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Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

736 points by brachi 7y ago

reddotX 7y ago
epic!
Lowkeyloki 7y ago
That's probably a drop in the bucket for Epic, but it's still much appreciated!
- KingFelix 7y ago
  Yup! So stoked on the work they are doing. Epic has been funding some awesome projects / people. I am really stoked on what they are doing. I can only imagine if other companies with Epic levels of cash were doing the same thing. I love it, and support all the stuff they are doing. Tim Sweeney is a good guy. Looking forward to see what else they come up with
  - andybak 7y ago
    > Tim Sweeney is a good guy Not knocking the donation per se but it's a bit easier to be a good guy when you're sitting on the world's biggest pile of kid's pocket money. Several friends have stories along the lines of their children taking not spending any money on their summer holidays because they want to save it for Fortnite hats or whatever. It's carefully designed smack for kids and there has to be a certain amount of moral push-back on that.
    - orbifold 7y ago
      There always have been money extraction schemes targeted at kids Pokémon, Magic the Gathering and so on come to mind. It is the parents responsibility to counter that.
      - gibolt 7y ago
        As adults not participating, it feels like a waste of money. The rewards aren't 'valuable'. To the kids, the cost is worth it, bringing them happiness, social experiences, and a fun childhood to look back on. As long as it the amount doesn't get unreasonable relative to the means of their parents, it may be a good investment.
        allendoerfer 7y ago
        Making financial mistakes on a small scale will also help to make kids financially better educated adults and prevent them to make those mistakes on a bigger scale.
    - Cyph0n 7y ago
      > because they want to save it for Fortnite hats or whatever. You could easily replace "Fortnite hats" with "Pokemon cards", "Yugioh cards", "Gameboy games", "MMO items", "Starcraft expansions", etc. The difference with Epic is that they've managed to take a much larger chunk of the market, which is why parents have started to notice it more.
      - andybak 7y ago
        Yep. And I have qualms over some of those things too. I guess it's a tricky one as toys are not really much different despite having a physical manifestation. I would have happily spent every penny I could get my hands on on Star Wars figures when I was of that age. Is marketing a useless blob of plastic to kids any different to marketing a useless bunch of bytes?
        DonHopkins 7y ago
        It's better for the environment to market useless bunches of bytes that useless blobs of plastic. Especially when they use some of that money to support useful bunches of bytes like Blender! (That said, I sure loved my Star Wars action figures!)
        Moru 7y ago
        The environment impact of useless bunches of bytes might surprise you.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > Is marketing a useless blob of plastic to kids any different to marketing a useless bunch of bytes? The physical blob is, well, physical. It exists for longer, and 20 years later you may dig it out and relive some of childhood memories. Bytes in the cloud tend to have much shorter life, usually defined by how long the vendor bothers to keep the server applications up. EDIT: Funny I managed to post an exactly opposite opinion to 'DonHopkins at the same time :). Let me just clarify: I prefer no marketing of useless anything, but for toys, I think physical beats digital because digital is ephemeral.
    - cuban-frisbee 7y ago
      It is easier to do when you have a lot of money of course but we don't see a lot of of companies doing it. Epic games is giving 100 million dollars out of the 1,5 billion they made last year (they made 3 billion but their investors get the other half). Epic isn't really doing anything predatory they don't use RNG or other such things. On top of that Sweeney is also doing quite a lot personally both as a conservationist and philanthropist.
  - jimbob45 7y ago
    >I can only imagine if other companies with Epic levels of cash were doing the same thing. You're not even trying to be subtle about shitting on Steam, are you?
  - StapleHorse 7y ago
    >Epic levels of cash do you mean Steaming piles of cash? :)
nailer 7y ago
This is really smart move that helps Epic more than you might think. UE4's own tools (which are based around creating environments from existing models, placing actors, and realtime rendering) are WORLDS ahead of common Autodesk modelling tools eg 3DS Max and Maya (which Epic itself uses). UE4 is easy to pick up, but then you have to learn Maya and it becomes a grind. There needs to be something as powerful as Maya with a better UX to stop modelling being a blocker for new UE4 users. Being Free As in Beer and Free as in Freedom help too.
- TrevorJ 7y ago
  There's no real comparison between a game engine and a modeling/animation package. They are built to do very different things. However, it is definitely in Epic's best interest to support a robust and freely available tool for the content creation side of things.
  - nailer 7y ago
    > There's no real comparison between a game engine and a modeling/animation package. Sure there is. - UE4 needs to move a viewport around 3D space, so does Maya. UE4 uses game controls. Maya you need to hold down something or tweak it to do that. - UE4 involves creating and manipulating objects in space for BSP. Maya involves creating and manipulating objects in space for modelling. Maya has a UI that's 20+ years old with minimal changes. UE4 does not. > They are built to do very different things. No, they're built to do different but related things. I'm not sure why you would think that modelling and environment creation are very different. For the purposes of gamedev or archvis, they're both tools to support making the environment. And one is a barely maintained cash cow.
pixelbath 7y ago
Awesome. Blender is on the cusp of releasing a major UI overhaul (2.8) that will make it more accessible to newcomers (left-click is now the default!). I'm excited to see it getting some major support from the gaming industry as well as the film industry.
- Ithildin 7y ago
  That's great news. I've learned Max and Maya, but my brain could never wrap itself around Blender. I'd definitely try it again once the update comes out.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  More info about the changes set to come here: https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-80/ https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-80/
- krautsourced 7y ago
  It's not _that_ much of an overhaul imho. I still find it to be weird, coming from other apps (Cinema 4D in my case).
suyash 7y ago
Congrats Blender and great job Epic!!
crimsonalucard 7y ago
I hope it's no strings attached.
- Danieru 7y ago
  We received a devgrsnt for our video game about two years back. The grants are super no strings attached. Epic is by far the nicest organization to work with in the video game industry. Yet that was even before the Fortnite money.
- ralusek 7y ago
  Me too, but I suspect at worst it would be like "and make sure to develop and refine the export to UE4 functionality," which is something the community benefits from anyway.
  - jsgo 7y ago
    Let's pretend that's explicitly the case. Is there something inherently wrong with that? How many open source software developers would love it if instead of "please implement x feature" it ends with "...and here's $1.2 million to finance the development of it" at the end? End users get new features they may actually use, massive OSS gets funding. Win-win for all parties.
    - ralusek 7y ago
      Nothing wrong with that at all. I meant the "at worst" to carry an implicit "and there's nothing wrong with that, so it's nothing but a good thing."
    - crimsonalucard 7y ago
      What about something like. Please don't implement that feature that benefits our competitors.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  You can read more about Epic's MegaGrants here: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants It doesn't look like it has many (any?) strings. Aside from being split over three years in Blender's case. It is worth considering that this is in Epic's best interests as Blender + Unreal Engine is a common platform for startups/indie devs. Making Blender better may make the games that people develop using Unreal Engine better, which might mean higher license income for Epic. So it is a win for Epic and a win for Blender/the community.
Rch_East 7y ago
Epic are doing a great job improving fairness in the gaming industry, and the economic conditions for developers. I'm looking forward to their Epic Store opening up to more (high quality) Indie games.
- sgarman 7y ago
  The % deal they are offering is a good start but I'm not sure buying exclusivity of game releases is good for "fairness in the gaming industry."
  - typenil 7y ago
    I'm legitimately surprised to see so much good will towards Epic and Tim Sweeney here. I'm happy about their revenue share and was excited when they got started - until it became obvious that their tactics didn't align with their PR.
    - dx87 7y ago
      Yeah, their revenue share isn't about helping developers, it's about hurting Valve. When Epic pays a publisher for exclusivity, a lot of the time it's actually "sell it anywhere except Steam". Their deals still allow the developers to sell the game on stores that take the same 30% cut that Steam does. Plus there's the issue of a game being developed with Linux support, then Epic pays the publisher for exclusivity and the Linux version goes away because the EGS is Windows only.
      - rexf 7y ago
        EGS supports Windows & Mac. This link is directly from their home page https://launcher-public-service-prod06.ol.epicgames.com/launcher/api/installer/download/EpicGamesLauncher.dmg https://launcher-public-service-prod06.ol.epicgames.com/laun...
  - foota 7y ago
    I agree with their stance that exclusives are the only way to break the hold Steam has on the market.
MrLeap 7y ago
This is great! As a slighty OT aside, I really hope blender's UI changes sloooow down. I've been using it for 16 years. 2.8 versus 2.7 is so different, It almost feels like they're making changes for change sake. I've been trying to use their various 2.8 RC's so I don't have to say I don't know how to use blender anymore when it pops. They made the following things toggleable at launch, but man these are some muscle memory breaking changes that are now the default. - Changed selecting objects from right to left click - Space bar no longer opens up the function search. The search is like 50% of my workflow, so this one hit me in the gut until I changed the setting. Then there's some other things that feel renamed for no discernible reason. - I can't search for 'remove doubles' anymore. There are certain geometries that I've come to build by snapping to axis, extruding, snapping to vertices, remove doubles. Now it's buried in a menu at mesh->clean up->'merge by distance'. It also makes a GUI element pop with the distance argument, and there's no obvious way to "apply". So weird. - Ambient occlusion in the view appears to have been renamed 'cavity'. - The tool panel lost its words, it's now just icons. Functionality has to be discovered by hovering. This is the worst UX habit from mobile, I wish it would stay out of my desktop tooling. - The view/selection/snap/etc settings bar has moved from the bottom of the screen to the top. Why? - Properties tabs moved to the side from the top. I can see why. - I can't make objects unselectable but visible in the outliner. Why?! - Layers are gone, they're now "collections" but they don't do the same thing at all! This is the stuff I've hit in a about 2 hours of messing. I'm willing to acclimate to about 90% of these changes. So far it's just the layers / merge doubles thing that really sucks. Eevee is really pretty, so it's got that going for it, which is nice.
- failrate 7y ago
  Yes, I understand your frustration, and it has options to use the legacy UI (IN PART).
  - MrLeap 7y ago
    I'll get over everything (i've complained about so far) except how collections work and how merge doubles is gone. If the devs don't sort it out by release, I'll solve it with addons. Just engaging in the time honored tradition of hand wringing.
noobermin 7y ago
Blender has really developed and come onto its own. I'm really happy for them and wish they can attract more users from the general community.
lone_haxx0r 7y ago
WTF I love Tim Sweeney now.
- pedrocx486 7y ago
  I still don't. His actions last month will not have me loving him in a while.
  - thijsvandien 7y ago
    Something I missed? Could you be more specific?
    - flyingfences 7y ago
      They've decided to completely stop trying to support Linux even on games that already had support and are intentionally disabling any workarounds to keep them running.
      - Slashbot 7y ago
        wow thats pretty dumb of epic.. think they'd want to actually end shitting windows10, and support linux desktop better.
jefftime 7y ago
This is great news. Blender is an incredible tool
rancyber 7y ago
Tencent is not a nice company. It's a shame to see such a good product as Blender accept money from a snake in the grass. It makes me wonder what kind of deals were made under the table to make this happen.
Andrex 7y ago
In the spirit of supporting open software, it would be fantastic if Epic Games Store and its DRM warmed up to Linux next. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241
- groovybits 7y ago
  "“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games." Contradictory sentiments like these are what lead me to believe this grant is mostly for marketing purposes. (tin-foil hat mode)
  - ngngngng 7y ago
    Who cares? "I don't give a rip whose money it is, mate" - Steve Irwin, when asked about accepting money from "unethical" groups and using it for conservation. https://youtu.be/-1gVkTFam1w?t=753 https://youtu.be/-1gVkTFam1w?t=753 If it helps a good goal, what does it matter?
    - jonny_eh 7y ago
      What matters is if the accepting of the money outweighs the good of turning it down. It's not always an easy equation.
      - lghh 7y ago
        But that money is going to exist whether you accept it or not. You not accepting the money doesn't mean the way it was acquired stops happening.
        pmyteh 7y ago
        Some philanthropic donations are kinda prestige-for-cash deals. My employer, Oxford University, accepted a large chunk of change from Wafic Saïd to endow their business school. If they hadn't taken it, he'd certainly still have the money. But we wouldn't have lowered our own reputation by associating ourselves with a... not spotless businessman. If it's done anonymously, then sure: you're quite right. But if it isn't then there is, in fact, a price. And it's not always a great deal.
binthere 7y ago
As someone who's done lots of Blender work as well as Maya and integrations with Unity and Unreal Engine, I still think there's quite a long way to go to make Blender a good option for game development. It's free, it kind of works but it's very painful when it comes to animation, texturing, and details. Right now, this is what I usually do: - Basic Modeling: Blender - Sculpting + Details: ZBrush - Painting: Substance Painter - Animation: Maya So yeah, the last 3 are paid and it's not cheap. Blender can do all three but not as good. I hope that with this additional money the Blender Foundation team can hire more people to close these gaps. In 2.8 they've improved on different fronts but they are still quite behind in those departments. Last but not least, they should make more effort to improve their keybindings. They've been monkey patching it in 2.8 with the "industry-compatible" keybindings but when you use it a bunch of other things stop working.
- Elizer0x0309 7y ago
  Datapoint: I've had/have a really good experience with Blender. Countless opensource resources to fill any gaps in the export pipeline. Not to mention the relatively easy python api that gives you access to all the scene's data.
  - pzone 7y ago
    Blender's Python API, although cleaner and better organized than Maya's, only offers a sliver of Maya's functionality. Maya has a standard maya.cmds API for scripting which works similarly to how Blender's Python API. Maya also has a separate library maya.api.OpenMaya which is a wrapper around its C++ plugin api. Blender doesn't offer anything like this.
- mattferderer 7y ago
  I'm curious why you would use Blender over Maya for modeling if you have both? I tried Blender a decade ago but since I had access to Maya & 3D Studio Max I didn't give it much attempt since the UI seemed more confusing & the material available to learn was lacking.
  - 7y ago
binthere 7y ago
Other successful gaming companies/platforms should do the same.
agumonkey 7y ago
countdown to 2.90 I suppose
bhouston 7y ago
Commoditize one's compliments: https://jasongriffey.net/wp/2012/04/19/commoditizing-our-complements/ https://jasongriffey.net/wp/2012/04/19/commoditizing-our-com... Unreal Engine, like Unity, right now has to be used with Autodesk products like 3DS Max or Maya, or at least that is the case with the large majority of professionals. This is an impediment to using Unreal Engine and thus makes Epic Games sort of dependent on Autodesk. There is probably no coincidence that the new general manager of Unreal Engine is an ex-Autodesk SVP, Marc Petit, who used to be in charge of Maya, 3DS Max, etc for a decade (https://www.awn.com/news/marc-petit-leaves-autodesk https://www.awn.com/news/marc-petit-leaves-autodesk). He definitely sees the value of building up Blender to remove the dependence of Unreal Engine on expensive tools from other vendors.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  I never understood when important people force deals with companies they used to work at. He doesn't work for Autodesk any more, why would he care how well they're doing? Is he being paid by autodesk? I mean I know he might be friends with people from those companies still, but he's actively hurting his own company by making these calls.
  - AwesomeFaic 7y ago
    Still owns private stock or something analogous?
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Here seems to be the opposite, no? He made a move against his old company.
    - soup10 7y ago
      The existence of GIMP doesn't really make less people use Photoshop. The same is true of Blender and Maya.
      - creato 7y ago
nabla9 7y ago
I just did some research on Chinese tech companies and realized how big Tencent is in the gaming. They have 40% stake in Epic Games, majority in Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, Riot Games and Miniclip.
goobynight 7y ago
So, this will fund ~2-3 people over the next 3 years. That's by my estimate.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  Yes, this does sound about right. Makes it feel like a drop in the bucket, though. The amount of ground that Blender is trying to cover is ridiculously large because they're deliberately trying to turn it into a jack of all trades (compositing, audio and video editing etc.). The result is that it is a true master of none.
- johnnyanmac 7y ago
  keep in mind the Blender Foundation is based in The Netherlands, not San Francisco. That salary might go a much, much longer way compared to if Blender was based in the US (maybe, I do not know the average compensation for skill programmers in that country).
  - lexs 7y ago
    According to Glassdoor the average "programmer" salary in the Netherlands is 60.000€ ($67.000) [0] compared to 74.000€ ($84.000) in San Francisco [1] [0]https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/netherlands-programmer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,11_IN178_KO12,22.htm https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/netherlands-programmer-... [1] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-programmer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,24.htm https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-programme...
xparco 7y ago
This is like me donating 100 dollars
ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
Anyone interested in following a fantastic Twitter account that is always doing fun stuff in Blender, especially with Grease Pencil. This is a 2D animation generated from a 3D environment. Mind blowing -> https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1146021523460935681 https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1146021523460935681
syshum 7y ago
So when will blender drop Linux support and require the Epic Store to Launch it?
Slashbot 7y ago
well blender 2.80 ux is still garbage.. so lets hope 1.2m goes towards the developers who see blender ux as being garbage... they were meant to be doing this.. https://developer.blender.org/T54963 https://developer.blender.org/T54963 but they failed, and even if they ever do accomplish some sort of maya like greatness in keymap.. it still leaves the tooling, grid snapping and just general ux of doing things to be improved, and by improved i mean throw out some of there really shitty ux they've had for so long on tooling.. anyway don't get me wrong blender has some great addons, amazing gpu renderer (compared to autodesk wtf have they been doing) all the best things in maya were made years/decades ago...albeit those best things are still better than blender... but blender has been catching up relatively fast in the last few years.. autodesk better wake up, the subscription shit, the autodesk chrome infested background license shit thats always running and the fees for subpar improvements aren't worth it... blender some more maya init and it will be golden.
RenRav 7y ago
Don't they earn this amount of cash several times per day solely off fortnite?
justcontent 7y ago
Thanks Epic!
boterock 7y ago
Shameless self plug: If you use Unreal Studio and Blender, please check out the project I am working on: https://github.com/0xafbf/blender-datasmith-export https://github.com/0xafbf/blender-datasmith-export

736 points by brachi 7y ago

reddotX 7y ago

epic!

Lowkeyloki 7y ago

That's probably a drop in the bucket for Epic, but it's still much appreciated!

KingFelix 7y ago
Yup! So stoked on the work they are doing. Epic has been funding some awesome projects / people. I am really stoked on what they are doing. I can only imagine if other companies with Epic levels of cash were doing the same thing. I love it, and support all the stuff they are doing. Tim Sweeney is a good guy. Looking forward to see what else they come up with
- andybak 7y ago
  > Tim Sweeney is a good guy Not knocking the donation per se but it's a bit easier to be a good guy when you're sitting on the world's biggest pile of kid's pocket money. Several friends have stories along the lines of their children taking not spending any money on their summer holidays because they want to save it for Fortnite hats or whatever. It's carefully designed smack for kids and there has to be a certain amount of moral push-back on that.
  - orbifold 7y ago
    There always have been money extraction schemes targeted at kids Pokémon, Magic the Gathering and so on come to mind. It is the parents responsibility to counter that.
    - gibolt 7y ago
      As adults not participating, it feels like a waste of money. The rewards aren't 'valuable'. To the kids, the cost is worth it, bringing them happiness, social experiences, and a fun childhood to look back on. As long as it the amount doesn't get unreasonable relative to the means of their parents, it may be a good investment.
      - allendoerfer 7y ago
        Making financial mistakes on a small scale will also help to make kids financially better educated adults and prevent them to make those mistakes on a bigger scale.
  - Cyph0n 7y ago
    > because they want to save it for Fortnite hats or whatever. You could easily replace "Fortnite hats" with "Pokemon cards", "Yugioh cards", "Gameboy games", "MMO items", "Starcraft expansions", etc. The difference with Epic is that they've managed to take a much larger chunk of the market, which is why parents have started to notice it more.
    - andybak 7y ago
      Yep. And I have qualms over some of those things too. I guess it's a tricky one as toys are not really much different despite having a physical manifestation. I would have happily spent every penny I could get my hands on on Star Wars figures when I was of that age. Is marketing a useless blob of plastic to kids any different to marketing a useless bunch of bytes?
      - DonHopkins 7y ago
        It's better for the environment to market useless bunches of bytes that useless blobs of plastic. Especially when they use some of that money to support useful bunches of bytes like Blender! (That said, I sure loved my Star Wars action figures!)
        Moru 7y ago
        The environment impact of useless bunches of bytes might surprise you.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > Is marketing a useless blob of plastic to kids any different to marketing a useless bunch of bytes? The physical blob is, well, physical. It exists for longer, and 20 years later you may dig it out and relive some of childhood memories. Bytes in the cloud tend to have much shorter life, usually defined by how long the vendor bothers to keep the server applications up. EDIT: Funny I managed to post an exactly opposite opinion to 'DonHopkins at the same time :). Let me just clarify: I prefer no marketing of useless anything, but for toys, I think physical beats digital because digital is ephemeral.
  - cuban-frisbee 7y ago
    It is easier to do when you have a lot of money of course but we don't see a lot of of companies doing it. Epic games is giving 100 million dollars out of the 1,5 billion they made last year (they made 3 billion but their investors get the other half). Epic isn't really doing anything predatory they don't use RNG or other such things. On top of that Sweeney is also doing quite a lot personally both as a conservationist and philanthropist.
- jimbob45 7y ago
  >I can only imagine if other companies with Epic levels of cash were doing the same thing. You're not even trying to be subtle about shitting on Steam, are you?
- StapleHorse 7y ago
  >Epic levels of cash do you mean Steaming piles of cash? :)

nailer 7y ago

This is really smart move that helps Epic more than you might think. UE4's own tools (which are based around creating environments from existing models, placing actors, and realtime rendering) are WORLDS ahead of common Autodesk modelling tools eg 3DS Max and Maya (which Epic itself uses). UE4 is easy to pick up, but then you have to learn Maya and it becomes a grind. There needs to be something as powerful as Maya with a better UX to stop modelling being a blocker for new UE4 users. Being Free As in Beer and Free as in Freedom help too.

TrevorJ 7y ago
There's no real comparison between a game engine and a modeling/animation package. They are built to do very different things. However, it is definitely in Epic's best interest to support a robust and freely available tool for the content creation side of things.
- nailer 7y ago
  > There's no real comparison between a game engine and a modeling/animation package. Sure there is. - UE4 needs to move a viewport around 3D space, so does Maya. UE4 uses game controls. Maya you need to hold down something or tweak it to do that. - UE4 involves creating and manipulating objects in space for BSP. Maya involves creating and manipulating objects in space for modelling. Maya has a UI that's 20+ years old with minimal changes. UE4 does not. > They are built to do very different things. No, they're built to do different but related things. I'm not sure why you would think that modelling and environment creation are very different. For the purposes of gamedev or archvis, they're both tools to support making the environment. And one is a barely maintained cash cow.

pixelbath 7y ago

Awesome. Blender is on the cusp of releasing a major UI overhaul (2.8) that will make it more accessible to newcomers (left-click is now the default!). I'm excited to see it getting some major support from the gaming industry as well as the film industry.

Ithildin 7y ago
That's great news. I've learned Max and Maya, but my brain could never wrap itself around Blender. I'd definitely try it again once the update comes out.
Vinnl 7y ago
More info about the changes set to come here: https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-80/ https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-80/
krautsourced 7y ago
It's not _that_ much of an overhaul imho. I still find it to be weird, coming from other apps (Cinema 4D in my case).

suyash 7y ago

Congrats Blender and great job Epic!!

crimsonalucard 7y ago

I hope it's no strings attached.

Danieru 7y ago
We received a devgrsnt for our video game about two years back. The grants are super no strings attached. Epic is by far the nicest organization to work with in the video game industry. Yet that was even before the Fortnite money.
ralusek 7y ago
Me too, but I suspect at worst it would be like "and make sure to develop and refine the export to UE4 functionality," which is something the community benefits from anyway.
- jsgo 7y ago
  Let's pretend that's explicitly the case. Is there something inherently wrong with that? How many open source software developers would love it if instead of "please implement x feature" it ends with "...and here's $1.2 million to finance the development of it" at the end? End users get new features they may actually use, massive OSS gets funding. Win-win for all parties.
  - ralusek 7y ago
    Nothing wrong with that at all. I meant the "at worst" to carry an implicit "and there's nothing wrong with that, so it's nothing but a good thing."
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    What about something like. Please don't implement that feature that benefits our competitors.
Someone1234 7y ago
You can read more about Epic's MegaGrants here: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants It doesn't look like it has many (any?) strings. Aside from being split over three years in Blender's case. It is worth considering that this is in Epic's best interests as Blender + Unreal Engine is a common platform for startups/indie devs. Making Blender better may make the games that people develop using Unreal Engine better, which might mean higher license income for Epic. So it is a win for Epic and a win for Blender/the community.

Rch_East 7y ago

Epic are doing a great job improving fairness in the gaming industry, and the economic conditions for developers. I'm looking forward to their Epic Store opening up to more (high quality) Indie games.

sgarman 7y ago
The % deal they are offering is a good start but I'm not sure buying exclusivity of game releases is good for "fairness in the gaming industry."
- typenil 7y ago
  I'm legitimately surprised to see so much good will towards Epic and Tim Sweeney here. I'm happy about their revenue share and was excited when they got started - until it became obvious that their tactics didn't align with their PR.
  - dx87 7y ago
    Yeah, their revenue share isn't about helping developers, it's about hurting Valve. When Epic pays a publisher for exclusivity, a lot of the time it's actually "sell it anywhere except Steam". Their deals still allow the developers to sell the game on stores that take the same 30% cut that Steam does. Plus there's the issue of a game being developed with Linux support, then Epic pays the publisher for exclusivity and the Linux version goes away because the EGS is Windows only.
    - rexf 7y ago
      EGS supports Windows & Mac. This link is directly from their home page https://launcher-public-service-prod06.ol.epicgames.com/launcher/api/installer/download/EpicGamesLauncher.dmg https://launcher-public-service-prod06.ol.epicgames.com/laun...
- foota 7y ago
  I agree with their stance that exclusives are the only way to break the hold Steam has on the market.

MrLeap 7y ago

This is great! As a slighty OT aside, I really hope blender's UI changes sloooow down. I've been using it for 16 years. 2.8 versus 2.7 is so different, It almost feels like they're making changes for change sake. I've been trying to use their various 2.8 RC's so I don't have to say I don't know how to use blender anymore when it pops. They made the following things toggleable at launch, but man these are some muscle memory breaking changes that are now the default. - Changed selecting objects from right to left click - Space bar no longer opens up the function search. The search is like 50% of my workflow, so this one hit me in the gut until I changed the setting. Then there's some other things that feel renamed for no discernible reason. - I can't search for 'remove doubles' anymore. There are certain geometries that I've come to build by snapping to axis, extruding, snapping to vertices, remove doubles. Now it's buried in a menu at mesh->clean up->'merge by distance'. It also makes a GUI element pop with the distance argument, and there's no obvious way to "apply". So weird. - Ambient occlusion in the view appears to have been renamed 'cavity'. - The tool panel lost its words, it's now just icons. Functionality has to be discovered by hovering. This is the worst UX habit from mobile, I wish it would stay out of my desktop tooling. - The view/selection/snap/etc settings bar has moved from the bottom of the screen to the top. Why? - Properties tabs moved to the side from the top. I can see why. - I can't make objects unselectable but visible in the outliner. Why?! - Layers are gone, they're now "collections" but they don't do the same thing at all! This is the stuff I've hit in a about 2 hours of messing. I'm willing to acclimate to about 90% of these changes. So far it's just the layers / merge doubles thing that really sucks. Eevee is really pretty, so it's got that going for it, which is nice.

failrate 7y ago
Yes, I understand your frustration, and it has options to use the legacy UI (IN PART).
- MrLeap 7y ago
  I'll get over everything (i've complained about so far) except how collections work and how merge doubles is gone. If the devs don't sort it out by release, I'll solve it with addons. Just engaging in the time honored tradition of hand wringing.

noobermin 7y ago

Blender has really developed and come onto its own. I'm really happy for them and wish they can attract more users from the general community.

lone_haxx0r 7y ago

WTF I love Tim Sweeney now.

pedrocx486 7y ago
I still don't. His actions last month will not have me loving him in a while.
- thijsvandien 7y ago
  Something I missed? Could you be more specific?
  - flyingfences 7y ago
    They've decided to completely stop trying to support Linux even on games that already had support and are intentionally disabling any workarounds to keep them running.
    - Slashbot 7y ago
      wow thats pretty dumb of epic.. think they'd want to actually end shitting windows10, and support linux desktop better.

jefftime 7y ago

This is great news. Blender is an incredible tool

rancyber 7y ago

Tencent is not a nice company. It's a shame to see such a good product as Blender accept money from a snake in the grass. It makes me wonder what kind of deals were made under the table to make this happen.

Andrex 7y ago

In the spirit of supporting open software, it would be fantastic if Epic Games Store and its DRM warmed up to Linux next. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241

groovybits 7y ago
"“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games." Contradictory sentiments like these are what lead me to believe this grant is mostly for marketing purposes. (tin-foil hat mode)
- ngngngng 7y ago
  Who cares? "I don't give a rip whose money it is, mate" - Steve Irwin, when asked about accepting money from "unethical" groups and using it for conservation. https://youtu.be/-1gVkTFam1w?t=753 https://youtu.be/-1gVkTFam1w?t=753 If it helps a good goal, what does it matter?
  - jonny_eh 7y ago
    What matters is if the accepting of the money outweighs the good of turning it down. It's not always an easy equation.
    - lghh 7y ago
      But that money is going to exist whether you accept it or not. You not accepting the money doesn't mean the way it was acquired stops happening.
      - pmyteh 7y ago
        Some philanthropic donations are kinda prestige-for-cash deals. My employer, Oxford University, accepted a large chunk of change from Wafic Saïd to endow their business school. If they hadn't taken it, he'd certainly still have the money. But we wouldn't have lowered our own reputation by associating ourselves with a... not spotless businessman. If it's done anonymously, then sure: you're quite right. But if it isn't then there is, in fact, a price. And it's not always a great deal.

binthere 7y ago

As someone who's done lots of Blender work as well as Maya and integrations with Unity and Unreal Engine, I still think there's quite a long way to go to make Blender a good option for game development. It's free, it kind of works but it's very painful when it comes to animation, texturing, and details. Right now, this is what I usually do: - Basic Modeling: Blender - Sculpting + Details: ZBrush - Painting: Substance Painter - Animation: Maya So yeah, the last 3 are paid and it's not cheap. Blender can do all three but not as good. I hope that with this additional money the Blender Foundation team can hire more people to close these gaps. In 2.8 they've improved on different fronts but they are still quite behind in those departments. Last but not least, they should make more effort to improve their keybindings. They've been monkey patching it in 2.8 with the "industry-compatible" keybindings but when you use it a bunch of other things stop working.

Elizer0x0309 7y ago
Datapoint: I've had/have a really good experience with Blender. Countless opensource resources to fill any gaps in the export pipeline. Not to mention the relatively easy python api that gives you access to all the scene's data.
- pzone 7y ago
  Blender's Python API, although cleaner and better organized than Maya's, only offers a sliver of Maya's functionality. Maya has a standard maya.cmds API for scripting which works similarly to how Blender's Python API. Maya also has a separate library maya.api.OpenMaya which is a wrapper around its C++ plugin api. Blender doesn't offer anything like this.
mattferderer 7y ago
I'm curious why you would use Blender over Maya for modeling if you have both? I tried Blender a decade ago but since I had access to Maya & 3D Studio Max I didn't give it much attempt since the UI seemed more confusing & the material available to learn was lacking.
- 7y ago

binthere 7y ago

Other successful gaming companies/platforms should do the same.

agumonkey 7y ago

countdown to 2.90 I suppose

bhouston 7y ago

Commoditize one's compliments: https://jasongriffey.net/wp/2012/04/19/commoditizing-our-complements/ https://jasongriffey.net/wp/2012/04/19/commoditizing-our-com... Unreal Engine, like Unity, right now has to be used with Autodesk products like 3DS Max or Maya, or at least that is the case with the large majority of professionals. This is an impediment to using Unreal Engine and thus makes Epic Games sort of dependent on Autodesk. There is probably no coincidence that the new general manager of Unreal Engine is an ex-Autodesk SVP, Marc Petit, who used to be in charge of Maya, 3DS Max, etc for a decade (https://www.awn.com/news/marc-petit-leaves-autodesk https://www.awn.com/news/marc-petit-leaves-autodesk). He definitely sees the value of building up Blender to remove the dependence of Unreal Engine on expensive tools from other vendors.

chipperyman573 7y ago
I never understood when important people force deals with companies they used to work at. He doesn't work for Autodesk any more, why would he care how well they're doing? Is he being paid by autodesk? I mean I know he might be friends with people from those companies still, but he's actively hurting his own company by making these calls.
- AwesomeFaic 7y ago
  Still owns private stock or something analogous?
- icebraining 7y ago
  Here seems to be the opposite, no? He made a move against his old company.
  - soup10 7y ago
    The existence of GIMP doesn't really make less people use Photoshop. The same is true of Blender and Maya.
    - creato 7y ago

nabla9 7y ago

I just did some research on Chinese tech companies and realized how big Tencent is in the gaming. They have 40% stake in Epic Games, majority in Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, Riot Games and Miniclip.

goobynight 7y ago

So, this will fund ~2-3 people over the next 3 years. That's by my estimate.

gmueckl 7y ago
Yes, this does sound about right. Makes it feel like a drop in the bucket, though. The amount of ground that Blender is trying to cover is ridiculously large because they're deliberately trying to turn it into a jack of all trades (compositing, audio and video editing etc.). The result is that it is a true master of none.
johnnyanmac 7y ago
keep in mind the Blender Foundation is based in The Netherlands, not San Francisco. That salary might go a much, much longer way compared to if Blender was based in the US (maybe, I do not know the average compensation for skill programmers in that country).
- lexs 7y ago
  According to Glassdoor the average "programmer" salary in the Netherlands is 60.000€ ($67.000) [0] compared to 74.000€ ($84.000) in San Francisco [1] [0]https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/netherlands-programmer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,11_IN178_KO12,22.htm https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/netherlands-programmer-... [1] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-programmer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,24.htm https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-programme...

xparco 7y ago

This is like me donating 100 dollars

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago

Anyone interested in following a fantastic Twitter account that is always doing fun stuff in Blender, especially with Grease Pencil. This is a 2D animation generated from a 3D environment. Mind blowing -> https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1146021523460935681 https://twitter.com/5agado/status/1146021523460935681

syshum 7y ago

So when will blender drop Linux support and require the Epic Store to Launch it?

Slashbot 7y ago

well blender 2.80 ux is still garbage.. so lets hope 1.2m goes towards the developers who see blender ux as being garbage... they were meant to be doing this.. https://developer.blender.org/T54963 https://developer.blender.org/T54963 but they failed, and even if they ever do accomplish some sort of maya like greatness in keymap.. it still leaves the tooling, grid snapping and just general ux of doing things to be improved, and by improved i mean throw out some of there really shitty ux they've had for so long on tooling.. anyway don't get me wrong blender has some great addons, amazing gpu renderer (compared to autodesk wtf have they been doing) all the best things in maya were made years/decades ago...albeit those best things are still better than blender... but blender has been catching up relatively fast in the last few years.. autodesk better wake up, the subscription shit, the autodesk chrome infested background license shit thats always running and the fees for subpar improvements aren't worth it... blender some more maya init and it will be golden.

RenRav 7y ago

Don't they earn this amount of cash several times per day solely off fortnite?

justcontent 7y ago

Thanks Epic!

boterock 7y ago

Shameless self plug: If you use Unreal Studio and Blender, please check out the project I am working on: https://github.com/0xafbf/blender-datasmith-export https://github.com/0xafbf/blender-datasmith-export