This is a huge surprise but a very welcome one. I've not seen any official announcement, and they seemingly did it very quietly but Gaijin Entertainment has open sourced their Dagor Engine used by War Thunder.
Seems it appeared a few days ago on their official GitHub account and it includes tools and samples to go along with it, not only that but this is proper open source too under the BSD 3-Clause License.
Pictured - War Thunder
Documentation as a whole is pretty much non-existing for it so far, but now they've done the initial drop hopefully that will be expanded upon because all it does right now is include build instructions. Currently they only include instructions to build it on Windows, but no doubt now it's open someone will sort it for Linux - it's always only a matter of time when this sort of thing happens.
Really great to see more gaming companies embrace open source! Especially so when it's used by one of the most popular games around with War Thunder constantly in the top list on Steam (at time of writing it's #8 for most players online).
Gaijin have a bunch of other projects on their main GitHub Organisation too like daScript a "high-performance statically strong typed scripting language" and Quirrel the "Gaijin Entertainment dynamic script language" along with other projects.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGKPikPMnrU&t=1366s
Guessing that Dagor was opened up so that code transfer could happen without violating sanctions. Whatever the reason, at least we got a AAA game engine open-sourced in the process.
Apparently VKontakte will be using Dagor as a basis for their Nau Engine, at least if Google Translate’s camera translation of this video are accurate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGKPikPMnrU&t=1366s
Guessing that Dagor was opened up so that code transfer could happen without violating sanctions. Whatever the reason, at least we got a AAA game engine open-sourced in the process.
Interesting. Possibly for military simulation purposes as well? I would be wary of making any contributions towards this engine. The company is pretty much pro-russia, even if its HQs are not there. Some say this game (and its forums) is almost an intelligence operation, besides buffing Russian tech in-game. Maybe it's all bull-derivative products, but I would not risk it in that context.
Sorry for the politically colored rant (they started it first!), I would have been much more excited about this a couple years ago, and I am glad it's now open rather than not.
I wonder what will be heir reaction if someone uses this as the basis of a new commercial game, and said game actually competes with War Thunder.
Also, looks like there are quite a few files that the engine rely upon and are not released under the BSD license.
Possibly for military simulation purposes as well?No, VK is ex Mail Ru Group and in gamedev industry they are known for developing and publishing games with tons of microtransactions, licensing Korean MMOs and mobile/browser games, it's just another way to make money considering that it may be difficult for them to license UE and Unity.
Currently they only include instructions to build it on Windows, but no doubt now it's open someone will sort it for Linux - it's always only a matter of time when this sort of thing happens.It begins...
@NicSavichev Mind if I take a stab at porting some of the tools for Linux and contributing them back here? Thinking of doing it in my free time, especially in the hopes that my would-be contributions can help improve the Linux port of War Thunder.
Philadelphus Nov 2, 2023
(That's not a dig at War Thunder, which on re-reading I see it could come off as; I haven't played it and have no opinions on its balancing.)
Intelligence agencies the world over must be salivating at the prospect of being able to make their own poorly-balanced games to tease out more classified handbooks on military hardware. 🤣
(That's not a dig at War Thunder, which on re-reading I see it could come off as; I haven't played it and have no opinions on its balancing.)
WarThunder forums have seen at least 3 cases of classified military data released as justifications for rebalancing particular vehicles. So you're not that far off the mark
When I first had heard "Nau Engine" is supposed to be open-source I didn't believe it (considering "Unigine" is as-closed-as-it-can-possibly-and-impossibly-be). Now, I see they are actually serious about it.
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