Feels like forever ago, even though it was just earlier this year when Amazon decided to join the video game engine with the launch of their Lumberyard beta and time has definitely been kind to it. Well, time and of course, the group of people hard at work on improving every aspect, ensuring Unity, Unreal Engine, Game Maker, RPG Maker, and so on, might get some proper competition. This is exactly what beta 1.5 seems to bring, what with its rather large amount of changes, fixes, and who knows what else.
Even though it’s been more than six months, they claim it’s “still day one on Lumberyard”, whatever that means. Potential confusion aside, one of the big things in beta 1.5 comes in the form of particle editor improvements – both in terms of performance (with an in-engine level-of-detail system, from what I understand) and customizability in the actual editor. Basically, faster and with more control. Neat.
Oh, and how about some asset buildings? No not building block assets… or some such. I’m referring to the Lumberyard Asset Builder SDK which made its debut in this release, which will hopefully help streamline the process of, well, asset creation. You know, level design, armour skins, maybe even AI behaviour, and other fun things. At least I think that’s what it is.
There’s so much more to Lumberyard beta 1.5 than that too, including something about Android Clang, OSVR, VRAM… and a bunch of other things that’ll make my head spin from trying to understand their purpose. I’m sure they’re all pretty darn useful and groovy though! Which reminds me, will you be – or are you already – having fun making a game with Amazon Lumberyard?
(Source: Now Available – Lumberyard Beta 1.5)