Expanding Horizons: Building a Multi-Engine Foundation for Decentraland
By Decentraland DAO, , in Community Highlights
In 2024, the year of ‘Forging the Future’s Foundations,’ the Decentraland Foundation’s primary goal will be releasing a new, powerful and future-proofed Desktop Client built in Unity. This will not only help to improve performance, but also lays the groundwork for Decentraland’s expansion into alternative platforms, such as mobile and VR. Similarly working to lay strong foundations for the future, the DAO-funded Protocol Squad has been experimenting with a variety of gaming engines since last year to assess their potential applications in the Decentraland ecosystem.
Being open source, decentralized, and community-owned, Decentraland offers endless potential to anyone who has ideas for improving or expanding the virtual social world platform, be it developing a client that renders Decentraland in a retro 2D style or a companion app to keep you updated. Harnessing this potential, the Protocol Squad seeks to develop the Decentraland Explorer in complimentary tech stacks that will further future-proof the platform and possibly reveal new opportunities for growth.
After researching various alternative engines, the Protocol Squad has settled on developing a Decentraland mobile client in the open-source engine Godot and a desktop client in another open-source engine, Bevy. Combined with the new Desktop Client being developed in Unity by the Foundation, Decentraland’s future is well-secured by capitalizing on its open protocol and having multiple engines ready to run the Explorer in the long term.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/1w1Z9E-idBQ
Bringing different ways to explore the metaverse
The Protocol’s Squad mission to create alternative Explorers and reach more platforms stems from a broader paradigm: the Decentraland preference for open, transparent, and community-driven tech. The history of the tech stack supporting the Decentraland Explorer underlines this predilection.
Initially, Decentraland used the Three.js JavaScript 3D library to render its virtual world, then it transitioned to Babylon.js around 2018, and by 2019 the team had settled on Unity for its development due to Unity's renowned versatility in exporting projects to multiple platforms.
Even while adopting Unity however, Decentraland kept its commitment to open standards by using glTF, and sponsoring the Blender Development Fund in 2021. This decision worked best toward the platform's open nature and allowed projects with creative renderings to unfold.
Choosing additional game engines for the Explorer
With an open protocol, it’s possible for Decentraland to exist non-exclusively on a variety of tech stacks, meaning that anyone in the community could build several instances of the platform’s Explorer, customized for different user needs or preferences.
With this in mind, the Protocol Squad broke down the benefits and downsides of a number of well-established game engines. With a Unity-based client already established and production-ready, they started experimenting with two alternative engines based on their scalability, potential, and the gaming industry's best practices:
Babylon.js (Educational): Aimed to be developer-friendly, prioritizing readability, organization, ease of feature addition, and use of widely-known programming languages and tools, this was a rehash of how Decentraland had worked before adopting Unity.
Bevy (Moonshot): A forward-looking project focusing on robust foundations, extensibility, and using promising open-source frameworks.
Moving on to Godot and Bevy
The Babylon phase halted in June 2023 after completing a successful proof of concept, and the Protocol Squad was ready to try yet another alternative. They set for Godot, which had been in consideration when they’d submitted their original grant proposal. From the outset, the development team imported the programming language, Rust, from their work in Bevy to the new project in Godot. The transition went smoothly, signaling a positive future with the new engine.
The flexibility of the Godot engine presented exciting opportunities for how users could interact with Decentraland in the future:
Potential compatibility with all existing headsets for XR (Mixed Reality). This means Decentraland wouldn't require a store to be accessed on a headset; it could be used directly via a browser.
Prospects to bring Decentraland to Android and iOS, facilitating town hall meetings within Decentraland due to voice support and enabling social interaction.
There were other underlying benefits as well. Open-source stacks, a member of the Protocol Squad explained, offer “a hard-to-overstate potential.” Godot, in particular, is an excellent example of this. It's open-source and free to use, which is practical for experimentation.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/kgD7vDP5OWY
With access to the editor code of Godot, there's potential to enhance any aspect of the engine independently. Coupled with the SDK 7, there's even a possibility of “introducing a Decentraland editor,” as per a Protocol Squad member. Anyone from the community could put the editor together. In the end, anyone can interact with the SDK.
With these advantages in mind, in September 2023, the Protocol Squad proposed a grant request to materialize two primary goals:
Go mobile with Godot: Introduce Decentraland on the App Store and Play Store.
Desktop work with Bevy: Advance with the Decentraland Bevy desktop client. This lines up with the Godot initiative, as both engines can utilize Rust.
Other milestones include enhancing user interactions in-world, creating new scenes, improving documentation, and collaborating closely with the Decentraland Foundation. Lastly, they will focus on refining the SDK 7.
The importance of long-term common strategies in Decentraland
As the new Explorer comes up, it's important to go over the benefits of having more than one client and why the Protocol Squad and Foundation work with a common goal.
As the tag “moonshot” implies, the research and work that the Protocol Squad brings forward is mostly experimental. This doesn't make it any less valuable. While Unity remains the main engine, proven effective for production, having various versions of the platform is a sensible long-term strategy. The Foundation focuses on delivering a production-ready client in the short term, while the Protocol Squad's work focuses on expanding access to the metaverse. These are complementary strategies catering to a shared goal: Anyone can experience Decentraland the way they want.
With these deliverables, the Protocol Squad is also proving a point: Anyone can contribute to Decentraland thanks to its open protocol. Even if this happens recurrently in Decentraland, it's remarkably uncommon in the metaverse.
The Protocol Squad's next steps include improving the Web3 experience. They aim to let players have an identity without needing an outside wallet and will enable linking to external wallets. Additionally, they're creating test scenes for various features, such as how objects look, move, and interact. By April 2024, the community can expect a beta release of both Explorers—mobile and desktop.
How to contribute
Want to check the project's progress? Look into the repos for the Bevy Explorer and the Godot Explorer, courtesy of developer Leandro Mendoza. You can also review test scenes. Remember, these are open-source projects. You’re invited to scan the Squad’s GitHub, join their Discord, try out the project’s prototypes, and share your feedback—it could be incredibly valuable!
The metaverse is full of yet unrecognized potential and opportunities. Do you have an idea that could benefit the Decentraland community? Learn more about the DAO’s grants here.
Do you know of a cool Decentraland community project that you think should be next in the Community Highlights series? Contact the Decentraland Foundation team @decentraland on X.
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