Bitsquid

Last updated

Autodesk Stingray, formerly known as Bitsquid, is a discontinued 3D game engine with support for Linux, Windows, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox 360, Android and iOS. It uses the Lua scripting language. [1]

Contents

Bitsquid
Developer(s)
  • Bitsquid
Written in C++, Lua
Platform Linux, Windows, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox 360, Android, iOS
License Proprietary

History

Bitsquid

Bitsquid AB, the company that created the Bitsquid game engine, was founded in 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden, Niklas Frykholm and Tobias Persson, two engineers who had previously worked at game studio Grin, and by the owners of game developer Fatshark. [2] [3]

The game engine was built to be flexible and scalable, with support for visual scripting, Lua, and C++ for advanced users. [4] The use of Lua allowed Bitsquid to be smaller and lighter than other game engines thanks to its lean code base. [1] [5]

In April 2010, Bitsquid and Fatshark released a demo highlighting the Bitsquid engine's capabilities. Support for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 was made available that fall. [6] In 2011, Fatshark released Hamilton's Great Adventure, the first game to run on Bitsquid. [4] In 2013, Bitsquid was made available for development in PlayStation 4 games. [5]

Bitsquid was acquired by Autodesk in June 2014. [7] [8] The money from the sale helped Fatshark develop Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide , the studio's first self-published AAA game. [9] Frykholm and Persson went on to develop a short-lived "modular" game engine called The Machinery. [10]

Autodesk Stingray

In 2015, Bitsquid was retooled into Autodesk Stingray, which integrated with the company's game development toolchain, including 3ds Max, Maya, Mudbox, and Maya LT. [11] [12] Autodesk hoped to compete with other low-cost-to-enter game engines like Unreal Engine, Unity, and CryEngine. Stingray was offered on a monthly subscription basis and even packaged with some of the company's other offerings. [13]

In June 2017, Autodesk introduced Stingray as a 3ds Max plugin called 3ds Max Interactive. This feature allowed 3ds Max users to create virtual reality experiences. [14] In December 2017, citing its inability to compete with Unreal Engine and Unity, Autodesk announced Stingray's end of sale and development as a standalone product, effective as of January 7, 2018. [15] [16] 3DS Max Interactive was discontinued on March 30, 2022. [17]

On February 8, 2024, Arrowhead Game Studios released Helldivers 2 , a third-person co-op shooter built in Stingray, six years after official support ended. [18] CEO Johan Pilestedt confirmed that the game had entered production before the shutdown in 2018. [3]

Games using Bitsquid and Stingray

Bitsquid and Stingray were primarily used by Sweden-based developers, such as Fatshark and Arrowhead Game Studios. [3] [18] Each have used the engine in a number of their games. Games built with the engine include: [19] [20]

TitleRelease DateDeveloper(s)
A Game of Dwarves 2012-10-23Zeal Game Studio
Bloodsports.TV 2015-03-30Fatshark,

Toadman Interactive

Cobalt 2016-02-02Oxeye Game Studio
Dreadlands2020-03-10Blackfox Studios AB
Escape Dead Island 2014-11-18Fatshark
Hamilton's Great Adventure 2011-05-31Fatshark
Immortal: Unchained 2018-09-07Toadman Interactive
#KILLALLZOMBIES2014-10-28 Beatshapers
Krater 2012-06-12Fatshark
Gauntlet 2014-09-23Arrowhead Game Studios
Helldivers 2015-03-03Arrowhead Game Studios
Helldivers 2 [3] 2024-02-08Arrowhead Game Studios
Magicka: Wizard Wars 2014-05-27Paradox North AB
Magicka 2 2015-05-26Pieces Interactive
The Showdown Effect 2013-03-05Arrowhead Game Studios,

Pixeldiet Entertainment

War of the Vikings 2014-04-15Fatshark
War of the Roses 2012-10-02Fatshark
Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide [4] 2015-10-23Fatshark
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 2018-03-08Fatshark
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide 2022-11-30Fatshark

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autodesk Maya</span> 3D computer graphics software

Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya, is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interactive 3D applications, animated films, TV series, and visual effects.

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has offices worldwide. Its U.S. offices are located in the states of California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its Canada offices are located in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities and a flexible plugin architecture and must be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is frequently used by video game developers, many TV commercial studios, and architectural visualization studios. It is also used for movie effects and movie pre-visualization. 3ds Max features shaders, dynamic simulation, particle systems, radiosity, normal map creation and rendering, global illumination, a customizable user interface, and its own scripting language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gmax</span>

Gmax is an application based on Autodesk's 3ds Max application used by professional computer graphics artists. 3ds Max is a comprehensive modeling, animation and rendering package with some secondary post-production and compositing features. Gmax is much more limited due to its singular intended use—game content creation. Infrequently used tools and features, or the ones completely unrelated to creating 3D game models, were removed, leaving the core modeling, texturing, and basic animation rigging and keyframing capabilities. In 2005, the promotional freeware software was discontinued after version 1.2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Havok (software)</span> Video game middleware

Havok is a middleware software suite developed by the Irish company Havok. Havok provides physics engine, navigation, and cloth simulation components that can be integrated into video game engines.

Autodesk Media and Entertainment is a division of Autodesk which offers animation and visual effects products, and was formed by the combination of multiple acquisitions. In 2018, the company began operating as a single operating segment and reporting unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bink Video</span> Proprietary video format

Bink Video is a proprietary file format for video developed by Epic Games Tools, a part of Epic Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PhysX</span> Realtime physics engine software

PhysX is an open-source realtime physics engine middleware SDK developed by Nvidia as a part of Nvidia GameWorks software suite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">V-Ray</span> Computer-generated imagery rendering software app

V-Ray is a biased computer-generated imagery rendering software application developed by Bulgarian software company Chaos. V-Ray is a commercial plug-in for third-party 3D computer graphics software applications and is used for visualizations and computer graphics in industries such as media, entertainment, film and video game production, industrial design, product design and architecture.

SpeedTree is a group of vegetation programming and modeling software products developed and sold by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV) that generates virtual foliage for animations, architecture and in real time for video games and demanding real time simulations.

Unreal Engine 2 (UE2) is the second version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. Unreal Engine 2 transitioned the engine from software rendering to hardware rendering and brought support for multiple platforms like the PS2. The first game using UE2 was released in 2002 and its last update was shipped in 2005. It was succeeded by Unreal Engine 3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unity (game engine)</span> Cross-platform video game and simulation engine

Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console, augmented reality, and virtual reality platforms. It is particularly popular for iOS and Android mobile game development, is considered easy to use for beginner developers, and is popular for indie game development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grin (company)</span> Swedish video game developer

Grin AB was a video game developer based in Stockholm, Sweden. Founded by Bo and Ulf Andersson in 1997, Grin worked on numerous titles for the PC, consoles and arcade. Grin filed for bankruptcy and became defunct on August 12, 2009, and its founders went on to create Overkill Software.

Simplygon is 3D computer graphics software for automatic 3D optimization, based on proprietary methods for creating levels of detail (LODs) through Polygon mesh reduction and other optimization techniques.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scaleform GFx</span> Discontinued game development middleware package

Scaleform GFx is a discontinued game development middleware package, a vector graphics rendering engine used to display Adobe Flash-based user interfaces and HUDs for video games. In March 2011, Autodesk acquired Scaleform Corporation and Scaleform GFx became part of the Autodesk Gameware line of middleware. On July 12, 2018, Autodesk discontinued Scaleform GFx, and it is no longer available for purchase.

<i>Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide</i> 2015 video game

Warhammer: The End Times – Vermintide is a 2015 cooperative survival video game developed and published by Fatshark. The game is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. The game is multiplayer-only, and its structure is similar to Valve's Left 4 Dead series. Set during an apocalyptic event called the End Times, players can team up with three other players to fight against the Skaven, a race of rodent-like creatures, in the city of Ubersreik. At the end of each match, the players are given the opportunity to roll dice, which determine the weapons they will receive as reward.

<i>Warhammer: Vermintide 2</i> 2018 video game

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is a first-person action video game developed and published by Fatshark. It is the sequel to 2015's Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide. Vermintide 2 was released for Windows on 8 March 2018. It was released for Xbox One on 11 July 2018, free for members of the Xbox Game Pass. It was released for the PlayStation 4 on 18 December 2018. It also released for Xbox Series X/S on 3 December 2020. A spiritual successor, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, was released in 2022.

<i>Warhammer 40,000: Darktide</i> 2022 video game

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a first-person action video game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, developed and published by Fatshark. It is a spiritual successor to the Warhammer: Vermintide series. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 30 November 2022. It also was released for Xbox Series X/S on 4 October 2023.

<i>Helldivers 2</i> 2024 video game

Helldivers 2 is a 2024 cooperative third-person shooter game developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is the direct sequel to Helldivers, a 2015 top-down shooter. It was released for PlayStation 5 and Windows on 8 February 2024.

References

  1. 1 2 Niklas (2013-02-19). "bitsquid: development blog: Why Lua?". bitsquid. Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  2. James Pember (May 9, 2013). "Bitsquid: a high-end game engine focusing on performance, flexibility and productivity". Swedish Startup Space. Archived from the original on April 1, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Park, Morgan (2024-02-21). "Helldivers 2 was built on an obscure Swedish engine discontinued in 2018: 'Our crazy engineers had to do everything with no support'". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  4. 1 2 3 Wahlund, Mark (2015-08-20). "Building Warhammer Vermintide with Stingray". 80.lv. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  5. 1 2 Falcon, Jonah A. (13 March 2013). "Bitsquid bringing its proprietary game engine to PlayStation 4". Gamewatcher.
  6. "Stone Giant". GamesIndustry.biz. 2010-04-22. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  7. "Autodesk Acquires Bitsquid". Autodesk, Inc. June 9, 2014. Archived from the original on June 12, 2014.
  8. Rachel Weber (9 June 2014). "Autodesk acquires Bitsquid and its engine". Gamesindustry.Biz.
  9. "Meet Fatshark". Fatshark. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  10. Takahashi, Dean (2021-07-07). "Our Machinery launches hackable lightweight game engine". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  11. "Autodesk Launches Stingray Game Engine at GDC Europe 2015". Autodesk. August 3, 2015.
  12. Stephen Kleckner (3 August 2015). "Autodesk's Stingray may be a big threat to Unity and Unreal in the game-engine wars". VentureBeat .
  13. Steve Dent (15 August 2015). "Autodesk targets small studios with its Stingray game engine". Engaget .
  14. Dubey, Parul (June 12, 2017). "Autodesk 3ds Max 2018.1 Now Includes 3ds Max Interactive, a Real-Time Engine Based on Autodesk Stingray". Informed Infrastructure. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  15. "Changes to Autodesk Stingray FAQ | Stingray | Autodesk Knowledge Network". knowledge.autodesk.com. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  16. McAloon, Alissa (December 14, 2017). "Autodesk is discontinuing its Stingray game dev engine". www.gamedeveloper.com. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  17. "Is 3ds Max Interactive available for 3ds Max 2022 and above?". knowledge.autodesk.com.
  18. 1 2 McKenzie, Theodore (2024-02-21). "Helldivers II Was Built on an Archaic Engine That You Can't Access". 80.lv. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  19. "3D Engine: Bitsquid". MobyGames. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  20. "3D Engine: Stingray". MobyGames. Retrieved 2024-03-19.