Open 3D Foundation releases O3DE 24.09
The current Open 3D Engine sizzle reel. The latest version of the open-source game engine, O3DE 24.09, has just been released after several months in public preview.
Posted on 8 August 2024 for the public preview, and updated for the final release.
The Open 3D Foundation has released Open 3D Engine 24.09 (O3DE 24.09), the latest version of the open-source game engine.
The update introduces a new dedicated mobile rendering pipeline, improves performance on mobile devices by “up to 400%”, and reduces start-up times for the O3DE editor by “up to 90%”.
It is also now possible to create projects without the need to compile them, using only Script Canvas, O3DE’s visual programming system, and Lua scripting.
An open-source ‘AAA-capable’ game engine based on AWS’s Lumberyard
First announced in 2021, O3DE is an open-source, cross-platform “AAA-capable” game engine” pitched as a successor to Lumberyard, AWS’s free engine.
It features a modular, SDK-like design, open-source build system and new networking stack, and includes hardware-accelerated ray tracing renderer Atom.
The engine is the first release of the Linux-Foundation-backed Open 3D Foundation: a games counterpart to VFX technology body the Academy Software Foundation.
Although the latest sizzle reel (embedded above), is still heavy on AWS’s own projects, O3DE is starting to be used on commercial games, like Team Plutinite’s State of Matter.
O3DE 24.09: new dedicated mobile graphics pipeline
Open 3D Engine 24.09 – despite the version number, it was actually released in October – is the first update to the engine in for a year, and is being pitched as a “huge milestone”.
Key changes include greatly improved mobile performance: the release notes cite performance improvements of “up to 400%” across iOS, Android, and AR and XR devices.
Part of that will be due to a new mobile-specific rendering pipeline, described as an “extremely performant … pipeline built for tiled GPUs”.
It includes materials and lighting features tailored to mobile hardware, including an “optimized BRDF” and support for analytical approximation of image-based lighting.
Users can “easily … disable features as needed” according to the capabilities of the target device.
It is also now possible to control visual quality on a per-device basis, with a default of three performance levels – low, medium and high – based on the device’s CPU, GPU and memory.
New materials and lighting features
New graphics features include a Silhouette material type that displays meshes it is applied to as filled-in silhouettes.
O3DE also now supports lighting channels, for controlling which lights affect which in-game objects. There are three channels for “each kind of light and light-able objects”.
In addition, simple spot lights now support gobos, and can cast shadows.
Create O3DE projects without the need for a C++ compiler
For developers as opposed to artists, a key change in O3DE 24.09 is the introduction of ‘script only’ projects, making it possible to create games without the need for a C++ compiler, using only Script Canvas, O3DE’s visual programming system, and Lua scripting.
Projects can also now be exported using a dedicated UI, rather than having to be done via the command line. It provides “full support” for Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.
Other new features and performance improvements
Other changes include a new framework for interfacing with AI Large Language Models (LLMs) within O3DE.
In addition, PhysX 4 and 5 have been split into separate Gems, making it easier to switch between versions of the physics engine.
There are also a number of new features targeted at industrial simulation rather than games work, including a new Georeference component, and the ability to parse Gazebo data.
Performance improvements include a reduction of “up to 90%” in editor start-up times.
There are also a lot of smaller feature improvements and bugfixes, listed in the release notes.
Price and system requirements
Open 3D Engine 24.09 is available as compbiled binaries for Windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04 Linux. The source code is available under an Apache 2.0 licence.
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