At GDC Europe 2015, Autodesk has announced that their new Stingray game engine will launch worldwide on August 19th. The engine will support the Oculus Rift VR headset out of the box.

Autodesk is the maker of industry standard computer visualization tools for architecture, engineering, CGI and more, including programs like Maya and 3ds Max, software well known to the entertainment and gaming industries for modeling and animating capabilities. While it would be common to see Autodesk programs used somewhere along the game-making pipeline, assets from the software would ultimately be exported for use in a game engine like Unity or Unreal Engine.

With Stingray, Autodesk wants to reclaim that end step and provide a system for creating and publishing games using assets from their software. The pitch to game developers is of course that Stingray will provide seamless interoperability with other Autodesk programs, with “one-click workflow and live link,” according to the company.

When Stingray launches, it will support the Oculus Rift DK2 out of the box. Details on are thin, but the company lists the DK2 as one of Stingray’s platforms that will support “Deployment and Testing,” which would suggest that developers will be able to view their projects through the headset during development and publish their game in a way that’s compatible with the headset.

Other supported platforms include iOS, Android, Windows 7 & 8, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The list notably excludes Mac OSX.

Autodesk says that Stingray features modern rendering features like physically-based shading, advanced particle effects, global illumination, and screen-space effects, along with integrated systems for lightning, animation, AI navigation, UI, audio, and physics.

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Stingray will be available through the Autodesk Subscription at $30/month and later become available to those with a Maya LT Desktop Subscription. Stingray joins other major game engines like Unity, Unreal Engine 4, and CryEngine, all which feature support for the Oculus Rift.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • brandon9271

    I want to see VR supported in the creation pipeline! How cool would it be to use Lighthouse tracking to model and animate characters or to build levels? That would be so much more intuitive.

  • Curtrock

    Oculus & Valve have an opportunity, here. We need to see a VR creation tool, that works in VR. I want to make VR content IN virtual reality! Media Molecule are building something called “Dreams”, which looks to be something like a game engine that will be used on the PS4. Oculus & Valve want VR to become ubiquitous. What better way to help push VR than including VR creation tools that work within their HMD? Build VR in VR!

    • brandon9271

      Exactly! I imagine a lot of VR sandbox games to start with, things like Garry’s mod. These thing will hopefully become sophisticated enough to create completely new games with. Mo cap will, of course be accessible more affordably soon also because of things like STEM. we living in exciting times!

    • Raphael

      Imagine building that 40, 000 ton spaceship life-size on Oculus rift.