Amazon Lumberyard end of year video highlights new features

A new blog post by Amazon discusses the last year of Lumberyard development and promises that the not-so-little engine that could will be out of beta and enjoy full release soon. Not explicitly in 2018 (underpromise, overdeliver…) but that’s the implication. Next year will mark a “new beginning” for the engine, with the development team having spent 2017 overhauling old technology and replacing them with new features.

Included in the blog post is a video, highlighting the various changes that have taken place over the last twelve months. All put in place to make game development as easy as possible. Tools that give artists and animators autonomy, or allow you to speedily create a fully, diverse forest environment. You can check out the video at the bottom of this post.

“This year has been all about laying the foundation for what’s to come with Lumberyard,” says senior leader at Lumberyard, J C Connors. “We’ve introduced a brand new animation tool (EMotion FX) and a new visual scripting solution (Script Canvas). We’ve made hundreds of improvements to Component Entity workflows for streamlining development and launched seven new Cloud Gems that make it easier to engage players and create emergent gameplay using the AWS cloud. We also provided an exclusive, free license to SpeedTree 8, the industry standard in 3D vegetation modeling, so you can make massive, gnarly forests quicker and with greater fidelity.

“All of this translates to the engine we’re envisioning for 2018: an engine that’s easy to use, and yet powerful enough to push the limits of what’s possible in games. Where the massive compute and storage of the cloud becomes a catalyst for innovation and large-scale ambition–a new way of making games.”

There’s more new features to come in 2018 as the engine developers “accelerate towards full release”.