Godot 4.5 Beta 7 🕹️, Gamedev Management 🎭, Voxel planet 🌍
🛠️ Dev Tools & Engine Updates
Godot 4.5 Beta 7: Android Debug Symbols and Key Fixes
Godot 4.5 beta 7 adds a crucial step toward official Android debug symbol support and ships 47 fixes from 29 contributors. This snapshot targets regressions since beta 6, including Web audio playback accuracy, Android safe area behavior on older versions, shader cache lookups, and editor UX. You can try Web, XR, and Android editors (apply for the Android testing group). It’s still pre-release—back up projects and report regressions to help finalize 4.5.
iClone 8.6: MetaHuman Imports, New Eye Shaders, UE5 Presets
Reallusion’s iClone 8.6 tightens CC5 integration with Import MetaHuman Facial Animation, support for CC5 HD characters, and CC3+ Extended-Plus compatibility (CC5 required). New Digital Human eye occlusion and tearline shaders remove harsh edges for more realistic eyes. Pipelines get smoother with presets for Marmoset Toolbag, UE5 Skeleton/Mannequin, and UEFN. Plus: extra CC5 subdivision, Facial Parts Strength, Dynamic Mipmap for wrinkle textures, non-linear curves for corrective expressions, and broad CC5 refinements.
💼 Business & Career Growth
MiniGame Brings Instant-Play H5 Game Centers to Any App
HTML5 instant-play games are moving mainstream, and MiniGame is building the rails. As an official H5 partner for Google, Meta, and Microsoft, the company offers a curated catalog, localization, and flexible monetization. Its new merchant portal, Business.MiniGame.com, lets publishers spin up custom H5 game centers inside their apps. Meet them at AWE Budapest (Sept 4–5, Booth C83).
From Senior to Lead: A No‑BS Guide to Gamedev Management
A technical director from Virtuos Warsaw shares a blunt, practical playbook for running tech teams in games. Learn the real prerequisites to manage, how to hire via fundamentals and open-ended interviews, and when performance-based firing protects the whole team. It also covers servant leadership, clear communication, promotions tied to pay, and survival tactics so you can keep coding—without dropping your management duties.
🎮 Design & Development Insights
Tom Francis on Iterative Design, Marketing, and Making It Indie
Indie veteran Tom Francis breaks down how intentional, iterative design, relentless playtesting, and sharp marketing can carry small teams to launch. He covers self-funding, studio management, and why games take so long, plus candid thoughts on AI and the industry’s future. The episode closes with a peek inside Tactical Breach Wizards in Unity. Practical, honest advice for anyone trying to ship—and sell—an indie game.
Blocky Planet: Designing a Fully Destructible Spherical Voxel World
Blocky Planet is a Unity tech demo that makes Minecraft-like voxels work on a sphere—procedural, destructible, and gravity-aligned. The post details quad-sphere mapping with reduced distortion, shell-based depth that preserves block size, and a sector/shell/chunk address system that resolves tricky cross-boundary neighbors. Terrain is generated via 3D spherical noise for seam-free worlds, with custom radial gravity and orbit-capable thrusters. A future wishlist teases caves, voxel lighting, and multi-planet systems.