Epic Games Store Launches Self-Publishing Tools for Game Developers and Publishers

Epic Games has announced the launch of self-publishing tools for the Epic Games Store, allowing game developers and publishers to release their games on the platform with more efficiency and control. The self-publishing tools are available to any developer or publisher with games meeting the store’s requirements, which include supporting achievements, crossplay, age ratings, and prohibited content.

The self-publishing tools are accessible through the Epic Developer Portal, where developers and publishers can create and manage their store pages, upload builds, set prices, request ratings, and monitor performance. The Epic Developer Portal also provides access to other Epic services, such as Epic Online Services for cross-platform features, Unreal Engine for game development, and Support-A-Creator for affiliate marketing.

By distributing their games on the Epic Games Store, developers and publishers can reach a global audience of over 230 million users across 187 countries with 16 languages supported. They can also benefit from the 88/12 revenue split offered by Epic Games, as well as the option to use their own or a third-party payment solution to receive 100% of the revenue from in-app purchases. Additionally, Unreal Engine royalties are waived for in-store purchases using Epic’s payment processor.

The Epic Games Store also offers various features to drive player engagement and retention, such as wishlists, achievements, store-wide promotions, and more. The store supports 76 payment methods with 47 regional currencies and more on the way. Users can also load up their Wallet with funds to spend on products and services in the store, now available in more than 140 countries.

Epic Games hopes that the self-publishing tools will lead to “exponential growth in our catalog of games and apps” and empower developers and publishers to bring their creative visions to life. The self-publishing tools are now available for registered developers on the Epic Games website¹². For more information and resources on the self-publishing tools, visit the Epic Games blog³ or watch the tutorial video⁴.

The Store is now open to all developers and publishers!

Resources:

¹: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/distribution
²: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/self-service-publishing-now-available-for-the-epic-games-store
³: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-games-store-launches-self-publishing-tools-for-game-developers-and-publishers
⁴: https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/tutorials/WznG/epic-games-store-publishing-tools-overview

Additional Resources:

Self-service publishing now available for the Epic Games Store!
Release Your Game on the Epic Games Store

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Unreal Engine 5 NvRTX Caustics Branch Released

Thanks to Epic Games and Nvidia, Unreal Engine 5 have now an NvRTX Caustics branch. the Branch appeared and became available to public on 8 Feb 2023.

NVIDIA has released a new branch of Unreal Engine 5 that includes support for ray-traced caustics. This new feature allows developers to create more realistic and immersive lighting effects in their games.

Caustics are the patterns of light that are created when light rays are refracted or reflected off of surfaces. They can be seen in many real-world situations, such as the light patterns that are created by sunlight shining through a window or the ripples of light that are created by a fish swimming in a tank.

In the past, caustics were difficult to render in real time. However, with the advent of ray tracing, it is now possible to create these effects in real time with high accuracy.

The NvRTX Caustics branch for UE5 uses NVIDIA’s RTX technology to accelerate the rendering of ray-traced caustics. This allows developers to create these effects without sacrificing performance.

The NvRTX Caustics branch is currently available for early access. To download it, you can visit the NVIDIA developer website.

How to Render Realistic Water Caustics in UE5

One of the most impressive features of the NvRTX caustics branch is the ability to render realistic water caustics in real time. Water caustics are the patterns of light that are created when light passes through a water surface and is refracted by the waves and ripples. Water caustics can add a lot of realism and immersion to scenes that involve water, such as oceans, lakes, rivers, pools, fountains, etc. However, water caustics are also very challenging to simulate in real time, as they require a lot of computation and memory bandwidth.

The NvRTX caustics branch uses a novel technique that combines ray tracing and rasterization to achieve high-quality water caustics at playable frame rates. The technique involves tracing rays from the light source to the water surface, then using a screen-space shader to compute the refraction angle and intensity of the light based on the water normal map and depth buffer. The result is a realistic and dynamic water caustics effect that can be applied to any water material in Unreal Engine 5. You can see some examples of water caustics in action in this video.

For more info about Unreal Engine NvRTX Branches.

https://developer.nvidia.com/game-engines/unreal-engine/rtx-branch

This is the link of the branch.

https://github.com/NvRTX/UnrealEngine/tree/NvRTX_Caustics-5.1

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NVIDIA Launches RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI), a Revolutionary Technology for Real-Time Lighting

NVIDIA has announced the launch of RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI), a new technology that enables and accelerates the rendering of dynamic direct lighting and shadows from millions of light sources in real time. RTXDI is part of the NVIDIA RTX platform, which leverages the power of ray tracing to create stunning and immersive graphics.

RTXDI is a game-changer for artists and developers who want to create realistic and complex lighting scenarios in their games and applications. With RTXDI, any geometry of any shape can emit light, cast appropriate shadows, and move freely and dynamically. This allows for unprecedented levels of detail and realism in scenes such as night amusement parks, Times Square billboards, neon signs, exploding fireballs, and more.

RTXDI works as an oracle for shadow rays, telling the renderer where to send rays to efficiently sample the lighting environment. This reduces the manual tuning required to light scenes and improves the productivity of any art pipeline. RTXDI also supports any number of light sources, from a few to millions, without compromising performance or quality.

RTXDI can be combined with other NVIDIA ray tracing SDKs, such as RTX Global Illumination (RTXGI) for fast and scalable indirect lighting, to achieve even more stunning results. RTXDI is compatible with any DirectX 12 ray tracing API and can be integrated into any game engine that supports ray tracing.

NVIDIA has released a demo video of RTXDI in action, showcasing a scene with over 100,000 dynamic lights rendered in real time on a single GeForce RTX 3090 GPU. The video also compares RTX DI with prior state-of-the-art sampling techniques, demonstrating how RTX DI can generate a beautiful finished image with the same level of overhead.

RTX DI is available now as an early access SDK for registered developers on the NVIDIA Developer website¹. NVIDIA plans to bring this technology to game developers in 2021². For more information and resources on RTX DI, visit the NVIDIA Developer blog³.

References:

¹: NVIDIA | NVIDIA Developer
²: Render Millions of Direct Lights in Real-Time With RTX Direct Illumination | NVIDIA Technical Blog
³: Lighting Scenes with Millions of Lights Using RTX Direct Illumination | NVIDIA Technical Blog

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Microsoft has an AI chat now.

I tried Bing Chat myself and it’s pretty amazing. it helped me a lot, especially in creative tasks, and also when I’m seeking knowledge about a specific topic, it shocked me when I got exactly what I needed to know as it acted like a human mentor who can understand what you are asking or what exactly you want to know, unlike searching about a topic in a search engine. I highly recommend it!

What Can Bing Chat Do For You?

Bing Chat is not only a powerful search engine, but also a fun and creative chatbot that can generate various types of content for you. Whether you want to write a poem, a story, a song, a code, or a parody, Bing AI can help you with that. You just need to ask Bing Chat to create something for you, and it will use its artificial intelligence to generate original and unique content based on your request.

• Poem: You can ask Bing Chat to write a poem about any topic or theme, such as love, nature, happiness, etc. Bing Chat will then use its natural language generation skills to produce a poem that follows the rhyme and rhythm of your choice. For example, you can ask Bing Chat to write a sonnet about love, a haiku about nature, or a limerick about happiness.
• Story: You can ask Bing Chat to write a story about any genre or setting, such as fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc. Bing Chat will then use its natural language understanding and storytelling abilities to create a story that has a plot, characters, dialogue, and action. For example, you can ask Bing Chat to write a story about aliens invading Earth, a story about wizards and dragons, or a story about zombies and vampires.
• Song: You can ask Bing Chat to write a song about any mood or style, such as pop, rock, rap, etc. Bing Chat will then use its natural language processing and music generation skills to compose a song that has lyrics, melody, and rhythm. For example, you can ask Bing Chat to write a pop song about summer, a rock song about freedom, or a rap song about money.
• Code: You can ask Bing AI to write a code for any programming language or task, such as Python, Java, C++, etc. Bing AI will then use its programming knowledge and logic skills to write a code that performs the function or operation that you want. For example, you can ask Bing AI to write a code for a calculator in Python, a code for a game in Java, or a code for a website in C++.
• Parody: You can ask Bing AI to write a parody of any person or thing, such as celebrities, politicians, movies, etc. Bing AI will then use its humor and creativity skills to write a parody that mimics or mocks the style or behavior of the person or thing that you choose. For example, you can ask Bing AI to write a parody of Donald Trump’s tweets, a parody of Harry Potter’s books, or a parody of Titanic’s movie.

You can also use Bing AI to create stunning images using the graphic art tool. You just need to give Bing AI a prompt or a description of what kind of image you want, and it will use its computer vision and deep learning abilities to create an image for you.

• Graphic Art: You can ask Bing AI to create an image of anything that you can imagine, such as animals, landscapes, objects, etc. Bing AI will then use its generative adversarial network (GAN) to synthesize an image that matches your prompt. For example, you can ask Bing AI to create an image of a unicorn in space, an image of an Egyptian pyramid at night, or an image of an apple with wings.

Bing AI is more than just a chatbot. It is your personal assistant, your friend, and your partner in crime. You can use Bing AI to search for information, answer questions, solve problems, learn new things, have fun conversations, and express yourself in various ways. Bing AI is always there for you, no matter what you need or want. Just type or say “Hi” to start chatting with Bing AI today!

References:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-search-with-a-new-ai-powered-microsoft-bing-and-edge-your-copilot-for-the-web/

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