Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

S&box is now an open source game engine

sbox.game

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#141

Post by ProfessorZoom »

3rodents wrote: post #8

For those unfamiliar, the studio behind S&box is Facepunch, creators of Garry's Mod and Rust. Facepunch as a company doesn't get much attention but they're wildly successful. Started as just some guy in a bedroom, now ~$100m/year in revenue (all via Steam), $100m in the bank, ~100 employees and almost entirely a company of game developers (maybe 20% of employees are administrative staff). Still owned and ran by the f…

i miss the old facepunch. on gmod i have a couple dozen IP mods. on s&box i made call of duty zombies gamemode and was perma banned. all cause they can make more money, but they forget mods like that is why their games are popular

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#142

Post by Rohansi »

cedws wrote: post #108
bangaladore wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does this mean you need Source 2 to develop with S&box? Maybe I'm wrong, but S&box is essentially a game developed with Source 2, thats purpose is to expose internal APIs and wrap them for users to build their own games with. So you develop your thing in S&box that happens to be made with Source 2, but you don't care about that. Basically Roblox.

Ah ok so this is more of a S&box SDK. I misinterpreted this announcement and thought they were basically just releasing S&box for people to fork.

It is S&box, not just an SDK. The only thing is Source 2 is not open source so you only get binaries for it.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#144

Post by qingcharles »

Banditoz wrote: post #93
qingcharles wrote: post #55

I really feel like that name is going to cause them issues with the other game builder with the same name: https://www.sandbox.game/en/

I have never heard of this. It looks like a crypto thing. Can they really hold a candle to Facepunch?

They were pretty big at one point, though they've been losing traction. Their investors seem to have fairly deep pockets (hundreds of millions). Their software (game maker and client) are really well-developed and excellent. The crypto means you can trade any game assets freely, which is great, but also traditionally made it hard for new players who aren't into crypto (they just added credit cards).

Probably has the same resources as Facepunch, but nowhere near the following or players.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#145

Post by Rohansi »

jokoon wrote: post #114

I don't understand the point of this thing. Maybe competing with other engines, but it's hard to know how good enough this will be. The age of mods is over, we're in the age of engines now, I don't think they will catch up. Valve is not a game company anymore, they out source everything.

> Valve is not a game company anymore, they out source everything.

Interesting take when they have (at least) one upcoming game and two released games in development.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#146

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

knollimar wrote: post #80
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about the UI. A game engine is the library code needed to make games, not the editor UI. Just use vim to edit your files if that's what you want.

Not all game files are text and the non-text parts massively benefit from good UI.

Code is code, use a text editor.

3D assets can be made in your 3d program of choice.

Skeletons and animations are also somewhat standard. Use whatever tool you prefer.

Textures are bound to 3d assets, and use plenty of 3rd party tools.

USD makes scenes interchangeable. Use or write tools to fit your needs.

compute shaders are also somewhat standard. Work them out in python until you're happy with them.

Thats alot of it, if you really hate all game engine UIs. But the UI was good enough for the developer of the engine so mabie it's good enough as is.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#147

Post by bangaladore »

needle0 wrote: post #104
bangaladore wrote: post #63

Looks like a serious competitor to Unity. Modern C# is really easy to pick up for beginners (that's actually how I started learning programming back around 2010). What does monetization look like? Can you ship standalone games? Source 2 licensing requirements? Is this closer to Unity or closer to Roblox when it comes to publishing?

A major advantage of using modern game engines is the multiplatform support. This seems pretty weak on that front.

I haven't look into it much, but, Source 2 supports all major desktop platforms and even all mobile platforms. Dotnet supports all those platforms as well.

So I'm not certain why S&box is Windows only, but my guess is that's just temporary.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#148

Post by Rohansi »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #86
MrZander wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to sacrifice anything, no one is making you install anti-cheat software. > Sacrificing freedom for fun? For video games of all things? That's pretty disgusting and I want people to be better than that. What is the point of freedom if you have a joyless existence?

> What is the point of freedom if you have a joyless existence? > no one is making you install anti-cheat software You don't see the irony here? You don't see the trillion dollar corporations dangling "joy" in front of us and conditioning access to it on acceptance of their bullshit non-negotiable take it or leave it contracts where "we own your computer now" is a clause? The powerful choice is to reject the silly bi…

> If they try to usurp control of your computer, stop them from doing so.

But anti-cheat software is not doing this? You are free to do whatever you want on your computer as long as it doesn't interfere with the game process. Most, if not all, anti-cheats will also not do anything when the game isn't open.

Some games (including Rust) give you the choice to play with no anti-cheat, too. You'll only be able to play on servers that allow players to join with no anti-cheat but you are not blocked from the game.

I would be more worried about computing becoming more phone-centric where Apple and Google are in control of what you can and cannot do.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#149

Post by matheusmoreira »

Rohansi wrote: post #148
matheusmoreira wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the point of freedom if you have a joyless existence? > no one is making you install anti-cheat software You don't see the irony here? You don't see the trillion dollar corporations dangling "joy" in front of us and conditioning access to it on acceptance of their bullshit non-negotiable take it or leave it contracts where "we own your computer now" is a clause? The powerful choice is to reject the silly bi…

> If they try to usurp control of your computer, stop them from doing so. But anti-cheat software is not doing this? You are free to do whatever you want on your computer as long as it doesn't interfere with the game process. Most, if not all, anti-cheats will also not do anything when the game isn't open. Some games (including Rust) give you the choice to play with no anti-cheat, too. You'll only be able to play on…

> You are free to do whatever you want on your computer as long as

You are not free. "Your" computer is not actually yours. It doesn't do what you want.

> Most, if not all, anti-cheats will also not do anything when the game isn't open.

Stop believing this. For god's sake I just posted an example of a corporation that thought it was perfectly justified in hacking their customers and stealing their browser passwords. There is no line they wouldn't cross.

They could be doing literally anything and you know it. There's no way for you to know unless you reverse engineer the software, and if you try they are only too happy to label you a cheater and permaban your account or whatever it is that they do.

> I would be more worried about computing becoming more phone-centric where Apple and Google are in control of what you can and cannot do.

This is the exact same issue.

Apple, Google, Disney, Netflix, Hollywood, the games industry, the copyright industry, all the governments the world over are all battling for control over our machines.

This anticheating nonsense is just the tutorial boss.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#150

Post by knollimar »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #146
knollimar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all game files are text and the non-text parts massively benefit from good UI.

Code is code, use a text editor. 3D assets can be made in your 3d program of choice. Skeletons and animations are also somewhat standard. Use whatever tool you prefer. Textures are bound to 3d assets, and use plenty of 3rd party tools. USD makes scenes interchangeable. Use or write tools to fit your needs. compute shaders are also somewhat standard. Work them out in python until you're happy with them. Thats alot of…

I think the game engine UIs are very good for hooking parts together, personally.
Post reply on HN