Over 130 improvements, features, and fixes have been included in the latest update to Amazon’s Lumberyard game engine, which marks the first time the fledgling engine has received a significant graphical boost since being unveiled in February. 

High-dynamic range (HDR) support is one of the most talked-up new additions, and in beta 1.3 developers will be able to make use of both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, allowing them to better utilize the bit precision in brighter TV screens. 

"HDR 10 is going to be supported in most console hardware and Windows, so from an engine perspective, it's about doing all of the math in the right space and authoring content for HDR, which Lumberyard excels at already," reads the latest Lumberyard blog post.

"With Dolby Vision, we have additional ability to pass per-frame meta-data to the TV, and allow the display to adapt to your scene smartly."

All HDR parameters can be tweaked in real-time to help developers get to grip with the tool and achieve precise results. 

As promised, Lumberyard 1.3 also brings out-of-the-box support for both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, while Amazon has also implemented a new virtual reality framework that will enable support for other devices in the future.

The company says it will continue investing heavily in VR, and has promised to release more features and performance enhancements in the near future. 

Other notable additions include an advanced depth of field technique, improved iOS rendering, scalable texture compression, and the inclusion of an integrated graphics profiler.

To learn more about the biggest changes made in Lumberyard 1.3, head on over to the official Amazon blog.