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> Tim Sweeney and Epic Games for their confidence in helping us finance our research via Epic Megagrant. That’s interesting. Since this is all open source I gu

> Tim Sweeney and Epic Games for their confidence in helping us finance our research via Epic Megagrant. That’s interesting. Since this is all open source I guess Epic could potentially benefit from this... It’s nice to see they funded another engine.

mhh__ 6y ago
From a business perspective, Unreal doesn't really do 2D as per se (Whereas Godot is very simple to use) so improving Godot keeps people away from other tools like Unity which do have features that compete with Unreal.
- ngold 6y ago
  As a unity developer I'm drooling at godot. I can't wait to jump ship to open source. Don't get me wrong unity is great, but godot is super compelling.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    I'm someone who isn't at all knowledgeable about game development nor its industry, so forgive my ignorance, but what are you waiting for specifically?
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      One thing many of the big players do that Godot doesn’t is require telling the user they used that engine. If you use Unity, you need to show the Unity splash screen unless you pay the big bucks; Godot requires none of that.
      - capableweb 6y ago
        So why would someone wait for that feature before changing to Godot if that's already a feature?
      - adanto6840 6y ago
        For Unity, the "big bucks" is $35/seat/month -- that gets you the ability to make a build without a splash screen & without showing any Unity logos, etc. For small shops (ie low or no revenue), you only need to pay that when you're ready to actually ship/make a build. Note that the costs are higher if you're revenue is huge, it goes up to like >$100/seat/month or similar IIRC, I think that kicks in if you're in the 7-figures of annual revenue. It's not free, and it can get expensive -- but you have to do the math on what you get, how much each will cost you monetarily & in time / opportunity cost, etc. IMO Unreal looks pretty compelling, and if they had C# support we'd jump to it in a heartbeat; I really don't want to write C++ on a day-to-day basis. If Godot keeps it up, then it may be the answer, in another 18 months or so -- but probably not wholly a commercially viable option quite yet, especially for mid-to-small shops.
    - darkteflon 6y ago
      Yes, why are you waiting for Godot? Sorry, I’ll get my coat.
    - jay_kyburz 6y ago
      Not the OP, but I did jump into Godot full time for about three months last September. There were several significant land-minds that blew up in my face and it has made me lose some confidence in the core Godot team. Without going into specifics, I think the problem is that the core team don't actually make games, they just work on an engine, so they don't appreciate the problems that I faced. (The same problem that Unity has, but at least they have the time to listen to devs) I really want to love Godot. But I worry that the risks are too great to jump from Unity.
  - RMPR 6y ago
    There's one thing that make me reluctant to use Godot though and it's GDScript. Edit: Seems like it's not a problem anymore, can't wait to try again.
    - shmerl 6y ago
      Doesn't Godot allow binding with multiple languages? You can even use Rust for that instead of GDScript.
      - krapp 6y ago
        The problem is few of those bindings are mature, nor can they be expected to remain up to date. I don't know of any games in Godot using anything but GDScript or C#. This will probably change in the future (I hope it does, and I really wish Godot just used WASM internally so any language that already compiled to it would work) but as of now it seems there's no point to using anything but GDScript or C#.
        shmerl 6y ago
        You mean bindings aren't stable and require reworking all the time?
        krapp 6y ago
        I mean that language support comes in the form of random third party projects like perbone/luascript[0], so stability and completeness are entirely up to the whims and capabilities of the owner. It's open source, of course, so that's to be expected, but it also means support for any language other than C# and GDScript is kind of a crapshoot. [0]https://github.com/perbone/luascript https://github.com/perbone/luascript
        inDigiNeous 6y ago
        C++ is very easy to use with Godot and integrate with the GDScript support. GDScript is also very good as a script language. Been writing my own application mostly using C++ for the core logic and main application logic using GDScript. The interfacing between C++ and GDScript is suprisingly easy once you set it up. But yeah stuff like Rust support is depending on the maintainers of that code to update to support latest versions of Godot.
  - mrfusion 6y ago
    Tell me more.
  - jbellis 6y ago
    You're not wrong, gdscript is pretty awful. It's only python-like for someone who's never used python. No list comprehensions, no tuples (which means no destructuring in assignment or function parameters), no first class functions, etc. It's like Python 1.x circa 1999, only worse.
- shmerl 6y ago
  Godot will get to the point of competing with Unreal, no doubt about it. Especially since Epic do a poor job at making Vulkan renderer in Unreal work well, and Godot invested in Vulkan all the way.
  - lasagnaphil 6y ago
    Nah, people will not stop using Unreal because it doesn’t support Vulkan. (Sadly) DirectX 11/12 and Windows is still the standard platform in high-profile gamedev...
    - shmerl 6y ago
      DX lock-in will die out. Better sooner rather than later, but even if later, it still will. MS won't be able to poison the industry with lock-in forever. So those who invest in Vulkan today will be ahead of those who don't. Godot did the right thing to completely ignore DX and focus on Vulkan.
nazgulsenpai 6y ago
I may be naive but I think the coder in Sweeny likes to see what Godot is doing, and the skeptic in me thinks that Sweeny knows Godot would only ever really eat at Unity's marketshare.
- sbarre 6y ago
  I don't think there's anything naive about this take.. Why wouldn't a company like Epic, who is the dominant market player by far, put some funding into smaller open source research projects like this? Godot is no threat to them, and quite the contrary brings positive contributions to the whole industry. Not only is it good PR, but as they say a rising tide lifts all boats.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Because Unreal doesn't scale down like Unity does, by improving Godot, they reduce Unity's attractiveness to the small coding communities.
  - PavleMiha 6y ago
    Not sure what market you mean, Unity has a larger marketshare. Can't find a good source for numbers but a lot of places are quoting that Unity has 48% of the total market and Unreal has 13%. Also not sure how this is being measured, but in my experience Unity is more popular.
    - seelion 6y ago
      Numbers are misleading here. I don't have any stats but I think Unreal games make more money.
      - barbecue_sauce 6y ago
        But the market here is game developers, not people who buy the games that developers make.
ktrl 6y ago
Godot is more likely to eat Unity's cake than Unreal Engine's cake. Unity is currently the dominating engine among mobile games and 2D games.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  And if it is to believe their numbers, the large majority of Switch games as well.
echelon 6y ago
Why would Epic put money into an open source competitor? I could see funding open source that is complementary or, perhaps better, something your competitor makes money on. But this? I was looking into Unreal for my next project, but Godot looks amazing. And they won't take a cut of my profits. It might do everything I need.
- chii 6y ago
  epic's biggest competitor is unity. Godot competes more with unity than unreal engine, and therefore, it's a strategic attack on unity.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Unless you are selling millions of copies I don't think Epic Games would care what engine you are using for your indie game.
dr_zoidberg 6y ago
Well, in the same paragraph it goes on to say: > ...and Tim Sweeney and Epic Games for their confidence in helping us finance our research via Epic Megagrant. This new technique was developed entirely in the open and implemented under MIT license, so anyone can take it for using in their own engines and games. So there you go. Whatever Godot devs do, it's MIT and anyone can take. Epic gets an agile engine/team to do the research, and once a viable implementation exists they can analyze it and see it it's implementable within UE, should they want to. Of course, I write this without knowing if Unreal Engine has SDF Global Illumination. Maybe they already have it, but wanted to finance a new alternative to compare against their own.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  In general the unreal engine has had voxel based global illumination for a long time and in fact was where it entered the mainstream. It added signed distance field stuff a few years ago as well.
jfkebwjsbx 6y ago
An engine like UE which has decades and decades of work does not care about what a small engine like Godot does. The grant is more about avoiding monopoly claims, getting good PR and attacking Unity.

mhh__ 6y ago

From a business perspective, Unreal doesn't really do 2D as per se (Whereas Godot is very simple to use) so improving Godot keeps people away from other tools like Unity which do have features that compete with Unreal.

ngold 6y ago
As a unity developer I'm drooling at godot. I can't wait to jump ship to open source. Don't get me wrong unity is great, but godot is super compelling.
- capableweb 6y ago
  I'm someone who isn't at all knowledgeable about game development nor its industry, so forgive my ignorance, but what are you waiting for specifically?
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    One thing many of the big players do that Godot doesn’t is require telling the user they used that engine. If you use Unity, you need to show the Unity splash screen unless you pay the big bucks; Godot requires none of that.
    - capableweb 6y ago
      So why would someone wait for that feature before changing to Godot if that's already a feature?
    - adanto6840 6y ago
      For Unity, the "big bucks" is $35/seat/month -- that gets you the ability to make a build without a splash screen & without showing any Unity logos, etc. For small shops (ie low or no revenue), you only need to pay that when you're ready to actually ship/make a build. Note that the costs are higher if you're revenue is huge, it goes up to like >$100/seat/month or similar IIRC, I think that kicks in if you're in the 7-figures of annual revenue. It's not free, and it can get expensive -- but you have to do the math on what you get, how much each will cost you monetarily & in time / opportunity cost, etc. IMO Unreal looks pretty compelling, and if they had C# support we'd jump to it in a heartbeat; I really don't want to write C++ on a day-to-day basis. If Godot keeps it up, then it may be the answer, in another 18 months or so -- but probably not wholly a commercially viable option quite yet, especially for mid-to-small shops.
  - darkteflon 6y ago
    Yes, why are you waiting for Godot? Sorry, I’ll get my coat.
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    Not the OP, but I did jump into Godot full time for about three months last September. There were several significant land-minds that blew up in my face and it has made me lose some confidence in the core Godot team. Without going into specifics, I think the problem is that the core team don't actually make games, they just work on an engine, so they don't appreciate the problems that I faced. (The same problem that Unity has, but at least they have the time to listen to devs) I really want to love Godot. But I worry that the risks are too great to jump from Unity.
- RMPR 6y ago
  There's one thing that make me reluctant to use Godot though and it's GDScript. Edit: Seems like it's not a problem anymore, can't wait to try again.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    Doesn't Godot allow binding with multiple languages? You can even use Rust for that instead of GDScript.
    - krapp 6y ago
      The problem is few of those bindings are mature, nor can they be expected to remain up to date. I don't know of any games in Godot using anything but GDScript or C#. This will probably change in the future (I hope it does, and I really wish Godot just used WASM internally so any language that already compiled to it would work) but as of now it seems there's no point to using anything but GDScript or C#.
      - shmerl 6y ago
        You mean bindings aren't stable and require reworking all the time?
        krapp 6y ago
        I mean that language support comes in the form of random third party projects like perbone/luascript[0], so stability and completeness are entirely up to the whims and capabilities of the owner. It's open source, of course, so that's to be expected, but it also means support for any language other than C# and GDScript is kind of a crapshoot. [0]https://github.com/perbone/luascript https://github.com/perbone/luascript
      - inDigiNeous 6y ago
        C++ is very easy to use with Godot and integrate with the GDScript support. GDScript is also very good as a script language. Been writing my own application mostly using C++ for the core logic and main application logic using GDScript. The interfacing between C++ and GDScript is suprisingly easy once you set it up. But yeah stuff like Rust support is depending on the maintainers of that code to update to support latest versions of Godot.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Tell me more.
- jbellis 6y ago
  You're not wrong, gdscript is pretty awful. It's only python-like for someone who's never used python. No list comprehensions, no tuples (which means no destructuring in assignment or function parameters), no first class functions, etc. It's like Python 1.x circa 1999, only worse.
shmerl 6y ago
Godot will get to the point of competing with Unreal, no doubt about it. Especially since Epic do a poor job at making Vulkan renderer in Unreal work well, and Godot invested in Vulkan all the way.
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  Nah, people will not stop using Unreal because it doesn’t support Vulkan. (Sadly) DirectX 11/12 and Windows is still the standard platform in high-profile gamedev...
  - shmerl 6y ago
    DX lock-in will die out. Better sooner rather than later, but even if later, it still will. MS won't be able to poison the industry with lock-in forever. So those who invest in Vulkan today will be ahead of those who don't. Godot did the right thing to completely ignore DX and focus on Vulkan.

nazgulsenpai 6y ago

I may be naive but I think the coder in Sweeny likes to see what Godot is doing, and the skeptic in me thinks that Sweeny knows Godot would only ever really eat at Unity's marketshare.

sbarre 6y ago
I don't think there's anything naive about this take.. Why wouldn't a company like Epic, who is the dominant market player by far, put some funding into smaller open source research projects like this? Godot is no threat to them, and quite the contrary brings positive contributions to the whole industry. Not only is it good PR, but as they say a rising tide lifts all boats.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Because Unreal doesn't scale down like Unity does, by improving Godot, they reduce Unity's attractiveness to the small coding communities.
- PavleMiha 6y ago
  Not sure what market you mean, Unity has a larger marketshare. Can't find a good source for numbers but a lot of places are quoting that Unity has 48% of the total market and Unreal has 13%. Also not sure how this is being measured, but in my experience Unity is more popular.
  - seelion 6y ago
    Numbers are misleading here. I don't have any stats but I think Unreal games make more money.
    - barbecue_sauce 6y ago
      But the market here is game developers, not people who buy the games that developers make.

ktrl 6y ago

Godot is more likely to eat Unity's cake than Unreal Engine's cake. Unity is currently the dominating engine among mobile games and 2D games.

pjmlp 6y ago
And if it is to believe their numbers, the large majority of Switch games as well.

echelon 6y ago

Why would Epic put money into an open source competitor? I could see funding open source that is complementary or, perhaps better, something your competitor makes money on. But this? I was looking into Unreal for my next project, but Godot looks amazing. And they won't take a cut of my profits. It might do everything I need.

chii 6y ago
epic's biggest competitor is unity. Godot competes more with unity than unreal engine, and therefore, it's a strategic attack on unity.
imtringued 6y ago
Unless you are selling millions of copies I don't think Epic Games would care what engine you are using for your indie game.

dr_zoidberg 6y ago

Well, in the same paragraph it goes on to say: > ...and Tim Sweeney and Epic Games for their confidence in helping us finance our research via Epic Megagrant. This new technique was developed entirely in the open and implemented under MIT license, so anyone can take it for using in their own engines and games. So there you go. Whatever Godot devs do, it's MIT and anyone can take. Epic gets an agile engine/team to do the research, and once a viable implementation exists they can analyze it and see it it's implementable within UE, should they want to. Of course, I write this without knowing if Unreal Engine has SDF Global Illumination. Maybe they already have it, but wanted to finance a new alternative to compare against their own.

CyberDildonics 6y ago
In general the unreal engine has had voxel based global illumination for a long time and in fact was where it entered the mainstream. It added signed distance field stuff a few years ago as well.

jfkebwjsbx 6y ago

An engine like UE which has decades and decades of work does not care about what a small engine like Godot does. The grant is more about avoiding monopoly claims, getting good PR and attacking Unity.