Amazon Lumberyard Game Engine Released!
If you haven't head, Amazon released it's own game engine earlier this week: Lumberyard (Beta). I remember hearing the news and feeling excited to see what they'd come up with. Honestly, it didn't cross my mind that it would be able to compete with Unreal and Unity. Boy was I wrong!
Screenshot from Amazon Lumberyard. Beautiful!
Some of Lumberyard's Features:
- Not only is Lumberyard free to use, but you don't have to pay a 'pro' fee like Unity or a revenue fee like Unreal if your game does well. You are only charged 'optional' fees if you decide to upgrade their AWS services.
- Based on Cryengine
- AAA graphics- PBR shaders, dynamic global illumination, particle effects, realistic water, color grading, motion blur, lens flares and more!
- 16 initial pre-built modular features to start your first game
- Realtime gameplay editor
- 'Gridmate' networking with efficient bandwidth and low-latency that lets you sync easily with your studio teammates
- Includes a FREE version of Audiokinetics sound engine
- Includes access to Lumberyard's source code
- Deeply integrated with Twitch Chatplay and JoinPlay ( Allows fans to join and play with broadcasters) enabled
- Mod-Friendly
- 3 Free asset packages you can use in your games
- and MORE!
Check out their Launch Video
I'm really interested to see how friendly this engine interacts with Blender. Because, if it's much easier to import models from Blender into Lumberyard with little to know problems, I see this engine being a go-to for a LOT of indie developers. However, the learning curve is probably pretty high if it's similar to Cryengine. The free aspect with triple game quality is too good to pass up! I'm beyond thrilled to try this engine out! Download Lumberyard and check it out yourself. Have you tested Blender models or animations with Lumberyard yet? I'd love to hear your results!
