I wonder if there is any difference between 3D Tiles for Godot and Cesium for Godot?
I have yet to gain a better overview of What should be Cesium for Godot, just like Cesium for Unity, Unreal, O3DE etc.
I wonder if by calling 3D Tiles for Godot is already an indication that the objective is meant for targeting a sub goals of what other game engines aim?
Hi George
This is a great question. Our intent is to enable a broad ecosystem of runtime engines that support 3D Tiles, some of which we’ll create and maintain, others that will be by the community.
The question of branding is for awareness and transparency in the community. It started with plugins like NASA 3D Tiles plugin for Three.js, NYT three-loader-3dtiles plugin, and 3D Tiles loader for deck.gl. More recently, we’ve funded QGIS and Godot plugins using Ecosystem Grants which also follow the same 3D Tiles branding. Following that trend already being used by the community with the first three mentioned, we’re aligning to using Cesium branding to indicate maintained by Cesium, and the 3D Tiles branding is used for community maintained runtimes and plugins. Cesium will not duplicate plugins that already exist.
Our intent is to support all 3D Tiles runtime engines with open source software, open standards, and financially too through Ecosystem Grants. We want to build a thriving community where you, the developer, gets to choose the runtime engine they are already familiar with. No doubt that there will be some catch-up and feature parity mismatch that will take time and effort depending on the maturity of the software, but in the long run we want to create convergence. Community developers have the freedom to prioritize and maintain the plugins, and we’re here to back them up.
Thanks again for asking this question. What are your thoughts on this approach?
Shehzan
Thanks for the reply.
First, Godot engine is top GitHub MIT open source 3D engine project.
More active in development than e.g. O3DE
It therefore needs to be with a first class name: Cesium for Godot.
Second, Godot comes with XR modules which have attracted companies like Meta and Apple to contribute to the XR pluggin. These companies want to have access to the vast number of Godot XR developers.