5 ms·

Apple is getting more serious about 3D and the gaming market, which isn’t surprising considering the market size.

zitterbewegung 5y ago
More and more devices from Apple are getting LiDAR sensors so it makes sense to support it. Apple also is taking open source more seriously .
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  Still waiting for FOSS version of Facetime ;)
  - FreezingKeeper 5y ago
    https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_open_standard_facetime_video_chat_for_iphone_4 https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_o... for those that don’t get the reference
  - wlesieutre 5y ago
    You can thank software patents for that https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/08/apple-denied-new-virnetx-facetime-patent-trial https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/08/apple-denied-new-...
ravenstine 5y ago
It definitely makes sense. Recently I had a need for a CAD program and rediscovered how insanely expensive commercial 3D software is for the average person. Sure, many companies now offer monthly subscriptions, but even those subscriptions are ginormous for the amount of relative value returned. Like, do I really want to pay $220 a month for AutoCAD when I only need to design a part for a non-commercial personal project every so often? I'm sure even a lot of small companies secretly pirate such software, especially if they are relying on something like Solidworks. I really don't know how anyone affords that package. And yes, there are sometimes free student editions of these packages, but unlike 15 years ago it's tough to get a hold of them without an email from an academic institution the company has verified. In my case, I was looking at AutoCAD because FreeCAD is... well, pretty terrible as a n00b. From what I can tell it works very differently in many ways from standard CAD applications. It's good for converting between formats, but it's not at all intuitive and seemingly minor actions with nothing but a cube in the workspace can cause it to go into a tizzy and completely freeze. EDIT: Ultimately I ended up using OpenSCAD. Commercial 3D software isn't even necessarily better, though. I know I yakked on about CAD, but I have a sort of background in Animation and used Autodesk Maya for many years, which would be the closest direct competitor to Blender. Dear lord, what a disaster of a software package. Granted, I haven't used it since the 2018 edition, but it's astoundingly bad in many areas. The main reason it's so widely used is that it's established and is capable of just about anything. The downside is that, like AutoCAD, the slightest breeze can make it crash unexpectedly. Anyone smart will save their scenes in ASCII format because who knows, something might go wrong during the saving process that makes your scene unable to open when you reboot Maya, and looking through the text-version of your scene may be the only way to fix or recover anything. That's not even all of it. And Maya is also very expensive. Unless you are a student, the only way to use Maya on a hobbyist level is to pirate it. Having switched entirely to Blender, although there's things about it that I still find unintuitive, it's a breath of fresh air having come from Maya. Unlike Maya, it's rare that anything I do will cause Blender to freeze or crash. The default viewport rendering not only looks better than Maya's "viewport 2.0" but just seems snappier. What I don't like about Blender is that it tries to do too much IMO. Does Blender really need a video editor and to clutter up the UI with references to it? Not specifically related, but what's with the way that modifiers work? It's kind of like Maya's "history" except it's both better and worse. Unlike Maya, you can actually change the order of how modifiers are applied. But modifiers are really only good for specific things. In Maya, the history of an object is far more generalized. But overall, I want to see Blender succeed and maybe, just maybe knock things like Maya down a peg, even if it takes another 20 years.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  I know Blender as a 3D animation creation tool, so you get legacy features.
- cultofmetatron 5y ago
  unfortunate because blender isn't really optimal for cad. Its a mesh based modeler which makes it great for animation and demonstrations but solid level modeling thats suppose to simulate real things isn't its intention.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    I kinda realized after the fact that what I wrote made it seem like I'm using Blender for CAD. (though it would be nice if it had some more CAD capabilities) CAD just happens to suffer the same pricing issue general 3D packages like Maya do. Both are expensive as hell for non-professionals. I use Blender these days mainly for direct manipulation of meshes in ways that a parametric CAD program won't let you. If I was doing character animation again, I'd probably still use Blender for that. General modeling, Blender is very good. I just hope the UI continues to improve and not obscure so many things behind various icons.
    - _carbyau_ 5y ago
      As a 3D print hobbyist I use Blender as a gateway to then be able to learn so many other things in the 3D world. It is amazingly capable but for those who want a tool to do one job well it would seem like hell.
rrrrrrrrrrrrr 5y ago
Wasn’t there a headline were it said apple made more on games than Nintendo, Sony, blizzard etc. together. Apple is already on top of the gaming market.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  I doubt that Apple arcade makes them that much money. Counting the App Store service fee of 30% as "game revenue" is disingenuous, as then we could count every single Windows license sale and every single dollar of revenue from hosting game servers as "making money from games".
  - ksec 5y ago
    >Counting the App Store service fee of 30% as "game revenue" is disingenuous, It was total revenue from App Store derived from Gaming Apps. I dont see how that is disingenuous. Just like Sony makes a cut from games on PS5.
    - JAlexoid 5y ago
      > I dont see how that is disingenuous. When Apple has a total 0 input in making and marketing of said game and just charges for services - that's not revenue from games. And if you want to put a bar that low - Google makes billions from ads for games, YouTube play alongs and other services purchased by game makers. Let's also no forget Starbucks revenues from all the game devs, that definitely counts as game revenue. > Just like Sony makes a cut from games on PS5. You do realize that all PS5 games get input and support from Sony, do you?
      - ksec 5y ago
        Apple dictate what is inside their App Store. Along with tools that partly support the Game Development. i.e Development of Metal and their Custom GPU ( At least that is the way Apple likes to formalise their argument in court ) . In reality there is no different between the role of Apple and Sony when viewed from a business perspective. No matter how big or small their input into Games. They take their Cut on Games purchase. So either Sony is not counted as one, and if they do the similar revenue counting could also be used for Apple.
easton 5y ago
I wonder if they’ll ever add support for Vulkan to macOS/iOS then. If Valve can move the Steam Deck, then there could be a gigantic boost in the available library of games (since all of the big games on Steam will want to target Proton). Architecture makes that still icky, but MoltenVK running Proton (so DirectX to Vulkan to Metal) makes Fallout 4 and Titanfall run playable on M1 (with some graphics glitches). If there was real funding behind it they’d have a winner on their hands.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Apple could literally print money if they put M1 into a steam deck.
fsloth 5y ago
I doubt about the gaming market. Plausible. But their upcoming AR tech needs 3D content and lots of it. Might include gaming as well but there are more uses than strictly "game games" for game like software and content.

More and more devices from Apple are getting LiDAR sensors so it makes sense to support it. Apple also is taking open source more seriously .

JAlexoid 5y ago
Still waiting for FOSS version of Facetime ;)
- FreezingKeeper 5y ago
  https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_open_standard_facetime_video_chat_for_iphone_4 https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_o... for those that don’t get the reference
- wlesieutre 5y ago
  You can thank software patents for that https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/08/apple-denied-new-virnetx-facetime-patent-trial https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/08/apple-denied-new-...

ravenstine 5y ago

It definitely makes sense. Recently I had a need for a CAD program and rediscovered how insanely expensive commercial 3D software is for the average person. Sure, many companies now offer monthly subscriptions, but even those subscriptions are ginormous for the amount of relative value returned. Like, do I really want to pay $220 a month for AutoCAD when I only need to design a part for a non-commercial personal project every so often? I'm sure even a lot of small companies secretly pirate such software, especially if they are relying on something like Solidworks. I really don't know how anyone affords that package. And yes, there are sometimes free student editions of these packages, but unlike 15 years ago it's tough to get a hold of them without an email from an academic institution the company has verified. In my case, I was looking at AutoCAD because FreeCAD is... well, pretty terrible as a n00b. From what I can tell it works very differently in many ways from standard CAD applications. It's good for converting between formats, but it's not at all intuitive and seemingly minor actions with nothing but a cube in the workspace can cause it to go into a tizzy and completely freeze. EDIT: Ultimately I ended up using OpenSCAD. Commercial 3D software isn't even necessarily better, though. I know I yakked on about CAD, but I have a sort of background in Animation and used Autodesk Maya for many years, which would be the closest direct competitor to Blender. Dear lord, what a disaster of a software package. Granted, I haven't used it since the 2018 edition, but it's astoundingly bad in many areas. The main reason it's so widely used is that it's established and is capable of just about anything. The downside is that, like AutoCAD, the slightest breeze can make it crash unexpectedly. Anyone smart will save their scenes in ASCII format because who knows, something might go wrong during the saving process that makes your scene unable to open when you reboot Maya, and looking through the text-version of your scene may be the only way to fix or recover anything. That's not even all of it. And Maya is also very expensive. Unless you are a student, the only way to use Maya on a hobbyist level is to pirate it. Having switched entirely to Blender, although there's things about it that I still find unintuitive, it's a breath of fresh air having come from Maya. Unlike Maya, it's rare that anything I do will cause Blender to freeze or crash. The default viewport rendering not only looks better than Maya's "viewport 2.0" but just seems snappier. What I don't like about Blender is that it tries to do too much IMO. Does Blender really need a video editor and to clutter up the UI with references to it? Not specifically related, but what's with the way that modifiers work? It's kind of like Maya's "history" except it's both better and worse. Unlike Maya, you can actually change the order of how modifiers are applied. But modifiers are really only good for specific things. In Maya, the history of an object is far more generalized. But overall, I want to see Blender succeed and maybe, just maybe knock things like Maya down a peg, even if it takes another 20 years.

JAlexoid 5y ago
I know Blender as a 3D animation creation tool, so you get legacy features.
cultofmetatron 5y ago
unfortunate because blender isn't really optimal for cad. Its a mesh based modeler which makes it great for animation and demonstrations but solid level modeling thats suppose to simulate real things isn't its intention.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I kinda realized after the fact that what I wrote made it seem like I'm using Blender for CAD. (though it would be nice if it had some more CAD capabilities) CAD just happens to suffer the same pricing issue general 3D packages like Maya do. Both are expensive as hell for non-professionals. I use Blender these days mainly for direct manipulation of meshes in ways that a parametric CAD program won't let you. If I was doing character animation again, I'd probably still use Blender for that. General modeling, Blender is very good. I just hope the UI continues to improve and not obscure so many things behind various icons.
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    As a 3D print hobbyist I use Blender as a gateway to then be able to learn so many other things in the 3D world. It is amazingly capable but for those who want a tool to do one job well it would seem like hell.

rrrrrrrrrrrrr 5y ago

Wasn’t there a headline were it said apple made more on games than Nintendo, Sony, blizzard etc. together. Apple is already on top of the gaming market.

JAlexoid 5y ago
I doubt that Apple arcade makes them that much money. Counting the App Store service fee of 30% as "game revenue" is disingenuous, as then we could count every single Windows license sale and every single dollar of revenue from hosting game servers as "making money from games".
- ksec 5y ago
  >Counting the App Store service fee of 30% as "game revenue" is disingenuous, It was total revenue from App Store derived from Gaming Apps. I dont see how that is disingenuous. Just like Sony makes a cut from games on PS5.
  - JAlexoid 5y ago
    > I dont see how that is disingenuous. When Apple has a total 0 input in making and marketing of said game and just charges for services - that's not revenue from games. And if you want to put a bar that low - Google makes billions from ads for games, YouTube play alongs and other services purchased by game makers. Let's also no forget Starbucks revenues from all the game devs, that definitely counts as game revenue. > Just like Sony makes a cut from games on PS5. You do realize that all PS5 games get input and support from Sony, do you?
    - ksec 5y ago
      Apple dictate what is inside their App Store. Along with tools that partly support the Game Development. i.e Development of Metal and their Custom GPU ( At least that is the way Apple likes to formalise their argument in court ) . In reality there is no different between the role of Apple and Sony when viewed from a business perspective. No matter how big or small their input into Games. They take their Cut on Games purchase. So either Sony is not counted as one, and if they do the similar revenue counting could also be used for Apple.

easton 5y ago

I wonder if they’ll ever add support for Vulkan to macOS/iOS then. If Valve can move the Steam Deck, then there could be a gigantic boost in the available library of games (since all of the big games on Steam will want to target Proton). Architecture makes that still icky, but MoltenVK running Proton (so DirectX to Vulkan to Metal) makes Fallout 4 and Titanfall run playable on M1 (with some graphics glitches). If there was real funding behind it they’d have a winner on their hands.

mhh__ 5y ago
Apple could literally print money if they put M1 into a steam deck.

fsloth 5y ago

I doubt about the gaming market. Plausible. But their upcoming AR tech needs 3D content and lots of it. Might include gaming as well but there are more uses than strictly "game games" for game like software and content.