The Linux Foundation has announced plans to establish the Open 3D Foundation, a new initiative to foster collaboration among developers working on 3D game engines and high-fidelity simulations.
Backed by over 20 founding members, including industry heavyweights like Adobe, AWS, Huawei, Niantic, and Red Hat, the foundation seeks to democratize access to advanced 3D tools through open-source innovation.
At the heart of this initiative is the Open 3D Engine (O3DE), an open-source, AAA-capable game engine contributed by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Originally based on Amazon Lumberyard, O3DE is now available under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, freeing developers from restrictive commercial terms.
The engine provides a modular, component-based architecture, allowing teams to use only the needed features while integrating custom tools.
We’re proud to offer the 3D development community an unencumbered, AAA-capable, real-time 3D engine with one of the broadest arrays of integrated 3D authoring tools in the industry. We believe an open-source option will revolutionize real-time 3D development, as Linux did for operating systems and Apache did for the web.
Key capabilities of O3DE include:
- A multi-threaded photorealistic renderer for high-fidelity visuals
- An extensible 3D content editor for streamlined asset creation
- A data-driven animation system for lifelike character movements
- Visual scripting tools to empower non-programmers
Developers can code in C++, LUA, or Python, while artists and designers can leverage built-in authoring tools—making O3DE a versatile solution for studios of all sizes.
If you want to test the new game engine, it is available on GitHub. The official announcement is here.
