New Cloud features and improved workflows in Lumberyard Beta 1.3

In his post, Hao Chen covered HDR, VR, and other graphics improvements in Lumberyard Beta 1.3, available for download here. I wanted to tell you a bit more about some of the other 130 improvements, fixes, and features this update includes.

Our character team has updated the FBX Importer with the ability to import multiple objects to a single mesh, so you can import a complex scene all at once. We’ve also introduced a new interface that displays the hierarchy of an FBX file, and allows you to toggle the importation of individual meshes. If, for example, you have a single FBX file with a helmet, sword, and shield in it, and you just want the sword, you can simply uncheck the helmet and shield without going back to your 3D content tool. We’ve added support for vertex colors and the option to use any transform object in a scene as the focus for a translation or rotation offset. We’ve listened to your usability UX suggestions and have made it easier to select nodes and improved messaging on progress reporting. Animators will notice that Lumberyard now supports full live reloading of CAF animations in Geppetto, which allows you to instantly view your animations from the Lumberyard Editor and while running your game from the Editor.

For 2D and UI artists, Lumberyard Beta 1.3 includes over a dozen improvements to the Lumberyard UI Editor. We’ve added new Flow Graph nodes so you can enable or disable a UI canvas: you could, for example, load a canvas but not display it to the user for faster switching between menus. We’ve made it easier to edit UI canvases with many elements, including support for pivoting, offsetting, and anchoring multiple elements all at once. We’ve added more presets to the anchor and pivot widgets for faster iteration, allowed new objects to be created on the exact position you click the mouse button, and added functionality to enable you to paste objects as siblings and children, so you can create more complex menu functionality more efficiently than before.

In addition to giving you tools to better create impressive artistry, the Lumberyard team strives to help you build online, multiplayer, and live games so you can better reach a vast audience of fans. For the developers on your team building connected experiences, the Cloud Canvas Resource Manager is now generally available in Lumberyard Beta 1.3. With the Cloud Canvas Resource Manager, your project managers, engineers, and technical designers now have new tools to create and manage AWS resources for your connected game. You can manage AWS building blocks, such as DynamoDB databases and EC2 compute-on-demand, without leaving the Lumberyard Editor, enabling you to iterate faster on connected gameplay.

The Cloud Canvas Resource Manager GUI configures independent AWS deployments to support the needs of multiple development and test teams. For example, you could have one deployment your QA team is using, one for your internal development team, and another for a beta test. AWS resources are secured to prevent unauthorized player access, as well as to prevent accidental changes to production resources by members of your own team.

Our team always welcomes your feedback and suggestions. Visit us on our forums, in our blog comment threads, or email us at lumberyard-feedback@amazon.com.

You can download Lumberyard Beta 1.3 here. For full details on the Lumberyard Beta 1.3 release, check out the full release notes here.