It would be really nice to see an open source competitor to Unity. Especially with the advent of AR and VR, Unity is really solidifying it’s position as the “go to” framework for building AR and VR games and applications. There is a lot that makes Unity “go to”, like cross platform compatibility, huge user base, ease of development, etc.
I’ve been a user of Blender for many years, and use it daily to create content for import into Unity. But, being a fan of open source and open collaboration, what is the possibility of making Blender a viable solution for VR and AR? Why not team up with efforts put forth by another library like libGDX to begin cross platform integration? Blender could serve as the Unity editor replacement.
Are there any discussions like this happening within the Blender community?
I would say, that right now UpBge is the next stage of evolution of blenders bge. That suppose to replace the bge for 2.8. Bge can be ported to mobile and VR if there is someone interested dev.
As Gabe Newell said: “Steam is perfectly fine with the VR turn out to be a complete failure”.
I think VR,AR,MR is not what gamers will really want anytime soon. The technology is contradicting with most of what normal people would want from a game…like eating popcorns while sitting on the coach and playing a strategy game or smoking or just chilling while playing. VR is not able to provide any of this and will soon turn into the next “xbox Kinect”.
Otherwise porting to mobile from BGE would require to get rid of the Python, which is not a good idea or even possible, because then it must become a separate engine disconnected from Blender. Maybe still using the editor but it will be disconnected engine and require a huge amount of reworking if not re-doing from scratch.
Not to mention that mobile market is already oversaturated and nobody cares what is happening there, because there is no money in it already.
I’ve spoken recently with a tencent(probably biggest game publisher in the world) marketing agent and he said - “no publisher is interested in mobile anymore…there is no money in it at all. PC gaming comes around again.”
P.S. Difference between useful and useless technology:
Useful : PC mouse - invented 1960 used till now / Gamepad - invented in the early 80’s used till now.
Useless: BlueRay,VR, game consoles…etc.
@Akira_San, thanks for the link, I’ll check out UpBge.
@haidme, I wouldn’t want to turn this into a discussion about the usefulness of AR/VR. I will agree to disagree you there. I am a VR/AR developer and can attest that there is HUGE amount of interest in both technologies, especially for industry use-cases outside of gaming. So much so, that Unity is starting to be considered more than just a “game engine”. Unreal is a contender, but has been left in the dust for VR/AR as far as developer community support. Again, some part of me wants to see a real option in the open source community. I believe AR is the next computing platform, which opens up a whole new can of privacy issues. Companies who want to collect that data, will. There needs to be an option outside of the commercial, pay to play, paradigm.
I actually think a good path forward is exactly as you say, using Blender as a front-end, and exporting executables, project assets, etc into a packaged project hierarchy, including a platform specific Blender player, to be compiled into Android, iOS, PC, Mac, Linux, etc; The same way Unity handles cross platform applications. I suppose that this cross platform “blender player” could contain some kind of Python interpreter?
The only other option on my radar right now is WebGL/Javascript, in browser applications. But, limited hardware support of the browser quickly limits the full range of possibilities.
I think a kickstart AFTER a really nice bge title does well on steam is a good idea
(kickstart to add VR / Mobile / other tools to BGE)
one I really want is to be able to convert game data back into blend files / libload them Async and be able to use more modeling tools inside BGE. (move to making blender inside the GE for multiplayer VR )
Agreed, I’ve used it and it’s far more likely that this will become Unity’s main competitor from the FOSS arena (it will be a bit tougher for UPBGE because of the GPL licensing, even though I, and possibly others may find an appeal in going back to the old BGE if that version becomes the official one).
I’m with you to a certain extent. It would be awesome to add realtime remote collaboration to Blender. Like a “Google Docs of 3D”. But, I would leave that collaboration in Blender itself, not VR just yet.
@haidme
VR is not about gaming, is about immersion. Actually, everything humanity made on this regard was always for immersion more than actual gamming:
Books -> Films -> VideoGames -> VR. You can not compare VR with video games just as you can not compare films with books.
This said, VR technology is still not quite here yet. Right now it’s like we had just B/W mutted films that only millonaries can afford. VR is missing what really diferenciates it from its predecessor, and that’s that it has to put your whole body in VR, not just your eyes. If that technology someday appears, VR may have a chance, until then it will be just another gimick. (And of course your real body must be quiet, or it will interfiere with the one in VR, wich is what happens now)
Me too, on my day job. Actually right now we are making an MR(Mixed Reality) game(video is just for clarification what MR is). Which uses external controllers and real environment(camera). And still I don’t see why investors are wasting their money for that kind of games.
there is HUGE amount of interest in both technologies, especially for industry use-cases outside of gaming.
Absolutely agree with this! And that is where is the power of VR…architecture, installations…etc, not in games.
So much so, that Unity is starting to be considered more than just a “game engine”
Exactly! That is why I don’t see why we need to convert a game engine used specifically for games into some kind of CAD/CAM tool.
You can not compare VR with video games just as you can not compare films with books.
Agreed…so why messing with blender GAME engine then!?
Actually, everything humanity made on this regard was always for immersion more than actual gamming
It is not about immersion, its about money
Don’t get me wrong…I am making VR/MR games in my day job. Because that is what investors want…but not gamers. So as everything else, now there is money in it, because it is over hyped. Eventually the hype will go down and so is the money and the technology will slow-down its development drastically.
Look at last crytek game Robinson VR This game was meant to save Crytek from falling down and it was a total failure in terms of ROI.
Why?..because actually players are not that hyped about VR. The situation is the other way around with game developers.
You see…game devs are actually the ones, that are hyped and create the hype itself, but players are not developers. That is why many of game investors are misled and continue investing in VR…for now.
Hahaha, ok you got me there. Well, I could argue, just for the sake of discussion, that since we are in a capitalist society, everything is about money, hence your reasoning is a generalitzation that was already assumed in the context of the phrase… so it adds nothing. But let’s leave it at that.
@snovak, the most promising open source solution which comes close to what you are looking for is the Godot Engine that was already mentioned. Unfortunately, neither the BGE, nor UPBGE can most likely be used for iOS due to the GPL. Godot already supports most or even all the platforms you mentioned, except for VR/AR. Of course, it does not have a tight Blender integration and neither does Unity.
There is a lot of great development happening for the (UP)BGE and I believe it has a great future. Godot on the other hand already has most things you are looking for.
Awesome. Thanks all for the quality feedback folks! I’ll checkout GoDot for sure.
For me, AR, VR, MR is more about changing the way people interact with machines. Profit is a fortunate byproduct.
I still think gaming is the #1 use case, especially for VR. Have you played Valkyrie? Ever since I was a kid playing Wing Commander, I wanted that experience of being a space fighter pilot; Now I have it. And, it’s awesome.
AR, VR, MR, it’s all new stuff, anything new takes time to permeate into the mainstream market. It’ll get better, faster, more natural, especially when light field HMDs hit the market.
To your point about Gabe’s comment. Gabe isn’t an idiot. Similarly, neither is Elon. They both know they’re likely to fail at big things, but that doesn’t stop them from taking a moon shot. They drive hard towards success, and try something they’re passionate about. It’s important to try, and keep trying, even when it’s not all working out perfectly. Those are the people who crush the status quo and change the world. Optimism is key.
And, if we’re all wrong? Oh well. It’s more interesting than doing nothing.
@snovak, at this point it is absolutely unknown how AR, VR or MR are going to influence the way people interact with machines. There are a lot of unknowns and it is especially not clear whether the huge amount of resources that are being invested are going to pay off at the end. Many companies are taking a risk at this point. For the big ones like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, … it is part of their business. They have to take risks.
For open source developers who are coding in their spare time, the resource they are investing is their time. If they are interested in AR, VR or MR, they usually work on a specific project at this point or they make a prototype to check whether the technology is working for them. Having a solution for the future that is production ready and can easily be updated for the different devices is a huge undertaking. In the worst case it means that they have wasted a tremendous amount of time.
I am sure that this is going to change in the future. When it becomes clearer how people are actually using those devices and which ones, the time investment for open source developers is far less of a risk.
At this point, I think you are simply too early with your request.
just to add : Blender game engine is already capable of VR, with the means of some scripts (https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?367940-Oculus-Rift-Development-Kit-2-(DK2)-support-for-BGE), at least for the Oculus DK2, the OSVR HDK1/2 (you need to fiddle a bit), and lately probably the HTC Vive … And I’m sure that we’ll see HMD support ongoing in the future for 2.79 and 2.8x .
It is also btw already used in commercial applications in a professional environment context (I’ve worked on some), and the GPL does not impeach that, as basically it does not impeach the selling of GPL plugins f.ex. too …
the port toward mobile platforms is lacking indeed, I personnaly see WebVR in the future as the real solution to that. (I am puzzled by the blend4web licence scheme, that don’t let the code base open entirely… it’s a dead end in my POV in the long run… )
in the meantime, I’ve a friend and collegue that is driving a new “bundle” called Polymorph, that is a packaging of Ogre3D with Bullet Physics, Pure-Data and some glues like a blender exporter to bake a full game engine portable on any platform. It’s not finished yet (VR is in the todo list) but already usable at some point : http://polymorph.cool
Check it out !
