London-based technology company Qube has announced the first point release of its middleware package Q, adding enhanced scripting and a new, multi-threaded script debugger, as well as new shader and scene redering plugins.

Qube says the scripting comes in the form of a C++ or Java-like language with a multi-threaded script runtime, offering access to the complete Q API and to developers’ own objects and native code from script, and allows script to be embedded within native code.

The accompanying integrated debugger also offers a full-featured debugging environment with breakpoints, step-in/out, threads and watches.

The cross-platform middleware includes capabilities such as background data streaming, arbitrary scene rendering algorithms and n-dimensional animation blending, and features such as a cross-platform data format and a background work queue.

Q also supports special hardware features including custom shaders and platform specific APIs, having been designed to allow its databases and core APIs work on “all platforms,” allowing developers to build, test and debug their game on any one platform before deploying on any other.

As previously reported, the middleware “has been designed to liberate developers by allowing them complete freedom to adapt and add to the middleware in order to make it completely their own,” by acting as a series of modules built around a framework, allowing developers to customize any of the supplied modules, or by adding their own plug-in tools.

Said Q Program Manager Jamie Fowlston, “Not all developers have the time or the inclination to get deep into native code. Scripting and debugging, as well as the additional shaders, are all tools that make Q a better off-the-shelf solution as well as one that studios can customise to their hearts’ content.”

[The preceding article by Brandon Boyer originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]