SunBurn - Latest Updates, Examples, and More

Over the past couple of weeks we've released awesome new SunBurn updates, including performance enhancements, an updated instancing example, tutorials on ambient occlusion mapping, and sneak-peeks at some of the future examples we're working on.

Ambient Occlusion Mapping Tutorial

Our lead artist, Alex "Turbosmooth Operator", posted an excellent article on applying high quality ambient occlusion mapping to SunBurn scenes.

Alex’s technique uses tools available to all XNA developers (including XSI ModTool), and can be applied to most other tools and modeling applications, as well as used for light mapping and grunge mapping in SunBurn.

Alex also talked a little about future examples we're working on, and how SunBurn's material and shader support allows you to use a few very small textures to provide incredible amounts of scene detail.

SunBurn 1.2.4

Along with the usual features and updates, SunBurn 1.2.4 also includes enhancements that boost performance considerably in cpu limited scenes. These enhancements make a significant difference on the Xbox, where the cpu often limits rendering.

To see some real-world examples of how these enhancements improve performance, check out Ultrahead's SunBurn articles on “Do as I say, not as I do...”.

Instancing Example Update

We've also updated the SunBurn Instancing example. The example is now a complete instancing solution showing how to quickly and easily instance XNA models and custom objects.

And like all of SunBurn’s examples, it includes complete source code and assets, so you can modify and enhance the code to fit your project's needs.

And More

These updates join our ever-growing library of resources, which include full source code and assets to use in your projects.

Other resources include:

Reflection / Refraction Example - shows how to quickly and easily create reflection and refraction effects using SunBurn’s helper classes, and combine these effects with the built-in renderer.

Power Station Example – shows how we created the Power Station demo for GameFest 2008, as well as how to use custom materials, shaders, and rendering with SunBurn.

HDR Example – shows how to use SunBurn's built-in post-processing and high dynamic range (HDR) lighting and rendering.

Skinned Model Example – based on the original XNA Skinned Model example, shows how to use skinned models with SunBurn, and how to integrate SunBurn into custom content processors.

WinForms Example - based on the XNA WinForms Content Loader example, shows how to integrate SunBurn into WinForm applications with full support for lighting, shadows, HDR, and more.

And other great examples, as well as SunBurn Documentation, API docs, Community Created Resources, and more!

Check it out Now!

If you’re a SunBurn developer head over to the Downloads section and check out the latest updates and examples.

And if you’re not, what are you waiting for? Become a SunBurn developer today!

-John Kabus

SunBurn Joins Microsoft XNA Partner Program

It feels good to say it:

Synapse Gaming is proud to announce we are joining the Microsoft XNA Game Studio Partner Program, giving us the opportunity to work even more closely with the XNA Community.

Along with helping to support and grow the XNA Community, we are kick-starting the next level of XNA game development by offering special pricing on our SunBurn Engine to XNA Creator Club Premium members.

While we transitioned into the new role a few weeks ago, much of that time was spent settling in, and meeting new XNA team members, community members, and MVPs.

I’ve only recently had the opportunity to sit back and enjoy our hard work. Being recognized by such a large company and talented team is awesome.

What’s also awesome is seeing the amazing new SunBurn games under development. Indie Games are about to get a lot more interesting - and with access to self-publishing on Xbox, a lot more visible.


About the SunBurn Engine

The SunBurn Engine equips indie and professional game developers with the latest in lighting and rendering technology. As a natural extension of the XNA framework, SunBurn's architecture is clean, familiar, easy to use, and flexible.



Designed with both individual and team environments in mind, SunBurn offers a suite of in-game tools, flexible workflow, and support for all major modeling and asset creation applications.

With full support for both Windows and Xbox 360 - and the ability to run games on your retail Xbox 360 - SunBurn lets you build AAA quality console games without expensive dev-kits, licensing, and software.



Come join our creative, engaging and friendly development community!

SunBurn: a great launch, videos, and more

Wow – it's already been three weeks since we launched SunBurn, where did the time go? ... into cool new updates and videos, that's where!

The past two weeks were amazing – the launch went very well, SunBurn is doing excellent, the community is growing, and we received great feedback from the community on how to make buying SunBurn even easier.

SunBurn Videos

We received a lot of requests from people interested in SunBurn, and one of the biggest was videos showing SunBurn in action. We planned to roll out SunBurn videos when things settled down, but with people already interested in seeing more, we decided to put together a few of the videos early.

So far we've posted three videos (which we'll add to the SunBurn screenshot page soon) featuring SunBurn examples, and scenes from our screenshots section:

Power Station Demo (demo source code and assets available with SunBurn Pro or higher)

High-poly Face (captured from the SunBurn Editor view-port)

SunBurn Upgrades

Another big request was upgrades between the SunBurn editions. We considered upgrades many times, but never really nailed down the best way to provide them.

Thanks to the excellent feedback from both licensees and people evaluating SunBurn, we put together a really simple and yet flexible upgrade path – and you can now upgrade between SunBurn Pro, Community, and Studio editions during checkout (please see the product pages for details).

Thanks for Your Feedback!

Again it's been an awesome week, and we're really impressed with the feedback we got from everyone – it's already making a great impact on our community. We're looking forward to hearing more of your feedback in the future – thanks!

-John Kabus

SunBurn Ready to Launch!

With over two years of research and development and a year of focused peer feedback, SunBurn – Synapse Gaming's latest generation of lighting and rendering technology – is getting ready to launch.


What's SunBurn?

SunBurn is a feature-rich and flexible lighting and rendering engine that enhances the look and visual style of practically any game or product using XNA Game Studio, making it standout to potential customers, publishers, and funders.





Built on top of Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, SunBurn is a natural evolution of the framework. It offers the same flexibility, ease-of-use, rapid-development, and with full support for XNA Game Studio and its powerful content pipeline.


Enhance XNA

It's no secret that we're impressed with XNA Game Studio – it's an excellent framework for rapidly prototyping and completing practically any type of game. And XNA offers console self-publishing on Xbox 360 in addition to Windows publishing – which is unheard of, and a massive opportunity for all game developers.

But as a game framework XNA only provides the rendering basics. SunBurn extends the XNA framework by providing a powerful lighting and rendering engine out of the box, the tools and components to customize or write your own rendering systems, and a suite of editors that offer real-time in-game editing.





Some of SunBurn's features include 100% dynamic lighting and soft-shadows, cinematic effects like HDR and soft natural fill-lighting, a powerful material system offering parallax, bump, color specular, emissive mapping, and more. As well as support for custom user FX shaders, very flexible licensing, and of course you can publish as many products as you want, all completely royalty-free.


Tools for Artists and Developers

Designed for both individual and team environments, all of SunBurn's tools are built from the ground up to be easy to use, flexible, and familiar. SunBurn's editor suite provides real-time in-game editing of scene lighting, shadows, materials, and environment (HDR, fog, background, ...) – all in an application familiar to anyone who's used a modeling or game scene editing tool.





SunBurn's architecture and content pipeline tools are modeled closely after XNA Game Studio, making them familiar to most XNA developers. The included coding examples, project templates, and documentation offer details on common development tasks like getting started with SunBurn, building custom renderers, creating a simple tiled terrain, and using SunBurn with XNA skinned animations. And as always our development team is available in the SunBurn development community to answer questions, swap ideas, and offer tips and tricks.


How Do I Learn More?

The best way to learn more about SunBurn is at our website: Synapse Gaming. Please feel free to ask any questions you have in our forums.

Also stay tuned for my follow up blog talking more about SunBurn, some of the projects using it, and pricing.


-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming
Bleeding Edge Indie