Menu
Sign In to the Console
Lumberyard
Developer Guide (Version 1.2)

Cloud Canvas

Cloud Canvas is a visual scripting interface to AWS services. With Cloud Canvas you can build connected game features that use Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Cognito, Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS). With Cloud Canvas, you can create cloud-hosted features such as daily gifts, in-game messages, leaderboards, notifications, server-side combat resolution, and asynchronous multiplayer gameplay (e.g. card games, word games, ghost racers, etc.). Cloud Canvas eliminates the need for you to acquire, configure, or operate host servers yourself, and reduces or eliminates the need to write server code for your connected gameplay features.

Features

Cloud Canvas offers a wide range of helpful components:

  • Tools to enable a team to build a game with cloud-connected features.

  • Flow graph nodes to communicate directly from within the client to AWS services such as Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Cognito, AWS Lambda, Amazon SQS, and Amazon SNS.

  • Tools to manage AWS resources and permissions that determine how developers and players access them.

  • Management of AWS deployments so that development, test, and live resources are maintained separately.

  • Methods for players to be authenticated (anonymous and authenticated). Players can be authenticated from a variety of devices and access their game data by logging in with an Amazon, Facebook, or Google account.

Example Uses

Consider the many ways you can use Amazon Web Services for connected games:

To see how Cloud Canvas uses AWS services in a sample project, see Don't Die Sample Project. For a tutorial on Cloud Canvas, see Lumberyard Tutorials.

Tools

You can access Cloud Canvas functionality by using any of the following:

  • Flow Nodes – For designers to leverage the AWS cloud.

  • Cloud Canvas C++ APIs – For software development.

  • Cloud Canvas Command Line – For managing features, mappings, deployments, and projects.

  • Lumberyard Editor Tools – For navigating directly to the AWS consoles supported by Cloud Canvas, and for managing Cloud Canvas permissions and deployments.

To see how AWS services used for the Don't Die sample project, see Don't Die Sample Project.

Knowledge Prerequisites

You need the following to take advantage of Cloud Canvas:

  • An understanding of AWS CloudFormation Templates – Cloud Canvas uses the AWS CloudFormation service to create and manage AWS resources. Our goal is for Cloud Canvas to minimize what you need to know about AWS CloudFormation and AWS in general.

  • Familiarity with JSON – Cloud Canvas leverages JSON for storing configuration data, including AWS CloudFormation Templates. Currently, you'll need to be familiar with this text format to work with the Cloud Canvas resource management system. A JSON tutorial can be found here.

Topics