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Amazon has announced the release of Lumberyard Beta 1.6 which you can from the official website.
Amazon claim the release contains 337 new improvements, fixes and features but the big feature is the introduction of Twitch Metastream, a new feature designed to help developers "build games that are as fun to watch and broadcast as they are to play". Twitch integration is a big part of Lumberyards USP, as Amazon owns both Lumberyard and Twitch.
Twitch integration is nothing new, but Metastream takes this further, allowing streamers customise streams with overlays, statistics and events from their game session. Amazon claim that using any web authoring tool, such as Dreamweaver or CoffeeCup, streamers can create custom HTML5 pages to control the information, graphics, layout and behaviour of the different overlays. This is a big step, and will help streamers trying to do runs built around certain statistics or even players and organisations looking to capitalise on the eSports potential of any game built within Lumberyard.
In an example from the blog post, Amazon highlight how a streamer can create an overlay that shows stats from the two leaders in the match with Metastream highlighting the leaders highest stat areas like gold collected, kills and deaths or damage dealt. This Metastream feature only appears on the stream too, leaving the streamers own view free of any clutter.
The Metastream overlay you see above is completely customizable, and streamers can use OBS, XSplit, or other software, to switch back and forth between different graphic overlays timed to game events, or on the fly with a simple hotkey. Metastream content only appears on the broadcast, so the streamer’s own view is that of the original game, without the additional broadcast graphics.
You can read the entire blog here, which contains a lot more information on how Metastream will work for individual streamers and development, but for now it looks like Lumberyard is going to be the go-to engine for those looking to build solid streaming integration directly into their game.
