FreeGameDev

We have a new open source engine: Amazon released Lumberyard under the new Open 3D Engine name, with a new Apache license. Lot of big people in the industry are supporting the effort, and it sounds interesting.

Yeah, sounds good. I don't think it will replace Godot as the FOSS engine of choice for indie and FOSS game devs (due to workflow issues), but lets see. I like that it uses lua for scripting

rogerdv {l Wrote}:We have a new open source engine: Amazon released Lumberyard under the new Open 3D Engine name, with a new Apache license. Lot of big people in the industry are supporting the effort, and it sounds interesting.

Good news!
Just pointing out the reference announcement: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/gametech/open-3d-engine/

Is it the Windows only engine launched by Linux foundation?

Lunduke trolling as usual. From what I have read there is a mostly working Linux version in the code and they plan to officially support it with the soon to be finished Vulkan renderer.

Julius {l Wrote}:Lunduke trolling as usual. From what I have read there is a mostly working Linux version in the code and they plan to officially support it with the soon to be finished Vulkan renderer.

Sadly Lunduke and drummyfish is right. If you take a look at its repo, you can see the source is full of MSisms. It looks like CMake is generating vcproj files for one. They even mention in the README that "MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ x64/x86" is a requirement. It's not impossible, but requires a LOT effort to remove all MSisms and MSVC specifics from the code (I hope they are planning that). Vulkan support or not, in its current state this engine can't be compiled on Linux with Open Source toolchains like GNU gcc or LLVM CLang.

Cheers,
bzt

MSisms is not the same as no Linux support though. AFAIK there is an official Visual Studio Linux version (even open source under the MIT license). Microsoft is also a member of the Linux Foundation But I get your annoyance with that.

Julius {l Wrote}:Microsoft is also a member of the Linux Foundation

That's kind of the issue, funny that you mentioned it It's the typical embrace, extend, and extinguish. The engine is just a small manifestation of this corruption. The Linux foundation is a complete joke now, it's more about killing Linux, normalizing proprietary parts in it, making it more Windows-like, openwashing Microsoft etc. You rightfully call it open source, as it is basically what open source has done to free software: taken away the freedom and ethics in favor of business and more profit and control for the rich.

drummyfish {l Wrote}:

Julius {l Wrote}:Microsoft is also a member of the Linux Foundation

That's kind of the issue, funny that you mentioned it It's the typical embrace, extend, and extinguish. The engine is just a small manifestation of this corruption. The Linux foundation is a complete joke now, it's more about killing Linux, normalizing proprietary parts in it, making it more Windows-like, openwashing Microsoft etc. You rightfully call it open source, as it is basically what open source has done to free software: taken away the freedom and ethics in favor of business and more profit and control for the rich.

I totally agree. By doing this, they may be trying to split the Open Source community from more FOSS oriented options such as Godot, while pushing proprietary, non-free dependencies such as VS and the "helpfully" integrated AWS options. They're looking to profit from other people's work, and use the open source movement to get free workers on a project that they guide and profit from.

Ntech {l Wrote}:By doing this, they may be trying to split the Open Source community from more FOSS oriented options such as Godot, while pushing proprietary, non-free dependencies such as VS and the "helpfully" integrated AWS options. They're looking to profit from other people's work, and use the open source movement to get free workers on a project that they guide and profit from.

No. This is the classic "this isn't taking off and we don't want to bother with it anymore". Amazon has been trying to get into games but hasn't done great. It has cancelled a number of projects. This looks like a technology they were developing and are now dumping.

dulsi {l Wrote}:

Ntech {l Wrote}:By doing this, they may be trying to split the Open Source community from more FOSS oriented options such as Godot, while pushing proprietary, non-free dependencies such as VS and the "helpfully" integrated AWS options. They're looking to profit from other people's work, and use the open source movement to get free workers on a project that they guide and profit from.

No. This is the classic "this isn't taking off and we don't want to bother with it anymore". Amazon has been trying to get into games but hasn't done great. It has cancelled a number of projects. This looks like a technology they were developing and are now dumping.

People from the project strongly deny this and say that Amazon is still interested in this and is just taking another approach, but I agree this smells a bit like a code-dump. If the former is right then ofc they are going to try pushing AWS integration through it, but overall I still see a net good of this over other industry standard engines like Unity3D or Unreal. Sure Godot is nice for indies, but the large studios will not start supporting Godot's development, while this might work out better.

I don't agree about large studios not supporting Godot, there was a $250k grant https://godotengine.org/article/godot-engine-was-awarded-epic-megagrant last year, which was apparently to develop a new lighting technique https://godotengine.org/article/godot-40-gets-sdf-based-real-time-global-illumination (some of the videos included come from Youtube).
An open source engine that can take code from Godot but not give any, due to the language used, seems like it could be weaponized (take resources away from Godot before turning into open core).

$250k is total peanuts for Epic. That doesn't even count as support in my view.

And anyways, I was rather thinking of supporting in terms of using it and contributing code.

I think the companies might even support open source engines without immediately bad intentions. But as soon as an opportunity will show up to produce something proprietary from it they will do so. It's a natural thing for them, as they don't believe in FLOSS as a good principle for its own sake (like we here do). For them "open source" is just a tactic for certain circumstances, not more. And Linux Foundation thinks so, too, afaik.

Greetings
Peter

To sum up, not happy about this at all. Why? This will literally bring nothing to the libre game community and people caring about freedom, it will only further deteriorate and degrade the term "open" and maybe even "free" (as has done e.g. Android). Do you think the lack of libre games is because there isn't a good engine around? There are dozens of great engines. Do you think the lack of libre games is due to the engines not being up to 2021 AAA standards such as supporting raycasting etc.? Hobbyist game creators and even serious indie devs don't aim for ultra photorealistic graphics. We don't need new engines, we need new games.

The engine will literally only be used for proprietary games, by Unity/UE devs who want more control or legal rights over their engine. It's a tool made by corporations for corporations with exactly only one goal: to prey on people. This permeates the whole design of their technology, they want incompatibility, obscurity, DRM, ads, spyware, consumerism. Yes, even if it's "open source", even if it's embraced by the """Linux""" foundation or whatever else. If a corporation releases some of its old SW as "open source", it's not any attempt at a good deed, any step a corporation ever does is towards making more profit.

Julius {l Wrote}:MSisms is not the same as no Linux support though. AFAIK there is an official Visual Studio Linux version (even open source under the MIT license).

I've never heard of that, but I was curious, so I've decided to check it out. Sadly I was unable to find MSVC for Linux, the official site lists only Win installers, and they ain't for free, they all require Visual Studio subscription or a Microsoft account (eg. you must pay with your data).

Do you have a link to that MIT licensed MSVC for Linux you talked about? It would be great to try it out. However it looks like the O3DE download page says "O3DE requires Windows 10 64-bit (versions 1809, 10.0.17763 or later)", so I don't have high hopes even if I can get to compile it on Linux somehow...

Thanks,
bzt

Ah my bad, I thought "MS Visual Studio Code" (which is open-source and cross-platform) was the successor of "MS Visual Studio" (which isn't as you say).

As for Linux compatibility... I read on multiple sites comments from O3DE developers that a Linux version is under development and other than the necessary Vulkan rendered basically already part of the code-base. I doubt the Linux-foundation would have agreed to this otherwise.

That's a pity. Regardless to O3DE, it would be great to simplify and speed up my other project's forkflows with checking MSVC compatibility, simply by running that compiler locally on my Linux box.
I guess I'll just have to wait until they make O3DE Linux-compatible instead then. Hopefully soon, looks like a promising engine btw.

Cheers,
bzt

If they can get rid of the cruft it might be a good competitor to Unreal, while Godot takes on Unity more directly.