Amazon has now relaunched its own game engine that previously went by the name Lumberyard with open source code. The engine now bears the name Open 3D Engine and is now open to anyone without any Crytek patents to worry about.
Amazon’s game engine called Lumberyard was always meant to be available to use free of charge. Now, however, it has taken a step further as Amazon has chosen to recast the game engine into an open source project. In the same vein, they also rename the game engine and start an organization that will keep track of the initiative.
The game engine now goes by the name Open 3D Engine and will be managed by the organization Open 3D Foundation which Amazon started through a collaboration with The Linux Foundation.
Lumberyard built on the studio Crytek’s game engine CryEngine. However, this new and renamed version must have got rid of all traces of patent-protected modules and code. Which means developers can not just use Open 3D Engine for free. It is also free to modify the code at your own discretion without having to worry about potential extra costs. The fact that the code is open to everyone also means that developers can help each other by modifying the engine and then sharing their inventions.
Open 3D Engine should have received some improvements compared to Lumberyard. According to Amazon, the game engine will now offer a more photorealistic rendering module, a new animation system and more news that will hopefully make it easier for game developers. How this engine will be adopted by the industry and in turn lead to more traffic at AWS remains to be seen.
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