Autodesk, the makers of some very fine professional 3D modelling products, are finally branching out to the gaming sector, taking their expertise to new heights.

Autodesk is releasing the Stingray game engine, their answer to Unreal Engine 4, Unity and CryEngine.

　　The hope is to provide a compelling option to smaller to mid-sized companies that might not necessarily have a large programming staff and could make use of the fluid and 'easy' to use pipeline that Stingray will offer. To help facilitate that, it'll have node-based scripting tools so that the underlying coding can be a very much a smoother process.

　　Of course it'll have all of the fantastic and advanced effects that we've come to love in many different game engines, and will be usable with many different types of middleware, from their own (Scaleform) to NVIDIA's PhysX, Beast, HumanIK and many others.

　　To further help with the workflow, Stingray will be heavily integrated with Autodesk's other products, like Maya, 3DS Max and will even provide a measure of interoperability with Unity. Live Link is a multi platform testing tool that allows you to see live changes that you make to models in Maya within Stingray itself, but also on the platform they want to test it on, iPhone, Xbox One etc.

　　Stingray will be available coming August 19th on Windows. It can come with Maya LT for $30/month. It'll be have other subscription options as well, to be revealed upon release. It'll be great to see another option, especially