Linux Foundation to Form New Open 3D Foundation

New Open 3D Foundation launching with over 20 founding members, including Adobe, AWS, Huawei, Niantic, and Red Hat to accelerate developer collaboration on 3D engine development for AAA-games and high-fidelity simulations

SAN FRANCISCO – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced an intent to form the Open 3D Foundation to accelerate developer collaboration on 3D game and simulation technology. The Open 3D Foundation will support open source projects that advance capabilities related to 3D graphics, rendering, authoring, and development. As the first project governed by the new foundation, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is contributing an updated version of the Amazon Lumberyard game engine as the Open 3D Engine (O3DE), under the permissive Apache 2.0 license. The Open 3D Engine enables developers and content creators to build 3D experiences unencumbered by commercial terms and will provide the support and infrastructure of an open source community through forums, code repositories, and developer events. A developer preview of O3DE is available on GitHub today. For more information and/or to contribute, please visit: https://o3de.org

3D engines are used to create a range of virtual experiences, including games and simulations, by providing capabilities such as 3D rendering, content authoring tools, animation, physics systems, and asset processing. Many developers are seeking ways to build their intellectual property on top of an open source engine where the roadmap is highly visible, openly governed, and collaborative to the community as a whole. More developers look to be able to create or augment their current technological foundations with highly collaborative solutions that can be used in any development environment. O3DE introduces a new ecosystem for developers and content creators to innovate, build, share, and distribute immersive 3D worlds that will inspire their users with rich experiences that bring the imaginations of their creators to life.

Major features of the Open 3D Engine include a new multi-threaded photorealistic renderer, an extensible 3D content editor, a data-driven character animation system, and a node-based visual scripting tool. Developers can build games and new engine features on top of O3DE’s component-based architecture, which enables components of the engine to be used together or independently. Developers will have the flexibility of authoring code with C++, LUA, and python, while animators, technical artists, level designers, and other content creators can work directly with O3DE’s built-in authoring tools to create 3D experiences.

The Open 3D Foundation and Open 3D Engine Project will enable developers to collaborate on building games and simulations as well as the underlying engine. It includes a Governing Board focused on business and budget decisions and a Technical Steering Committee dedicated to technical strategy and community management. The Project is organized into Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that include: Build/Dev Pipeline; Simulation Engine; Content Creation; Network & Cloud; Presentation; Documentation/Demo; Release; Security; and Testing. The O3DE community welcomes contributions from all cloud providers, gaming companies, and industries to advance the project.

“We’re proud to offer the 3D development community an unencumbered, AAA-capable, real-time 3D engine with one of the broadest arrays of integrated 3D authoring tools in the industry including a new photorealistic renderer, built for both modern gaming hardware and distributed cloud rendering,” said Bill Vass, VP of Engineering at AWS. “We believe that creating a first-class, community-driven, open-source option will revolutionize real-time 3D development, as Linux did for operating systems and Apache did for the web.”

“The new Open 3D Foundation finally gives gaming and engine developers an opportunity to influence the direction of a major AAA class 3D engine that is sustained for the long term by a worldwide open source community,” said Chris Aniszczyk, CTO, Linux Foundation. “Furthermore, other industries such as automotive and healthcare can take advantage of embedding the engine and supporting the advancement of the engine to benefit all.”

Founding members of the Open 3D Foundation include AccelByte, Adobe, Apocalypse Studios, Audiokinetic, AWS, Backtrace.io, Carbonated, Futurewei, GAMEPOCH, Genvid Technologies, Hadean, HERE Technologies, Huawei, Intel, International Game Developers Association, KitBash3D, Kythera AI, Niantic, Open Robotics, PopcornFX, Red Hat, Rochester Institute of Technology, SideFX, Tafi, TLM Partners and Wargaming. These members are contributing funding and resources to the foundation as the initial governing members.

The O3DE community is hosting O3DECon on October 12th and invites the wider open source engine community to attend, contribute and learn more about the future of the foundation. Additionally, there will be an O3DE panel at GDC on July 22, 2021.

Member Comments
AccelByte
“As a Founding member we are incredibly excited to be part of that push towards a more open, and frankly, industry rejuvenating breakthrough. Open source 3D game engine gives total control, and puts creators back in the driving seat. It will accelerate innovation and foster amazing content and experience creation. At AccelByte we are committed to the deep integration of our tools and backend platform tech to support content creators using O3DE. We are looking forward to working with the Linux Foundation to make this a reality.” – – Nik Palmer, Product Manager of AccelByte Blackbox.

Adobe
“Adobe is proud to champion the Open 3D Foundation as a founding member. Open source technologies are critical to advance sustainability across 3D industries and beyond. We believe collaborative and agnostic toolsets are the key to not only more healthy and innovative ecosystems but also to furthering the democratization of 3D on a global scale.” – – said Sebastien Deguy, VP of 3D & Immersive at Adobe.

Apocalypse Studios
“The new Open 3D Foundation ushers in a profound change in the video game industry,” said Denis Dyack, CEO of Apocalypse Studios Inc. “O3DE will lead the way for cloud-first development, freeing developers to collaborate without traditional restrictions allowing them to concentrate on creativity, achieving what was once previously impossible. The video game industry will never be the same again.”

Audiokinetic
“We’re very excited about offering an integration of Wwise to O3DE users. We believe it is our duty as the global leader in interactive audio solutions to make our cross-platform technology as accessible as possible,” said Martin Dufour, Audiokinetic CTO. “While we think this is essential for continuing our contributions towards advancements within the gaming and interactive media industry, we also believe that strengthening and empowering the creators community with open source solutions will allow other industries to leverage interactivity as it expands beyond games.”

Backtrace
“The formation of the Open 3D Foundation is a transformative step in accelerating the real-time 3D market through open-source. It feeds into the market trends of game technology democratization, cloud-first game development, and the evolution of multi-faced game development platforms to the benefit of both creators and the ecosystem as a whole. Backtrace is honored to join as a founding member of the Open 3D Foundation and eager to empower O3DE creators with our cross-platform observability solution for real-time 3D,” said Abel Mathew, CEO and co-founder of Backtrace I/O.

Carbonated
“As a mobile-first studio, we’re honored and excited to be a founding member of the Open 3D Foundation,” said Travis Boatman, CEO of Carbonated Inc. “Our titles must perform on a myriad of devices, and tap into cloud-enabled services in order to drive forever games for our players. We chose O3DE as foundational tech because it delivers on all of our needs while being completely free and open source.”

Futurewei
“The open sourcing, with the Linux Foundation of this important platform for game development is a big step for spatial computing and I’m very excited to see where it leads!” said Tish Shute (Leichliter), Futurewei Technologies, Inc.

GAMEPOCH
“Successful implementation of cloud-native games requires not only a fundamental shift in design paradigm but equally important is the availability of enabling technologies. The O3DE initiative is an important catalyst for empowering creators in the new era of cloud-native gaming,” said Stephanie Chen, Founder & CEO, GAMEPOCH.

Genvid Technologies
“Creators and businesses both benefit when there are open source tools available to them. We are big believers that game engines and interactive streaming will change not just video games but entertainment in general, and think that the mission of the Open 3D Foundation is important not just to our industry (gaming) but our metaverse future. We are honored to join as a founding member of the Open 3D Foundation and are eager to bring our cross-platform interactive streaming services to its developers,” said Jacob Navok, co-founder and CEO of Genvid Technologies, Inc.

Hadean
“The release of a fully open source AAA-quality game engine has the potential to significantly reshape the games industry and Hadean is thrilled to be able to support it. We are particularly excited by the modularity goals of O3DE and the potential for integration with our highly scalable distributed simulation engine, in pursuit of a more open ecosystem for gaming and simulation,” said Aidan Hobson-Sayers, technical director, Hadean.

HERE Technologies
“As a location platform at the forefront of mapping the world’s road networks and urban centers in 3D, we are excited to join the Open 3D Foundation as a founding member,” said Giovanni Lanfranchi, Senior Vice President Development and Chief Technology Officer at HERE Technologies. “We intend to contribute to the 3D engine code as well as provide expertise that can help developers create 3D-rich location-based experiences for gaming and a broad array of enterprise and mobility use cases.”

Huawei
“We are thrilled to support and participate in the formation of the Open 3D Foundation as a Premier Member,” said Bryan Che, Chief Strategy Officer, Huawei Technologies. “3D graphics are vital to how we connect billions of people around the world, including in our mobile devices, laptops, AR/VR systems, and smart screens; cloud-based gaming and media services; and more. Bringing the power of open source across all these areas and beyond will greatly enhance the innovation and value of 3D visuals.

IGDA
“We are proud to be supporting the O3DE project and the democratization of game development technology through open source. It is our mission to support and empower game developers in achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers, and access to cutting-edge development tools and their source code will enable more studios and developers to thrive. We are sure to see the O3DE project and Open 3D Foundation lead to new innovation within our industry and improve video games and other 3D experiences for everyone,” said Renee Gittins, executive director, International Game Developers Association.

Intel
“Intel is excited and honored to join with AWS, the Linux Foundation and other industry partners to form the Open 3D Engine Foundation. We know well through the variety of Linux Foundation projects we already support that open software is a major driver of innovation. Such projects as O3DE enable the collective energy and mind-power of the best developers in the world to deliver robust, stable and next generation technology to everyone sooner. We are delighted to contribute a wide array of Intel’s advanced photorealistic and high-performance visual technology, including Intel® OSPRay and other components in the Intel® oneAPI Rendering Toolkit, for the best 3D visual impact to a wide array of applications,” said Jim Jeffers, senior principal engineer and senior director of Intel Advanced Rendering and Visualization Architecture.

KitBash3D
“As creators begin to check out the O3DE, it’s important that they can quickly build a world and get excited about using the engine. To help them reach this magic moment, we’re providing a sampling of the KitBash3D premium asset library to come FREE within the O3DE – giving users the tools they need to create worlds and save countless hours of work in the process. We are very happy to be a part of this project’s launch and can’t wait to see all the amazing things creators make with it!” — Banks Boutté, Co-founder, KitBash3D

Kythera AI
“The O3DE Project is a game changer,” said Matthew Jack, CEO of Kythera AI, an established supplier of the industry’s most comprehensive AI middleware. “It’s a big step in the democratization and accessibility of game development, with users gaining access to cutting-edge tools previously affordable only to AAA studios. As a founding member of O3DE we have chosen to make the power of Kythera AI available to all as an Open3D Gem. Developers will save thousands of hours and achieve sophisticated, dynamic behaviors for any genre, out of the box, and at scale. As a result, users of O3DE can deliver an unrivalled experience to players – and fill their stunning worlds with intelligent life!”

Niantic
“Niantic’s mission is to encourage exploring and togetherness, which is why our Real World Platform offers cross-platform APIs and tools that simplify the development of AR applications for mobile devices,” said Phil Keslin, CTO, Niantic. “Being a founding member of the exciting Open 3D Foundation follows that spirit of openness and togetherness. Open standards help democratize innovation, which is why we support arming developers with a fully open source cross-platform 3D engine, as it will remove major hurdle to creativity and will help their focus on AR world building. We’re honored to be able to provide developers with this framework to deliver amazing, shared AR experiences through the conduit of our real-world AR mobile games.”

Open Robotics
We are happy to support the Open 3D Foundation’s goal of providing a high-quality open source 3D engine and we are honored to be a founding member. Given our history with open source software for the robotics industry, we are intimately familiar with the power of collaboration and community. We look forward to O3DE helping to grow this initiative and to one day bring these capabilities to robotics simulation,” said Brian Gerkey, CEO, Open Robotics.

PopcornFX
“We believe in collaboration and sharing across industries. By gathering ambitious individuals and organizations from multiple industries, O3DE is a path to a bright future. As founder members of O3DF, we will bring PopcornFX GeM and our ability to work closely with production teams. With partners and community, our offer and capabilities will continue to improve in order to bring cutting edge solutions for realtime VFX,” said Maxime Dumas, owner, PopcornFX.

Red Hat
“As a leader in open source solutions, Red Hat knows how instrumental open source communities can be in creating innovative solutions to the pressing needs and challenges of various industries. We’re honored to be a founding member of the Open 3D Foundation, an initiative that will empower developers to collaborate and thereby shape the future of 3D visual experiences,” said Deborah Bryant, Senior Director, Open Source Program Office.

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
“Since I teach courses in Game Design and Development and in our Minor in Free and One Source Software and Free Culture, this checks all the boxes for bringing more enterprise open source collaboration to the gaming industry,” said Stephen Jacobs, Director, Rochester Institute of Technology’s Open Programs Office, [email protected]. “This will be a great opportunity for RIT students, faculty and staff to make contributions to the engine and, as we’re part of the Foundation, to engage at a level that actually helps shape its direction. This is especially important for our students to work with the professionals in the field. Students in the Open Source course I’m teaching this semester will have the option to work with the foundation for their required FOSS contributions.”

SideFX
“Empowering artists with tools they need to create immersive virtual worlds is at the heart of everything we do at SideFX. So we’re thrilled to be a founding member of the Open 3D Foundation. We truly believe that open, collaboraitve workflows are the future of 3D – and we’re proud to be a part of this important initiative driving into that future,” said Cristin Barghiel, VP of product development at SideFX.

Tafi
“At Tafi, our vision is to empower creators and democratize 3D avatar solutions across the virtual worlds. As such, the Open 3D Engine project aligns perfectly with our shared belief in open collaboration and mass innovation,” said Preston Woo, Chief Strategy Officer, Tafi. “We are proud to be a founding member of the O3DF in partnership with Amazon, the Linux Foundation, and other industry leaders, and we look forward to supporting the development of this new open source 3D engine.”

TLM Partners
“The O3DE project opens the door to a AAA engine for indies and underserved markets. We see room in the market for a third engine that is a transformative step towards collaboration and will drive exponential creativity and growth,” said Jake Hawley, founder and CEO of TLM Partners. “As a publisher of Cross-Play games, TLM is excited to support the development of a cloud connected, cross-platform and open source engine that aligns with our belief that the future of game development is predicated on pioneering tools and technology that facilitate creative and collaborative expression without the need for a physical space.”

Wargaming
“We at FragLab believe that having a game engine with quality rendering is not enough. Nowadays the more technical side of game development is quickly changing and the ability to adapt your solutions in real-time is extremely important. O3DE has a proven foundation to be not only a high-quality game engine, but also be flexible enough to quickly react to different users’ demands, starting from integrating 3rd party AI systems to new game servers’ orchestration backend technologies,” said Sergey Rustamov, technical director at Wargaming.

About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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