http://www.gamedev.net/Maximum game development!en-ushttp://www.gamedev.net/pics/gdnet-88x31.gifhttp://www.gamedev.net/Maximum Game Development!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592441 At 1PM GMT (8AM EST) on Friday 1/7 we will be preventing further updates to www.gamedev.net and the site will be put into a largely read-only state. At that time we will begin the process of migrating the site over to the new software and server. We are still working out some of the details but we'll be doing our best to keep as much of GameDev.net online during the migration process. This process may take quite a while, definitely over the course of the weekend at least, so please check here throughout this time for updates as this process goes on. Once the migration is completed, the current site will become archive.gamedev.net for an undetermined period of time (at least 30 days). During this time the new website will become www.gamedev.net and will be open for use and (most importantly) feedback. Please be aware that the new website is being launched at a stage where not all decisions regarding content and layout have been made, and we are doing so in order to make those decisions based upon the feedback generated by our community. We want you to have a hand in helping us finalize the next generation of GameDev.net. All of us on the Staff and Mods team are very excited, and we look forward to working closely with you all in the coming weeks and months as GameDev.net continues to be the #1 resource for game development!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592425Indie game developer (and our own GDNet forum moderator) Andrew Russell is working to bring the XNA development community an implementation of XNA that runs on multiple platforms.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592422The enhanced performance and natural feel of the Wacom Cintiq interactive pen display helped to decrease character development time of Naughty Dog's incredibly popular games, "Uncharted" and "Uncharted 2."http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592421The Linderdaum Engine is an open source purely object-oriented 3D gaming engine written in C++ with full support of OpenGL 3.2 Core Profile and OpenGL Shading Language. This release includes Asteroids demo and other samples, showing how to use the engine to build a game from scratch. www.linderdaum.comhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592420The sample code for the OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide is now available for WebGL and Android and has also been updated to build for iOS 4.2 SDK. Live versions of the WebGL samples can be viewed at OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide website (www.opengles-book.com). The source code for the samples has been moved to Google Code at code.google.com/p/opengles-book-samples.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592419Scylla and Charybdis 0.5 has been released. The release includes Box2D, blitting and double buffering. It can be found here: code.google.com/p/scyllacharybdis/http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592417The new version 0.9.4-R1 of the open-source, cross-platform 3D application framework PixelLight has been released. This is primarily a maintenance release with focus on improving the general performance, realizing minor refactoring steps towards PixelLight version 1.0, performing the usual bugfixing as well as integrating user feedback.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592380I'm back for the end of this week; Trent and I swapped Dailies this week so now I get to pull from a huge body of news and he got to piece together what happened over the weekend into a cohesive narrative. Without further adieu, let's take a look at what happened so far this week in the game industry. The big news this week is probably CES; Microsoft announced that the Xbox is an enormous pillar of their corporate growth and mentioned that they shipped eight million Kinects. I don't think I know anyone who actually owns one, so it must have incredible mass-market penetration. They also announced Torchlight for Xbox Live Arcade and some other interesting details. What really interested me this time at CES was NVidia and Microsoft announcing that Windows is going ARM in a big way; NVidia will be providing a set of awesome CPU/GPU chipsets (with instruction-level GPGPU for vector processing!) and Microsoft will presumably be providing the tools, applications and OSes. Get ready to see a ton of jobs appearing to port legacy software from x86 to MSIL/ARM, though I'd be surprised if they don't have any emulation/dynamic-translation layer ready to go for backwards compatibility. It's definitely good news for teams that have taken the time to convert their ancient legacy code to .NET; their changeover will hopefully be as painless as possible. Also at CES, Intel did a bunch of talking about their second-generation i7 chip setup, Sandy Bridge, which will offer integrated graphics technology. Remember Larrabee? This seems a lot better than that. Valve was on hand to point out how awesome it is. Sega announced that they were expanding the deployment of their pee-controlled videogames. This is a thing. Before you go today, don't forget to stop by Science Daily to figure out if your cat is too stressed to eat. http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=592071HELLO GAMEDEV.NET. And happy new year! I'm going to be busy on Thursday, so you get to see me bright and early this fine Monday morning. I, for one, am looking forward to getting back to work as too many days off and I get antsy. And since last week was, largely, a quiet week in the industry, we'll be off to a slow start here. The jury for the Seamus McNally grand prize in the Independent Games Festival was announced last week and consists of a great deal of respectable and awesome folks. The IGF finalists are due to be announced sometime today, I believe. I was a judge this time around, and I'm really hoping to see some of the less well-known games I voted for get a nod or two. Proving that the Japanese game market is completely different than it is elsewhere, Pokemon Black/Pokemon White and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd led game sales for 2010 in Japan (and the PSP led oversall system sales). I'm actually incredibly excited for both of these games, as I've always liked playing the occasional Pokemon title and Monster Hunter is purely amazing. I'm also looking forward to The Third Birthday (Parasite Eve 3) for PSP, which should be coming out in the US... At some point. So, slow news week... Uh. Here's a list of good freeware shoot 'em ups from 2010. And speaking of the psychology of game of the year debates, I personally listed my favorite games of 2010 in exhausting detail earlier this week. I can all but guarantee I am the only person alive to make a list consisting of all the games I chose. I'm strange. We know this. Oh, oh, oh! While I'm talking about me: I also put my last game, Broken, on Kongregate. I do hope you would try it out (it has leaderboards now!). Since there's little in the way of news and I just got off a twelve hour binge of three days with it (and I would add it to my favorites of 2010 list had I played it last year), if you haven't given Nier a fair shake, you should probably do that. It's, without question, the most fun I've had with an action/RPG in... Ever, maybe, actually. Things of note: floating arcane books, integrated text adventures, a boar you can drift on, giant swords, and a dungeon based on the mansion and events from the first Resident Evil game. It's so good.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=591485Congratulations on surviving Christmas so far! Provided you can still move and haven't loaded yourself too far down with holiday feasts, you're well on your way to enjoying a happy new year as well (as opposed to being pinned down by your ever-expanding gut as wolves bay in the background). I asked Santa for the new GDNet site software, and it looks like he has delivered. Humble Indie Bundle 2 has finished its sales run, netting over $1.8 million USD. At one point, to make things better, they included the first Humble Indie Bundle when you bought the second one as well. Steam is still having a huge amount of holiday sales, having had ridiculous prices like $5 Torchlight and a $10 FEAR bundle. New daily deals are showing up every day - the next ones are in just under an hour from the time of this posting. Here's an interesting 96-page manual on how to use the PXTone program to make amazing videogame music. It's pretty handy, because the official PXTone manual is in Japanese. Obviously there's not a huge amount of news since everyone has been on vacation, so feel free to make your own news in the comments. What did you get? What did you buy yourself in the Boxing Day sales?http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=591372Happy Holidays everyone! 2011 should be a very exciting year for both the users and staff of GameDev.net as we move forward with a brand new GDNet. Virtually everything will be overhauled in order to streamline our ability to provide the very best in game development news, articles, and interaction with your fellow developers. Read on for sneak peak of our new upcoming site..http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=591203After the success of the first seven entries to the ShaderX book series, of GPU Pro (gpupro.blogspot.com) and the soon to be released GPU Pro 2 (gpupro2.blogspot.com), we are looking for authors for GPU Pro 3. The upcoming book will cover advanced rendering techniques that run on the DirectX or OpenGL run-times, or any other run-time with any language available. It will include topics on: Geometry Manipulation; Rendering Techniques; Handheld Devices Programming; Effects in Image Space; Shadows; 3D Engine Design; Graphics Related Tools; Environmental Effects and a dedicated section on General Purpose GPU Programming that will cover CUDA, DirectCompute and OpenCL examples. Proposals are due by March 17th, 2011. Please send them to wolf at shaderx.com. An example proposal, writing guidelines and a FAQ can be downloaded from gpupro3.blogspot.com.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=591194Good morning, US of A - it's me again. As I get ready to tuck myself in over here in Taiwan you get to wake up to another Daily dose of newsy goodness. By the by, if you'd like a glimpse into what it takes to get an international-level fireworks show up and running, then swing by my blog for daily updates. Game developers may have ended their holiday crunch period, but mine is now just beginning! Oh and happy Christmas Eve Eve. Litigation updates: Harmonix vs. Viacom, Activision vs. EA. Hey what's happened to holiday cheer these days huh? Some people just can't wait for the new year to get their lawsuit on apparently. Viacom has issued a response to ex-shareholder claims I covered on Tuesday - unsurprisingly they have gone and foisted the blame back on the ex-shareholders. Meanwhile Activision has decided to rope EA into its long-running spat between it and former Infinity Ward heads and demanding $400 million. In response, EA says (in part) "This is a PR play filled with pettiness and deliberate misdirection." And a Merry Christmas to you all too! Gamebryo succeeds in finding buyer, Torque hints at success. Further updates to two previous stories. Last month both middleware companies Gamebryo and Torque announced they were up for sale, and just yesterday Gamebryo was finally able to announce their buyer, long-time partner Gamebase. More potentially good news could be coming from Torque early next year, as the company's director Eric Preisz was able to reveal that they are "no longer entertaining buyers at this time." What remains to be seen however is whether this means Torque has found a buyer, or is pursuing some alternate course of action. Either way, Preisz also says "The future looks bright." Australia ratings to get complete review early 2011. The recent attention given to the R18+ mature game rating has given Australia's government reason to re-evaluate rating classification guidelines for all media in the country. Included in this review will be further discussion on the yet-again delayed R18+ decision. Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features. Read this post in Chinesehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=591150Matali Physics 1.1 engine and Matali Physics Pro 1.1 engine has been released. The latest versions add further optimizations of engine memory management and performance for all supported platforms, especially for Xbox 360, Windows Phone 7 and iOS. Together with this release we introduced more than 30% reduction in prices of commercial licences!http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=591149Since December 18th 2010 Xors3d and iXors3d are licensed with discounts. The discount value starts at 40%. Every week its value is reduced by 10%. 18 - 24 December 2010 - 40% off 25 - 31 December 2010 - 30% off 01 - 07 January 2011 - 20% off 08 - 14 January 2011 - 10% off Read more about the discounts at the special page: xors3d.com/discountdetector.php More information about the engines: xors3d.com