ve had the chance to use a 21UX just for a while. Worth of note is that once there was a Cintiq 15x model that is now discontinued. You can still find this model at ebay for as low as 250 Euro. So that’s the first alternative. Well, not a Cintiq alternative since it’s still a Cintiq, but a cheap one nontheless.

Now on the other hand there are some real Cintiq alternatives out there. The first one I’ve found is from p-Active, named XPC and there exist two XPC models, one at 17” while the other at 19”display.The price is quite good at 1000 Euro for the 19” and 816 Euro for the 17”. Both models support 1024 pressure points, 16mil colors, 140 degrees viewing angle and +/- 0.5mm pen accuracy. Good or not, it’s still an alternative option

Next comes the alternative from Hanvon which is a company like Wacom that makes graphics tablets and in fact they have a wide range of graphics tablets to choose. Their latest model being SenTIP. SenTIP supports 2048 pressure points, 262k colors, 170 degree viewing angle and +/- 0.4mm accuracy while it’s screen size is 12” diagonal, much like Cintiq 12WX only a bit cheaper at about 700 Euro.

So far so good, but the best alternative I’ve found so far is this.

The Do-It-Yourself Cintiq. Attaching an LCD on a Wacom tablet, enclosing and calibrating it. If you already own a graphics tablet the construction of a DIY Cintiq will cost no more than 400 Euro and some hours to have something very comparable to Wacom Cintiq. For extensive info on building it go to Bongofish.co.uk. Also TabletMod provides enclosures for the DIY Cintiq project and has videos on how-to construct it. Still Bongofish is a very nice read!

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I will definitely going to build my own as soon as I am finished with that joke called “army”. If you are going to build one please write on the comments to tell us your thoughts.

Tablet PCs for Digital Artists

me — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 22:34:03 +0000

Who would not want to have a portable sketching and drawing medium plus the digital bonus you have on your computer. Being able to draw on the go is great and also being able to draw-where-you-watch like on paper is also great. Pen tablets like Intuos can’t do either. Wacom’s Cintiq is too expensive for me to afford plus it’s not portable at all, so I start looking for alternatives and here is what I’ve found so far. Most Tabet PCs now support pressure, usually at 256 pressure points. This is done through a technology called digitizer. The most commonly used and probably the best is Wacom’s Penabled Digitizer technology, which is available only in Windows based Tablet PCs. As a result, this leaves the Android based Tablets a bit lagging behind in what we are looking for here; a Tablet PC for drawing.

For that, the screen size of the Tablet is important as is the battery life since I wouldn’t like for it to turn off in the middle of inspiration.

Boogie Board – $ 40 !

Wait, wait… This is not a Tablet PC. It has no operating system or applications. It does just one thing in it’s simplest from, but for it’s price it looks fantastic. Take note, that it doesn’t save your sketch in any format. But then again, you can always take a picture of your sketch if you want to. I’m going to write a review as soon as I get a hold on my own. You get what you pay they say.

ASUS Eee Note – $ 230

The ASUS Eee Note is a very lightweight Tablet PC. Although it’s not targeted towards drawing, it can be certainly used for that. It’s battery life is phenomenal but that is due to it’s greyscale screen which is also anti-glare and thus perfect as an ebook reader as well. Worth of note is that it runs on Linux OS and sketching is done in the application that comes within only. Also it can be used as a Wacom tablet if connected to your PC.

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4 GB
8 inch
1024 x 768
13 hours

Apple iPad – $ 500

Everyone knows iPad. I’ve used it and I loved it, but still don’t have one. Anyway. iPad has many drawing and sketching applications like Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, that are really awesome, but what iPad lacks is pressure sensitivity. This is an exception to the Tablet PCs listed here since every other tablet supports pressure, but I felt like including iPad in the list as to a solution for portable digital sketching and drawing medium. One of the biggest complains about iPad is it’s connectivity, since it doesn’t even have a USB port. If you get an iPad, I recommend that you also get a stylus pen like Pogo Sketch for better feeling.

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Apple A4 1GHz
16 to 64 GB
9.7 inches
1024 x 768|
10 hours
Multitouch

Axiotron Modbook – $ 2,000

Now this is a very expensive product, but I list it here nontheless. Axiotron Modbook is the only Tablet PC with a Mac operation system. That means every Mac software can run on this Tablet. It’s actually a MacBook made into a Tablet PC. By getting a ModBook you will probably not use it just for a portable digital sketching pad, but rather many more things since it’s powerful. Note that it is not so lightweight like others.

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Intel Core 2 Duo
120 to 320 GB
13.3 inches
1280 x 800
3 hours

ExoPC – $ 624

Compared to others, ExoPC slate seems to be the only Tablet PC running on Windows 7 that doesn’t get laggy and slow. ExoPC has it’s own unique UI as a frontend to Windows 7 that makes the Tablet easier to interact with. An interesting feature of ExoPC is the HDMI port that lets you connect ExoPC to external screens. So, for a Windows Tablet PC, I believe this is the way to go.

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Intel Atom 1.66 GHz
SSD 32 to 64 GB
11,6 inches
1366 x 768
4 hours
Multitouch

Motion Computing LE1600 – from $ 200 (used)

The LE series has been discontinued, but you can still find either model around the net starting from about $ 300. Motion Computing Tablets run on Windows and generally they are considered very good Tablet PCs.

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Pentium M 758 1.5 GHz
30 GB
11,6 inches
4 hours
Multitouch

- To be released -

NotionInk Adam – $ 400

The Adam tablet is one of the first Tablet PCs that use the PixelQi screen technology and the Nvidia Teggra 2 processor. Adam is supposed to work on a customized Android OS, named Eden. Adam has million of fans around the world waiting patiently to see weather this device will truly come out at this price and features, or it’s just a myth. Let’s wait and see.

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Nvidia Teggra 2 – 1 GHz dual core
???
10 inches
PixelQi 1024 x 600
16 hours

Motorola XOOM – $ 1,150

The Xoom Tablet PC from Motorola is supposed to be the first to use Android version 3 (honeycomb), which is especially designed for Tablet PCs.

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Nvidia Teggra 2 – 1 GHz dual core
32 GB
10.1 inches
1280 x 800
10 hours

NoteSlate – $ 100

“NoteSlate is a low cost tablet device with true one colour display, real paper look design, long life battery (180h !), together with very handy usage and very simple and helpful interface for pen and paper. This easy, compact and portable gadget is used anywhere you want to make any notes, drafts, sketches, any ideas for future reference. Paper for everyone! Write a note and check it later, save it, or delete it. Maybe send it after. Just one colour is enough to express the basics. Keep your life simple. You will love it. For $99″

Now here are some things you should know and have for optimal performance:

Wacom’s Driver that most Tablet PC don’t have installed. You should get this to enable pressure sensitivity to Penabled Wacom Tablet PCs.

TabTip-Tamer is an ESSENTIAL application that eliminates cursor lag when using many graphics apps that utilize Wacom’s pressure sensitive Penabled pen driver on the Tablet Pc.

Hard Felt Nibs (10 pack) from Wacom is a good way to get a more natural feeling with a stylus pen.

And because everyone likes shortcuts and most Tablet PCs has no or very few buttons on them, get something portable like the ElekTex Keyboard. A flexible fabric keyboard.

In conclusion, the iPad has some nice drawing applications, its very usable and it’s battery last long, but it doesn’t support pressure sensitivity which is a big disadvantage for what we are looking for here. Even the absence of the USB port is important. For something simple and cheap, the Eee Note or even the NoteSlate seems compelling to be honest, but for a more complete solution and a device that can do a bit more than just simple sketching and reading, I would consider an ExoPC for it’s big screen, Windows OS, ports and resolution. The only major downside would be the battery life.

The Best Game Engines for Indie Game Developers

me — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:04:13 +0000

People very often want to make a game either for fun or to sell it later. Very often small teams are made and begin the discussion about their new game. It has happened to me before many times and where I utterly disagreed with others, was in the subject of choosing a game engine. Most offen, the programmer or programmers of the team decide they make their own game engine. I personaly believe that the people in any game project should consider their goals. Is the goal to actually make a game? Because if it IS to make a game, then there is no reason for them to reinvent the wheel. There are tons of game engine out there that make the development of a game project much easier for the developers. Using a pre existing game engine makes the project easier, much faster to complete and keeps the spirit going since there is a relative good progress. Also using an existing game engine makes it almost sure that it has no major bugs, runs smoothly and is production ready anyway. I completely agree with people wanting to make their own engine, but then the goal is the game engine and not the game and thus no music compositor, modeler, texture artist, game designer e.t.c. are needed to be involved and in consequence loose interest cause there is actually nothing for them to do. But enough of my ranting

In conclusion there are many game engine for a team to consider using. I believe that a multiplatform solution is good enough for starting teams, because of the target audience their game can have. The iDevices and Android platforms especialy are a good consideration since they have really a lot users and at the end most of the games on those devices are simple to make, thus they cost low and people will buy them, making the team motivated to move on to their next project and in consequence earning experience and possibly some fame.

- 3D -

Unity3D 3.1

Unity is probably the best choice for indie developers right now, that want a multiplatform development without complications. With Unity, you can develop and prototype games real fast with true WYSIWYG capabilities. Unity’s rendering & lighting capabilities are state of the art, supporting deffered lighting, occlusion culling, SSAO, the Beast lightmapper, many post-processing effect and many more. Unity has physics support from rigid bodies to soft bodies and cloth. Unity’s editor is a joy to work and the asset workflow is also very good. Programming can be done in C#, JavaScript or Boo but also Unity can be extended as it has already been done with some great addons. There exist vast resources and tutorials to get you started and a great community.

Unity Indie is free though it’s missing many features, while Unity Pro costs 1500$. If you want to develop for an iDevice or Android extra licenses must be bought.

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Shiva 3D 1.9

Stonetrip Shiva3D is commonly compared to Unity for their similarities in way of use and price. Shiva offers a well integrated editor just like Unity that everything is made from within. Shiva games can be published to Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Palm, PSP and Wii without complications as well. Shiva’s features are many just like anyone could expect from a modern game engine.

Shiva PLE is free but to publish a game there are two licenses with very few differences. One at 170E while the other at 1500E

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Leadwerks Engine 2

Graphically, Leadwerks Engine is state of the art. Leadwerks Engine comes with a WYSIWYG editor to design your scenes but also to program them in the now supporting LUA scripting language. In essence, Leadwerks Engine’s games can be programmed with any language since the engine is compiled as a DLL. The supported languages though are C#, C++ and was Blitzmax. A shame they drop support on Blitzmax though, since it was my favorite. Anyway A big bonus is that the API of Leadwerks Engine, is probably the most clean, easy to understand than everything I’ve seen so far. The resources might not be as many as in other game engines, but they are well enough to get you along. Worth of note is that Leadwerks Engine 3 is in development and I can’t wait.

Leadwerks Engine 2 costs only 200E

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Essenthel Engine

I remember when Essenthel Engine was in early development and found it. I downloaded the demo and got amazed and after some years i am following it, I am still amazed by it’s progress. It support all common features out there and even more. Essenthel comes with an editor as all modern engines should and programming is done only in C++ unfortunately for me at least. The editor and the tools that come with Essenthel Engine are unfortunately very badly design and non intuitive. Essenthel games can also be published to any iDevice, which is a big plus.

Licenses range from 150$ to 400,000$ depending on how much income you have and the amount of source codes you want of the engine. Truth is that the 1000$ license will suit most just fine, with great access to source codes.

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GameCore 2.5

Although this engine is a bit obscured, GameCore 2.5, offers excellent graphics quality, deffered lighting, physics and one of the best editors and art pipeline I’ve seen. Importing a model and making a material for it is so straightforward. Games can be published to PC and Mac as well as on the Web. GameCore 2.5 has its own scripting language with a c-style syntax that’s easy to use.

GameCore 2.5 Indie is free with some minor limitations, while the Pro version costs 1500$.

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S2 Engine HD

S2 Engine HD is not yet released, but I felt like adding it in this list. From what it seems, S2Engine must be a great game engine featuring rich graphics, AI and fantastic editors.

It costs 200E or 2000E if you want the C++ SDK.

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- 2D -

Construct 0.99

Construct game engine is one of those gems that you fall upon randomly. Not kidding. It’s a game engine for 2D games development and possible one of the easiest since it require little or no programming at all, since it is based on a visual, event driven system instead of pure programming, similar to that of the old Multimedia Fusion software. Development is done inside Construct’s editor and the engine is expandable through it’s plugin architecture. I really recommend you take a look at this game engine since most importantly its free and open-source.

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Gamemaker 8

Gamemaker has been used to create many games. It’s a 2D game engine with many features in a well integrated editor. It has a visual event driven system but also support direct easy programming. The big plus of gamemaker is the great support, tutorials and real many plugins and addons that are out there to extend the engines capabilities.

Gamemaker 8 costs only 25$, but there is also a limited free edition.

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Game Editor

Game Editor is another event driver game engine that is also open source. It has a nice and easy interface while there is the ability for multiplatform development, including Smartphones, Linux, iDevices and Mac. The documentation is good and there are also some tutorials to get you started.

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Adventure Game Studio 3.1.2

AGS is a game engine to create classic 2D point & click adventures. It has been used to create a LOT adventure games with my personal favorite to be 7 Days a Skeptic. The whole development takes place in the AGS editor where you create the scene, walkable & clickable areas as well as UI and events. To create a simple adventure, no programming is requires although programming is supported for more advanced games. Don’t expect anything great in quality but hey…this is a targeted to classic old style adventure games.

AGS is free.

Visionaire Adventure Studio 3.4

Similar to AGS, Visionaire Adventure Studio is an engine to create point & click adventures. Compared to AGS though, Visionaire Studio is a bit cleaner and has a bit more features like PNG support (AGS doesn’t) but certainly much better graphical quality. It’s similar to AGS as in the visual event system and defining walkable an clickable areas.

Visionaire Adventure Studio costs 35E

- Honorable Mentions -

DX Studio

“DX Studio is a complete integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics. The system comprises of both a
real-time 3D engine and a suite of editing tools. Using DX Studio you can build complete real-time interactive applications, simulations or games, for standalone use or for embedding in other Microsoft Office/Visual Studio applications.”

Torque 3D

“Welcome to Torque 3D, the most easy-to-use game creation platform available. Architected from the ground up for maximum flexibility and performance across a wide range of hardware and built upon the Frontline award-winning Torque Game Engine Advanced, Torque 3D comes equipped with a full suite of tools and APIs to get your game to the finish line, no matter what your goals. Add publishing paths to PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Wii, iPhone, and the web, and you have the power to distribute games almost everywhere they are played.”

Haaf’s Game Engine

“HGE is an easy to use yet powerful hardware accelerated 2D game engine. It is a full featured middleware for all who want to develop commercial quality 2D games rapidly and easily. It covers all imaginable 2D game genres: you could create everything from a simple puzzle to advanced multilayered platformer or strategy without even thinking of any non game logic code! And you don’t have to know anything about “window messages”, DirectX programming and all that stuff. Instead you can start developing your own game within 15 minutes!”

C4 Engine

“The C4 Engine is a comprehensive suite of robustly implemented game programming tools for the Windows and Mac OS X platforms. Not only is it a powerhouse of a 3D graphics engine, but it also includes integrated support for physics, audio, networking, input devices, resource management, and much more.”

Neoaxis Engine

“NeoAxis Game Engine is an all-purpose, modern 3D graphics engine for 3D simulations, visualizations and games.NeoAxis Engine is a complete integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics including 3D virtual worlds, AAA games, and realistic simulations. The system comprised of both a real-time 3D engine and a suite of full featured tools.”

fixel 2

“A revolution in Flash game production. An amazing new way for man to interface with machine. The beginning of a new tomorrow. Never before has the world witnessed such a collection of AS3 files. We put it all in the new flixel 2. Groups to help organize game objects, quad trees for faster, more accurate collisions, a cleaner API, plus all the old flixel classics: animated sprites, tilemaps, and particle emitters. Most importantly, flixel is still completely free for personal or commercial use. What are you waiting for? It’s time to make games!”

SIO2

“What is SIO2 Engine? SIO2 is an OpenGLES based cross platform 2D and 3D game engine which provides you all the modern game engine functionalities built in right at its core for your mobile devices at a fraction of the regular industry price for the same type of quality. Feature rich, extremely fast and flexible SIO2 allows you to create state of the art AAA games for your favorite mobile platform. As opposite to other solutions, SIO2 doesn’t force you to use any specific IDE to code or build your games.”

Realm Crafter 2

“The Realm Crafter game engine is the heart of the MMORPG development system. The engine creates the virtual game world and the behavior of everything in it. It generates 3D images and handles the network communications. The Realm Crafter engine is designed to be modular, meaning it is broken down into smaller units thus making it easier for you to customize its operations.”

Digital Nature

me — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 16:15:32 +0000

There will always be a need for a CG natural tree, a fantastic landscape, a colorful sky or sea e.t.c. If the use of real footage or stock photos is not an option, there exist software specialized in creating digital nature for you. Most of them offer great freedom over the creation and that’s exactly the point for any artist. Following are the best options in my opinion.

Vue

Vue is probably the most complete and well know software used around the world, capable of outstanding results. It can create entire and unique scenes and it’s integration capability with major software is great. Only downside are as usual…render times.

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Terragen

Terragen is the natural competitor of Vue, able to create whole scenes with exceptional quality as well. While it has a steep learning curve, you are able to create fantastic images with this piece of software. Just like Vue, Terragen’s render times are way too long and even longer.

Bryce

Bryce was once the best digital nature software out there. Still though it is capable and used by many artists around the world.

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WorldBuilder

With WorldBuilder you can create entire scenes. While it can’t be compared to Vue or Terragen, it is still a powerful application.

World Machine

World Machine is an excellent software for landscape modeling.

GeoControl

GeoControl is another landscape generation software with a wealth of features.

Speedtree

Speedtree is a unique tree generator software which let you create exactly the tree you want and is a joy to work with. Speedtree is also a middleware for games, so you can implement the powerful animated trees of Speedtree in your game.

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OnyxTree

Onyxtree is supposed to be the most realistic and natural plant, tree, bush e.t.c. creation software and comes either as a standalone or a 3D Studio Max plugin.

Plant Life

Plant Life is a good software to create low poly trees for games and is fairly cheap at only 15 E.

Treemagik

Similar to Plant Life, Treemagik is another low poly tree generator software or games at the same price of 15 E.

DPIT Nature Spirit – Plants

DPIT Plants is a plugin for Cinema4D with many features. I found it a bit hard to use and the results were not exactly realistic. Still a good solution if you are a Cinema4D user.

Xfrog

Xfrog comes in many versions. Either standalone, integrated in Maya, integrated in Cinem4D and even bundled with Terragen 2. Xfrog is will probably be my best option when in need of trees.

Tgen

If you are Softimage user like I am, then TGen is probably the way to go since it’s fully integrated in Softimage. It can create nice trees as well as it supports dynamics and animation.

StrandTree

StrandTree is another Softimage plugin or better a collection of ICE compounds. While I believe that Tgen is better, StrandTree is also very good and free.

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GrowFX

GrowFx is a 3D Studio Max plugin, that is well integrated into the software. It let’s you parametricaly model and animate plantlife. This one I would like into Softimage for sure.

Forest Pack

Forest Pack is another 3D Studio Max plugin tha lets you populate vast surfaces with plantlife though the use of proxies. It works best with HQ Plants by the same company which is a collection of ultra high detailed plantlife models but can work with any model. It even works great along with GrowFX above.

MultiScatter

Multiscatter is another scattering plugin for 3D Studio Max and essentialy the succesor of VrayScatter It’s compatible with Vray and Mental Ray and it has nice features like the recently Multipainter feature.

3D Coat – Tree Generator

Tree generator is a sidekick program from pilgrim. It was never really finished but still it is quite good.

Ivy Generator

Ivy Generator is a very simple yet very useful software to create growing ivy on any imported object’s surface and it’s free.

Cloudwright

Cloudwright is a software to create animated 3d cloud maps for for games or film. It works as a standalone but there is also a plugin for softimage in beta stage free to download.

Dreamscape

Dreamscape is a plugin for 3D Studio Max to create terrain, sky and seas. I don’t know much about it now since I have to use it for over 4 years now.

Ozone

Ozone is a software from E-on, the creators of Vue, that comes as a plugin for any major 3D software and is used to create realistic atmospheres.

Good Realtime Renderers

me — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:48:13 +0000

Many people out there want a fast result of their architectural scenes without the need to render for hours. Some even don’t know how to use vray, mental ray and other complex rendering engines, or even the softwares supporting them such as 3D Max, Softimage, Maya, Cinema4D e.t.c. Even people using those software, want a fast previz of their scene to showcase to their customers for approval or even for final in case of strict deadlines.

The following programs can do just that, but of course none can expect a highly photorealistic result, allthough the output quality is good enough for many cases.

In this list I’ve not included fast progressive renderers like Octane, Iray, Keyshot e.t.c. which while they are extremely fast compared to others, rendering times can well go as high as many hours in complex scenes. Those will be listed in a later post.

LUMION

While Lumion is targeted at architectural visualization I’m sure it can be of use in other areas as well. Lumion is a great software to great many types of scenes view it realtime or render a final animation very fast. While not photorealistic as other renderers, it still gets the job done. Lumion comes with a real great content library ranging from buildings, plants, people e.t.c. even some animated. Landscape, water, sky and sun are as easy to add as a click of a mouse. I believe its a perfect solution for people that don’t know a heavy 3D software and want results quickly although as many as the features are, so much is the price of Lumion at 750E.

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TWINMOTION 2

Twinmotion 2 is much like Lumion in philosophy. It offers a nice library of objects, really great realtime renderer and effects. In comparison to Lumion above though, it offers interaction controls and modeling which is great addition.

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MACHSTUDIO PRO

Machstudio Pro is an excellent piece of software in my opinion. It offers a wealth of features such as AO, SSS, Displacement, Refractions e.t.c. all in realtime as well as render passes which for me is a heavy bonus. The price tag though is unacceptably high at 4,000E !

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FURRYBALL

FurryBall is a plugin realtime renderer for Maya only. Like Machstudio Pro above, it comes with a wealth of features in realtime right in Maya’s viewport and can be used as it already has been done for final animation quality. The price range from 300 to 1,000 E.

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LUMENRT

LumenRT by e-on software is another standalone realtime renderer which is not yet released though.

VSR REALTIME RENDERER 2.0

VSR is a plugin renderer for Rhinoceros software right in Rhino’s viewport.

The reality is that almost any 3D game engine can also be used for that same purpose, since the software above in essence use the same realtime rendering techniques. A 3D game engine though would probably slow you down rather the opposite, since game engines are not targeted at previz work.