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Ambiera, a small Viennan company founded six years ago by CEO Nikolaus Gebhardt, was set up to help bring essential assets in reach of development studios. It provides software libraries, tools and knowledge for developers, and has had a hand in hundreds of games since its foundation.
Flagship product CopperCube is a 3D game development editor. It was originally designed for 3D artists so they could quickly snap together interactive 3D apps and games without programming. It still works like this, but starting with version 4.0, the editor includes a cross-platform scripting environment, making it is possible to create more complex, sophisticated games as well. Gebhardt says this addition is attracting indie developers and even some of bigger fish, who are using it to create prototypes and demos.
Projects that have used the tool include: the post-apocalyptic simulator EndTime at Home, Drones Attack, Horse Jumping 4, The Dead Tower, Nightingales Playground, Salvador City, Battle of the Juggernauts and Killer Raceway.
“Besides the many target platforms which are supported by CopperCube, it can create 3D WebGL websites, Flash Stage 3D, Windows and Mac OS X programs and Androids apps,” says Gebhardt. “It is very easy to use. 3D artists can simply import their 3D assets, models and levels, quickly choose camera controllers and behaviours, hit publish, and that’s it. It is very easy to learn and we get quite a few emails from our users, who are very happy with CopperCube.”
CopperCube is free to try for 14 days. For those that like it, the light edition is available for £130 (€149), or the professional edition for £320 (€380). Both editions enable developers to create apps for all supported platforms.
Ambiera says it is always working on improving the editor and adapting it to the needs of its users, which is why it offers continuously free updates. For instance, the latest update added support for normal mapping, multi-touch support, the option to use plug-in actions, behaviours and optimised animated 3D character rendering functions.
The tools firm plans to stay up to date with next generation tech. With Flash gradually fading in popularity to be replaced by HTML5, Ambiera says its already prepared to take advantage of this new phase of web development.
Gebhardt says: “We will probably add more target platforms to CopperCube. Right now, the most requested non-supported platform is iOS, although it looks like even Apple’s devices will soon support WebGL, which CopperCube can already target. We are also planning to add more materials and parameters to influence them. A way to create custom materials using your own shaders is also on the way.”
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