Autodesk Gameware

Autodesk Gameware is a discontinued middleware software suite[1] 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.[2] On July 12, 2017, Autodesk removed Scaleform, Beast, HumanIK, and Navigation from their online store, and announced the ending of support for the products.[3]

Products

The Gameware suite consisted of the following modules:

Beast

Autodesk Beast
Original author(s)Illuminate Labs
Developer(s)Autodesk
TypeMiddleware
LicenseProprietary commercial software
Websitegameware.autodesk.com/beast

Beast is a content pipeline tool used for advanced global illumination and dynamic character relighting. Beast is developed and sold by Swedish games lighting technology company Illuminate Labs (acquired by Autodesk in 2010). Beast is used to make light maps, shadow maps and point clouds with advanced global illumination.[6] Beast can precalculate lighting for light maps, shadow maps and point clouds, to bake occlusion or normal maps or to generate light fields for dynamic relighting of characters and objects.

Beast has built-in integration with Gamebryo Lightspeed[7][8] and Epic's Unreal Engine,[9] Evolution and several other in-house game engines. In March 2010, Unity Technologies announced that the next version of Unity would feature built-in Beast lightmapping and global illumination off the shelf.[10] There is an API available for projects working with Beast but not ready for integration. The Beast API is a programming interface designed to make it as easy as possible to create a Beast integration with any game engine.[11]

Beast has been used in games such as: Mario Kart 8,[12] Mirror's Edge, CrimeCraft, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Alpha Protocol.

The new Beast was presented at GDC 2010 in San Francisco.[13] The new version of Beast features two entirely new modules called DistriBeast and eRnsT. DistriBeast is an extremely fast and easy to use distribution engine for managing render farms. eRnsT is a real-time visualizer that allows artists to explore and control the lighting set-up without having to run a complete bake.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Autodesk debuts its Gameware group". Graphicspeak. 16 March 2012. Retrieved March 16, 2012.
  2. ^ "Autodesk Introduces Updated Gameware". Tom's Hardware. 5 April 2013. Retrieved April 5, 2013.
  3. ^ "Middleware Products End Of Sale". Autodesk.com. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  4. ^ "HumanIK (HIK) character solving". Autodesk. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
  5. ^ "Autodesk unveils new AI tech Gameware Navigation". MCV. Develop. 18 September 2012. Retrieved September 18, 2012.
  6. ^ Autodesk Beast Archived 2012-03-11 at the Wayback Machine, Autodesk
  7. ^ "Illuminate Labs joins Emergent's Partner Programme". MCV. 2 January 2009.
  8. ^ "Gamebryo LightSpeed Integration — Illuminate Labs". Archived from the original on 2010-08-15. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  9. ^ "Unreal Engine 3 Integration — Illuminate Labs". Archived from the original on 2010-07-26. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  10. ^ "Unity - Products". Unity. Retrieved 21 April 2018.[permanent dead link‍]
  11. ^ Alexander, Leigh. "Illuminate Labs Announces Beast API, Tiered Pricing". Gamasutra.com. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  12. ^ "Mario Kart 8 : WiiU Manual" (PDF). Nintendo.com. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
  13. ^ "Archived copy". www.illuminatelabs.com. Archived from the original on 30 March 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ^ "CGSociety Maintenance". Archived from the original on 2015-01-20. Retrieved 2015-01-20.