Blips Blog

Rig Creator - A free Blender add-on for creating character rigs

Rig Creator is a new Blender add-on developed by Edward Ureña, a 3D digital artist and illustrator. The add-on is currently in beta and is designed for creating rigs for various characters, including facial rigs. It provides a base rig that allows users to position bones to match a character's body, with the add-on automatically applying the necessary weights. The latest update introduced several additional features, including Bone Generators with default options such as Deformation Generator, Forward Kinematics (FK), Fingers, and Inverse Kinematics (IK). Another addition was a list-based Constraint Panel, which provides a more intuitive and efficient way to manage constraints.

Published: 22. Jul. 2024

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Zed code editor now available on Linux

Zed is a relatively new entry in the code editor space, designed as a high-performance text editor written in the Rust programming language. It is made by the creators of Atom, Tree-sitter, and the Electron software platform. Zed is an open source project created as an alternative to existing code editors like Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text. One of its major selling points is its performance, enabling developers to launch the editor instantly, load files quickly, and receive immediate responses to keystrokes. According to the developers, this performance is achieved by leveraging every CPU core using Rust's unique features and by utilizing Zed's own GPUI framework. This framework renders the entire window on the GPU, similarly to how graphics are processed in a 3D video game.

Published: 15. Jul. 2024

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The Bevy game engine has received a major update

Bevy has recently been updated to version 0.14. For those unfamiliar, this free and open-source data-driven game engine is currently one of the best options for game development using the Rust programming language. While it lacks a visual editor and functions more as a game framework, its design can benefit developers who prefer a code-driven approach and seek greater control, performance, and customization for their projects. With its comprehensive and constantly expanding feature set, Bevy is helping Rust become an increasingly viable option for game development.

Published: 8. Jul. 2024

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Rizom UV 2024 Released - The Most Significant Update in Years

Rizom-Lab has released RizomUV 2024, calling it the biggest upgrade since 2018. RizomUV is a comprehensive UV mapping application designed to integrate seamlessly with 3D content creation tools like Blender and Maya. It offers a fast workflow, significantly reducing the time typically spent on UV mapping in other applications. The latest update introduces a range of innovative features designed to enhance the user experience and streamline the UV mapping process. One of the standout features is the improved user interface (UI), which now supports HDPI with variable DPI on all platforms, ensuring sharp UI elements. The update also includes full UI scaling and zoom, allowing users to customize their workspace to their preference.

Published: 1. Jul. 2024

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GDevelop 5.4 released with support for multiplayer games

GDevelop, the user-friendly "no-code" game engine, has recently been updated to version 5.4. This update introduces significant new features, one of which is the support for real-time multiplayer games. Designed for ease of use, the new multiplayer functionality offers premade lobbies with UIs that support two to eight players. GDevelop multiplayer is built to scale from zero to thousands of concurrent users. It automatically synchronizes players and game state, including game objects, variables, visual effects, and more. Additionally, it provides out-of-the-box client-side prediction for game logic and object behaviors.

Published: 24. Jun. 2024

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Curve Architect - A new versatile deformation tool for Unity

Curve Architect is a new, general-purpose deformation tool for the Unity game engine. Developed by Mikael Danielsson, a Level Designer and Software Engineer, this utility allows users to deform meshes and Unity terrains, providing functionality to manipulate deformations along the tool's created curves. Additionally, users can animate objects and deformations along these curves using Unity's built-in animation system. Curve Architect has been used in the development of Touch Grind X, an upcoming extreme sports game by Illusion Labs. The tool is suitable for various purposes, including the creation of roads, forest paths, rivers, train tracks, ropes, and more.

Published: 17. Jun. 2024

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Reallusion launches Character Creator integration with Unreal Engine

Reallusion has released the CC UE Control Rig, a free plugin for Character Creator (CC) users. This plugin speeds up production by enabling users to animate custom characters directly within Unreal Engine. It uses the MetaHuman Control Rig, familiar to Unreal Engine users, to handle full-body movement and facial expressions. Reallusion has stated that despite the recent introduction of UE Modular Control Rig in Unreal Engine 5.4 and advancements in MetaHuman animation, preparing fully customized or original IP characters for animation in Unreal Engine remains challenging.

Published: 10. Jun. 2024

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Defold gains support for the Teal programming language

The Defold game engine has recently received an update, adding support for the Teal programming language. Teal is a typed dialect of Lua, which is the default scripting language in Defold. Similar to how TypeScript benefits JavaScript developers, Teal helps improve the code quality and reliability of Lua. This addition is part of the new initial support for Lua transpilers in the build pipeline. Currently, this support is limited to transpilation and does not include automatic extern generation for Defold's Lua APIs. Consequently, it is better suited for writing type-safe standalone logic rather than interacting directly with the Defold runtime. Nevertheless, Teal does provide the option to manually write the necessary externs.

Published: 3. Jun. 2024

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PureRef 2.0 - An updated reference image tool for artists

PureRef is a stand-alone software designed to help creatives organize a collection of images in a visual way. Users can freely place and scale images, allowing them to create mood boards or set up reference images for tasks such as painting, 3D modeling, and more. The application features a drag-and-drop system, where images can be imported from various sources, including the host file system and web browsers. Additional features include the ability to write quick notes, toggle image desaturation, and arrange or align images.

Published: 27. May. 2024

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Deep Paint - A new blender add-on for stylized 3D illustrations

Deep Paint is a new Blender add-on created by visual artist Gaku Tada. This add-on provides a user-friendly set of tools that allow users to easily model and paint in 3D, enabling them to create hand-drawn 3D illustrations similar to those made by the artist himself. Deep Paint is designed to expand the capabilities of Blender's Grease Pencil by adding features like "GP to Mesh," which instantly converts Grease Pencil strokes into 3D meshes, including brush strokes, curves, and mesh lines.

Published: 20. May. 2024

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Visual Studio Code has received a new update (1.89)

Visual Studio Code, the popular text editor from Microsoft, has received a new update titled the April 2024 release (version 1.89). The update introduces several workflow improvements and gives developers more control over their projects. One notable addition in this release is the local workspace extensions, which allow users to restrict extension installation and usage to a particular project. This feature offers an alternative to the existing global extensions and was designed to meet users' specific workspace requirements.

Published: 13. May. 2024

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Unity 6 launched in preview

Unity Technologies recently announced the release of the preview version of Unity 6 (previously known as 2023.3 Tech Stream), now available for download. The Unity 6 Preview follows a structure similar to a Tech Stream release, offering developers early access to new and updated features, ideal for projects in the discovery or prototyping stages. However, for production purposes, the Unity team recommends using the Unity 2022 LTS version for greater stability and support.

Published: 6. May. 2024