TypeScript version of Turbulenz Engine now available

Type check… one, two - TypeScript support rocks Turbulenz

SDK 0.25.0 has been a long time coming, but we hope it will be a significant step in helping our developers make awesome games. This SDK includes the first public release of TypeScript versions of our libraries. With improved syntax checking and validation using TypeScript should help you streamline your development process and avoid silly bugs and runtime errors down the line. It compiles to JavaScript and works with other existing JavaScript libraries.

You don’t need to use TypeScript to use Turbulenz, but we now provide type definitions for all of our libraries, which is just one good reason to try it out!

For more information on TypeScript check out: http://www.typescriptlang.org

Features

TypeScript

The SDK now includes tslib and jslib (generated from tslib) as well as TypeScript versions of apps and samples.

This feature is in beta and we need your help to try it out! Make sure to read the detailed release notes and the TypeScript recommendations.

• Existing developers: Use the standard jslib as usual. If you have your own modifications, compare your code to the tslib version which has a similar layout to previous jslib releases. Investigate whether TypeScript would help you with your project.
• New developers: Start your project with either of tslib or jslib depending on preference. 

interesting blog article of his findings during developmentOur TypeScript guru Duncan has written an . Definitely worth a read.

Video support

The GraphicsDevice now supports the creation of video objects that can render video data as a texture. This feature can be used for cut-sequences and other media playback in the game engine. The video sample shows how this can be used in conjunction with audio to playback a video. Check graphicsDevice.isSupported to find out if the browser supports WebM or MP4 video formats.

Physics snapshots

The PhysicsManager now supports snapshots for creating and restoring snapshots of dynamic physics objects on the scene.

Ideal for resetting the state of physics simulations.

Clean-up outstanding API requests

A new destroy function has been added to the RequestHandler to help clean-up outstanding request callbacks and stop them from accessing invalid state on destruction. Make sure to add this to your existing shutdown code.

UV transformation support for the renderers

DefaultRendering, DeferredRendering and ForwardRendering now support uvTransform allowing you to rotate, scale and translate UVs. See the release notes for more details.

Updates for dae2json

dae2json, the COLLADA import tools for models, animations, materials and more has had a number of bug fixes and improvements. It has better support for various exporters from Maya/Max to Sketchup. Notable is the addition of the NvTriStrip command which is a recommended step for optimising meshes.

Fixes

• T152 - An issue where deploygame tool was unable to upload to the Hub.
• A rounding error for certain values in storeitems.yaml that caused an error on the Hub.
• Various fixes to dae2json to avoid crashing and give more warnings for incorrect/unsupported files.
• Fixed an issue where JSProfiling was unable to generate array information in the latest Chrome.

See the 0.25.0 release notes for more details.

The SDK is available to download from the developer service at hub.turbulenz.com.

Automatically play with your friends as we power-up Turbulenz

Auto connect with your friends

Looking for your friends on Turbulenz? When you sign-up to turbulenz.com using your Facebook account, you will now automatically follow all your friends on Facebook that are using Turbulenz, in return they will follow you too. So when you first sign-in, you’re more likely to have friends to chat with and invite to multiplayer games immediately. This was requested by quite a few users.

Internet Explorer even more friendly to play with

We’ve also added a few boring things (other than many bug fixes) to make it easier for games to update on non-HTML5 browsers. So expect games on the site to release updates more frequently! If you really want to know how this has changed, see the developer notes for details, or just go forth and play more games!

Tighter control of engine versions for developers

The Hub has now been updated to request specific engine versions for your projects, when testing the plugin. Previously it would try and play the latest engine you had installed, but now you can ask for engine versions in the form X.Y. This means you can be developing a game that works with 0.24 while still being able to play older games that are built with 0.23. Less switching of engines, should make it easier to go back and forth (with the added benefit you can jump between development and playing games on turbulenz.com).

There have also been updates to how leaderboards and store icons are processed on the Hub (See SDK 0.24.0 release notes for details).

Leaderboards, multiplayer, physics and debugging all bumped up in Turbulenz SDK 0.24.0

It’s a been a busy few months since we released an SDK, so 0.24.0 comes complete with some bite-sized features and everyone’s favourite: bug fixes.

We have for you a new Leaderboards sample demonstrating how to build an in-game leaderboard complete with scrolling/paging, user avatars and a sliding window. Having spent time on the multiplayer system, we’ve added a few tools and a bit of advice about developing multiplayer games. Try out the NetworkLatencySimulator and have a read of the games development tips and tricks. Always sniffing out the best way to help developers make their games as fast as possible, we’ve made a few tool changes to allow you to strip out debug code such as asserts. Leave them in for debugging, remove them for release, simple. See the new ‘debug’ object, which is now automatically removed by maketzjs. Here’s a quick summary of features and fixes.

Features

Engine loading

The new Turbulenz Loader updates should allow multiple engines to run side-by-side. This means games on turbulenz.com can be built to work with different engines. This is ready to support turning on the feature on turbulenz.com very soon.

Networking

NetworkLatencySimulator object can be used to simulate spikes in latency and help with real-world multiplayer testing.

Tools

The maketzjs tools now runs the strip-debug tool, removing specific debug code, such as asserts in release mode.

Node.js is now included in the SDK. Perfect for use with Uglify.

Physics

A new calculateTransform function has been added to RigidBody, CollisionObject and Character.

Contact callbacks have been added for interactions between RigidBody, CollisionObject and Character.

Added the concept of a ‘trigger’ CollisionObject.

Turbulenz Services

The Leaderboards sample demonstrates the best way to create in-game leaderboards.

Input

The inputDevice now has a function isSupported. This can be used to check if pointer lock is available.

Icons

The Hub now supports the automatic re-sizing of leaderboards and store icons. Provide a 256x256 icon and it will be scaled to fit the correct places on turbulenz.com.

Fixes

Corrected the standard deviation in Profile.

T1292 - Fixed crash when not specifying callback in makePublic, updated docs.

T1246 - Fixed Websockets implementation on plugin not handling fragmented messages. Corrected for Windows/Mac.

T1299 - Updated documentation for additional Mac/Linux commands

T1243 - Fixed issue where plugin hideMouse and showMouse didn’t behave as described in the docs

See the 0.24.0 release notes for more details.

The SDK is available to download from the developer service at hub.turbulenz.com.

Lock & Load: More Weapons In The Fight For Better Browser Games

Lets face it, developing for lots of different configurations can be a pain. That’s why in this release of the Turbulenz SDK we’ve added functionality to make it easier to check the things you need and not be concerned with the things you don’t. Here are a couple of examples:

Which sound files do I need to load?

The Sound Device has built in checking for supported file formats. It can tell you what a browser supports, saving you from loading megabytes of the wrong file type.

How do I check what version of Turbulenz a user has?

In short, you don’t need to. The new Turbulenz loader takes away the hassle of checking which version a user is running. You request the version of the engine you need and if the user has it, the loader will run it. When on turbulenz.com the site is aware of what the user’s configuration supports and can direct them to the most compatible version of your game. You don’t need to do anything apart from provide the game builds. Cool, huh?

Read More

Multi-player, Multi-configuration, Multi-ple choices!

This release of the Turbulenz SDK is all about multiplying the possibilities. We’ve spent some time making it easier to develop for different target configurations simultaneously. Using the new makehtml and maketzjs tools you can write code once, create a canvas and a plugin compatible version of your game at the same time.

Now that you can target multiple configurations, why not add multiple players? We’ve introduced a new multi-player match making service. When integrated into your game it automatically pairs players with their friends ensuring that you’re not playing alone when you could be playing together.

There’s a new place for the full set of release notes.

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Robust input, robust loading and robust profiling

Are you interested in a more flexible method of detected user input? If so, then this release of the Turbulenz SDK is for you. We’ve added additional callbacks and input state detection, so now you can tell if a user has clicked on your game and when they navigate to a different window. We’ve also bundled a robust request handler that deals with lost internet connections. Lose a connection, stay in the game!

The full release notes are available on Github - you need access to the Turbulenz SDK repository to read these. Get in touch if you want early access.

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Turbulenz SDK 0.17.0 now available

Have you been working on a HTML5 game using canvas? Turbulenz SDK 0.17.0 introduces canvas support, providing the first step in bringing your game to the Turbulenz platform, not to mention making it playable on browsers that lack canvas compatibility. In this SDK we’ve also revamped our input support providing a system of mapping keys that works for Windows/Mac and across different keyboard configurations.

The full release notes are available on Github - you need access to the Turbulenz SDK repository to read these. Get in touch if you want early access.

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Turbulenz SDK 0.16.0 now available

Stop the press! This release of the Turbulenz SDK 0.16.0 comes with a special feature that we at Turbulenz are proud to make available to users and developers.

Introducing Apple Mac OS X support for the Turbulenz Engine. Now you can access the Turbulenz game site and other services using your Mac. We’ve been working towards a goal of ensuring a great user experience on each of our supported platforms, so we hope you enjoy it.

The full release notes are available on Github - you need access to the Turbulenz SDK repository to read these. Get in touch if you want early access.

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Turbulenz SDK 0.15.0 now available

A new version of the Turbulenz SDK is now available!

The Turbulenz Team has been busy in the lab cooking up some new features and we’re excited about what the Turbulenz SDK 0.15.0 brings for our developers! This release introduces new Turbulenz Services: ‘Leaderboards’, ‘Badges’ and ‘User Profiles’ to developers. With added support for Firefox 4/5 and Internet Explorer 9, speed improvements and WebGL support, there’s a lot crammed in there, so read on to find out more.

The full release notes are available on Github

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Turbulenz SDK 0.14.0 now available

The next version of the Turbulenz SDK is ready.

In this release, we bring you a range of new samples to aid your development with Turbulenz technology.

We have also included improved graphics support:

• Closer alignment with OpenGL ES 2.0
• Compatibility with older graphics chipsets and graphics drivers with known OpenGL implementation issues

The full release notes are available on Github - make sure you’re signed in to see them.

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Turbulenz SDK 0.13.0 now available

A new version of the Turbulenz SDK is now available! 

In this release, we’ve added another Turbulenz Service API and improved the Turbulenz Engine installer to be as easy as possible.

The full release notes are available on Github - make sure you’re signed in to see them.

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