[DAO: QmcieLr] DCL-Edit - Further Development

by 0x9429f8b66914d603844501fb0c640e9fd7220377 (Chris)

Should the following Tier 6: up to $240,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Platform Contributor category be approved?

Abstract

This grant proposal is meant to help funding further development of DCL-Edit over the next six months. DCL-Edit is the visual scene editor for the Decentraland SDK, developed by members of the MetaGameHub DAO (see https://dcl-edit.com).

Grant size

240,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0x2a9Da28bCbF97A8C008Fd211f5127b860613922D

Description

Over the last months, we have been working on DCL-Edit, a visual editor that runs locally on your PC, allowing you to build and code your scene with the Decentraland SDK in parallel.

Giving you the typical workflow of well known state-of-the-art game engines, the current stable base version already greatly boosts productivity.

Since the release of the first stable version (check out our previous grant for the base version of DCL-Edit: Develop a local scene editor to work with the Decentraland SDK), we’ve added a couple of additional features like materials, improved UI and a prototype scene importer.

The journey has just begun, though. Although significantly boosting your productivity already, DCL-Edit still has so much potential. We’re about to get this tool to the next level. Based on the feedback from the developer community, we now put together a roadmap for the next six months to establish DCL-Edit as a professional, reliable and highly productive tool for Decentraland.

To reach our goal, a big refactoring for DCL-Edit is required. That means some significant chunks of the editor will be rewritten from the ground up, which will require some time. But fear not, we will keep updating the current version with bug fixes and smaller features as needed.

Specification

DCL-Edit is developed in Unity and can be downloaded as a npm package. It’s currently running on Windows only (about to change) and it is licensed under the MIT license.

Current list of features:

  • place, transform, scale, and rotate entities
  • assign identifiers to entities to instantly use in code
  • add basic shape components
  • assign to and manipulate materials of entities
  • asset browser for GLTF shapes
  • undo functionality
  • parenting of objects

Personnel

We are developing this as representatives of the MetaGameHub DAO, a community that is heavily involved in the evolving Metaverse and Blockchain Space (check out https://www.metagamehub.io).

  • Christian Werner (Project Manager)
  • Jonathan LĂĽbeck (Lead Developer)
  • Michael Rust (Code Architecture)
  • Vanessa Miske (UX/UI)
  • Michael Gantner (Developer)
  • Vincent Labuhn (Developer)

we also plan to hire additional developers after the initial refactoring iteration

Roadmap and milestones

July, August

  • Refactoring - New Architecture
  • establish CI/CD workflow
  • scene importer - import existing scenes from the Decentraland Builder
  • add Mac / Linux support

September, October

Advanced Asset Management:

  • new asset types: textures, materials, scenes (which will allow including existing scenes in another scene)
  • GLTF compatibility
  • live model update
  • sorting and filtering of assets
  • build optimizations

Component Generalization:

  • having more components available out of the box
    e.g. audio sources, and utility components like trigger boxes
  • component description interface to make custom components available

November, December

  • Usability / User Interface Improvements
  • interface for loading / organizing backups (history, settings, …)
  • advanced control settings (keyboard shortcuts, mouse settings)
  • improved Gizmo tools
  • testing phase

The first step is a bigger refactoring iteration - the code needs to be cleaned up, and we need a nice CI/CD workflow established for higher development and testing efficiency.

We’ll then port the tool to Mac and Linux before starting with major improvement on the asset management, entity components, and overall usability / productivity.

We are regularly synchronizing with the Decentraland Devs, e.g. during the weekly dev meetings on Wednesdays, so it might of course happen that other currently undefined features may be prioritized over the listed features when found necessary.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

I’ve voted NO because:

  1. You don’t have claimed a DCL name
  2. ATM i don’t see any utility or benefit for the DCL Community

This is just my personal opinion

Best regards

Hello ArtReYou,

the project has utility for Decentraland Developers and it’s a huge benefit for Decentraland overall. With our tool, developers can build in a professional environment (like e.g. Unity), and are able to instantly switch between scene building and coding (which was not possible before - check the initial grant or our homepage https://dcl-edit.com).

This significantly increases productivity and it will also draw in more developers from outside that expect professional tools when designing and developing their games, apps or any kind of experience.

Higher productivity and more developers will of course benefit the users as well.

Also please note that we’re not coming out of nowhere with this project. We have already delivered a minimal stable version of the editor and devs are already working with it - it has also been pointed to in the recent Decentraland Game Jam announcement: The 2022 Decentraland Game Jam is here! | Decentraland

1 Like

i find this point of view very bizarre - dcl-edit is literally sponsoring the game jam, how can you say they’re not part of the community? what are you on about?

1 Like

i haven’t used dcl-edit cause it’s not yet available on linux but looking forward to that!

it seems like this project could supplant the in-world builder project that seems to be going quite slowly. Could you comment on that, @cwerner? If the development of dcl-edit dovetails into a quicker release of the in-world builder, i think it becomes much more interesting.

one thing i’d like to see in this proposal is a budget breakdown - how will you use this money, how long will it last, etc

Where did i say they are not part of the the Community?

Voted yes, great project!

Having an easy to use editor is key for DCL success.

Is the project open source? I’d totally vote yes if you open source the project

2 Likes

Yes, dcl-edit is open source. Check out the repository: GitHub - metagamehub/dcl-edit

1 Like

that is the implication isn’t it? that because they don’t have a name, they’re not “bought in” to the community?

Hey there dax!

As I have just heard from the core team, the in-world builder is currently off the table. DCL-Edit is the only professional builder for SDK developers.

Regarding the budget breakdown:
We’ll have the whole developer team (3 devs + architect) work on the refactoring and CI/CD setup for around 4-6 weeks which amounts to around $30K.

We’ll then have three developers working full-time on the project for 20-24 weeks + a UX/UI developer later during development which amounts to around $125K in total.

Project Management, Quality Management, Testing and Support adds up to around $30K. Once we have a clean code base, have the project set up neatly and all devs aligned, we’ll add more developers at least part-time to further increase productivity for which we reserve $25K.

The remaining ~ $30K are meant as a buffer and a security for us if development takes longer than expected (which it often does). Also, a part of that remaining $30K can be seen as a compensation for the months of work that we put into the project without any notable payment (except the $5K funding).

1 Like

ohhh wow that’s interesting! is there somewhere i can read more about the decision to take that off the table?

thanks for the reply!

I don’t know, that’s just what I heard from Nico E. Bigger improvements to the SDK seem to be a priority now.

DCL-Edit - Further Development

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 99% 8,826,413 VP (28 votes)
  • No 1% 32,963 VP (7 votes)

Hi!,

Congratulations on receiving a Grant to contribute to Decentraland! Our mission is to support grantees to update their progress and achieve their goals, and thus contribute to the growth of this great community that is Decentraland.

Here is some information that will be helpful for you:

  • Your Grant is TIER i6, and your current status is PASSED. The DAO Committee is working on your Vesting Contract, which will be available in a few days. You can check in your Proposal Page to see when your Grant turns into ENACTED.

  • It’s very important to share your progress with the community. Inside your grant proposal -in the Decentraland governance platform- you will find a Project Update Section to publish updates once a month for transparency purposes.

  • We invite you to join the DAO Discord server and to attend the Decentraland DAO monthly town hall -on the 2nd Thursday of each month @ 4:30 pm EST / 9:30 pm UTC-, which is a great way to share your updates with the community.

  • This is your dedicated discord channel DCL DAO

  • Here you can find the Terms & conditions of the grant program.

  • My contact information:
    Juan Cassinelli (Zino): juan.cassinelli@decentraland.org / Discord: Zino#6052

We are excited to hear from you! Do you use Discord?, send me a message by Discord!

Have a good journey!

Zino
The Grant Support Squad

DCL-Edit - Further Development

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0xfe91c0c482e09600f2d1dbca10fd705bc6de60bc)

Vesting Contract Address: 0xb26a55d0e517b637a25124a62ae7995b5e30cec5
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