How Ultra Engine will grow

[Josh]

Something you learn in entrepreneurship is that in order to gain adoption your product needs to solve a specific problem. This can be tricky with consumer/entertainment products. What problem does a game solve, boredom? Leadwerks is nice to use, but for a long time I struggled to come up with an answer to what problem it solves. There was never any reason anyone had to use Leadwerks other than "it's nice to use, many people like it".

Ultra, on the other hand, solves a very clear problem, that of slow performance. VR developers are suffering particularly badly with this problem, so that means they will likely be the most eager to adopt a solution. We've still got the same ease-of-use (in fact, I think Ultra is easier because of shared pointers and other things) so I think once people start using it they will be pleasantly surprised. But ease of use along is not a big enough carrot to attract people. They will be coming here because they need the fastest performance possible in their games and applications.

You can't just spam advertise and get new customers. All the ways a brand spreads, through advertising, word of mouth, etc., are most effective when there is a strong underlying reason for the existence of the product, and a particular customer who needs it. We have that with Ultra, so I think you will find that people are much more interested now than they were in Leadwerks. I have certainly found that to be the case, as I have tested this out in conversations with VR developers at conferences and in meetings. It's okay to say things like "Oh, I see you are having trouble with performance again. I feel very sad for you. I use Ultra and it just always runs fast". 

I think sales for the indie developer market has potential but is kind of limited because many people won't ever pay for anything. Valve is not paying the bills anymore, and I need your help to get through the next few years. My goal is to make you happy with the software, and develop strong B2B (business-to-business) sales of our software over the next 2-3 years. (Focusing on VR is also an advantage here.) At that point, it might make sense to switch over to some kind of freemium model that is funded mostly by large companies. We'll see if that makes sense when the time comes. No matter what, I want the user base to consist of both large businesses and indie developers, ideally I would choose a 50/50 mix.

I'm making a bet that performance challenges for VR developers are so bad that it will drive rapid adoption of Ultra Engine, so I think you will see a level of activity and very cool projects beyond anything we've seen yet. I think in the early days you will see two main types of developers hanging around this forum: people who like Leadwerks and want something similar, but new and better, and experienced VR developers who have hit a wall on performance and need a solution. It should be a very interesting time with a lot of great opportunities.

[reepblue]

58 minutes ago, Josh said:

Something you learn in entrepreneurship is that in order to gain adoption your product needs to solve a specific problem. 

This right here is how I justify why I do anything. I can share you the reasons for Cyclone.

1. Cyclone is aimed to be "The Portal clone to end all Portal Clones." Most other games in the first person puzzle genre want to be the next Portal, but miss all the details that made it great. I've spent too much of my life studying the 2007 classic and figuring out how to splice it's DNA just enough where it's familiar but new enough.

2. I now have a library of my own assets with an "IP" to play with other ideas. They are my assets that I have sources for and can do whatever I like with them.

3. Thanks to Leadwerks, making maps and custom elements has never been easier. A new content creator will not have to worry about what visleafs are or preventing map leaks. They aren't limited by an "easy to use" map maker but will never feel they are putting a man in the moon with complex tools.

4. Leadwerks only has like 4 games on Steam. I got told I couldn't make anything more than a walking simulator with the engine and now I proved them wrong. They can eat their hats now. 

5. I released something after 10 years not really doing much. I can also use this to prove my worth with job interviews and such. I can't wait to tell people that I released a game on steam using  a C++ based game engine, gimp and blender. 😁

6. I now have a new platform to showcase ideas and concepts instead of using Portal/Source. I can't wait for post release in which I can allow myself to do wacky things! 

I'm guessing if there's going to be a high demand for Ultra Engine, there's also going to be a slew of new users wondering how to actually get off the ground with it. I really have no need to create a VR game unless it's to highlight how awesome Ultra is and to help others get their projects started.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

[Thirsty Panther]

Portal/Cyclone VR sounds interesting.

[reepblue]

3 hours ago, Thirsty Panther said:

Portal/Cyclone VR sounds interesting.

Maybe!

[Josh]

Assuming Ultra Engine delivers on its promise, eventually we will get to a situation where VR players start complaining about games that don't use it and tell the developer they should "just use Ultra".

[Josh]

One big issue is that I want to add enterprise sales, but I always want some kind of paid indie option to exist, even if there were a free version in the future. Otherwise the indie developer effectively gets no say in what happens.

[Josh]

You don't have be doing VR stuff, I am just thinking those are the people who need performance the most, so it seems like they would be the new people coming here. We will see if that is the case..

[Josh]

Visually, I feel like this is the right focus / order of users, starting with the center:

If the subscription model is accepted, then I can focus on your needs, and there is still room and a plan to grow.

[IceBurger]

10 hours ago, Josh said:

Assuming Ultra Engine delivers on its promise, eventually we will get to a situation where VR players start complaining about games that don't use it and tell the developer they should "just use Ultra".

If not VR players saying that, then the typically-snobby people on developer QA-boards will whenever someone asks "how can I achieve VR performance in Unity (I only want to use Unity, please don't suggest anything else)"

[Josh]

Just now, IceBurger said:

If not VR players saying that, then the typically-snobby people on developer QA-boards will whenever someone asks "how can I achieve VR performance in Unity (I only want to use Unity, please don't suggest anything else)"

[reepblue]

1 hour ago, IceBurger said:

If not VR players saying that, then the typically-snobby people on developer QA-boards will whenever someone asks "how can I achieve VR performance in Unity (I only want to use Unity, please don't suggest anything else)"

You sarcastically reply with "You don't because you made a lot of bad decisions in your life and C# is for girls." 

Then your account will be banned and you'll never have to deal with those people again. 😁

[wadaltmon]

Knowing what I know from working in the software industry (as well as having friends in game development, having interviewed for the roles, and constantly getting emails from recruiters about said roles), the main draw of the most popular 3D engine at the moment (Unreal) is that it has crossover potential. Out of the box, you have something that anyone of any skill level can pick up and use. (Even if this isn't what you're going for, or you specifically market to a skilled/experienced crowd, this is still the case.) While this seems like they're pandering a great deal to children with rich parents who will absentmindedly pay the subscription fee (they are, but that's not the point), they also want a full team to have the highest accessibility to their product as possible. An artist, a level designer, a programmer, and an intern off the street could all open UnrealEngine.exe and have something working within their respective fields within a matter of minutes.

There's also the point that Unreal Engine (Epic Games) knows how to sell itself. I'd hate to see another comparison that clearly shows Ultra as the winner only for someone to say "w-well, it doesn't have Nanite!" These are the types of things that the "little man" tech news channels tend to latch onto, and collectively their reach is great, and largely to those who have about as little knowledge on the subject of game engines as they do.

The point of me saying this is that to attract both the Leadwerks users and the enterprise users, you will likely have to do a lot of work on presenting this engine in an aesthetically pleasing a manner as possible, as well as provide toolsets that can be used seamlessly by those people. I hate the fact that people will defer to their lizard brain and just go to the flashiest coolest thing possible, but I can say it's better to have some semblance of this initially and let people discover on their own how capable your engine is than to try and wow people with the more technical only for it to push people away.

[Josh]

In the real offline world, 90% of people are using Unity over Unreal because it's easier to use. We don't really need to go head-to-head with Unreal because they're just a different kind of engine. In reality, most people can only play around with it. We don't have to worry about publishing everywhere because that is not our strength. Our strength is ease-of-use plus performance, and VR is where it is needed most. In this area, Ultra Engine blows Unity out of the water, and apparently our GI is much faster than Unreal's. If those companies put all their engineering resources into performance for VR they might be able to match me, but they are trying to be all-things-to-all-people, so this is one area they can't come close to our engine. Unity also has the disadvantage that it's all built on a 20-year-old architecture, and they can't afford to make any breaking changes at this point.

Of course, other engines are going to try to define competition in terms where they have an advantage. We are competing on different terms. I like performance because it is objective and inarguable. We have something no one else can match, and it is okay for you to feel a little arrogant about it. Once you get someone into the position where they are angrily arguing that 10x slower performance is good, you have won. There's a very special look you will see when you talk to people, a look that says "I am angry at you, but I know you are right and now I am worried".

[wadaltmon]

Perhaps using Unreal as "the big guys" was a bad idea. Unity kind of fulfills the same role in my comment. I hope your confidence yields some stellar results when this is released.

[WSI]

Hey, @Josh... Do you foresee any long-term repercussions for Unity in the future, due to the big layoff they just had - apparently including core developers?

I wonder if/how that might affect the quality and progress of the engine, and if that might lead to people beginning to look elsewhere - or at least to choose a new engine for future projects.

That COULD work to UltraEngine's advantage, perhaps. Maybe. It's of course a big 'if' based on a big hypothetical 'if'. I've been thinking of how that could affect things overall, but particularly UltraEngine, given all you have planned for it.

[Josh]

8 hours ago, WSI said:

Hey, @Josh... Do you foresee any long-term repercussions for Unity in the future, due to the big layoff they just had - apparently including core developers?

I wonder if/how that might affect the quality and progress of the engine, and if that might lead to people beginning to look elsewhere - or at least to choose a new engine for future projects.

That COULD work to UltraEngine's advantage, perhaps. Maybe. It's of course a big 'if' based on a big hypothetical 'if'. I've been thinking of how that could affect things overall, but particularly UltraEngine, given all you have planned for it.

I don't know, I think I should just focus on giving you what you need to be happy.

I will say that I always seem to do really well when the fake economy is in a downturn.

[WSI]

7 hours ago, Josh said:

I don't know, I think I should just focus on giving you what you need to be happy.

I will say that I always seem to do really well when the fake economy is in a downturn.

Oh, I'm not suggesting you go out of your way to make anything happen. I agree... focus on what's best for the tools you're creating.
I'm just wondering aloud if circumstances and timing could sorta steer things in that kind of direction, and if you had any thoughts on it. No biggie

Re: Fake Economy.
Ayep.

[chsch]

Hi, I'm one of those indie VR developers with at least some experience (app was commissioned, is in public beta, and now got a second round of funding- yay).

One of the main problems I'm having with performance is that the VR market right now is mobile, and clients aren't interested in buying enthusiast gaming PCs when the VR-novelty-effect can be achieved with a standalone headset like the Quest2 or the Pico Neo3 or older 3DOF HMDs which can be used with zero introduction to the device itself. And I genuinely hate developing on mobile, tiled GPUs just make it really hard to create anything that's not looking like it comes from 2004 (i.e., no normal maps, no shadows, no post-processing).

I'm interested in Ultra Engine and its promises, but I also don't know when or if there will be a PC-VR market anytime soon. Certainly for now, in particular the consumer-facing corporate stuff is all on mobile (and I'm hating it. PC-VR can be so gorgeous, and mobile-VR is a battle for every polygon).

Is Ultra-engine going to run on android anytime soon? and if so, will any of its nice features run on mobile GPUs?

[Josh]

@chsch I totally agree. It's pathetic and sad that mobile technology is going to cripple VR for a while. However, I did try the Quest 2 recently and it was better than I was expecting. I also understand the convenience of having the self-contained system without any external tracking equipment, even though the experience of using it is not nearly as good as the Vive or Index.

I'm aware the Quest has made really significant gains in marketshare, and supporting it is a high priority. It will almost certainly not support some of our cool features, but I don't really know until I try it. The engine is already designed for cross-platform support so I don't think getting it to work on a mobile VR headset will be too terribly hard.

@WSIIt does seem like people are tired of the same old thing and ready for something new. This definitely was not the case a few years ago.

[Josh]

@chsch I have done Android development before, and I do think our performance advantages will carry over to the mobile chipsets, but I won't know the real numbers until I try it.

[wadaltmon]

I'm excited to see support for the Quest. Being able to test standalone without having to have it hooked up to the PC would be nice as I do with... another engine that starts with U. It would be good to also support the camera-based hand tracking the Quest can do, but support on Oculus/Meta's end has been finicky for it too.

[reepblue]

Although I credit Oculus for not making their headsets out of Fisher Price plastic like Valve does, I don't like Meta, and I'm gonna be really sad if I'm ever forced to create an account for testing.

[WSI]

On 7/5/2022 at 11:28 AM, Josh said:

 

@WSIIt does seem like people are tired of the same old thing and ready for something new. This definitely was not the case a few years ago.

I know I'm an exception in this regard - and it's not me being "contrarian" in any way - but the more powerful and "realistic" the results get with modern game engines, the less interested I am. Is it impressive to see how far tech has come in such a relatively short time? Yes. Of course. It's crazy to watch something like Final Fantasy: Spirits Within / Advent Children, maybe even Avatar, and think "those could be rendered in real-time on some modern engines, and look even better"

I'm still more moved seeing some really creatively made Quake 1 or Unreal 1 maps than I am anything in Unreal Engine 4, etc.

My favorite era of 3D game graphics is around the late PS2/early PS3/GameCube era.  When it was still more about solid artwork carrying the look/feel of something, rather than how many pixel and vertex shaders were used to render it. Things were close enough to "realistic" to draw you in, while still leaving room for your imagination to fill in the rest. I'll play a PS2 or PS3 game, or watch someone streaming one, and think "wow this game is really beautiful...".  When I look at games made on modern engines, it's more "wow, this engine can render some realistic scenery". It's not the same effect.

Bleeding-Edge 3D graphics tech ages and becomes outdated looking. Good art always looks good.

That said, give me a game made on any game engine with beautiful art that draws me in and gets my imagination going, I won't care what game engine it is, I'll rave about it all day; far more than the most complex scene comprised of 3D scanned objects and people, rendered at a quadrillion tris per second.

My two cents.

[Josh]

@WSI Sometimes constraints enable creativity. Quake mapping is still going strong.

[WSI]

On 7/10/2022 at 1:33 AM, Josh said:

@WSI Sometimes constraints enable creativity. Quake mapping is still going strong.

Yes indeed! 

My current idea is to stick purely to normal and specular maps in my projects. Keep it simple. And keep a more stylized look, rather than realism.

In terms of realism, Zelda: Twilight Princess is right about where I like it. Probably a slightly higher poly count.