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I think the open source community can definitely do something cool like this. Although good UX has been historically the Achilles Heel of open source, I believe

by ratww 4y ago

I think the open source community can definitely do something cool like this. Although good UX has been historically the Achilles Heel of open source, I believe the focus would help a lot in this regard. No need to worry about the engine part itself. Godot's editor for example is already quite good, and it's only a portion of the engine. Imagine what a team with more focus could achieve. It would also help tremendously in standardising file formats and other conventions. We've kinda settled on either ECS or Node-Based architectures, so there's an obvious starting point, concept-wise. Just have each engine provide a configuration file telling which components (or node types) are available, and how they can be configured. Or provide a language-server-like API so it's extensible. There's no need to worry about high-fidelity, physics, sounds, or scripting during the editing (only during debugging), so some editor that just knows the 3D formats is enough. If debugging is needed there should be an optional way, like with code editors. I've been looking for a big project to tackle, maybe that's something I can try to start myself :)

bob1029 4y ago
> I've been looking for a big project to tackle, maybe that's something I can try to start myself :) I had a similar thought. I was thinking maybe this could even be some web-based system where you could have multiple editors talking to the same engine session, or vice versa. > Although good UX has been historically the Achilles Heel of open source Completely agree. Perhaps the best way to go about a project like this would be to establish a few mock use cases up front (i.e. actually try to build a dummy game with your own tools). The magic of UX doesn't appear until you have actually used a thing and start tweaking stuff like animation delays, font sizes, tab order, modal positions, et. al.
- ratww 4y ago
  Something web would be really cool, indeed. Not only collaboration, but imagine integrating source control with all that too, that would be an awesome experience. Source Control is not something I enjoyed when I worked in a mainstream engine. > Completely agree. Perhaps the best way to go about a project like this would be to establish a few mock use cases up front (i.e. actually try to build a dummy game with your own tools). The magic of UX doesn't appear until you have actually used a thing and start tweaking stuff like animation delays, font sizes, tab order, modal positions, et. al. That's true! However, there's some good prior art for engine editors, in the shape of Unity, Godot and Unreal.

by ratww 4y ago

bob1029 4y ago

> I've been looking for a big project to tackle, maybe that's something I can try to start myself :) I had a similar thought. I was thinking maybe this could even be some web-based system where you could have multiple editors talking to the same engine session, or vice versa. > Although good UX has been historically the Achilles Heel of open source Completely agree. Perhaps the best way to go about a project like this would be to establish a few mock use cases up front (i.e. actually try to build a dummy game with your own tools). The magic of UX doesn't appear until you have actually used a thing and start tweaking stuff like animation delays, font sizes, tab order, modal positions, et. al.

ratww 4y ago
Something web would be really cool, indeed. Not only collaboration, but imagine integrating source control with all that too, that would be an awesome experience. Source Control is not something I enjoyed when I worked in a mainstream engine. > Completely agree. Perhaps the best way to go about a project like this would be to establish a few mock use cases up front (i.e. actually try to build a dummy game with your own tools). The magic of UX doesn't appear until you have actually used a thing and start tweaking stuff like animation delays, font sizes, tab order, modal positions, et. al. That's true! However, there's some good prior art for engine editors, in the shape of Unity, Godot and Unreal.