Development of a 3D Editor

[dlannan]

Based on a few ongoing discussions on Defold as a 3D editor in comparison to Unity3D, Unreal Engine and Godot for example I thought there would be good value (for the Defold team) to see just how many developers are interested in an editor of this scale in numbers. As well as a list of some key features that people can vote on.

The idea being, Defold will have some actual metrics for possible priorities and developers interest.
Please comment too if you want to add some selections or ideas.

Show your interest in (Select 1 or more - please at least choose an editor ):

• Primarily 3D Editor
• Primarily 2D Editor
• Extensions (Editor)
• Asset Tools (Broader import capability)
• Community Built 3D Editor

Sorry I forgot to link in the pertinent discussion. This might have caused some confusion.

Commercialization of Defold developer tools

I had to collect my thought before writing this post because it can easily get into an heated discussion. In my day to day job (crowd sims for VFX) we cannot afford to be not efficient, both in pipeline and tools, since we are on the receiving hand of a lot of departments and we work on scenes that in scope make a lot of people pale. The things that I value the most, nimbleness and efficiency, are exactly what drove me to Defold in the first place. Now in practical terms we use houdini, but o…

[Wolfe2x7]

I am only interested in 3D development. As a 3D engine, Defold interests me far more than both “fleshed out” 3D engines like Unity, Unreal, or Godot, or 3D frameworks without an editor at all. Of the four named engines, Defold is the only one lean enough to satisfy my desire for minimum waste/cruft. Meanwhile, it also uses Lua and doesn’t command writing everything from scratch.

What Defold currently offers is unique for a 3D game engine, IMHO. I trust that its design ethos will ensure it remains that way, if it had even better 3D tools.

[dlannan]

Agree with the sentiment totally. Its one of the best lightweight dev tools out there (Reminds me of old Unity 3 days).

One thing though I think many need to consider. The current editor is not really designed as a 3D editor (its primarily a 2D one - hence the discussion). If it were to be expanded, then it would become closer to Godot or Unity3D because of the nature of needing many features in the editor that would enable more easily developed 3D scenes, animation, audio, terrain(?), lighting and the list goes on.

I personally, have no great interest in the matter at all, I’m happy with it as is and will be content with whatever progress comes along. So this is not me pushing a doctrine, this is simply a 1st step in any engineering process - measure first. Then decisions become easier to make.