Future of the BGE

Having seen quite a few posts relating to the future of the BGE, it’s somewhat surprising that I find myself writing a similar post.

Yet, it is not that similar. Unlike previous topics on the subject, this thread is directed at (what I believe to be) the serious issue regarding the fate of the BGE under the Blender Foundation.

I’m writing in relation to this roadmap post; http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/06/blender-roadmap-2-7-2-8-and-beyond/

Now, I can only draw some vaguely informed conclusions, but as I see it, the Blender Game Engine is heading to the rather apathetic realm of “interactive engine”, which in my opinion is synonymous with Physics environment. Considering that it intends on merging the BGE with Blender, it can only infer that the source will have heavy modifications undergo (as the BGE itself is rather archaic in its writing than the newer 2.5/6 developments).

I don’t wish to sound frightened of change, but I fear that my heavily invested time in this engine (and community) will eventually have been for nought. I sympathise with the GSOC students.

That post does seem defeatist, and to be frank alarming. But then, my impression has always been a lack of enthusiasm from him regarding the BGE.

Is it possible to fork the BGE and go the other way? The BGE patch updated version of Blender could start this process.

A fork is always possible. You can even have your own private branch. I know of at least one private branch that forked out really early.

It’s an expression of distaste. I personally believe that it’s as though the BGE is sitting on a ledge, and it’s been pulled from our feet at a whim. Of course, one can choose to fork the BGE!

I think we should put together a tech demo,

WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER AND FAST.

I don’t care if it’s not my game

I’ll help…

Then,it’s really the time to change to another engine …unity here we come.

The announcement sound pretty bad ,and yep if it’s not called game engine anymore ,then WTF is it ? Interactive engine?

I think ton should have just wrote : We are tired of developing BGE and we want to drop it/slice it …
Am I or not right ?

I would suggest some form of petition to at least get Tons attention on this issue, but I think his mind is made up.

If he did press the destruct button, do you think that would be the end though? Would people who actively develop the BGE support a fork, or would people just evaporate until nothing is left?

JonnyBlack> Then prepare for bugs and a lighter wallet- Unity Free is not particularly good. And support? Forget great community forums like BlenderArtists.

Sorry to double post, this was supposed to be a reply.

The problem with a fork is, you need someone to act as responsible for it.

On the other side … the things Ton wrote do solve a few of the open demands from the users (e.g. generation of meshes in real time).
So it is a chance to create a new clean game engine including the existing tools of Blender. Just remember there are two different Physics system right now (bge and Blender).

I just have my doubts that it aims for realtime speed. But this might be solved somehow.

The good thing is the bge will still exist. It can even coexist with Blender as a separate application that it already is.
With a should demand that Blender continue to act as editor for the BGE (as there is no other). Finally this would prove that Blender can be platform for other applications rather than being a modeller and renderer.

As far as I know the idea to have game engines as plugin is nothing new. But Blender was to much mixed with the BGE and I guess it still is.

Maybe the interactive mode is more heading towards authoring tool rather than all-purpose game engine.

Anyways,we will live and we will see . I would though really like to see how this would turn into like.
I just hope the “export” option will not be dropped .

Yea I don’t see this as a bad thing at all. A unified python API with the rest of blender could open up some seriously interesting options, especially if the mesh generation/editing code can be used in real time. And it sounds like the game engine would then benefit from speed improvements/optimizations etc… that are done to the main code.

In fact this could be great. There are quite a few people who understand the code of the main part of blender, but only a few who understand and traverse the game engine code with ease. So maybe making the game engines code more in line with blenders code would make it easier for developers to get into developing the game engine.

I highly doubt that the game engine will get worse with this move. It would be good to hear from Moguri/Kupoman on this, maybe I’m wrong. At the moment, the game engine has some interesting branches, Candy branch, but I’m not sure that is still being worked on. The Harmony branch, which thankfully does get some love from the devs. It would be nice to see these merged and maybe cleaned up and submitted to the trunk before any major changes are made to the GE. Then this ‘new’ engine will have a standard to try and obtain.

I really don’t think this is Ton saying ‘We are sick of the GE’, I think he is just trying to find another way to boost the GE’s development. The game engine hasn’t really gone through that many changes/updates recently, so maybe it could do with a revamp, or at least a slight move into the main codebase.

HG1’s Blender build is almost starting to look like a fork with all of the patches that are not in trunk, if he can put that up on GitHub, he can eventually cut out all of the non-BGE components and market it as a standalone FOSS engine based on Blender technology. (providing that Ton actually does go ahead with removing the ‘game’ part of the BGE).

Anyway, the proposal I listed will need to be taken seriously if this happens because the BGE has unique qualities and the FOSS world needs an app. like that.

Yes, it sounds disappointing and we could always push Ton to leave the BGE as-is, but like everything in FOSS, it can always be forked. (by then though, the BGE will need its own community board because there would simply be no need for the BGE forum sections to exist).

Perhaps I would’ve made enough money by then to actually buy the pro version of Unity (because it’s the only version that has all the goods game developers want, that also assumes they finally complete their UI system and implement features requested for years). Though if that wouldn’t work, then the way to go for me would be to hope that this segment of the community can turn the BGE into an independent project and eventually introduce some addon-based interoperability with Blender 2.8x and beyond.

In short, fork the BGE starting with HG1’s branch, cut out the non-relevant portions of Blender, call the new project ‘GameBlender’, set up a Github project site, and port over over any relevant modeling, UVmapping, or texturing code when possible from the main Blender project. This is what you might consider a radical solution, but the BGE (or GB as it will be known by then), could have an even brighter future than it would have remaining stuck to Blender.

Looks like we’re all in panic about BGE future. But we really think the BGE core is good enough to keep? I had worked and been teaching BGE in the last 4 years but in the time BGE was not more good enough and i had to start with Unity3D. The BGE Core just can’t lead us forward so much more, so lets move on.

The BGE Core is about 10 years old now, and have no really great updates in the last 4~5 years at least. Its so much time to any software. In some way the Blender “Interactive Mode” looks nice cause most of the payed and professional works made with BGE in the last years are about Interactive 3D Software and not about AAA Games. Is obvious that Blender Foundation Development crew can’t keep the old BGE Core going on with the last technologies and it seems will not change in the future so for me is most important a updated “Interactive Mode” for general software (included games) development than a Old and Lost “Game Engine” that will not change. My only concern about it is about if we will able to export a Runtime applications and sell it.

Besides all this, with OpenGL 3.0 Support and a faster viewport. Blender can be the first Open Source 3D Animation tool with a Realtime Renderer for movies just like Source Filmmaker and Cryengine CineBox

But if the community really wishes a “Game Engine” is much preferable use a new Core and Help with GameKit project. That is based in Ogre3D which has its own and active community. It have support to all platforms and don’t have any problem with GPL limitations for commercialization. The option of make a fork in blender for BGE and update it for the next generation of Games is far away of the reality, Blender Foundation have a large structure to keep Blender Development going on and just wishes don’t will turn the BGE Core more easy to update.

My Two Cents

I think part of the reason is that it is difficult to quickly get new features pushed into trunk through the system set up by the Foundation. If the community had a fork of the Blender project that involved a version geared for game development, then the process of getting the patches through may very well be much faster.

Who knows, all of the current developers may jump on board and we start seeing updates on a weekly basis instead of hoping there are updates as it is now, we just need a healthy amount of optimism and confidence that a plan like this can be made to work.

I don’t think that it’s a give up argument. Having started developing for the GE, it’s not anything like as hard as people would imagine. Which is why I don’t want to leave it. I like the codebase, it just needs some love. There are plans to help clean things up; I’m intending on looking at the Mesh API (after some discussion with Moguri)

If we were (considering worst case scenario (It may be that Ton’s message is just rather in need of rewording and all is in fact well)) to fork the BGE, i’d prefer to keep it compatible with trunk - so it could be “merged”

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

is this what they mean?

somthing like a blender scene that is a game?

What about the ‘fork’ idea I proposed, Ton has been talking about the removal of the BGE in its current state for a while and I’m not entirely confident that you’d be able to convince him otherwise. That’s where the idea comes in as it would be a way to keep the BGE alive as a different project.

I edited my post :slight_smile:

I see that you continue to have strong interest in keeping the BGE an official part of the core Blender project.

In this case, I still don’t see a good bet unless you, Moguri, and others can pull off a stunning amount of development and code overhaul work that would vastly improve the BGE’s capabilities and bring the core to the same standard as the rest of Blender, as the entire idea of 2.7x/2.8x is to overhaul pretty much every system that was not touched all that much in 2.5x /2.6x (that includes the BGE).

One of the main drives for Ton’s proposal in the first place is because of the relative lack of development on the BGE side, considering the resources we have for the BGE, removing that reason might be a challenge.

I think we may be slightly misunderstanding one another here. I believe that if this is where the BGE is headed, then a fork is an inevitability. I just wished to state that the codebase itself isn’t that troublesome, despite what some may believe.