7 ms·

Autodesk Stingray Game Engine

65 points by rinesh 11y ago

hundunpao 11y ago
I wonder if they know about Steve Irwin
danschuller 11y ago
This was previously the Bitsquid engine. Really nice engine hope Autodesk can take the tooling to the next level!
- dtf 11y ago
  Well that makes it more interesting. I've always been impressed with the stuff written up on the BitSquid dev blog over the years. http://bitsquid.blogspot.co.uk/ http://bitsquid.blogspot.co.uk/
  - felipesoc 11y ago
    Yeah, they are really conscious on performance which is one of the worst parts in Unity.
nekopa 11y ago
Pricing?
- maccard 11y ago
  quick google led me to http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/03/autodesk-stingray/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/03/autodesk-stingray/ - which quotes $30/month
  - iamcreasy 11y ago
    It also includes a copy of Maya LT.
bluepostitnote 11y ago
Both Unity and Unreal have free tiers, but from the site it looks like Stingray is $30/m I suppose the seamless integration pitch is an appealing angle, but I'm surprised for a new engine there wouldn't be at least a time-limited free tier.
thenomad 11y ago
Phew. That's a market I wouldn't want to enter. I wish them the best of luck - and I love some of Autodesk's tools - but I don't immediately see why I'd choose this over Unity or Unreal. I hope they integrate the renderer into Motionbuilder, though. In 2015, the quality of render it's possible to pull from that tool is just embarassing.
- criley2 11y ago
  I agree! I was gobsmacked by Unreal this weekend between Rocket League and Warframe. Beautiful 60fps games running on last generation budget hardware. Unreal is doing something great (as are the wonderful devs building on top of it) and I wouldn't want to compete!
- chrisper 11y ago
  From watching the video the two main points seem to be the seamless integration between other Autodesk tools and this one and how you don't need to be a big programmer. Maybe also the live preview. (I don't know if this is the case with Unity etc. as I am not a game developer).
  - golergka 11y ago
    The visual scripting is provided by Unreal in terms of Blueprints natively, and Unity has a widely popular GameMaker package.
jaegerpicker 11y ago
I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Modo and blender are much more popular in my experience. Then shops big enough to afford them tend to have a custom workflow built in already. My source: Could be completely wrong and is based purely on personal data. I help run a local indie game development meetup and have been involved with 3 others and only a few people were using Maya or 3DStudio Max. Mostly because of pricing. However of those working with 3D assets the majority of them are working with Blender or Modo with Unity and Unreal as the primary engines. One or two scenekit/source sdk/cryengine people thrown in there.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  > I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high Then it's not aimed at indies, obviously; Unity and in recent days the Unreal engine offer fairer prices for them. The bigger game companies probably won't have an issue with using this product though - if it manages to impress them, that is, compared to the established game engines which have years, sometimes decades of development behind them already.
- chkuendig 11y ago
  > Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Unless you define indies strictly as amateur/hobbyist I seriously doubt this. All the 3d guys i know (freelancers, small interactive studios, independent developers etc. - none affiliated to a mayor publisher) use Maya or 3D Studio Max. It's the same as with the Adobe Suite or MS Office - once you consider labor costs, licenses become a second thought if you use something professionally and earn money doing it. That being said, I don't really see this having a big market either, nobody seems to have any major issues integrating with unity or unreal for now.
  - SloopJon 11y ago
    I haven't paid much attention to Maya since Autodesk bought it, but people seemed pretty excited when the price dropped from $7,000 to $2,000. If the other comment about pricing is accurate, it sounds like Stingray is effectively bundled with Maya LT at no extra charge.
moron4hire 11y ago
I saw nothing about games on that page. It was a lot about 3D rendering, but nothing about actual interaction.
- chrisper 11y ago
  You need to watch the video which has all the details.
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    So they continue the trend that is my main gripe about Unity and Unreal: they lock everything up in unsearchable, unskimmable videos.
Rexxar 11y ago
It's probably a case of "innovator's dilemma' but I don't understand why all company making 3D software for industry haven't try to enter this market twenty years ago (maybe they is too much technical difference that I'm not aware of). It's seems too late now, they haven't a huge technical advantage any more. But competition is always good, so good luck to them !
- brudgers 11y ago
  Companies start orbiting the same market as Autodesk and Autodesk acquires them. That's been their strategy for 25 years starting with Generic CADD. #DStudio and Maya were acquisitions Autodesk didn't kill off. The only notable exception is Sketchup. Google bought it instead, just as it went from MVP to software product line. Conveniently for Autodesk, Google pulled the critical feature out of the entry version after a year or two (DXF/DWG support), let development on the professional version languish, and eventually ejected it as a drifting hulk after Revit gained enough traction for institutions to start requiring it as a delivery format for construction designs despite Revit's file format being closed proprietary.
Claytonious22 11y ago
Attempting to register for access takes you to a form that requires you to have an "Autodesk ID" without any obvious way to obtain one - it does say that existing Gameware customers can get access. Thus continues the very trend that makes me dislike Autodesk: a highly corporate, private, limited-access, secretive suite of tools that are only available to a closed club of very high paying, deeply invested customers who are locked in to a pipeline comprised of only Autodesk tools. It just feels so proprietary and exclusionary. I still remember my parallel port dongle for 3D Studio Max back when I was locked into that tool set and the many times I had to fight to make it work to earn the privilege of using tools I had already paid thousands of dollars for. Yuck.
- omouse 11y ago
  Pretty much this; it's like they've got 90% sales and marketing and business people running the show and the software devs are just sticking around because Stockholm Syndrome.
  - swimfar 11y ago
    Actually, I took a tour of their SF office (across from the Ferry building) and it seems like a really cool place to work. If anyone gets the chance, I'd check out the little museum they have there which is open to the public. I had always just associated Autodesk with the old 2D AutoCAD software, but they're actually doing really interesting research at the company. I was really impressed. One example I saw was simulations relating to self-assembling machines/structures. And their engineering and industrial design influences make it a nice art/science mixture. Although not necessarily intended for kids, it's a place I would have loved to visit as a 8+ year old kid.
- gshx 11y ago
  You can go to https://accounts.autodesk.com/register https://accounts.autodesk.com/register to make one, it's easy.
  - Claytonious22 11y ago
moron4hire 11y ago
I like how they talk about "changing the way games are made", then go on to describe exactly the process that Unity and Unreal provide. So actually just playing catch-up to the "way games are made."
stickydink 11y ago
People are wondering what the advantage of this is. It's worth noting that Autodesk have not updated their Scaleform plugin to work with Unity 5. I was pretty annoyed, and it seems like this could be the reason why. Unity's UI got better recently (in 4.6+), but Scaleform is still leaps-and-bounds above almost anything on the market. That, combined with Autodesk Navigation - another very powerful tool they previously charged a lot of money for (pricing for that was even on-demand only), means there's genuine reason to consider this. The obvious downsides are the lack of free access/assets that you get with Unity, that Unity/Unreal have huge communities and years of YouTube tutorials. But that might come in time. Perhaps the claims about performance and ease are exaggerated, but maybe they're not. I've worked with Unity for a while, and it certainly isn't perfect. There are some clunky, unintuitive things going on. Don't get me wrong, Unity is a fantastic tool, and our company wouldn't be what it is today without it, but this atleast warrants a look at, for me :)
ErikRogneby 11y ago
Great marketing. Now how do I get it? Where is the big shiny buy/try or download link? I thought maybe the marketplace? Nope. Then I tried going to autodesk.com and I scrolled to the footer and went to the store. I did a search: http://www.autodesk.com/store/search?q=stingray http://www.autodesk.com/store/search?q=stingray The upper funnel is serious broken here.
- gshx 11y ago
  Might want to start here: http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/stingray http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/stingray
  - ErikRogneby 11y ago
    maybe that's why... Not even for sale yet: http://www.autodesk.com/products/stingray/buy http://www.autodesk.com/products/stingray/buy "Stingray will be available for purchase on August 19."
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tapirl 11y ago
no download? > AND C++ SOURCE CODE, AVAILABLE FOR AN EXTRA FEE not a good idea to get developers.
- mayoff 11y ago
  Yeah, that surprised me too, considering that Unreal Engine is free (until you ship) including source code, which is hosted on github (behind a free registration).
thethinker1032 11y ago
One: Why does it seem all the text is in caps? Two: Why would we want a engine with Maya or 3DStudioMax interoperability? Most indie developers would not be able to afford Autodesk products because they are so pricey. The only people I know who use Autodesk in the gaming industry are those who make AAA games. If you want to contact the least common denominator, then you need to make some changes to the way you do things.
- coldtea 11y ago
  It's not meant for hobbyists/indie developers.
ai_ja_nai 11y ago
"[...] to make sure your games looks amazing". Please note the bad collision detection at 0:51 when the player walks through the cube, right as the speaker says that. Lol.
haberdasher 11y ago
Try hitting 'esc' on this page...
- rblatz 11y ago
  That is extremely weird. Is that standard behavior for squarespace sites?
arca_vorago 11y ago
Thanks but no thanks Autodesk. Why do I feel like Autodesk is starting to take it's cues from Oracle? I've been working on a side project in Unreal Engine 4, which is amazing, but you'll notice that the majority of Epic devs work in Maya. Autodesk realized there was opportunity to make some money, and finally released Maya LT subscription for devs, but there are still a ton of import/export and other pipeline issues. I mean Autodesk owns the FBX format but can't get a good pipeline mechanism going for it? Now that I see this, it totally makes sense. They saw what the Epic guys were doing, probably even trolled their codebase for ideas, said "Hey, we can do the same thing but make it proprietary and cost a shit ton, just like all our other stuff, and make tons of bank! All we have to do is make sure our tools work with our tools best and everything else is subpar, and it will force devs who want those features into our camp!" Look at the damn interface, it looks almost identical in layout to UE4! On a similar note, as a sysadmin with Autocad users, and the most recent quote I got for a single new sub license was $4k+, I am now investigating migrating to open source solutions that can perform everything we need without being licensed into the ground. Not every company has $20k just sitting around for license upgrades... Edit: I understand my tone is negative, but in this case I think it's warranted. I would appreciate discussion instead of just a downvote please. I also took out the needlessly negative last paragraph.
vvanders 11y ago
I wish them the best of luck but without a majot title tied to shipping with this I'm dubious. Without a clear vision of features needed feature creep can really set in. Also different engines are built for different needs and a catchall engine ends up being not too great at anything.
- georgeecollins 11y ago
  I think Unity shows that there is a place for an easy to use cross platform 3d engine.

65 points by rinesh 11y ago

hundunpao 11y ago

I wonder if they know about Steve Irwin

danschuller 11y ago

This was previously the Bitsquid engine. Really nice engine hope Autodesk can take the tooling to the next level!

dtf 11y ago
Well that makes it more interesting. I've always been impressed with the stuff written up on the BitSquid dev blog over the years. http://bitsquid.blogspot.co.uk/ http://bitsquid.blogspot.co.uk/
- felipesoc 11y ago
  Yeah, they are really conscious on performance which is one of the worst parts in Unity.

nekopa 11y ago

Pricing?

maccard 11y ago
quick google led me to http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/03/autodesk-stingray/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/03/autodesk-stingray/ - which quotes $30/month
- iamcreasy 11y ago
  It also includes a copy of Maya LT.

bluepostitnote 11y ago

Both Unity and Unreal have free tiers, but from the site it looks like Stingray is $30/m I suppose the seamless integration pitch is an appealing angle, but I'm surprised for a new engine there wouldn't be at least a time-limited free tier.

thenomad 11y ago

Phew. That's a market I wouldn't want to enter. I wish them the best of luck - and I love some of Autodesk's tools - but I don't immediately see why I'd choose this over Unity or Unreal. I hope they integrate the renderer into Motionbuilder, though. In 2015, the quality of render it's possible to pull from that tool is just embarassing.

criley2 11y ago
I agree! I was gobsmacked by Unreal this weekend between Rocket League and Warframe. Beautiful 60fps games running on last generation budget hardware. Unreal is doing something great (as are the wonderful devs building on top of it) and I wouldn't want to compete!
chrisper 11y ago
From watching the video the two main points seem to be the seamless integration between other Autodesk tools and this one and how you don't need to be a big programmer. Maybe also the live preview. (I don't know if this is the case with Unity etc. as I am not a game developer).
- golergka 11y ago
  The visual scripting is provided by Unreal in terms of Blueprints natively, and Unity has a widely popular GameMaker package.

jaegerpicker 11y ago

I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Modo and blender are much more popular in my experience. Then shops big enough to afford them tend to have a custom workflow built in already. My source: Could be completely wrong and is based purely on personal data. I help run a local indie game development meetup and have been involved with 3 others and only a few people were using Maya or 3DStudio Max. Mostly because of pricing. However of those working with 3D assets the majority of them are working with Blender or Modo with Unity and Unreal as the primary engines. One or two scenekit/source sdk/cryengine people thrown in there.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
> I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high Then it's not aimed at indies, obviously; Unity and in recent days the Unreal engine offer fairer prices for them. The bigger game companies probably won't have an issue with using this product though - if it manages to impress them, that is, compared to the established game engines which have years, sometimes decades of development behind them already.
chkuendig 11y ago
> Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Unless you define indies strictly as amateur/hobbyist I seriously doubt this. All the 3d guys i know (freelancers, small interactive studios, independent developers etc. - none affiliated to a mayor publisher) use Maya or 3D Studio Max. It's the same as with the Adobe Suite or MS Office - once you consider labor costs, licenses become a second thought if you use something professionally and earn money doing it. That being said, I don't really see this having a big market either, nobody seems to have any major issues integrating with unity or unreal for now.
- SloopJon 11y ago
  I haven't paid much attention to Maya since Autodesk bought it, but people seemed pretty excited when the price dropped from $7,000 to $2,000. If the other comment about pricing is accurate, it sounds like Stingray is effectively bundled with Maya LT at no extra charge.

moron4hire 11y ago

I saw nothing about games on that page. It was a lot about 3D rendering, but nothing about actual interaction.

chrisper 11y ago
You need to watch the video which has all the details.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  So they continue the trend that is my main gripe about Unity and Unreal: they lock everything up in unsearchable, unskimmable videos.

Rexxar 11y ago

It's probably a case of "innovator's dilemma' but I don't understand why all company making 3D software for industry haven't try to enter this market twenty years ago (maybe they is too much technical difference that I'm not aware of). It's seems too late now, they haven't a huge technical advantage any more. But competition is always good, so good luck to them !

brudgers 11y ago
Companies start orbiting the same market as Autodesk and Autodesk acquires them. That's been their strategy for 25 years starting with Generic CADD. #DStudio and Maya were acquisitions Autodesk didn't kill off. The only notable exception is Sketchup. Google bought it instead, just as it went from MVP to software product line. Conveniently for Autodesk, Google pulled the critical feature out of the entry version after a year or two (DXF/DWG support), let development on the professional version languish, and eventually ejected it as a drifting hulk after Revit gained enough traction for institutions to start requiring it as a delivery format for construction designs despite Revit's file format being closed proprietary.

Claytonious22 11y ago

Attempting to register for access takes you to a form that requires you to have an "Autodesk ID" without any obvious way to obtain one - it does say that existing Gameware customers can get access. Thus continues the very trend that makes me dislike Autodesk: a highly corporate, private, limited-access, secretive suite of tools that are only available to a closed club of very high paying, deeply invested customers who are locked in to a pipeline comprised of only Autodesk tools. It just feels so proprietary and exclusionary. I still remember my parallel port dongle for 3D Studio Max back when I was locked into that tool set and the many times I had to fight to make it work to earn the privilege of using tools I had already paid thousands of dollars for. Yuck.

omouse 11y ago
Pretty much this; it's like they've got 90% sales and marketing and business people running the show and the software devs are just sticking around because Stockholm Syndrome.
- swimfar 11y ago
  Actually, I took a tour of their SF office (across from the Ferry building) and it seems like a really cool place to work. If anyone gets the chance, I'd check out the little museum they have there which is open to the public. I had always just associated Autodesk with the old 2D AutoCAD software, but they're actually doing really interesting research at the company. I was really impressed. One example I saw was simulations relating to self-assembling machines/structures. And their engineering and industrial design influences make it a nice art/science mixture. Although not necessarily intended for kids, it's a place I would have loved to visit as a 8+ year old kid.
gshx 11y ago
You can go to https://accounts.autodesk.com/register https://accounts.autodesk.com/register to make one, it's easy.
- Claytonious22 11y ago

moron4hire 11y ago

I like how they talk about "changing the way games are made", then go on to describe exactly the process that Unity and Unreal provide. So actually just playing catch-up to the "way games are made."

stickydink 11y ago

People are wondering what the advantage of this is. It's worth noting that Autodesk have not updated their Scaleform plugin to work with Unity 5. I was pretty annoyed, and it seems like this could be the reason why. Unity's UI got better recently (in 4.6+), but Scaleform is still leaps-and-bounds above almost anything on the market. That, combined with Autodesk Navigation - another very powerful tool they previously charged a lot of money for (pricing for that was even on-demand only), means there's genuine reason to consider this. The obvious downsides are the lack of free access/assets that you get with Unity, that Unity/Unreal have huge communities and years of YouTube tutorials. But that might come in time. Perhaps the claims about performance and ease are exaggerated, but maybe they're not. I've worked with Unity for a while, and it certainly isn't perfect. There are some clunky, unintuitive things going on. Don't get me wrong, Unity is a fantastic tool, and our company wouldn't be what it is today without it, but this atleast warrants a look at, for me :)

ErikRogneby 11y ago

Great marketing. Now how do I get it? Where is the big shiny buy/try or download link? I thought maybe the marketplace? Nope. Then I tried going to autodesk.com and I scrolled to the footer and went to the store. I did a search: http://www.autodesk.com/store/search?q=stingray http://www.autodesk.com/store/search?q=stingray The upper funnel is serious broken here.

gshx 11y ago
Might want to start here: http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/stingray http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/stingray
- ErikRogneby 11y ago
  maybe that's why... Not even for sale yet: http://www.autodesk.com/products/stingray/buy http://www.autodesk.com/products/stingray/buy "Stingray will be available for purchase on August 19."

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

tapirl 11y ago

no download? > AND C++ SOURCE CODE, AVAILABLE FOR AN EXTRA FEE not a good idea to get developers.

mayoff 11y ago
Yeah, that surprised me too, considering that Unreal Engine is free (until you ship) including source code, which is hosted on github (behind a free registration).

thethinker1032 11y ago

One: Why does it seem all the text is in caps? Two: Why would we want a engine with Maya or 3DStudioMax interoperability? Most indie developers would not be able to afford Autodesk products because they are so pricey. The only people I know who use Autodesk in the gaming industry are those who make AAA games. If you want to contact the least common denominator, then you need to make some changes to the way you do things.

coldtea 11y ago
It's not meant for hobbyists/indie developers.

ai_ja_nai 11y ago

"[...] to make sure your games looks amazing". Please note the bad collision detection at 0:51 when the player walks through the cube, right as the speaker says that. Lol.

haberdasher 11y ago

Try hitting 'esc' on this page...

rblatz 11y ago
That is extremely weird. Is that standard behavior for squarespace sites?

arca_vorago 11y ago

Thanks but no thanks Autodesk. Why do I feel like Autodesk is starting to take it's cues from Oracle? I've been working on a side project in Unreal Engine 4, which is amazing, but you'll notice that the majority of Epic devs work in Maya. Autodesk realized there was opportunity to make some money, and finally released Maya LT subscription for devs, but there are still a ton of import/export and other pipeline issues. I mean Autodesk owns the FBX format but can't get a good pipeline mechanism going for it? Now that I see this, it totally makes sense. They saw what the Epic guys were doing, probably even trolled their codebase for ideas, said "Hey, we can do the same thing but make it proprietary and cost a shit ton, just like all our other stuff, and make tons of bank! All we have to do is make sure our tools work with our tools best and everything else is subpar, and it will force devs who want those features into our camp!" Look at the damn interface, it looks almost identical in layout to UE4! On a similar note, as a sysadmin with Autocad users, and the most recent quote I got for a single new sub license was $4k+, I am now investigating migrating to open source solutions that can perform everything we need without being licensed into the ground. Not every company has $20k just sitting around for license upgrades... Edit: I understand my tone is negative, but in this case I think it's warranted. I would appreciate discussion instead of just a downvote please. I also took out the needlessly negative last paragraph.

vvanders 11y ago

I wish them the best of luck but without a majot title tied to shipping with this I'm dubious. Without a clear vision of features needed feature creep can really set in. Also different engines are built for different needs and a catchall engine ends up being not too great at anything.

georgeecollins 11y ago
I think Unity shows that there is a place for an easy to use cross platform 3d engine.