Sorry if this topic seems kinda wrong here, I know this is a very straightforward problem solving forum, but I couldn’t get any point of view from a dev in a more casual way, on Twitter or Reddit, so I thought I post it here…
Blender for PS5 sounds like a silly idea of a kid, which it actually is. But the more I think about the idea, the more I like it. Which is a good sign I guess.
So I would just like to hear opinions of open minded devs on how crazy the idea actually is, from a technical stand point:
Technically not doable? technically very difficult? technically just a lot of work? technically maybe not even as difficult as it seems?
I know there’s a lot of technical hurdles and maybe it doesn’t make sense but, there’s something about that thought of underpriced capable hardware laying around in households, only used for consuming and not creating.
And blender being so close to many fascinated gamers.
Just think about all those clever kids, so passionate about gaming, having basically no barrier at all to start creating the things they see in games themselves and maybe some find themselves enjoying creating things in Blender more than actually playing games on their PS5. It’s a very beautiful thought to me…“Kevin! Stop making 3D Models and do your homework!”
Would love to hear some thoughts from devs on this topic…
Well with PSVR maybe, but I don’t think a gamepad is a good interfacing method for Blender.
And I mean if you want to create stuff on your PS there is already Dreams
It is a big project with many hurdles and unknowns. For starters you need a PS5 dev kit. you need to make sure all the libraries match all the needed dependencies of the PS5 OS. PS5 doesn’t support a standard GL so you need to write a custom Ghost layer + GPU layer. On HCI part how are you going to map blenders input to a game controller. On security level where do your user data. The PS5 isn’t optimized for this task you’re not able to leverage the power as it just doesn’t fit. In order to run Blender more optimum you need to adjust a lot of low-level in blender. And for rendering you can only use Cycles CPU.
I don’t have a clear insight what the exact software architecture is of the PS5, but would say that there are a lot of limitations that you can only see when you start such a project.
In addition to Jeroen’s great points I’d also like to add:
Sony would never allow it as an official application because it can run arbitrary ‘unauthorized’ code via python. This is the same reason you’ll almost certainly never see Blender on an ipad despite it having plenty of horsepower to run it.
Tangentially- who are these hypothetical kids who have a PS5 but have no access to a low/mid-range PC or Mac?
Thanks for the reply testure! And that’s because iOS/iPadOS is a very closed platform. More closed than MacOS?
Well, For example my cousins. They are like between 15-20 years old. One of them has no laptop but a Playstation 4 and the other one some old Laptop from his father with probably an old Version of Windows.
And they are not poor or so. It made me realise that the coming generation does not buy a cool laptop when they turn 18, they maybe just buy a cool smartphone. There’s no reason for most of them to own a laptop. Most tasks we used to buy casual laptops for, are now taken over by the smartphone. Some may buy a tablet or some cheap laptop for university and most of them are definitely not made for graphically intense tasks.
But many of these young people buy a PS5, because it’s cool and fun. It’s hard to make them discover or taste the fun world of 3D if you have to convince them to invest in a laptop only for Blender, which will probably be very bad for rendering.
Do you know what I mean? I think times are changing and we can’t expect young people to have a more or less good laptop at home.
And as Christoph said, you will not get a laptop for 500$ which is built for rendering graphics. So we can look at the PS5 as an expensive piece of entertainment or as very underpriced rendering hardware. And I think it would be nice to be able to make use of it and also make the world of 3D more accessible for young people. Which is actually also the vision of Blender…
But yes, I see, the architectures don’t really seem to fit together well. So it will probably remain a dream… but it’s nice talking about it
It’s actually probably true for most households, if there’s not somebody who works in the field of design…
And yes, the great thing is, that the PS5 is basically just made for rendering, compared to normal computers, which have a much broader area of focus.
That’s what fascinates me about the PS5, it’s such a specialised piece of hardware compared to normal PCs. And it focuses on the area which creatives pay a lot of money for and it just sits around in some kids bedroom…
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to devaluate gaming… but I guess you understand what fascinates me.
I’m not sure about a gamepad being a bad interfacing method for Blender. Cleverly mapped, it could be extremely intuitive I guess. With the adaptive triggers, two analog sticks… It is made for navigating in a 3D space. Of course it would take a lot of work, to make this new input method work, but maybe it’s possible. And yes, maybe if it’s not possible, it would be possible to connect a keyboard or so to the PS5.
I don’t want to make this all sound easy. I’m not a dev and I’m aware that you guys see much more possible difficulties than I do So I’m sorry if for you talking to me seems too ridiculous or pointless
It’s a beautiful dream, but the reason the new consoles are so cheap compared to their high performance PC counterparts, is that they expect you to be locked in to their respective ecosystem, exclusively. The hurdles for Blender on the PS5 aren’t as much technical as it’s just not a proposition aligned with Sony’s business interests.
PlayStation is not an open platform where anyone can just walk in and publish a game, it takes a lot of work and there’s a lot of demands put on the developers to be featured. So you would have to hack it, and depending on where in the world you are that might or might not be legal.
I would love to see the PS5 running Blender or any other productivity apps, but there’s a close to 0% chance for that to actually happen, at least in any official capacity. Technically, the PS5 is sporting a x86-64 CPU like any other modern PC with, most likely, a FreeBSD-based OS (the PS4s OS is based on FreeBSD). But the system is pretty locked down otherwise so you’d have to bypass all the DRM and protection mechanisms, and that alone could be a lot of work, not to mention possibly illegal in many places of the world.
I’m starting to see the complexity of it. But that you as a dev are saying, that technically the PS5 is just „another PC“, gives me hopes that maybe the technical hurdles aren’t as big as expected…
And yes, taking the illegal route is definitely not my vision. It’s not about saying that I was able to run Blender on the PS5, but about bringing Blender to people.
So i guess the only legal chance to bring Blender to the PS5 would be in partnering up with Sony.
Of course if (and that’s probably a big if) Sony would be open to partner up with Blender, both sides would have to find agreement on many things. For example Blender wouldn’t want to be owned in any way by Sony and so on…
Buuut, I think the chances for Blender to be able to talk to Sony are better than ever! In the past few years, Blender has evolved from a nerdy, „little“ software, to a Software that is being taken very seriously from the outside world. With all those big names as sponsors, is it really so impossible to see „Sony PlayStation“ there?
Sony is very, very passionate about gaming/entertainment and not just a business giant with a lot of money, who happens to be active in the games industry. The way Sony approached the PS5 and the way they work with the devs and communicate with the customers is very fascinating to me! It’s so… passionate and honest. The things Sony’s executives say seem too corny to be true sometimes and you always expect to see a news article the next day that shows, „the truth about Sony“ and that they are just talking empty words, but I more and more come to the conclusion that they are just genuinely passionate about gaming and entertainment.
Things like this article (especially the last few paragraphs) give me hope that Sony would collaborate with Blender, just out of interest to educate a new generation of game artists and not just because they want any cut of anything…
I really hope that there’s even only a little chance that this Blender/Sony collaboration dream of mine could become true.
If there’s anyone who has the same dream and who has a bit more of a reputation in the community than myself, feel free to spread the topic. Maybe there’s more people interested than we think.
The only way I was able to get some attention for the topic was through devtalk, maybe somebody else has a bit more reach.
I don’t wanna get ahead of myself here with my „childish“ dreamy ambitions, but I would be really interested to see where this whole topic would roll, if it started rolling… Maybe unexpected things would happen and unexpected doors open
