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S&box is now an open source game engine

sbox.game

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

#41

Post by Rohansi »

jsheard wrote: post #33
Rohansi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs They don't need to. S&box uses a fork of Source 2 that is maintained by Facepunch, with Valve's upstream changes merged in as needed.

Oh right, that's more reassuring. I guess you'd still have to cut a deal with Valve to use FPs fork commercially though? Which is a wildcard since the licensing terms aren't public as far as I can tell.

There is already a deal between Valve and Facepunch. I don't know all the terms but you will need to publish your game to Steam (not exclusively).

https://sbox.game/dev/doc/systems/game-exporting/ (bottom of page)

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

#43

Post by hnuser123456 »

raincole wrote: post #37
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…

Isn't Rust Unity-based? Was he just too fed up with Unity and decided to roll his own engine?

S&box was based on UnrealEngine 4 until late 2020. I think Garry wanted to use the latest and greatest engine, then Valve continued to be friendly with him, and even though Valve wanted Source2 to be a VR platform, it was clear desktop was going to remain relevant, but the content creation tools on SteamVR Environments were a cut-down version of what was actually used to make Half-Life Alyx, but they gave Garry all the tools, and he moved to Source2, and built a .net "framework" to make it faster to develop and iterate in Source2. So Garry's tools are now an open version of the closed tools that Valve didn't want to release that they used to make Alyx.

Finally there's another serious competitor to UE and Unity.

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

#44

Post by adito »

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…

Oh, you mean Rust (the game[1]), not Rust (programming language[2]).

[1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/252490/Rust/

[2]: https://rust-lang.org/

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

#45

Post by jquaint »

This is cool, though I'm reluctant to give praise when they have been so weird with Linux support on their games.

It was annoying after buying Rust to learn that you can't play on official servers on Linux. The game runs fine on Linux, the devs just don't allow it.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/rust-develop...

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

#46

Post by enbugger »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #43
raincole wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Rust Unity-based? Was he just too fed up with Unity and decided to roll his own engine?

S&box was based on UnrealEngine 4 until late 2020. I think Garry wanted to use the latest and greatest engine, then Valve continued to be friendly with him, and even though Valve wanted Source2 to be a VR platform, it was clear desktop was going to remain relevant, but the content creation tools on SteamVR Environments were a cut-down version of what was actually used to make Half-Life Alyx, but they gave Garry all t…

Yet another one. Along with Stride, Godot, Unigine, O3DE, Flax and tens more. All look like they just want be clone of UE: generic dark UI with inspector, scene hierarchy, asset browser in the bottom and play button in the top. Zero creativity and innovation. Where's Emacs or Vim of game engines which brings its own unique philosophy?

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

#47

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

enbugger wrote: post #46
hnuser123456 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S&box was based on UnrealEngine 4 until late 2020. I think Garry wanted to use the latest and greatest engine, then Valve continued to be friendly with him, and even though Valve wanted Source2 to be a VR platform, it was clear desktop was going to remain relevant, but the content creation tools on SteamVR Environments were a cut-down version of what was actually used to make Half-Life Alyx, but they gave Garry all t…

Yet another one. Along with Stride, Godot, Unigine, O3DE, Flax and tens more. All look like they just want be clone of UE: generic dark UI with inspector, scene hierarchy, asset browser in the bottom and play button in the top. Zero creativity and innovation. Where's Emacs or Vim of game engines which brings its own unique philosophy?

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.

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

#48

Post by wvbdmp »

enbugger wrote: post #46
hnuser123456 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S&box was based on UnrealEngine 4 until late 2020. I think Garry wanted to use the latest and greatest engine, then Valve continued to be friendly with him, and even though Valve wanted Source2 to be a VR platform, it was clear desktop was going to remain relevant, but the content creation tools on SteamVR Environments were a cut-down version of what was actually used to make Half-Life Alyx, but they gave Garry all t…

Yet another one. Along with Stride, Godot, Unigine, O3DE, Flax and tens more. All look like they just want be clone of UE: generic dark UI with inspector, scene hierarchy, asset browser in the bottom and play button in the top. Zero creativity and innovation. Where's Emacs or Vim of game engines which brings its own unique philosophy?

I don’t understand this take. The abundance of game engines has never been greater, both open and proprietary. As has the abundance of indie games. Some people make a distinction between more batteries-included engines with editors etc. and “game frameworks”, which are supposedly more bare-bones libraries such as Bevy or Babylon.js. Maybe that’s what you’re after?

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

#49

Post by lukan »

enbugger wrote: post #46
hnuser123456 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S&box was based on UnrealEngine 4 until late 2020. I think Garry wanted to use the latest and greatest engine, then Valve continued to be friendly with him, and even though Valve wanted Source2 to be a VR platform, it was clear desktop was going to remain relevant, but the content creation tools on SteamVR Environments were a cut-down version of what was actually used to make Half-Life Alyx, but they gave Garry all t…

Yet another one. Along with Stride, Godot, Unigine, O3DE, Flax and tens more. All look like they just want be clone of UE: generic dark UI with inspector, scene hierarchy, asset browser in the bottom and play button in the top. Zero creativity and innovation. Where's Emacs or Vim of game engines which brings its own unique philosophy?

"Where's Emacs or Vim of game engines which brings its own unique philosophy?"

All forgotten in obscurity.

When making a game, people are usually not so much interested in the philosophy of their tools, but shipping things with it as soon as possible.

That means working as expected.

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

#50

Post by lelandbatey »

enbugger wrote: post #46
hnuser123456 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S&box was based on UnrealEngine 4 until late 2020. I think Garry wanted to use the latest and greatest engine, then Valve continued to be friendly with him, and even though Valve wanted Source2 to be a VR platform, it was clear desktop was going to remain relevant, but the content creation tools on SteamVR Environments were a cut-down version of what was actually used to make Half-Life Alyx, but they gave Garry all t…

Yet another one. Along with Stride, Godot, Unigine, O3DE, Flax and tens more. All look like they just want be clone of UE: generic dark UI with inspector, scene hierarchy, asset browser in the bottom and play button in the top. Zero creativity and innovation. Where's Emacs or Vim of game engines which brings its own unique philosophy?

Complaining about the UI color and button layout of an game _engine_ is a bit like comparing aircraft carriers by the color of the rug in the control room. What about the built-in tools for organizing and connecting assets, format support, how user input is handled, the batteries-included ways to model game state, and all the ways of interconnecting all those things in the code the engine provides? Does anyone have interesting comparisons/notes around those subjects as it relates to the S&box engine?
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