Scaleform GFx is a discontinued game development

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...

package, a

vector graphics Vector graphics are a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...

rendering engine used to display

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

-based user interfaces and HUDs for video games. In March 2011,

Autodesk 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 headquarte ...

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. Authors created user interfaces using Adobe Flash authoring tools, such as Adobe Animate (formerly Adobe Flash Professional); the resulting SWF files were used directly by the GFx libraries, providing similar functionality to the

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia ...

but optimized for use within

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

s. Scaleform GFx supported all major platforms, including game consoles, mobile and PC operating systems. Scaleform provides APIs for direct communication between Flash content and the game engine, and pre-built integrations for popular engines such as Unity,

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of ...

, and CryENGINE.Unreal Development Kit Game Design Cookbook
Packt Publishing Ltd, 22-Feb-2012UDK Game Development
Cengage Learning, 2012Beginning iOS 3D Unreal Games Development
Apress, 04-Apr-2012CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua
Packt Publishing Ltd, 22-Nov-2013Game Coding Complete
Cryengine 3 Game Development: Beginner's Guide
Packt Publishing Ltd, 21-Sep-2012 Scaleform GFx could also be licensed for use as a standalone Flash

runtime system In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile time ...

on mobile platforms, competing with

Adobe AIR Adobe AIR (also known as Adobe Integrated Runtime and codenamed Apollo) is a cross-platform runtime system currently developed by Harman International, in collaboration with Adobe Inc., for building desktop applications and mobile application ...

Features

Scaleform GFx contains several core systems, including: *a GPU-accelerated rendering engine for display objects, featuring a vector-to-triangle

tessellation A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety ...

engine with an edge anti-aliasing algorithm that uses subpixel triangles to smooth the edges *mesh rendering backends for

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...

and

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

APIs *a mesh cache to manage tessellated triangle data *a vector-graphic based

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

system that uses a single texture to dynamically cache

glyphs A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

on demand *support for all major Flash display classes including Sprite, MovieClip, TextField and Filters (Glow, Bevel, DropShadow, etc.) *optimized

ActionScript 3 ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meani ...

and ActionScript 2 virtual machines with garbage collector, as well as GFx-specific ActionScript extensions *audio support via a licensee-implementable C++ interface, with a default implementation supporting FMOD

Additional components

In addition to the engine, documentation, and samples, the Scaleform GFx SDK includes several additional components:

Separately-licensed add-ons

Scaleform also provided two optional add-ons for GFx:

Technology partners

Game engines

* Source Engine (Scaleform was used as the former UI backend for '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', prior to the game switching to Valve's in-house Panorama UI.) * Unreal Engine 3 and UDK * Crytek CryEngine 2 and CryEngine 3 * Emergent Gamebryo and LightSpeed * Sony PhyreEngine * Forgelight Engine * Infernal Engine * BigWorld * HeroEngine * Trinigy Vision Engine *Instinct Technology * LithTech * RAGE (used in the game ''

Grand Theft Auto V ''Grand Theft Auto V'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2008's ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', and ...

'' for user interface elements including the map) *RedEngine

Other middleware

* CRI Movie * FMOD *

GameSpy GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1999 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for Quake, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

* Raknet

References

External links

Scaleform's official website

Scaleform GFx
on

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

Scaleform
on

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

Flash in Games SIG
on IGDA
ScaleForm GFx
on UDK {{Autodesk products Autodesk discontinued products 3D graphics software C++ software Middleware for video games Video game development software