[DAO:227e31c] DCL-Edit V3 Further Development

Governance
1

by 0x58754d9b3dbb4ddf5ac3502acb963743b15e6398 (METAGAMEHUB)

Should the following $240,000 grant in the Platform category be approved?

Abstract

This grant proposal is meant to help fund the further development of the visual scene editor for Decentraland, DCL-Edit (see https://dcl-edit.com) by METAGAMEHUB DAO (MGH). With a major overhaul and big improvements in the overall usability in its newest version, the next planned release will further improve the modeling workflow, have a UI Editor, offer no-code behaviors for implementing logic without the need to code and a first set of Web3 components that allow easy access to common Web3 services. This will pave the way for onboarding many more creators and artists into Decentraland. Furthermore, it will support the newest Decentraland SDK 7 and it will be designed to complement the existing official Visual Studio Extensions.

Grant size

240,000 USD

Project duration

6 months

Beneficiary address

0x2a9Da28bCbF97A8C008Fd211f5127b860613922D

Email address

camilo.echeverri@thedac.info

Description

DCL-Edit is a cornerstone of the development environment for DCL, giving developers the opportunity to build their experiences as professionals do in established game engines. In fact, it already has a nice set of features that make it a very powerful tool (see a full feature list here).

Still, there’s much potential to further improve DCL-Edit and make it yet more useful for experts. Also, there is a need to attract creators and artists of all kinds into DCL. This is the year of the creators and MGH is committed to help provide the necessary toolsets.

We will improve the tool in four key areas:

  • Improved modeling workflows.
  • Provide a non-code UI Editor.
  • Add a sophisticated set of non-code behaviors to allow the creation of complex behaviors directly in DCL-Edit without the need to code.
  • Provide easy access to Web3 features like selling NFTs right out of the box.

The no-code components will be a driving factor for drawing in creators of all kinds and lowering the entry barrier for non technical developers. This will open the door for many creative minds in 2023 and raise the number of expected contributions.

You can see all the planned features in this document.

You can find a cost breakdown for all the planned features in this document.

Regarding the Web3 features, we’ll be leveraging our partners in Web3 like Fitchin (Web3 ESports), Boson Protocol (Web3 E-commerce) and others. The latest DCL-Edit V2 has been built to make it easy to add functionalities via new components, so using this for integrating those partners and their services in the future is key . See more about our partners in this document.

DCL-Edit will evolve as a visual scene editor complementary to other initiatives like the Visual Studio extensions and DCL Connect. We are aligning each of our steps with the major contributors on the platform.

MGH’s goal is not just providing tools. There are initiatives that are aimed at drawing in as many professionals as possible like our bi-weekly coding sessions on Twitch. We’ll be doing more in this area, starting with a screenshot Sunday on Twitter and the announcement of a builder of the month with a price, quarterly Game Jams and more.

Since metaverse standards are slowly forming, one other thing we’re aiming at is the adoption of those standards as early as possible. We are identifying strong candidates for standaradization like the USD file format and plan to integrate those into DCL-Edit where it makes sense (e.g. exporting a Decentraland scene to USD / importing USD scenes into Decentraland and make our component system work on other platforms).

DCL-Edit has received much positive feedback for its latest version, and previous game jams have seen 16/20 winning submissions using our tool. We are on the right track!

A professional scene editor is indispensable for DCL to survive against the competition. By supporting our efforts, you help developers, creators, and artists of any kind create a new era of virtual worlds and decentralized applications.

Roadmap and milestones

Below are the planned milestones including the planned intermediate releases for each month. More details about each step can be found here.

May 2023 - Version 2.1

  • SDK 7 compatibility.
  • VS Code extension (launch DCL-Edit within VS Studio).

June 2023 - Version 2.2

  • Render like Decentraland client.
  • Live Model Update, includes support for Blender and USD files (.blend and .usdx)
    scene optimization.

July 2023 - Version 3 Alpha

  • First set of no-code components.
  • Variable containers.
  • Triggers.
  • Mathematics.
  • Counter.
  • User metrics & accounts.

August 2023 - Version 3 Beta

  • Second set of premade components.
  • State Machine.
  • Audio Source.
  • NFT component.
  • Speaker.
  • UI Editor.
  • Text, Buttons, Progress bars, Images.

September 2023 - Physics Package

  • An independent installable package that enables physics for Decentraland scenes
    feature freeze and final preparations for release in October.

October 2023 - Release of Version 3.0

  • Stable and tested version of DCL-Edit including the features mentioned above.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

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We at MGH are very happy to be part of shaping the future of Decentraland. Decentraland has a strong base compared to almost any other open metaverse thanks to the Decentraland SDK. The challenge now is to unfold this potential by providing the necessary tools for expert developers and other creatives alike, providing high accessibility for them. 2023 is the year of the creators, lets make sure they can easily build in Decentraland.

To decentralization together!

3

Can we see any examples of gaming experiences you or your tools have helped make in DCL or on other platforms?

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Hi @jar0d we have been contributing to the DCL community for the last two years on multiple fronts. We are a verified studio (Decentraland Studios) and have made multiple events over the years. One of them even got showcased in their recent metaverse guide

We co-organized the 2022 Game Jam with Decentraland and 16 out of 20 winning projects used DCL-Edit to create their games. Here is an overview of the games created with DCL-Edit:

We did a phygital party called MetaPartyHub were we had 1500 people during Devcon Bogota and were able to stream the event in Decentraland at the same time. Here is a little video about the event:

Our most successfull event was with our Partner Fitchin (Web3 Esports Platform). We organized a party with over 10 wearables, minigames, a jump and run parkour and other quests. The event lasted two hours and over 400 people visited the scene. We had 200 concurrent users which spent an average of 51 minutes on the scene. You can visit the scene here.

We also participated together with Espacio Creador and DRESSX in the MVFW23 and showcased a famous graffiti artist as well as his signature Traveller Parka. You can visit the scene here

Here are two more references of our created scenes:

We are also big countributors of Somnium Space. There we specialize on created VR compatible games:

We were part of The Sandbox Accelerator program together with Brinc and have been creating experiences on that virtual world for quite some time as well.

You can visit our Website or our Twitter so you can see the different tools and initiatives we have created for the Decentraland community.

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Already got 245k out of two grants.
No plan for monetization.
And with the DCL Editor from the Foundation making quick progress, I don’t know if it still make sense to pour 240k every 6 months in this project.

3 Likes
6

Hey Camilo

I think it’s worth considering the cost benefits of hiring developers from Asia for Decentraland’s development. With lower costs in countries like India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Decentraland could potentially save up to 50-60% on expenses, which could increase profits. Furthermore, I completely agree that making the process of creating scenes easier for users is a significant win for Decentraland. This move can attract more users to the platform who have no experience, resulting in higher engagement levels.

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I have used dcl-edit before, but I am not sure this is a tool that DCL community needs right now.
Even though you are planning to offer no-code features, there still needs to be a set up done to start working with dcl-edit tool, which is easy to do for developers, but not so easy for other people. With set up I mean installing Node, Visual Studio Code, Decentraland CLI and dcl-edit.

Unless you can move to a browser where users don’t need to set up anything locally to start using it, I think I will vote no.

1 Like
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I believe we need professional tooling in Decentraland in order to attract expert developers. I think in the long-run, this has a greater impact than providing light-weight tools for casual developers. While the latter is absolutely fine and desirable as well, I believe such creations will not be a driving factor for the overall value provided inside Decentraland.

1 Like
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@Steezyarts Our team around DCL-Edit has been built throughout 2022. Our workflows are optimized, we have the right person for each position and we’re very efficient. Replacing staff to lower costs would have a great risk to reduce efficiency by a notable amount. So while this is of course a point, I don’t think we could lower the costs by 50% to 60% and get the same result. These kinds of calculations are always hard to do. What you need is a motivated team of competent developers that are well aligned, efficient and eager to move forward. This can easily double or triple efficiency compared to the average dev team.

Of course, we understand that there’s always room to reduce costs while remaining productive, and we are taking this into account. Thanks for the feedback!

10

Hi @HPrivakos. The Decentraland Editor is not a scene editor. It is supposed to become one eventually, but that might take some time. That means DCL-Edit is the only editor for interactive scenes. I think right now we should be focusing on bringing quality builders and creators who can create engaging experiences instead of trying to monetize a tool meant by the community for the community, but that is my personal opinion. Monetization can be sorted out later, for example by adding scenes and 3D assets created with DCL-Edit to the Decentraland marketplace. In any case, I firmly believe that DCL-Edit, with all its new features, will be a driving factor for adoption.

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Also @HPrivakos, DCL-Edit V3 will have features that the Decentraland Editor won’t (like building UI inside DCL-Edit and an improved modelling workflows with live model updates, supporting multiple formats). So the Decentraland Editor will not replace DCL-Edit. Rather, both will evolve into different directions with a different focus which I think is a healthy dynamic for the whole ecosystem.

In my opinion, we’d miss a great opportunity without DCL-Edit. I strongly believe that our efforts (which go beyond just delivering the tool itself) will significantly increase adoption and make Decentraland stand out from the competition.

Also, just for the correctness, it will actually be around 9 months for the last 240K until the next (potential) funding. We are currently continuing development without funding.

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DCL-Edit V3 Further Development

This proposal is now in status: REJECTED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 5% 304,820 VP (86 votes)
  • No 87% 5,115,955 VP (118 votes)
  • Abstain 8% 505,154 VP (10 votes)