GREE debuts Unity and HTML5 toolset

Mobile and social outfit GREE has today made available an open-source development tool for creating Unity and HTML5-based smartphone apps.

Named Lightweight SWF, or LWF, the tech has already been used by GREE to create its own titles Animal Days and Alien Family. It uses an animation engine built upon a custom file format, allowing users to render animation data converted from Flash content playable on Unity and HTML5.

According to a statement from GREE, the company made the tech open-source "so that by lowering the obstacles to smartphone app development for developers and Adobe Flash artists around the world, GREE can contribute to the overall growth of quality content available to users worldwide".

As detailed by GREE, LWF:

– Offers ‘Flash Player-like functionality’ to shorten the learning curve for developers with a Flash background
– Enables Flash artists to create animation and user interface design without the need for engineering
– Provides new levels of interaction and freedom ‘not possible with Flash Player’
– enables simultaneous playing and control of multiple streams of LWF data for user interface and animation effects