Omegame releases Omegame Menus Master 2.1, a major upgrade of the only video game User Interface (UI) authoring toolchain.
Paris, France, May 9th 2006: Omegame today
announced that the latest version of Omegame Menus Master,
the only video game User Interface (UI) authoring toolchain,
has been released.
Omegame Menus Master 2.1 was first unveiled at GDC 2006 and
received a very enthusiastic feedback from visitors
desperately looking for an ultimate solution to get rid of
the game UI authoring issues.
Omegame Menus Master helps artists and programmers to
dramatically reduce the time it takes to author any
sophisticated game User Interfaces: 2D and 3D front-ends,
in-game UIs and head-up displays (HUD). The game User
Interface can be fully authored by artists, without any need
for programmer's assistance. Programmers only involve when
the User Interface has to be integrated into the game, a
child's play for any video game programmer.
Omegame Menus Master 2.1 represents a major step forward for
developers. This major update includes performance
enhancements, ergonomic optimization and long awaited new
features, making Omegame Menus Master the ultimate video game
User Interface authoring toolchain:
- Brand new keyframer: Inspired from the industry leading animation solutions, delivered with a precision curves editor.
- Totally revamped scene creation system: now several scenes can be played at the same time, in the same page.
- New carousel creation tool: Omegame Menus Master dramatically speeds up the creation of carousel, a common need for game user interface, thanks to a new unique carousel creation tool.
- Improved Resources Library: Resources can now be dragged & dropped directly from the Windows Explorer into Menus Master Studio's resources library.
- New template system: Pages can be imported and exported between projects.
- HLSL DirectX 9 support: Omegame Menus Master now supports pixel & vertex Shaders.
- Render Target support: Omegame Menus Master unleashes artist's creativity by allowing them to apply 2D or 3D menus on 3D objects.
- New peripherals support: Microsoft Xbox 360 PC compatible controller and webcam (like Sony EyeToy) are now supported by Omegame Menus Master.
Unlike other solutions, Menus Master is a complete toolchain, dedicated before everything to video games. It allows a quick and easy creation of game UI, from concept to its integration into the game.
Omegame Menus Master is a mature product; it has initially been developed as an internal tool at the French video games studio Delphine Software International, by video game industry veterans, with more than 10 years experience in games development and game UI creation. Omegame Menus Master has been used to author game UIs of AAA games that sold several million units worldwide.
Thousands of game User Interfaces have been analysed in order to determine the best set of tools necessary to ease the work of artists in authoring AAA game User Interfaces, and the best way to ease the work of programmers integrating the game User Interface into the game.
Omegame Menus Master key features:
- No Creativity constraints: Omegame Menus Master supports any kind of resources needed to create AAA game UIs: Texts, bitmaps, 3D meshes, animations, videos, sounds etc. Resources are sorted and managed by type, and can be placed in folders for a better ordering. Omegame Menus Master is provided with all necessary tools to properly handle these resources: layer, rulers, snapping, resizing, rotation, constraints, etc.
- Easy Localization: Omegame Menus Master deals with all localization issues: Developers can create a game UI with several languages, including languages with Unicode characters; the game UI can be switched to any language at any time to appraise the text layout on the screen.
- Open Architecture: Omegame Menus Master has a fully open architecture, based on drivers. Any kind of custom technology or 3rd-party middleware can be used with Omegame Menus Master.
- Real-time WYSIWYG: Omegame Menus Master allows a real time preview of the game UI, at any time. Moreover, the drivers-based architecture of Omegame Menus Master also allows to use any homemade technology or 3rd-party middleware within Omegame Menus Master Studio. Artists can author and preview complex game UIs exactly as they will be into the game, saving countless hours of development and reducing the risk and cost of game development.
- Parallel authoring: Omegame Menus Master allows to create, from one game UI, several others game UIs for different platforms. Each game UI can have its own dedicated resources and parameters, i.e. a next-gen version of the game UI can have higher resolution textures than the current generation game UI. Menus Master Data Generator is batchable with the game production pipeline. Game UI made with Menus Master Studio can consequently be smoothly integrated into the game.
- Programmer friendly: Omegame Menus Master avoids fragmentation memory problems; data in the memory is used where it is allocated; no additional memory allocation is needed. UI Data is released with one sole memory release. All external resource files keep their in-game format; they don't have to be modified to be used by Omegame Menus Master. Game UI can be fragmented, several game UI data can be stored together in memory; they can be used at will, possibly at the same time.
- And much more
For more information, please contact contact@omegame.com or visit the Omegame's website
at http://www.omegame.com.