Emergent Unveils Lightspeed Updates, New Features

Tech company Emergent is updating its Gamebryo LightSpeed development platform, adding new features and establishing a "Kickstart" program for more transparency on the devkit. The new features include whiteboxing capabilities, additive animation blending and full support for D3D11. Emergent's also announcing a new source distribution method that offers engine code in three separate phases of development, beta and release. According to the company, the World Builder's new whiteboxing tool allows developers to prototype more rapidly without support from artists or programmers -- levels made using the new feature can be delivered directly to artists for light and texture. LightSpeed's now fully integrated its D3D11 renderer after releasing it as a developer preview in October. It supports tessellation via Direct3D11'ss new shaders, plus support for compute shaders. Kickstart is Emergent's new "starting point" program for developers -- it includes tutorials, samples, documentation and other "constantly evolving'" content aimed at allowing developers more transparency on the LightSpeed dev kit. Emergent's Lightspeed tech has around 120 licensees, with integration deals with numerous companies and technologies including PhysX, Scaleform, Direct3D 11 and Autodesk tools, among others.