The UNIGINE developers are working to bring even more features and improvements

Jun 5, 2014 11:47 GMT  ·  By

UNIGINE, a real-time 3D engine built to run on all major platforms, including Linux, has just received a massive update and the developers have again added a lot of new features.

The UNIGINE Engine is built by Unigine Corp., the company behind the Heaven DX11 Benchmark software. The technology they develop is getting better all the time and the updates for the engine always bring numerous improvements.

Despite the fact that UNIGINE is a very powerful solution for game development, there aren't too many titles out there that are powered by this technology. The most famous of them, besides the benchmark, is Oil Rush. There are a few other titles that are scheduled for a release, but there's nothing major on the horizon.

One of the most interesting new features that have been implemented in the engine is the City import plugin, which should allow game developers to create large settlements.

“City Import is a new handy tool designed for easy and highly optimized management of huge amounts of objects. It allows baking groups of nodes into clusters/decals/meshes in respect with special auxiliary geometry and automatically place them in the scene on their correct positions. The tool primarily serves for convenient and effective creation of large populated area,” said the UNIGINE makers.

According to the changelog, a text-align parameter has been added to the WidgetLabel class, an engine.gui.hasTranslation() function has been implemented, a WIDGET_DIALOG variable has been added to the Widget class, a new srgb flag has been added to the materials parameters element, the conversion into the sRGB color mode is now working correctly, a run_threads() system function is now available, and a memory() string function has been added as well.

Also, double click support has been implemented into the AppQt samples, support has been added for game path and game level parameters specification in the configuration file, a new field type called mask has been added, and much more.

The developers plan to bring even more features, like better terrain, improved antialising, a revamped UnigineEditor, a new SDK browser, a city traffic simulation system, a store for engine plugins and content assets, and rendering performance optimizations, just to name a few.

A complete list of new features for all the platforms is available in the official announcement.

Keep in mind that the UNIGINE graphics engine is only aimed at commercial enterprises and that not even a trial version is available for the general public.