Game Development Solutions Boost UI Design, Artificial
Intelligence, Lighting and Animation Tools

Autodesk, Inc. unveiled new versions of its
widely adopted game development middleware from the Autodesk
Gameware product line that
allow developers to create more compelling gaming experiences.

Updates for Autodesk Scaleform, Autodesk Navigation,
Autodesk Beast and Autodesk HumanIK bring game developers enhanced compatibility for multiple platforms and
game engines, increased functionality and powerful new tools. Autodesk Gameware
is optimized for the current generation and certain next generation consoles.

“We are committed to helping
developers of all sizes realize their creative visions. Our Gameware products allow
artists to work near seamlessly across multiple platforms and engines, while removing
traditional bottlenecks and accelerating production,” said Chris Bradshaw,
senior vice president, Media and Entertainment at Autodesk. “Our 2014 releases deliver
advancements for the development community as they create new titles for both
the current generation and next generation of hardware. We look forward to
seeing what they come up with next.”

Autodesk Scaleform 4.3 Enables Powerful UI Features Across Devices

Autodesk
Scaleform 4.3 harnesses the power of the Adobe Flash toolset to help developers
create immersive user interface (UI) environments while streamlining workflows
and accelerating the development cycle. Used on projects ranging from blockbuster
PC and console titles to social, casual and mobile games, it provides an artistic,
design driven workflow to create hardware-accelerated 3D game menus, heads-up
displays, animated textures, in-game videos and mini-games. With a versatile
and proven toolset, Autodesk Scaleform is compatible across certain mobile
platforms and is easily integrated with certain third party or in-house game engines.

New
features of Scaleform 4.3 are support for additional ActionScript 3 application
programming interface (API) classes to help increase platform compatibility and
native extensions for Adobe AIR, which enables developers to leverage an array
of third party and community-developed extensions directly in Scaleform. The
latest version also allows UI designers to leverage a wider range of color and
shape transformations with improved Adobe Flash blending and has files
demonstrating touch and gesture UI interaction. Scaleform 4.3 is compatible with the Unity 4
engine and also supports Microsoft Windows 8. Additional improvements are
enhancements to mobile device compatibility to help facilitate the deployment of
powerful UI features to a wider array of devices.

Autodesk Gameware Navigation 2014 Helps
Improve Artificial Intelligence

With Autodesk Gameware Navigation
2014 middleware, developers can leverage full source code access, an accessible
API and new remote visual debugging tools to create complex, ambitious artificial
intelligence (AI) that allows for more gameplay. The successor to Autodesk
Kynapse, Navigation has automatic NavMesh generation, pathfinding and
path following in complex game environments. Character and obstacle avoidance,
dynamic NavMesh, swappable sectors and Unreal
Engine 3 are supported
out-of-the-box with Gameware Navigation, greatly improving the speed and
quality of AI iteration. The Gameware
Navigation API is compatible with certain major gaming platforms. 

Autodesk Beast 2014 Simulates Near
Realistic In-Game Lighting

Autodesk Beast 2014 middleware enables game creators to simulate natural,
physically near accurate lighting effects. Using Beast, artists can design and
test lighting effects in game environments faster and more efficiently – helping
result in more compelling game experiences. It can be integrated into level
editors and allows artists to manipulate level lighting interactively by
showing a highly accurate final render preview in almost real-time. The newest version of Beast adds physics-based rendering
for more natural lighting, has Open Shading Language support to help increase
flexibility in creating material properties and enables more near accurate
preview renders. The Autodesk Beast API is designed to make integration with many
game engines simple and intuitive. 

Autodesk HumanIK 2014 Augments
Character Animation

Autodesk HumanIK 2014 animation middleware helps reduce the need for
developers to produce large libraries of character animations, saving more time
for the creative. With full-body inverse kinematics and real-time retargeting
technology, the latest version of HumanIK enables characters to interact with
and procedurally adapt to game environments at run-time. Optimized to help facilitate
the simultaneous animation of large groups of characters, HumanIK 2014 also adds
improved support for mobile platforms, has easier control for squash and
stretch deformations of the neck and spine and enhances quadruped animation
support. As a C++ library, HumanIK supports
many major gaming platforms and
helps artists bring games to life with more near realistic and immersive
character animation experiences.