9 ms·
S&box is now an open source game engine
- tapoxi 10mo agoIt depends on Source 2, which is not open source.
- charcircuit 10mo agoOriginally people thought the Source 2 sdk, was going to be released with Half Life Alyx, but it never materialized.
- super256 10mo agoIt feels like Valve's management changed a few years (decade?) ago. I remember when they were still shipping SDKs and proper mod support, even for their multiplayer games. Today they are just killing everything that could divert revenue from their cash cow CS2 and shipping a half baked js-based scripting engine for their maps. (And in the meanwhile they kill fan projects like CS:Legacy, which is a whole game and not even a mod, with their army of lawyers. I don't think stuff like this would have happened 13+ years ago).
- wavemode 10mo agoValve's cash cow is Steam. All of their games (Dota 2, CS, and the other ones they hardly maintain anymore) are basically just passion projects at this point, lingering on from a bygone age when they were a game development company. Their most recent title, Half-Life: Alyx, probably only got greenlit because someone internally was able to convince leadership that it would help sell VR headsets.
- npinsker 10mo agoCS2 makes an enormous and non-negligible amount of money.
- mjr00 10mo agoDota2 as well. Like I'm sure CS2/Dota2 are small compared to Steam, but the revenue from these games alone dwarfs what most other companies are making.
- wavemode 10mo agoValve's financials are nonpublic, and any numbers you find are rough, indirect estimates. In any case, my point was not that these games make no money, but simply that Valve doesn't need them. The total number of people buying games on Steam vastly dwarfs the number of people who play Dota 2 and CS2 (even just counting total players - how much more when you narrow down to players who spend money).
- silver_silver 10mo agoThey’re (genuinely) gearing up to release Half-Life 3 at the moment, and not as a VR exclusive
- TehCorwiz 10mo agoThey just opened up the source to TF2 with an SDK not too long ago. Explicitly for modding and community driven development. https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809 https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- jsheard 10mo agoThat's pretty shaky ground too, even if you can overlook the foundation being closed source, Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. They're not trying to be Epic or Unity. The most obvious aspect to that is that Source 2 doesn't support consoles. Valve don't need it, so they didn't implement it.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago> Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. Valve has a long history of supporting the modding community and outside users of Source, not sure where you're getting your information from but I don't think they've worked with the Source engine before. One of the biggest and most popular mods of all time was built on Source, and took the world by storm, with pretty big support by Valve through the years as well. Eventually they even bought the whole IP.
- jsheard 10mo agoThat was then, in 2025 they don't have a public Source 2 SDK, nor do they generally license the engine to third parties, S&box being the sole exception. They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Even when they were more open with their tech it was on the basis of "you can play with the tools we used to make Half Life and if your idea is sufficiently Half Life shaped then it will probably work", not trying to be a general purpose toolkit a la Unity.
- embedding-shape 10mo agoS&B existing and being what it is, effectively makes it the Source 2 SDK, although it's not from Valve. But fair point Source 2 isn't licensed to others, I think the expectation is that if you wanna build a Source 2 game, you have to use S&B. At least for now, who knows what their ideas and ambitions really lie.
- fngjdflmdflg 10mo ago>They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Well they do have Steam Audio but yeah I agree. I think Epic is much better in this space, even though its only source available in practice they do a lot to support engine modifications and also accept external PRs. I think Valve has a lot to gain from open sourcing Source 2 and they should realize how important modding was to their initial success. The issue is now they can just print money with Steam so there is no need to invest in modding support.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- Stevvo 10mo agoThe comments are hilarious. Every file has multiple profanity-filled rants.
- fragmede 10mo agoomg it's great: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3AFacepunch%2Fsbox-public%20fuck&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3AFacepunch%2Fsbox-public%2...
- benbristow 10mo agohttps://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public/blob/8b1d58d524c37fe287bef1674db4f4fa72f095f5/game/addons/tools/Code/Scene/Terrain/TerrainComponentWidget.Create.cs#L108 https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public/blob/8b1d58d524c37f... Log.Error( "Fucked" );
- GaryBluto 10mo agoI'd be interested in calculating the average profanity per-file count for projects that get open-sourced like this.
- TehCorwiz 10mo agoIt’s a lot. And more profanity often means better code. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/is-code-that-contains-swears-higher-quality-than-code-that-does-not/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/is-code-that-contain...
- Hamuko 10mo agoSearching for "fuck" yields 81 files. Searching for "shit" yields 146 files. Only two files for "cunt" though.
- LtdJorge 10mo agoNothing new if you’ve read code from other Facepunch/Garry projects like their Steamworks SDK :D
- hamdingers 10mo agoTheir site appears down, here's the github repository: https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public
- iFire 10mo agoCan we use the team fortress 2 release of source? Oh. It's a modding sdk. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013 https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013
- rstat1 10mo agoand also source 1
- terabytest 10mo agoI really struggle to wrap my head around how this engine works. I haven’t used it, but I have experience with Source 1 and its systems and I imagine Source 2 is an extrapolation of that. But I really can’t wrap my head around how they’ve turned it into a scene-based game engine when Source 2 is map-based, how they’ve managed to build a completely different editor that still leverages Hammer maps somehow, and all the other stuff.
- 1bpp 10mo agoI've never tried s&box but Source 2 did overhaul the map and asset pipeline quite a bit, everything's a plain mesh instead of BSP and maps are also regular .dmx files, so I'd imagine it's slightly easier to build tools that work on top of it
- Rohansi 10mo agoIt is a heavily modified Source 2.
- 3rodents 10mo agoFor those unfamiliar, the studio behind S&box is Facepunch, creators of Garry's Mod and Rust. Facepunch as a company doesn't get much attention but they're wildly successful. Started as just some guy in a bedroom, now ~$100m/year in revenue (all via Steam), $100m in the bank, ~100 employees and almost entirely a company of game developers (maybe 20% of employees are administrative staff). Still owned and ran by the founder, Garry. S&box (and Garry's Mod and Rust) is pure game developers making things they want to make.
- rootlocus 10mo agoOooo, I remember Garry Newman! I found his UI library GWEN (GUI Without Extravagant Nonsense) when I was still in uni and working on my game engine. It's been abandoned for 9 years now, nice to see he's still working on cool tech. [1] https://github.com/garrynewman/GWEN https://github.com/garrynewman/GWEN
- Rohansi 10mo agoHe also made the UI framework used by S&box. It's based on HTML/CSS + Razor but is not rendered with a browser. https://sbox.game/dev/doc/systems/ui/razor-panels/ https://sbox.game/dev/doc/systems/ui/razor-panels/
- echelon 10mo agoThat's an amazing story. I really like all the cultural oddities that Garry's Mod spawned. All of the indie animation. It was a big piece of machinima / virtual filmmaking / YouTube history and absolutely paved the way for VTubing and Unreal Engine in film. Any idea if Facepunch or Valve retain rights to "Skibidi Toilet"?
- lookingdesk 10mo agoThe Hollywood development company that bought the rights to Skibidi and are developing it filed a DMCA strike against Garry's Mod. It got resolved, but no one involved is talking.
- justinclift 10mo agoThe license: https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public/blob/master/LICENSE...
- quantummagic 10mo agoMIT + copyright retention requirement Except all third party components that are included in the source, maintain their own license.
- whywhywhywhy 10mo agoIt's built on Source 2 so that license isn't the full story
- 7bit 10mo agoAs a web dev, I pronounce that sampersandbox.
- remix2000 10mo agoS&box huh
- Topgamer7 10mo agoI always enjoyed Garry's blog. It just seemed like a public diary. And a place to vent about dev,life,w/e. He seems to be unapologetic-ally himself. Although I was pretty sure there used to be more posts (although maybe I'm conflating his posts there with his contributions to his old forums.) https://garry.net/posts/ https://garry.net/posts/
- nosmokewhereiam 10mo agoWoohoo, G man made it to HN! I believe in this project and am very hopeful as new game modes and models are added
- jquaint 10mo agoThis is cool, though I'm reluctant to give praise when they have been so weird with Linux support on their games. It was annoying after buying Rust to learn that you can't play on official servers on Linux. The game runs fine on Linux, the devs just don't allow it. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/rust-developer-has-no-plans-for-linux-or-proton-support-says-games-that-support-them-are-not-serious-about-anti-cheat/ https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/rust-develop...
- jsheard 10mo agoThey're pretty upfront about the reason - their anticheat supports Linux, but enabling it would make it much easier to cheat because it's not nearly as effective on there, and they decided the cons outweigh the pros. Apex Legends went through the same issue when they enabled Linux support, cheaters swarmed to Linux en-masse because it was so trivial to evade detection even with free/public cheats, and after a year or so the devs threw in the towel and blocked Linux again. They're not doing this out of spite, they'd be happy to take your money if there were no downside, but unfortunately it is a trade-off for games which are sensitive to being ruined by cheaters. At least for now.
- ThatPlayer 10mo agoYeah I'd say it's not accurate to say it's the same anticheat. Only the same name. It's like saying Excel supports iPad. Except Excel on iPad doesn't support VBA, so any more complicated spreadsheet will not work. I don't think cheaters are swarming to Linux, but part of the issue with Apex Legends is that Linux support is done through Proton, through the Windows version of the game, because there no Linux version of Apex Legends. So now you've got a backdoor for everyone on Windows to run the less secure anticheat. Solvable maybe by having a separate Linux version of the game, but that's also more supported needed.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago> Solvable maybe by having a separate Linux version of the game, but that's also more supported needed. As someone who would play on Linux then, it doesn't sound like a solution at all. The separate version would just be filled with cheaters then, would almost be like an punishment for Linux users.
- seg_lol 10mo agoI heard Valve was going to Open Source the Source Engine when they launched the Steam Machine.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- serf 10mo ago>Once you have access to the developer preview, please use developer docs and discord to figure stuff out. Yes, I hate that every community is moving to discord and no-one uses forums anymore too, but it's the way the world is. that cute snide comment won't somehow ensure that all of your community discussion isn't lost to discord-rot in a few short years. keep your fate in your own hands.. (unless you just don't care)
- cyberrock 10mo agoGive how abruptly Facepunch forums went down last time, I'm not sure if Discord is the one to worry about in this equation.
- polski-g 10mo agoThere are several daemons for discord to post all chats for a server into an HTML document.
- Detchibe 10mo agoGarry literally shut down Facepunch, which was a huge repository of community discussion for GMod, on a whim so I don't think he's in a place to whine about the Discordification of game communities
- qingcharles 10mo agoI really feel like that name is going to cause them issues with the other game builder with the same name: https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://www.sandbox.game/en/
- Banditoz 10mo agoI have never heard of this. It looks like a crypto thing. Can they really hold a candle to Facepunch?
- qingcharles 10mo agoThey were pretty big at one point, though they've been losing traction. Their investors seem to have fairly deep pockets (hundreds of millions). Their software (game maker and client) are really well-developed and excellent. The crypto means you can trade any game assets freely, which is great, but also traditionally made it hard for new players who aren't into crypto (they just added credit cards). Probably has the same resources as Facepunch, but nowhere near the following or players.
- Vermeulen 10mo agoI don't understand what they got basing off the Source engine. Maybe it made sense when they started 6 years ago - to allow using Hammer and such. But at this point they've made their own editor, networking, scene system... why is it still attached to a giant legacy codebase.
- LelouBil 10mo agoIt's Source 2, its not legacy
- Vermeulen 10mo agoSource2 is the giant legacy codebase I was referring to.
- LelouBil 10mo agoI mean, it is being updated regularly behind the scenes, it's used by Dota 2, CS2 and deadlock. If you follow the "leaks" space a bit, you'll know that they are working on some kind of new game, and that new engine features that end up in deadlock for example are developed because of this project.
- debugnik 10mo agoDidn't they start using Unreal Engine for S&box, then pivoted? Something must have been better for them on the Source side.
- bangaladore 10mo agoLooks like a serious competitor to Unity. Modern C# is really easy to pick up for beginners (that's actually how I started learning programming back around 2010). What does monetization look like? Can you ship standalone games? Source 2 licensing requirements? Is this closer to Unity or closer to Roblox when it comes to publishing?
- unavailableuser 10mo agoYou can't ship standalone games yet, they're currently in talks with Valve, lawyers talking to lawyers to try and make this happen. Right now, they have a Play Fund, and pay creators for minutes played, similar to Fortnite. This is definitely closer to Roblox for now, but yeah standalone coming soon hopefully..
- needle0 10mo agoA major advantage of using modern game engines is the multiplatform support. This seems pretty weak on that front.
- bangaladore 10mo agoI haven't look into it much, but, Source 2 supports all major desktop platforms and even all mobile platforms. Dotnet supports all those platforms as well. So I'm not certain why S&box is Windows only, but my guess is that's just temporary.
- jim201 10mo agoLooks like they’re positioning themselves as an open-source Roblox competitor. That would be awesome. Especially so if they follow through on the promise of standalone mode. I’m interested in how they’re sandboxing C# code. Seems like an engineering problem full of pitfalls. I’ll definitely be peeking at this!
- DeathArrow 10mo agoIs this a competitor for Unity and Godot?
- debugnik 10mo agoMore like Roblox at the moment. It could compete with Unity/Godot if they arrange a deal for standalone games with Valve, as it builds on top of Source 2.
- igleria 10mo agoI feel the call of the valve hammer editor now (ok, that is a 20 year old memory so hopefully this engine has better map making tools)
- debugnik 10mo agoAFAIK this can use both the new Hammer for Source 2 and its own Unity-like editor. Hammer is one of the few editors with actual level-design tools still maintained, most other engine's editors can't do much more than drop static meshes and prefabs around.
- cedws 10mo agoI've been following S&box for probably over 10 years at this point. It's been obvious for the last 5+ years that the vision isn't "Garry's Mod 2" anymore but maybe something else, like a Roblox-like metaverse. I'm unsure where this project is going but they seem to have smart developers and a lot of passion so hopefully it works out. I would caution Facepunch though that what made their past games a success wasn't perfection. In the case of Gmod I would actually say imperfection was the charm. >Obviously this isn't the Source 2 code, that's up to Valve to open source if they want. Does this mean you need Source 2 to develop with S&box?
- bangaladore 10mo ago> Does this mean you need Source 2 to develop with S&box? Maybe I'm wrong, but S&box is essentially a game developed with Source 2, thats purpose is to expose internal APIs and wrap them for users to build their own games with. So you develop your thing in S&box that happens to be made with Source 2, but you don't care about that. Basically Roblox.
- cedws 10mo agoAh ok so this is more of a S&box SDK. I misinterpreted this announcement and thought they were basically just releasing S&box for people to fork.
- Rohansi 10mo agoIt is S&box, not just an SDK. The only thing is Source 2 is not open source so you only get binaries for it.
- bullen 10mo agoSeems this generates some sort of shim that calls source 2 dynamic lib.
- jmtame 10mo agoRust has so many compelling features as a game. It was the first game where I felt like I thought about it while I wasn't playing it, because your character remains "in the game" and your base can be raided even if you log off. I don't play a ton of online games, but that was a very new and different concept when I first discovered Rust. The game reminds me of sitting down at a poker table in a casino. It's very unforgiving - you grind, invest a lot of time, and make calculated bets as to whether you can win or lose a raid, but you can instantly lose everything in a failed raid. I wish someone would make a browser-based version that was fun to play, and I've thought about it for some time, but the struggle is scoping an MVP that is as compelling given the constraints (eg a 2d or top-down version makes it harder to do things like build multi-story buildings and raid them).
- koolala 10mo agoCould it be ported to Source 1 now?
- aranw 10mo agoI really like the evidence for the bug fix for "VR not rendering" in the "Fixed" section
- jokoon 10mo agoI don't understand the point of this thing. Maybe competing with other engines, but it's hard to know how good enough this will be. The age of mods is over, we're in the age of engines now, I don't think they will catch up. Valve is not a game company anymore, they out source everything.
- Rohansi 10mo ago> Valve is not a game company anymore, they out source everything. Interesting take when they have (at least) one upcoming game and two released games in development.
- leberknecht 10mo ago"Looks 20% cooler" What is 1 "cool"?
- derelicta 10mo agooh man, I know facepunch for two great things: GMod and Sly Cooper. Both games were a defining feature of my childhood ahah
- tapoxi 10mo agoYou're thinking of Sucker Punch for Sly Cooper. They're still around and just shipped Ghost of Yotei.
- kevin-scott21 10mo ago[dead]