Announcing the Sky Sequencer

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Simul announces the Sky Sequencer – a new tool for technical artists, animators and programmers. The Sky Sequencer edits a track of cloud and sky keyframes, so artists can plan out a series of weather and time-of-day events. The sequence can be played back in real- or accelerated time, to show the interplay of sky, clouds, atmospherics and weather effects.

Sequencer

A complete sequence, either one-shot or as a loop, can be saved and imported into any program that incorporates Simul Weather. To try out this powerful new tool, contact Simul on enquiries@simul.co.uk.


Simul Weather article on MODSIM.ORG

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Top commercial simulation site, MODSIM.ORG has a review / product description up of Simul Weather (direct link). There’s some new video and screenshots, as well as some comparison shots of Simul’s time-of-day lighting with real photos.


QR Codes

Friday, May 14th, 2010

If you are in business, you probably have a business card. If you have a business card, you should have a QR-code on it, so people can easily scan your details. The open-source ZXing project has a neat code generator, it can be found here. Use an app like Barcode Scanner on Android or iPhone to scan the data.


Batch file tricks

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

It’s not entirely clear what the name is for Windows’ batch file language – it might be called “Command Line”, or “MS-DOS”, or Batch. But this language is one of a class called “shells”. What distinguishes a shell language from a regular scripting language is that it is considered to be a “shell” around the OS kernel, with direct access to OS services like file and directory services.

Most shells operate with a current directory context. So the Windows shell input line tells you what directory you are in. It also has an environment variable context – it inherits whatever environment variables are permanently set in Windows, then others can be added. But when you exit from the shell, environment variables usually revert to the default setting.

Any program called from the shell or from a batch file will inherit its current environment variables. This means that you can set-up multiple environments for working on different projects in (say) Visual Studio. One trick we use is to never start Visual Studio directly, but always launch it from a batch file,

VisualStudio2005.bat:

set VSDIR=%PROGRAM_FILES32%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8
call "%VSDIR%\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86
SET MASM_32_OR_64=%VSDIR%\VC\Bin\ml.exe
set INCLUDE=%DXSDK_DIR%\include;%INCLUDE%
set LIB=%DXSDK_DIR%\lib\x86;%LIB%

start "Visual Studio 2005" "%VSDIR%\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /useenv

This sets up a few env variables – the INCLUDE and LIB variables are particularly useful because this is what Visual Studio uses to determine the default include and library directories for compiling. So with this batch, we make sure that the current DirectX can be found.

Then we launch the Visual Studio IDE, using not the usual “call”, but “start”. If we used call, the batch file window would remain open, waiting for Visual Studio to quit. But “start” means “launch and forget”, so as soon as Visual Studio has been launched, the batch window will end and close – much cleaner.


Simul at the Intel GDC stand

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Head over to the Intel® stand, #1212 at the GDC 2010 Expo, from 2 till 6, to see Simul’s new tools and technology for dynamic skies and volumetric weather effects. Intel have kindly hosted Simul on their stand today, which features a selection of the best high-performance software for games, running on the latest multi-core Intel processors.


Simul at GDC / Game Connection

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Simul will be at GDC 2010 and Game Connection. Contact us at enquiries@simul.co.uk to arrange a meeting.


Spellbound chooses Simul Weather for ArcaniA – A Gothic Tale

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Real-Time Volumetric Weather Effects

ArcaniA screenshot

Simul Software Ltd has announced that Spellbound Entertainment AG, a leading independent studio based in Kehl, Germany, has chosen the Simul Weather SDK to generate real-time weather effects for the forthcoming multi-platform  fantasy action RPG ArcaniA – A Gothic Tale, to be published by JoWooD Productions Software AG.

The award-winning Simul Weather SDK allows developers to generate volumetric weather systems with clouds that grow and change in real time. The SDK works within a developer’s chosen rendering framework, offering full control of all aspects of weather rendering.

“Our Artists love the Simul Weather SDK because they have full control about the results while still having unique and non-repetitive clouds. Our programmers appreciate the low memory consumption as well as the performance.” said Andreas Speer, Studio Manager of  Spellbound, “All that made the Simul Weather SDK the tool of our choice.”

“We are delighted to be working with Spellbound,” said Dr Roderick Kennedy, Chief Executive of Simul, “and have been very impressed with the results they’ve achieved with the SDK. Simul’s aim is for middleware that’s completely painless to add to a new or existing project, and Spellbound have been instrumental in helping us achieve this.”

“ArcaniA –A Gothic Tale will be a new milestone in the history of interactive role playing games. For this reason, we dedicated ourselves to only use high-quality middleware and cutting edge techniques for ArcaniA. Our commitment to make ArcaniA an AAA game is still upright and is reflected in choosing only state-of-the-art technologies. “, says Clemens Schneidhofer, PR Coordinator at JoWooD.

About Simul

Simul Software Ltd was founded in Manchester in 2007 by games industry veterans. The Chief Executive and Technical Lead of Simul is Dr Roderick Kennedy, whose previous work includes the DID classics TFX and EF2000; and Evolution Studios’ WRC4 and WRC: Rally Evolved.

The Simul Weather SDK won the Research and Development Project Excellence Award in the British Computer Society’s IT Industry Awards 2008.

About Spellbound

Spellbound Entertainment AG is one of the leading German game developers. The company is based in Kehl and has created more than 20 games within the last 15 years. Spellbound obtained international attention with its Desperados and Airline Tycoon series that sold worldwide with great success. Spellbound is a registered developer on all established console platforms. In April they released their latest title Giana Sisters DS for Nintendo DS.

For more information, please visit: www.spellbound.de

About JoWooD

JoWooD publishes internationally competitive, high-quality entertainment software for all existing and future gaming systems. The attention is focused on the extension and the advancement of throughout the world known JoWooD game brands. JoWooD games are being distributed over a worldwide network of distribution partners.


Intel Middleware Advertorial in December’s Develop

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

We’re part of a big seven-page advertorial by Intel in this month’s Develop magazine. For more information on Simul Weather – go here.


Simul live on Intel Software Network

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Welcome to listeners from Intel Software Network – the Simul Weather video can be found here!


DarkCLOUDS videos

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

Here are some videos from DarkCLOUDS, our plug-in for DarkBASIC Professional.