Technical updates – 2 Dec, 2019

The latest releases, improvements and fixes from the Decentraland engine room

With the Creator Contest starting today the big news is the addition of Smart Items. These cool elements not only take our creative competitions to new heights but significantly enhance the Decentraland experience for all users.

Builder

Last week we announced a major enhancement for the Builder: replacement of our BabylonJS engine with a more robust Unity3D engine. Here are the main benefits:

Scenes inside the Builder now look the same in-world as they are using the same engine (e.g. shadows, surfaces, etc.)
New features included in the in-world experience can be made available to the Builder
Faster performance when switching between different scenes
Features can now be built faster with the new version
Improvements to the current engine will be automatically used in the Builder

SDK and World

The SDK is ticking along, with the team offering support to the Builder team, specifically running bug fixing. Aside from this they’re focusing on using Unity Asset Bundles for better performance.

We're working on fixing some of the communications issues you've been experiencing lately. Most importantly, and in the interest of decentralization, we're working on some proof-of-concepts so that you can walk and talk with your friends in the world, even if our servers are down.

Stay tuned for more technical updates. In the meantime, any questions or issues, hit us up on Discord.