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Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

godotengine.org

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Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#3
post #2

> 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.

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.

Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#4
post #2

> 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.

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.

Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#6
post #2

> 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.

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.

Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#7
post #2

> 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.

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.

Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#8
post #2

> 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.

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.

Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#9
post #7
post #2

> 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.

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.

epic's biggest competitor is unity. Godot competes more with unity than unreal engine, and therefore, it's a strategic attack on unity.

Re: Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination

#10
post #2

> 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.

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…

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.
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