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

Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

aws.amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 187 posts

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#91

Post by cptskippy »

eterm wrote: post #16
ascorbic wrote: post #4

Note that it's "free, including all source code", but definitively not open source. https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/#Licensing

It also contains built in obselesence: 57.6 Registration; Release. Before distributing your Lumberyard Project to End Users, you must register it at aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/registration. You must obtain our prior written consent if the initial public or commercial release of your Lumberyard Project is based on a version of the Lumberyard Materials more than 5 years old.

This is probably a way to limit supporting legacy versions of AWS as they anticipate the service will evolve over time. It also means that any game based on Lumberyard might not work past 5 years without continued developer updates.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#92

Post by shinymark »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #43
markatkinson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, which is a shame for them, as lots of the smaller shops starting out and actually deciding which game engine to use are likely to be starting with something like Blender. I don't even think 3DS Max exists anymore? Isn't it just Maya now?

3DS Max definitely exists. Autodesk is still supporting them, and not as a 'oh this is just an auxiliary side project'. The breakdown (oversimplified) is Maya is more for complicated models used in animation/CGI (MEL scripting is their 'killer' tool that puts it ahead of Max), while things like architectural and game models are mostly done in 3DS Max (but theres a lot of overlay between the two, i.e., I've seen tons…

All game studios I have worked at have used Maya. I do know of some that use Max but it's definitely not the case that Maya is only used outside of games.

As a side note, Maya added Python as a scripting language a while back. You can also write plugins in C++, which can be a nice way to write custom exporter code sharing engine code files for file formats and such.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#93

Post by agentultra »

thenomad wrote: post #3

Digging into the details, it seems this is largely a fork or adaption of the CryEngine, with all the advantages and disadvantages that brings. As I said about Autodesk's offering, Stingray, I think that even a giant like Amazon is going to have an uphill battle bringing a new game engine into mass use. Having been testing game engines just this week, I'm reminded just how much of an ecosystem has built up around Unit…

I don't think we're done making game engines. We're not done making blogging engines. Wordpress may be one of the largest incumbents but it's not the dominant platform and there are plenty of competing alternatives along every axis. Unity may be one of the current incumbents but it's not the best engine and won't be the last.

More competition is good. It means Unity won't be able to stand still and we'll get to see more features and interesting ideas. Cloud + Twitch integration? Pretty cool!

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#94

Post by shinymark »

thecatspaw wrote: post #54
lmm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five years ago using C# for a serious game would get you laughed at. But every day the balance shifts: computers get faster, but developers don't get smarter, so a language that sacrifices performance for ease of development becomes a better choice. If you're looking to the future I'd recommend sticking with C#.

isnt the main problem with C#, Java and similars the garbage collector? which can at its worst kick in while you're in the middle of a fight or something. Even if its just 20ms, in a online FPS it potentially makes the difference between winning and loosing it. edit: I am a Java guy myself, and would like to do some amateur gamedev in that direction (online FPS), but im worried about above mentioned point.

Yes. Explicit control of memory is one of the big reasons C++ wins for high performance realtime applications like games.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#95

Post by knodi123 »

bobajeff wrote: post #56
douche wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's become something of a chicken and egg problem. All the hard-core game developers moved up from assembly to C, then introduced bits of C++ in the late 90s. All the books and tutorials end up getting written in C++ (or C with classes...). APIs get written in C/C++. More people learn C++ because its what the game devs do, and it's harder to find resources on learning how to do it in any other language. It's…

"if you're developing a fast-twitch action game or shooter - a GC pause might drop enough frames to matter there, but for most games, Java or C# should be fine." Are most games adventure, puzzle solving, or turn-based?

or otherwise not dependent on single-frame precision, yeah.

certainly "fast-twitch action games" and "fast twitch shooters" are a minority of all games.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#97

Post by douche »

vilya wrote: post #85
douche wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like they could throw in Assimp[1] and have most of the common formats out-of-the-box. [1] https://github.com/assimp/assimp

I've never been able to get Assimp to successfully load anything other than .obj format models, despite what they claim in their docs. Last time I tried was about two years ago though, so maybe it's improved since then.

I've used the .NET wrapper to load up quite a few different model formats. Sometimes it takes a little fiddling to get the right set of flags, because it seems like every model is setup just a little differently...

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#98

Post by ggambetta »

gravypod wrote: post #79
athrun wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They certainly already have a SDK for Unity: https://github.com/aws/aws-sdk-unity

Does this have support for their "auto scaling" back end? That is what interests me the most.

You may be interested in SpatialOS (http://improbable.io). Disclaimer: I work there. Feel free to contact me directly if you need more info :)

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#100

Post by wlesieutre »

patates wrote: post #6
thenomad wrote: post #3

Digging into the details, it seems this is largely a fork or adaption of the CryEngine, with all the advantages and disadvantages that brings. As I said about Autodesk's offering, Stingray, I think that even a giant like Amazon is going to have an uphill battle bringing a new game engine into mass use. Having been testing game engines just this week, I'm reminded just how much of an ecosystem has built up around Unit…

So this was the secret deal which, according to rumors, saved Crytek. This is the second fork of the CryEngine that I know of (other is the Farcry fork of Ubisoft), and I find it interesting that they keep forking it instead of offering a library designed to work with it. I wonder if it says something about the codebase.

Another major engine fork is for Star Citizen / Squadron 42.

They've hired several ex-Crytek engineers at the Foundry 42 office in Frankfurt, and among other changes have modified the engine to support a 64 bit data in coordinate system and rendering, multithreaded physics, and independent physics grids for inside the larger ships while they're moving around. Probably other things, but those are the main ones.

Post reply on HN