Hot off the heals of Sony’s PhyreEngine announcement, Insomniac is providing a free library of development tools, labeled Nocturnal Initiative.
“The Nocturnal initiative is designed to encourage greater communication and information sharing among the development community because it will ultimately enable us all to create better games at a lower development cost,” said Mike Acton, engine director, Insomniac Games. “And, in the end, it’s all about making great games.”
Essentially, Insomniac is giving other developers access to their source code in an effect to expedite and reduce the cost of game development, mainly on the PS3. This can only be good for gamers out there, as this new sharing of information at no cost will ultimately mean better games in your living room. Kudos to the industry players stepping up here!
In what could be one of the biggest quiet announcements of GDC, Sony is making their PhyreEngine free to all developers. In case you don’t know, the PhyreEngine is a graphics optimized for multi-core systems that run on OpenGL or Direct3D.
According the presentation, the package includes full documentation, “70+ samples” and “full source code and artwork” for a few sample game templates. And all that’s required to get your game running on the PS3 is a “simple recompile.” It works with standard tools like Maya & Max exporters as well as Bullet, Havok, and Ageia Physics engines. There’s already a few games on the market using the PhyreEngine cross-platform, including DiRT, fl0w, and GripShift.
So what does this really mean? Well, Sony’s free development tools are aiding the development of games for PC and Xbox 360, as well as their own console. Since a lot of developers have been neglecting PS3, making it easier for them to develop games in a single environment for release on all platforms is a great idea.
More news is expected in the coming days, weeks, and months on PhyreEngine as Sony is dubbing it “the new hotness.”
Intel, the chip making giant, has entered into an agreement to purchase Havok, the creators of the ever popular physics engine for a reported $21 million.
If you haven’t heard of Havok, it’s the physics engine behind some of the biggest games on the market. Recent big titles include Stranglehold, BioShock, and Oblivion. What many people don’t know is the same company produces an engine to create special effects in movies, which was used in blockbuster titles like The Matrix.
No idea yet how this in going to impact future game development with the Havok engine, but there’s some really smart people over at Intel that could really take it to the next level.
At yesterday’s Apple WWDC (that’s Worldwide Developer Conference for the lay person), id Software’s John Carmack demoed the new game engine he’s been working on, dubbed id Tech 5.
Looks pretty damn cool. As per Carmack, more will be shown at E3 on the specific game being developed on this engine for Mac, PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Sounds like a plan to me.
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