tequila bomb

CIDR — pronounced “cider” \ˈsaɪ-də\ — a refreshing drink typically made from apples.

• An Objective-C IDE with a really smart code editor
• Runs on Mac OS X only, on Intel-based computers
• Can open and create Xcode projects
• Integrates with the standard Interface Builder
• Can run iOS Simulator
• Has a debugger with evaluate expression
• Already has ‘Change Signature’ and ‘Extract Method’ refactorings
• Analyses code on the fly and offers quick-fix suggestions
• Oh, and code completion, of course!

Code — Inspect — Debug — Refactor

CIDR Beta (a.k.a. Early Access Program) will be announced soon. Stay tuned!

I am a big fan of Xcode. But competition and variety is always a good thing.

After many years of hard and personal work, I’m proud to present Maratis first release candidate !

Maratis is a powerful and visual game development tool designed for artists and developers. Engine has been tested on Windows, Mac and IPhone, and can be virtually used on every platform.

I really think Maratis can be useful to the open-source community, professional and student, and that it will respond to it’s primary use, creation. I am admiring for a long time the work of the Blender Fundation, and the open-source community, I’m convinced that the future of softwares (and not just software) will follow this way.

You can download Maratis binaries, source code and Blender export script at www.maratis3d.com

See you soon !

Anaël.

A very cool project.

Graphical front-end for the PVRUniSCo shader compiler allowing easy creation and editing of OpenGL ES 2.0 shading language vertex and fragment shader programs in addition to POWERVR FX (PFX) files.

PVRShaman is an integrated shader development environment allowing rapid-prototyping of new vertex and fragment shader programs. PVRShaman brings together geometry exported using PVRGeoPOD (or converted using Collada2POD), textures compressed using PVRTexTool and on-the-fly editing of Shader programs with editing functionality on the same level as the PVRUniSCo Editor. Projects are saved as POWERVR FX files allowing easy integration with your code base.

For the longest time I have been optimising my own OpenGL ES shaders using my knowledge of the underlying hardware and things that may stall or slow down the pipeline. It is not very clear on Imagination Technologies’ site that these tools are now available as OS X utilities that run in X11. All you need to do is download the folder of the app, rather than the .exe, and then “chmod +x” the relevant file for your OS (Linux or OS X).

PVRUniSCo is particularly useful as it gives you estimated instruction / cycle counts for shaders. Some estimates for shaders I have long thought were fairly optimal surprised me, and showed me where I had perhaps missed a trick or two.

Recommended development resources, if you haven’t already found them and had a play.

Just found this when downloading an update of OS X OpenGL Extensions viewer. It’s free and a very handy resource to have on any development device.

Epic Games will tomorrow release a new version of its Unreal Development Kit, now with support for iPhone and iPad versions of the engine.

This follows the well-received launch of Infinity Blade, the first Unreal-powered title for iOS, and which turned over at least $1.6 million in its first five days on sale.

The kit remains free to download, while Epic requires no payment for any UDK games released for free, regardless of platform.

Developers wishing to charge for their Unreal-powered iOS Apps will be required to first buy a $99 license and to provide 25 per cent of all royalties once passing $5000 in sales.

It’s a great deal. And a great engine. Available here tomorrow.

Couple that with the App Store as a sales channel and you should be all set…

Epic Games, the creator of the widely-used Unreal 3 game engine, is gearing up to release its Unreal Development Kit (UDK) for iOS, which will give iOS game developers unrestricted access to powerful 3D game development tools.

The UDK is Epic’s free version of the Unreal Engine, a powerful game engine that has been used to power such graphically intensive titles as Gears of War and Epic Citadel (pictured)—the latter of which has already been released for iOS as a demonstration of the Unreal Engine 3′s performance on the platform.

When it ships, the UDK iOS will include the same editors and code used to create a number of blockbuster games, and will be available to anyone wishing to publish games via the App Store. Toolsets of this quality generally cost developers anywhere from $500 to tens of thousands of dollars, so by releasing the UDK for free, Epic is drastically lowering the barrier of entry for iOS developers wishing to create graphically impressive games.

From MacWorld.

Should really turn things on its head in 2011.

Sony’s Networked Application Platform is a project designed to leverage the open source community to build and evolve the next generation application framework for consumer electronic devices.

The foundation upon which this project is base comes from the GNUstep community, whose origin dates back to the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT Computer Inc (now Apple Computer Inc.).  While Apple has continued to update their specification in the form of Cocoa and Mac OS X, the GNUstep branch of the tree has diverged considerably.

Interesting choice from Sony.

Primarily bug fixes. But also some multi-screen / screen size updates, and some usability enhancements that are worth checking out.

This preview introduces new features and enhancements for tabs, editor panes, and alerts. These features are designed to scale the single window interface of Xcode 4 to more effectively use available screen real estate, from the 11” MacBook Air, up to Macs equipped with multiple monitors. Please experiment with these new features to see how Xcode 4 can speed up your daily development tasks.

There is also an updated iOS GM available for iOS developers. Guesses for when iOS 4.2 is going to be out now range from between the 16th of November and the 24th. Apple have only ever said it will be out in November.

Unity Technologies is to found a new division, named Union, which will help small developers to reach new platforms and revenue streams with their Unity-based titles – and offer them an 80 per cent stake in the profits.

Headed up by general manager Brett Seyler, the new division will aim at distributing Unity titles to platforms such as set-top boxes, internet-connected TVs and mobiles, allowing smaller teams to reach into markets previously dominated by larger companies.

Sounds promising. Indies seem to have more and more options every day.

During the keynote at this year’s Unite Conference, taking place in Montreal, Canada, four initial partners were announced.

• Nokia – which has a mobile handset market share of 32 per cent
• HP Palm – with a mobile share of 5 per cent but a PC share of 30 per cent
• Splashtop – which has an installed base of instant-on operating systems on 40 million PCs
• NDS – a provider of set-top box software, with an installed base of 138 million active devices

Meanwhile, Unity also unveiled its new Asset Store, which will allow users to upload files for others to buy, with a range of files available including art assets and lighting tools. Prices can be set by the content owners, and look like ranging between $20-$150 based on content available at launch.

And finally the company revealed that Unity 3.1 was available for download on the official site now.