DCL-Edit V3 Further Development

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.

This proposal is summarized due to technical limitations. To view it complete and vote on it, visit the DCL DAO Governance dApp