XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP

Community Technology Preview of Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 is out.

This release represents the CTP of Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0, which enables hobbyists, academics, and independent game developers to easily create video games for Windows and the Microsoft Zune digital media player using optimized cross-platform gaming libraries based on the .NET Framework.

Get it from the Downloads page on the Microsoft website.

Wreck Havok!

This should change something I guess, as so many top titles used this software so far with so nice results. Now everyone can get it for free. Details from their site:

The Binary-only PC download includes all of the standard features and functionality of both the Havok™ Physics and Havok™ Animation products. This no-charge download for the PC includes SDK libraries, samples, and technical documentation for software developers; as well as Havok’s Content Tools for preparation and export of physical assets and characters directly from the most recent versions of Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, and Avid XSI 3D modeling and animation tools. Please refer to product-specific information on the Havok web site for more information on features and capabilities within these two powerful products.

So what can it be used for?

Non-Commercial Games & Applications
Professional Game Development
Game Middleware
Game Art & Design
Commercial Applications (non-game)
Academic & Educational
Personal Use

Try it.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Developed with Adobe Flex, looking neat and simple (like Adobe Media Player), Photoshop express its a quick way to store and edit photos or images.

At Photoshop Express you can quickly and easily accentuate your photos with easy-to-use options for resizing, cropping, sharpening, and more. Make your photos pop with fun, eye-catching effects and enhancements. Then share your photos in My Gallery, where you can create customized photo displays, or upload them to your Facebook page, Flickr, or anywhere else online.

Photoshop CS4 with GPU support

The next version of Photoshop (CS 4) will be juicing up performance by taking advantage of hardware it hasn’t tapped before: graphics cards and physics processors. How much faster is the new 64-bit, GPU-injected Photoshop? At a demo at Nvidia’s HQ, TG Daily watched “the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly.”
John Nack from Adobe is calling bogus on some of TGDaily’s info, namely the Oct. release date and says the demoed tech is not “promised to go into any particular version of Photoshop.” So take it for what you will. 3D effects are spiffier too, with direct 3D model manipulation and rendering, as well as a snappier 3D accelerated panorama. Overall, it sounds like it could be the most important Photoshop update in years when it drops in October.

CryExporter v 3.2 Released

You’ll need:
- XSI (commercial version or the free XSI Mod Tool). We only tested with XSI 6.02+
- The original Crysis disc, and the Crysis game must be installed
- The latest version of SOFTIMAGE|Crosswalk. Download it here.

About the XSI Mod Tool
This is a free version of XSI for non commercial game creation. It is basically XSI Essentials 6.02 with some limitations such as a 64k triangle export limit (per mesh, not scene), and 512×512 rendermap limit. It’s free!!

Download the Mod Tool here

Setting up the XSI CryExporter

1. Install the Sandbox Editor.
On the Crysis game disc, go to the directory named “Sandbox2″
Install it by double clicking on the “CryEngine(R)2 Sandbox(TM)2.msi” file

Once you install it, you can now run it from your Crysis\Bin32 directory. By default, this is here:
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Bin32\Editor.exe

You can get more information and tutorials on Sandbox and Crysis modding here:
http://www.crymod.com

2. Download the XSI CryExporter v3.2 here:
http://webrel2.softimage.com/open/pr…k_XSI_v3.2.zip

When you unzip the file, you’ll see the following directories:
- Crysis – Bin32 directory contains the resource compiler. Game contains the mod export folders where we’ll write our files to
- Crytek_XSI_Database
- XSI_Addon

3. Copy files

/Crysis/ -> Copy to your Crysis install path. Default:
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\

Overwrite all. (if you don’t get an “overwrite?” dialog box, you’re copying to the wrong folder.

This will copy the directories Bin32 and Game into the Crysis folder

4. Install the XSI Addon
- Open SOFTIMAGE|XSI or Mod Tool.
- In a Windows Explorer window, navigate to the /XSI_Addon directory that you just unzipped.
- Drag and drop “Crytek Addon.xsiaddon” into XSI

Restart XSI. When you restart, you may see a “Crytek” menu bar at the top of XSI. If you don’t (some Windows Vista users are saying that they don’t and we are investigating this), you can still access the toolbar by clicking on View -> Toolbars -> Crytek Toolbar.

5. Set up the CryExporter paths
Click on the “Crytek” menu item -> Properties (or in the Crytek Toolbar, click on “Properties” in the Others section)

You have to set the Bin32 path and Export path to the directories you copied over just now.

Bin32 default path: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Bin32

Export default path: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\Objects\XSI_Assets

City generator plugin ~ XSI

I personally don’t like the idea of procedurally creation for anything other than textures and basic or generic stuff; it takes away the artist touch and sometimes fixing and tweaking the results is a lot more work intensive. However, I always enjoy a new piece of software because it shows how flexible we are and how creative.

Paolo Emilio Selva created an interesting plugin for Softimage XSI – City Generator is called and current available version is CityGenerator v0.80601 for XSI 6.02 (32bit)

Download it and take it for a spin. It’s quite impressive but don’t mess around with high values (too many buildings / buildings parts) if you don’t have a tough machine or a good magazine and lots of coffee.