Tag Archives: games

Train2Game News Explore Chernobyl from home

Posted on by

image

On the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear-power-plant catastrophe – the greatest human-caused industrial and environmental disaster in history – Polish game developer The Farm 51 is developing The Chernobyl VR Project.

A virtual-reality adventure that will put players in the role of a documentary crew sent to uncover secrets surrounding the tragic event. From the comfort of their homes, players will travel to photorealistic recreations of numerous areas in Chernobyl and Pripyat, where they’ll explore the Restricted Zone, seek clues about past events and help an old survivor find his family memoires.

Via its state-of-the-art Reality 51 technology, The Farm 51’s Chernobyl VR Project will offer players unprecedented access to the site of the catastrophe and the nearby city of Pripyat. In addition to the game the team is developing, an educational component is in the works. Since more than 350,000 inhabitants were evacuated in the aftermath of the disaster, access to the area has been highly restricted and closely monitored; the Chernobyl VR Project will break down those barriers in the form of an interactive documentary, compatible with multiple VR headsets, including Oculus, PlayStation VR, Vive or Samsung Gear VR.

Watch a video that provides a brief look at the project and the people and processes behind it.

The team at The Farm 51 was granted special scientific access to areas unavailable to tourists, spending dozens of hours in the area and using its Reality 51 technology to scan locations in Chernobyl and Pripyat in photorealistic detail. Minor details, including paint peeling off the walls, scuffs on an abandoned amusement-park ride, and rust on an old cash register are captured with exceptional accuracy utilizing photogrammetry and stereoscopic, 360-degree camera technology. Players and virtual visitors will be free to explore and engage with places that have hitherto been off limits, losing themselves in a one-of-a-kind, interactive documentary.

For more information on the Chernobyl VR Project, visit:
www.reality51.com
https://www.facebook.com/chernobylvrproject

Train2Game News Team17’s 25th Birthday

Posted on by

image

Team17 is preparing to celebrate its 25th birthday! Originally founded in 1990, the award-winning developer and games label will aptly turn 25 on the 7th December.

To celebrate, Team17 have partnered with the Microsoft’s Xbox One Games Store, the Humble Store, the Steam Store, Sony’s PlayStation Store, Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store to deliver a variety of promotions across the month of December. These will range from full game giveaways, money off, free merchandise with discounted purchases, with giveaways of concept art and wallpapers for next year’s products happening during the promotion too.

The promotion will commence from today with Worms Battlegrounds being featured on Xbox One’s Deals with Gold where the game is discounted by 80% and Overruled has 75% off.

The daily promotions will run throughout December until the 25th.  For day to day notifications on what’s happening throughout the month please follow Team17 on Twitter @Team17Ltd.

Here are a few unknown facts about Team17 from the past 25 years… enjoy!

1 – Team17’s first ever game release Full Contact went straight to No.1 in the UK.

2 – Team17’s Worms franchise has sold/dowloaded over 70 million units – despite the original game, Total Wormage not winning the Amiga Format Readers competition before signing with Team17.

3 – The number 7 and 17 are Debbie Bestwick’s  lucking numbers (Team17, Worms launched on 17th November, Team17’s birthday is the 7th , her birthday is also the 7th March– spooky!)

4 – Team17 have released 34 unique titled games (Worms franchise counted as 1)

5 – The Concrete Donkey from the Worms series of videogames actually existed as a garden ornament in the garden of Worms creator Andy Davidson’s parents. As a child the young Andy was afraid of the Concrete Donkey.

6 – Worms was first prototyped on a Texas Instruments calculator during an A-Level maths lesson.

7 – Project X, Team17’s Amiga classic was so difficult most people struggled to get past Level 2/3, so Team17 ended up realising a cheat mode on the cover mount disk of a many Amiga magazines to help struggling players

8 – Alien Breed had 87 cheats and secrets locked in the game. Most of the cheat codes are totally unprintable today!

9 – Alien Breed SE took 6 weeks in development to remix and stayed No1 in the UK for 33 weeks

10 – Team17 partnered with superstar legends (in our opinion) Epic Megagames and Housemarque to publish Silverball and Super Stardust in the 1990s.

Train2Game News iClone

Posted on by

image

Reallusion levels up game development with the launch of iClone Game Character Design Platform, the first Lip-Sync Ready 3D Character solution in the market.

This platform takes the 3D character creation process into another generation where the long and arduous 3D character design is no longer necessary.

Designing a high-quality, playable character is a long and difficult process which involves massive amount efforts from multiple professional talents that spent weeks toiling away in front of 3ds Max or Maya. Furthermore, with the market trending towards a more intricate story-driven game design, developers are investing a greater amount of time on optimizing details that deepen immersions such as facial expressions, audio lip-syncing for cut-scenes, NPC interactions and other game-design logic.

This is where iClone Character Creator Platform comes in. The latest Reallusion offering provides developers with access to 3D characters with highly morphable topology, clothing dress-up system that conforms to all body shapes, and facial and body rig that are ready for animation. Developers no longer need to design 3D characters from scratch and worry about any technical details, but can instead concentrate their focus on refining the character’s contour and clothing to generate truly unique characters with shared facial control and motions.

Demo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKaqOOR7Nbk

iClone Game Character Design Platform is Created  for Game Developers

“This is a game changer for developers everywhere using Unity3D, Unreal Engine and Stingray for their game design,” said John Martin, VP Product, Reallusion. “We have worked closely with the game community to create this product platform. Our goal throughout has been to empower developers with a powerful quick-start solution. We understand that with aggressive deadlines to meet, speed and customizability are crucial. That is why all characters created from this platform are pre-rigged and comes with hundreds of motions ready for use. Best of all, these characters are capable of vivid facial expressions and can perform natural lip-sync automatically without painstakingly keying each frame. There is no other solution in the market that can do this.”

“We created and animated every character in our game with iClone,” said Guilherme Ressel, RGBird Games, developer of Mute, the game. “iClone generated 3D characters we customized to the western-themed style and then animated and imported everything to Unity. Between its ease-of-use and its compatibility with Unity3D,  iClone has become a permanent part of our toolbox.”

The Complete 3D Characters Creation Workflow

1.       Design Your Character
Create variety of characters using 3D morphs, texture designs, and clothing options.

2.       Animate in Real-time
Create animation with live motion capture using Kinect for Xbox One.

3.       Add & Edit Motion
Use iClone with HumanIK to refine motion, add lip-sync & facial animation.

4.       Export to Game Engine
Convert your character and animation to any game engine and 3D tools using 3DXchange

Reallusion Offers Free 3D character for Unity 3D

Experience the power of iClone Character Creator with free 3D character downloads for Unity 3D platform. Get 3 fully rigged, lip-sync ready characters in various styles that showcase a wide array of character designs. Visit the iClone website to download. Website: http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/game

Game developers can learn the workflow directly from Reallusion’s website with free video training on how to create animate and export 3D characters for games.

Train2Game News ZX Spectrum A Visual Compendium

Posted on by

image

Bitmap Book’s third highly anticipated ode to classic gaming has arrived; introducing the ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium.

A brand new book that explores the visual side of the ZX Spectrum and its games; and it is now available (with Worldwide shipping) exclusively at Europe’s Number One Retro Gaming Destination,  FunstockRetro.co.uk

“It really is a thing of beauty. The ZX Spectrum has some of the most iconic imagery in video gaming history and this book brings that together masterfully. From the sheer volume of images and pages (304!) to the variety, it’s a fascinating read and something anyone with even the slightest interest in either the ZX Spectrum, or retro gaming in general would be thrilled to own. I can’t recommend this enough!” – quoted Andy Pearson, General Manager at FunstockRetro.co.uk

With over 300 pages and printed lithographically to the highest possible print standards; the ZX Spectrum: Visual Compendium is the ideal companion to anyone’s Spectrum collection.

Expertly crafted by veteran graphic designer and life long fan, Sam Dyer (founder of Bitmap Books) has put this together masterfully. Previous works of Sam Dyer also include the Commodore Amiga: A Visual Commpendium and Commodore 64: A Visual Commpendium; both of which are also available through Funstock.

Train2Game News Mod of the Year 2015

Posted on by

image

Today marks day one of the 14th Annual Mod of the Year Awards.

A celebration of the years finest mods picked by the gaming community. For the next four weeks player votes will determine the top 100 (announced December 11) and then the overall winner announced shortly after Christmas.

Last year’s awards amassed a stunning 131,789 votes for a plethora of great mods. The 2014 podium saw Euro Truck Simulator 2 Multiplayer take first place, narrowly edging out amazing mods including S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Lost Alpha, Breaking Point among others. Previous winners include DayZ, Garrys Mod, Natural Selection and other mods which have gone on to become household names.

For more information on the event including a live scoreboard and how to vote head over to the official awards page.

From now until the close of 2015, join in on celebrating the phenomenal work modders do, in pursuit of creating something remarkable for us gamers to enjoy.

Train2Game News Lenovo and Razer team up

Posted on by

image

At DreamHack Winter 2015 today, Lenovo (HKSE:992) (ADR: LNVGY) and Razer revealed their first-ever gaming desktop prototype that will officially launch at CES (Consumer Electronics Show®) 2016.

The two companies announced that together they will co-brand and co-market special Razer Edition models of Lenovo’s Y series gaming devices – marrying  the manufacturing, supply chain and channel relationships of Lenovo, the world’s number one PC maker, with the immersive technology and deep expertise of Razer, a leading company in connected gaming devices and software for gamers.

PC gaming today offers a rich and immersive experience – thanks in part to cutting-edge graphics performance, superior processing power, and peripherals designed specifically for gaming. Lenovo will employ its system design and engineering expertise, while Razer will enhance the immersive experience for gamers. All forthcoming Lenovo Razer Edition products will be co-branded and reflect the edgy Lenovo Y series look and feel with iconic Razer elements like customizable Chroma lighting effects.

Razer matches Lenovo’s scale and broad appeal with a high-touch dedication to the gaming community. Lenovo and Razer will be offering Y series Razer Edition products to Lenovo’s extensive global reach and Razer’s core gamer communities. Additionally, both companies are looking to jointly double down efforts to fast track the development of new technologies, including gaming experience enhancements.

The Lenovo and Razer strategic partnership will extend to multiple new designs and products and the companies will also explore potential cross-selling opportunities in the near future.

“We are thrilled to partner with Razer and bring out the best from both companies to deliver a better, more immersive gaming experience for customers,” said Victor Rios, vice president and general manager, Workstation BU, Gaming and Industry Solutions, Lenovo. “While we bring to the table our engineering expertise, design muscle and scale, Razer adds in the finesse and experience of serving the gaming community for the last decade. We believe our partnership is a strong first step that will lead to the delivery of winning PC gaming solutions and a brand new experience to our customers.”

Razer Co-Founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan said, “This agreement opens opportunities to advance the gaming lifestyle through world-class product in unprecedented ways. Lenovo is the world’s #1 PC maker. Razer is the world’s #1 gaming lifestyle brand. Together we have the passion, insight and operational capabilities to delight and empower the PC gaming community worldwide.”

To receive updates regarding the Lenovo and Razer partnership, register at http://rzr.to/LRE.

Train2Game News Fantasy Grounds free first month

Posted on by

image

Fantasy Grounds, the premier virtual tabletop, is offering subscriptions to its digital gaming table free for 30 days, with no commitment.

Included with your free subscription or purchased license are the D&D Basic Rules so you can play the original roleplaying game with your friends online. Enhance your games with licensed or compatible content for D&D, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds and more, such as core rulesets, adventures, token packs, map packs and portrait packs, most at 25% off or more until December 1 st at their store: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store .

“While Fantasy Grounds works well online, in-person games also benefit from the program since you can run it without having a connection to the internet. This is something that you can’t do easily, or at all, with other virtual tabletops.” said Doug Davison, President of Smiteworks, the company behind Fantasy Grounds. Davison continues, “Some Game Masters run Fantasy Grounds on their laptop or desktop and output a view to a TV, projector, or second display to show players hand-outs or battle maps while they play.”

Fantasy Grounds is compatible with Windows 7 or higher and Max OSX. It’s available at the publisher’s website or on Steam

The Fantasy Grounds Autumn Sale includes:

·         Base Software: Core licenses are 25% off.

·         D&D Licensed Content: The modules for the PHB (Complete Core Class Pack) and the MM (Complete Core Monster Pack) are 40% off. The adventures are all also discounted, and some of those are at significant discounts.

·         Pathfinder Compatible Content: We have a host of adventures and content on sale for 25%-80% off from numerous publishers. The PFRPG ruleset comes standard with all licenses

·         Savage Worlds Content: Savage Worlds is a fast-playing, fun and flexible system with custom settings such as Deadlands Reloaded. Settings span the range from fantasy, to horror, to pulp to modern and sci-fi, all on sale from 10% – 25% off.

·         Call of Cthulhu Content: The lore made popular by H.P. Lovecraft is alive and well on the Fantasy Grounds system. You can enjoy these now for 25-33% off, especially on popular modules such as Masks of Nyarlahotep or Shadows of Yog-Sothoth.

·         Token, Map, and Portrait Packs: Tokens are the miniatures of the digital world. Whether you need 1 troll or 13 trolls, you’ll always have the perfect number. Improve your game and support artists at the same time – many now at a discount

Train2Game News Simplygon 3D optimization on MGS 5

Posted on by

image

Simplygon, the leading provider of automatic 3D optimization solutions for digital content creation, and Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd, today announced that Simplygon has been used in the creation of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, available for Playstation, XBox and PC.

Over the course of production, Simplygon was used to process assets for all 42 levels including test data while delivering Level of Detail (LoD) models that optimized the polygon counts to help deliver a stunning visual experience.

Developing what critics have called “greatest stealth game ever“ meant adapting LOD assets to handle a map of massive scope and scale. “We used Simplygon to merge 100-400 assets into a single asset and we used those features to create assets displayed at mid-range from the player” said Konami. “Because we built the automated mid-range asset generation workflow using Simplygon, when we changed the assets layout, we were able to re-create mid-range assets with very low cost.”

“Simplygon saved the labor equivalent of 10 man months” said the development team of Konami. “The benefits are clear as we used the tool to reduce polygons as much as tenfold in models ranging from 5,000 to 100,000 polygons. The best result is that players can’t see the reduction because the models keep their fidelity at all distances which keeps the players immersed.”

“Konami are legends in the games industry and over the past three decades have been at the forefront of high quality games that truly excite players through their gameplay and visuals,” said Martin Ekdal, Co-founder and Vice President of Business Development at Simplygon. “With Simplygon we’re enabling creators to focus more on the creative parts of development while we automate multiple production processes and improve the performance.”

Simplygon is popular amongst developers of mobile games; AAA PC and console games; and large MMOs, and is applicable to any medium where 3D art assets are created or utilized. By automatically generating lower-polygon models that are required for different levels of detail (LOD), an optimization process for making games and visual scenes run smoother, at higher frame-rates, and requiring less data, Simplygon helps digital content creators save important resources where artists would otherwise need to manually re-create large amounts of content.

Train2Game News UKIE on Spending Review

Posted on by

image

Chancellor George Osborne published the Comprehensive Spending Review today, setting out the government’s spending plans for the next three years.

Several announcements were made which are important for the UK games industry:

Apprenticeship Levy – a 0.5% levy will be applied to the payroll of all businesses with a wage bill above £3 million, and the money raised used to fund apprenticeships

Arts Council funding – the Arts Council will receive an increase in its budget. Ukie are already in discussion with the Arts Council about how they can give further support to games projects, and we will continue this conversation. Details on the additional funding are still forthcoming.

Innovate UK funding – overall funding provided to businesses by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) will be kept at the same level. However, many of the grants currently offered will instead be offered as loans, reducing the cost to government.

DCMS budget – the operational budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will be reduced by 20%.

Dr Jo Twist, CEO of Ukie, responded to the CSR, saying:

“This spending review has many important announcements for the UK games industry. Getting the Apprenticeship Levy right in particular is crucial, and Ukie will continue to work closely with government and our partners across the creative industries to ensure it provides real benefits for the games industry. There have also been significant changes announced to the way that UKTI and Innovate UK will work, and additional funding for the Arts Council. We have a great relationship with these organisations and will continue to help them reach games sector companies who would benefit from their support. Our goal is to make sure the support government gives the games industry works for all parts of the industry, and our suggested actions are laid out in our Blueprint for Growth report.”

Train2Game News GamesAid Christmas Gifts

Posted on by

image

Today, GamesAid announces three great ways to give to the games industry charity this Christmas.

As the wisest men and women know, there is no need to travel afar this Christmas to bring joy to thousands of disadvantaged and disabled children and young people who are supported by the video games industry through GamesAid.

This year, there are three great ways to include GamesAid on your gift list;

GIFT ONE
Humble Bundle presents Codemasters
We are thrilled that our friends at Codemasters are supporting GamesAid and The Prince’s Trust with their latest Humble Bundle offer, which will run from November 24th, 11:00am PST to December 8th, 11:00am PST
Their terrific line up includes:
GRID 2
GRID 2 Drift Pack
DiRT Showdown
Overlord™
Operation Flashpoint Complete (1&2)
Hospital Tycoon
Colin McRae Rally
GRID Autosport
Grid Autosport Road & Track Car Pack
Overlord II
Overlord Raising Hell (Expansion)
Grid 2 Spa- Francorchamps Track Pack
Coupon: 25% off Overlord: Fellowship of Evil
Coupon: 25% off DiRT Rally
GRID Autosport Season Pass
DiRT 3 Complete Edition
GRID 2: All In DLC Pack

“At Codemasters we have seen the difference GamesAid has made for many children and young people and we are proud to throw our support for them via our Humble Bundle to help GamesAid do good things” said Frank Sagnier, CEO, Codemasters

GIFT TWO
The Yogscast ‘Jingle Jam 2015’

The Yogscast Jingle Jam is a 24 day live stream marathon, with all your favourite Yogscast presenters playing games live via the Yogscast Twitch channel twitch.tv/yogscast to raise money for charity.

Since it first launched in 2011, the annual Yogscast Jingle Jam has raised over £1.71M, and GamesAid are excited to be named as one of the charities who will receive money from their 2015 drive.

The Yogscast Jingle Jam 2015 will begin on Tuesday 1st December and will run until 24th December. Viewers can tune-in and choose to donate to charity purely to support the Jam but they can also gain access to a special Jingle Jam Humble Bundle of great PC games.

GIFT THREE
Games On Song

The games industry choir is back, and is aiming to raise more money than ever with their live Christmas Concert. Nearly 40 members of the games industry will take to the stage at St Stephen’s Church, Rosslyn Hill, London on Wednesday 16th December to sing a seasonal selection of festive tunes for GamesAid.

Tickets are on sale now via Golden Giving, priced £20 / £10 aged 16 and under, with extra surprises, mince pies, and mulled wine on the night.

“The choir have put in so much to make this a great evening of traditional carols, solos and game inspired songs” said Ian Chambers, Musical Director of Games On Song. “Join us to help raise more than ever for GamesAid.”

Make the wise choice! Spread some cheer and help us spread the word this Christmas!

Feel good and follow all the latest news @GamesAid