Synapse Gaming
SunBurn Lighting and Rendering Engine

Start focusing on what’s really important - making awesome games. Now you can with the SunBurn lighting and rendering engine. Combining the latest lighting and rendering technology with a flexible and easy to use framework, SunBurn performs the heavy-lifting, letting you focus on your games.

Join the Xbox developer ranks and build the games you want to build, how you want to build them! SunBurn puts the power of Microsoft's Xbox 360 console in your hands by enabling development on your retail Xbox 360, and selling games on Xbox LIVE.

Key Features:

  • Beautiful and easy-to-achieve visuals
  • 100% dynamic lighting and shadows, including self-shadowing
  • Robust material system with full support for custom shaders
  • In-game editor with control over scene visuals
  • Flexible tool-chain with support for the industry’s most common tools
  • Open API with access to low-level classes for creating your own customizations

Cross-platform Xbox 360 Development:

  • Develop cross-platform games for Xbox 360 and Windows with a single, easy to use API
  • Deploy to your retail Xbox 360 console - no development kit required
  • One simple license - no royalties, no revenue restrictions, and no contracts to sign
  • Sell your games on Xbox LIVE

Rich, Beautiful Environments

With vibrant lighting, smooth shadows, and a robust material system, SunBurn makes it easy to create rich, beautiful environments from nearly any content.

Whether your project uses developer art, asset packs, professional models, or even stylized / cartoony artwork, SunBurn can make your game look amazing.

SunBurn’s material system provides built-in effects such as: bump, color-specular, fresnel, parallax, emissive mapping and more - as well as automatic lighting, shadows, and fog on your custom effects and shaders.

Enhance XNA

Built on top of Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio, SunBurn is a natural evolution of the framework offering the same flexibility, ease-of-use, rapid development, and complete support for XNA and the XNA content pipeline.

Flexible Tool-Chain

SunBurn’s artist friendly pipeline supports the industry’s most common modeling and texture applications, including: 3D Studio Max, Maya, Modo, XSI, Blender, Photoshop, GIMP, CrazyBump, and many more.

With real time in-game editing, SunBurn’s editor provides complete control of your scene’s lighting, materials, shadows, and environment - all from a lightweight and familiar interface.

Learn about all of SunBurn’s features. Have questions? Ask our support team!

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Partner

Synapse Gaming is a proud member of the Microsoft XNA Game Studio partner program and the XNA Community.

We’re excited to give back to the community by providing SunBurn licenses to XNA and Imagine Cup game development camps, discounts to XNA Creators Club Premium members, and more.

Become a SunBurn developer today and help support the XNA Community!

Cross-Platform Development

Building cross-platform games has never been easier. SunBurn provides a single, easy-to-use API which runs on both Windows and Xbox 360. Simply deploy your games to Xbox without porting any SunBurn code or assets.

SunBurn allows you to develop and sell Xbox 360 games without expensive development kits, licensing, or any contracts to sign.

Develop games on your retail Xbox 360 console and publish games through the XNA Creators Club site. Your games appear in the Xbox Dashboard just like AAA downloadable titles.

Helpful Development Resources

SunBurn includes starter kits, examples, documentation, API references, and community articles to help kick-start your projects.

The resources also show how to get started, explain the architecture, and cover advanced techniques like creating custom renderers, shaders, and more.






SunBurn Editions

Whether you’re a professional, hobbyist, or somewhere in between, there’s a SunBurn edition for you:

SunBurn Professional

Designed for small teams and individuals to build and self-publish commercial entertainment games on Windows.

SunBurn Studio

For professional teams and individuals, Studio edition allows building simulations, visualizations, educational and serious games.


Learn more about the SunBurn editions.

Contact us for information about educational, bulk, and professional console licensing.







SunBurn Community

Ideal for self-publishing commercial entertainment games on Xbox LIVE Indie Games (aka Xbox LIVE Community Games) and Windows.