Stingray: Navigate your models in the Stingray game engine

By Justin Doughty 

With some spare time recently I had a chance to look at a great piece of software, Autodesk Stingray. Stingray is a comprehensive new platform for making 3D games. The engine supports a host of industry-standard game development workflows and includes powerful connectivity to Autodesk 3D animation software that simplifies game development across a wide range of platforms. More information can be found at: Autodesk Stingray Product Overview 

I was keen to explore the full potential of the Stingray game engine by using the software for alternative purposes. Being able to freely navigate around a rendered model would benefit various AEC, Infrastructure and Manufacturing industries and I thought I would give this a try. Using an FBX export from various Autodesk products, I thought I would see what was achievable without using the conventional workflow, to produce a quick game, that allows you to freely explore the model. This is in no way automatic and requires setup of materials and lighting, however once these are done, it can produce some very good results. 

Below is an example taken from one of my sample Revit buildings, this has had some basic lighting and materials configured in Stingray:

My colleague Trevor Clayton provided me with an export from Infraworks. This let me create a game that allows you to drive around the Infraworks model:

Cadline’s Gus Petrikas has also taken his Inventor model into Stingray and produced the following product visualisation:

The possibilities for industries outside of the games business are endless with Stingray, you could give a game to your client to walk/drive/fly around their building, site or product. With further work they could even start to interact with it.

We look forward to seeing what Autodesk has planned for Stingray.