MeshBlend 🎮, IlluGen VFX Launch 🚀, Xbox Dev Hell 🎮, Unigine Update 📈
🔧 Cutting-Edge Tools for Game Development
MeshBlend: A Powerful Mesh Blending Plug-In for Unreal Engine 5
MeshBlend is an exciting new Unreal Engine 5 plug-in that allows artists and developers to blend any mesh with precision and high performance. Created by Tore Lervik, it supports a wide range of applications—from landscapes to cinematics—across various art styles. Available soon on Fab, MeshBlend promises to streamline workflows in games and virtual production, with a playable demo already accessible for early adopters.
IlluGen Launches: Game-Focused VFX Tool for Seamless Looping Smoke Effects
JangaFX is launching IlluGen on July 28th, a node-based visual effects tool designed specifically for video games that simplifies creating looping, tiling smoke textures from EmberGen simulations. Founder Nick Seavert showcases how IlluGen enables fast, intuitive workflows by combining the best features of popular VFX software into one package. Alongside IlluGen, JangaFX is wrapping up EmberGen 1.0 updates and focusing on a full rebuild with EmberGen 2.0, with more news to come during Elemental Week 2025.
🎨 Innovations in Visual Game Design
Behind the Scenes: Fer Factor’s Visual Innovations in Tossdown
Indie developer Fer Factor reveals innovative techniques in Tossdown to keep the player character visible amidst hectic gameplay. Using Unity, the dev showcases tricks like object transparency with outlined hatching and other creative effects to handle visual obstructions. Tossdown blends Crazy-Taxi style action with roguelike bullet hell chaos, promising an exciting experience.
Create Vertex Animation Textures Entirely in Blender with The VAT Man
The VAT Man by Nodes and Noodles empowers Blender users to bake and play back complex Vertex Animation Textures (VATs) without leaving Blender. Supporting animations from rigged characters to particles, it exports seamlessly to Unity and Godot, with Unreal Engine support coming soon. Simply select your animated objects, set frame range, and bake to generate materials ready to animate in Cycles and game engines—streamlining your animation workflow like never before.
🚀 Industry Updates and Insights
Unigine 2.20 Update Brings Multithreaded Shadows and Advanced Upscaling
Unigine's latest 2.20 release introduces powerful new graphics features including multithreaded shadow rendering on DirectX 12 to reduce CPU load and scale real-time lighting. The update expands NVIDIA DLSS support to Vulkan and integrates AMD FSR 3.1.3, enhancing upscaling options across platforms. New octahedral impostors optimize distant geometry rendering, while volumetric clouds and Global Illumination controls improve visual realism, making Unigine a robust choice for cutting-edge 3D game development.
Inside Xbox’s Development Hell: Why Years-Long Projects Are Getting Cancelled
Recent Xbox layoffs not only cut jobs but also led to the cancellation of long-awaited projects like Everwild and Perfect Dark. The root causes often lie in repeated vertical slice development, trend chasing, and conflicting decision-makers that trap games in development hell. Unlike traditional software, game development demands unique management skills, and Microsoft’s challenge lies in mastering this to avoid costly project failures. This analysis sheds light on the complex struggles behind the scenes.
🧠Mastering Game Development Strategy
Mastering Game Dev: Why You Should Just Make Small Games
This BiteMe Games video breaks down the benefits of making small games focused on a single, well-executed mechanic. It highlights how prototyping and design constraints can streamline development while addressing the realities of marketing small titles. Perfect for indie developers, this guide encourages focusing on simplicity and iteration to deliver quality games and improve creative workflow.
Indie Dev Insights: Mr. Eliptik on Creativity, Income, and Viral Success
Join indie developer Mr. Eliptik as he shares his journey balancing creativity, finances, and multiple projects. This in-depth conversation dives into income diversification, lessons from viral YouTube content, and the pros and cons of Twitch streaming for indies. Whether you're managing game aesthetics or weighing independence versus publishing, gain valuable insights into sustaining a solo indie dev lifestyle.