This could be the start of something truly big for game development (amongst other things), with the Linux Foundation pulling together some huge names to launch the Open 3D Foundation and the Open 3D Engine based upon Amazon Lumberyard.
In the announcement the Linux Foundation stated that Amazon Web Services (AWS) contributed an "updated version of the Amazon Lumberyard game engine" as what will form the basis for the future project. So, is this Amazon basically throwing out Lumberyard, to get the community to pick up the slack? Either way, donating it in this way is a good thing. More companies should do this. The AWS team themselves said in their own announcement they were building "the successor to Lumberyard" and so to "enable the game and simulation developer community to work side by side with us" they then spent over a year finding partners for it and it looks like it had some big upgrades too.
“The new Open 3D Foundation finally gives gaming and engine developers an opportunity to influence the direction of a major AAA class 3D engine that is sustained for the long term by a worldwide open source community,” said Chris Aniszczyk, CTO, Linux Foundation. “Furthermore, other industries such as automotive and healthcare can take advantage of embedding the engine and supporting the advancement of the engine to benefit all.”
Currently, the game engine editor on GitHub only has Windows build instructions, which is hilarious (in an annoying way) when you consider that this is coming from the Linux Foundation. Going by their public roadmap, Linux Client support isn't hooked up yet either but it is planned with Vulkan support. Early days though of course, and now it's in the open and open source (available under either the Apache License 2.0 or MIT) perhaps we can now see a boost to Linux support from contributors.
Joining this new Open 3D Foundation are the likes of AccelByte, Adobe, Apocalypse Studios, Audiokinetic, AWS, Backtrace.io, Carbonated, Futurewei, GAMEPOCH, Genvid Technologies, Hadean, HERE Technologies, Huawei, Intel, International Game Developers Association, KitBash3D, Kythera AI, Niantic, Open Robotics, PopcornFX, Red Hat, Rochester Institute of Technology, SideFX, Tafi, TLM Partners and Wargaming - so a lot of big names.
It will definitely be interesting to see how this goes. With the likes of Unity and Unreal Engine being the biggest around currently, both of which are proprietary and this new kid on the block comes along and flashes them with open code and an open license. Of course there's also Godot Engine which is open source, Game Maker Studio which is proprietary and plenty more but this looks like it will go up against the bigger few.
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Update: in a post on Twitter, Chris Aniszczyk, CTO of the Linux Foundation stated that it's all in the early stages and they're going through "formalizing governance, to adding full fledged Linux support, etc". So yes, fully proper Linux support is confirmed.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
TheRiddick Jul 6, 2021
rustybroomhandle Jul 6, 2021
It was actually rewritten from scratch over the original Crytek engine fork. This is news to me, but that could mean it was never fully completed (like the last 10% are 90% of the work).
Developing both Linux and Mac editors from scratch using only open source contributors won't be trivial though.
). And in the SC tech updates, Linux is still occasionally mentioned as a build target for the engine. All the time that took also shows that it's not the easiest piece of code to work with.So, let's see where this goes!
Arehandoro Jul 6, 2021
I'm still distrustful of the Linux Foundation as a whole, seems like it's being run more & more by Microsoft, and putting anything with strong ties to AWS into the mix is not a good combo.
To me this just seems like a marketing stunt, and an attempt by Amazon to get more games hooked into it's infrastructure.
Permissive license, open source development is the way to go for anything, but with those likely goals in mind it's worth remembering where most of the funding will go towards. This will push the project away from being a community driven, exciting open project, and more an example of how businesses can benefit from open source software (something still worthy of pointing out, of course).
That's a very good point. When I first started being a "member" of Linux Foundation, I had the feeling it was some money spent to give voice and extra cash to the smaller projects, maybe even the "lesser evil" sort of thing. As of late, Linux Foundation -And their outdated, rather poor courses- as you well mention look more like Microsoft or AWS just looking into tiying people up to their certs.
Meanwhile, I've been waiting for a Source 2 SDK release, something like I've used for UE4 or Unity for longer than I can remember now. I've heard of modding tools for DOTA2 and HL-Alyx, but nothing more substantive.
Even if they were about to release Source 2 tomorrow with all the ease-of-use features I've seen in UE4, having another AAA alternative couldn't hurt. And one that isn't owned by a professed competitor.
That said, who am I to tell GabeN how to spend his money?
unreal is source code avaliable though
Luke_Nukem Jul 7, 2021
To me this just seems like a marketing stunt, and an attempt by Amazon to get more games hooked into it's infrastructure.
One of the people involved on the AWS side says that the AWS components have been wholly removed.
Kuduzkehpan Jul 7, 2021
so the point is i guess someone trying the prepare the desktop pc ecosystem as much as suitable with some kind of linuxish opensource OS. maybe Google's Fuscia OS. Why google using stadia on linux ? cant google make its own fully capable directx.XX supported cloud gaming platform ? it could do that but why google choose the Linux path ?
why vulkan why stadia and boosting Fuscia OS development meanwhile flutter improvements etc.
i guess this is all begining of new kind of monopoly.
But let see what will happen next.
"With the likes of Unity and Unreal Engine being the biggest around currently, both of which are proprietary"Doesn't change that it's proprietary.
unreal is source code avaliable though
This is MIT/Apache... so Valve, Epic, CryTek, Unity, id Software, the Godot people etc etc can all use code from this in their own engines if they want to.yes, but its not so easy to integrate.
maybe godot should get their render, maybe as an alternate option (eg: opengl 2, vulkan, cryengine =p)
i'm not sure how hard it would be to do, blender has tons of render options so it might be possible, but godot is taking forever to make the vulkan render for a reason
Currently it doesn't support building for Linux (need fixes for cmake scripts), spent some time but have not figured it out.
I guess they build both Linux and Windows via visual studio or there is some magic. Or Linux support is remnant from Cryengine I dunno. Anyway it is now for strong willed/stubborn people only.
Philadelphus Jul 7, 2021
This is MIT/Apache... so Valve, Epic, CryTek, Unity, id Software, the Godot people etc etc can all use code from this in their own engines if they want to.yes, but its not so easy to integrate.
maybe godot should get their render, maybe as an alternate option (eg: opengl 2, vulkan, cryengine =p)
i'm not sure how hard it would be to do, blender has tons of render options so it might be possible, but godot is taking forever to make the vulkan render for a reason
Yes, it may or may not be. But people can use everything from a few lines of code to entire subsystems. How easy it is to integrate will vary depending on the context.
I don't recall ever hearing of the Amazon Lumberyard engine before. What kinds of games has it been used to create?
CryTek was in serious financial difficulties. So they cut a deal with Amazon for a lot of money. Basically, they allowed Amazon to create a fork of CryEngine and then license that(and all previous versions of CryEngine) to 3rd parties as their own standalone product. I think this was a lump sum deal. So basically, Amazon created a fork/branch of CryEngine called Lumberyard. It was free for developers, but they had to use AWS if they had cloud support in their games.
But AFAIK, the terms with CryTek were so favorable(due to CryTek's desperation and Amazon's wad of cash) that it was as if they sold/assigned the entire copyright to all versions of CryEngine up to that point to Amazon. IIRC it is as if Amazon and CryTek separately own the rights to the same bits of code. But CryTek has created newer versions of CryEngine and are the exclusive owners of those versions due to their modifications and additions. In turn, Amazon has gradually changed Lumberyard, and now it has evolved into O3DE.
Last edited by Kristian on 7 July 2021 at 1:30 pm UTC
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