[HN Gopher] Fluorite - A console-grade game engine fully integra...
___________________________________________________________________
Fluorite - A console-grade game engine fully integrated with
Flutter
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/7ZJJWW-fluorite-game-...
Author : bsimpson
Score : 342 points
Date : 2026-02-11 16:21 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fluorite.game)
(TXT) w3m dump (fluorite.game)
| engineer_22 wrote:
| How is this related to Toyota? Toyota the car manufacturer?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Connected_North_America
| einr wrote:
| Yes. Had to look it up, but apparently it was developed by TCNA
| (Toyota Connected North America) which does car software and
| such.
| homarp wrote:
| it'actually Toyota Connected North America, Toyota Motor
| Corporation's subsidiary founded in collaboration with
| Microsoft for working on in-vehicle software, AI, and related
| tech initiatives.
| jajuuka wrote:
| So basically the same sort of thing Samsung does with its
| corporate subsidiary. At least that's the first one I think
| of. But I know there others who leverage the brand all the
| way down the ladder.
| Carrok wrote:
| Yes, that Toyota. Looks like it came out of this group.
| https://www.toyotaconnected.com/about
| giobox wrote:
| I'm guessing its used for some of their in-car UIs - unreal
| engine has found a market (Rivian, Volvo, Ford...) for embedded
| automotive use now that so many cars display an interactive 3d
| model to the driver for things like tapping to unlock
| corresponding door or trunk etc etc.
|
| > https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/uses/hmi
| mmooss wrote:
| Why is a full game engine needed to display a GUI for
| unlocking a door? There are endless simpler solutions. The
| apps I use every day don't use game engines (except games).
| kube-system wrote:
| The market for automotive features in the US diverged from
| "need" long ago.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Game engines, UI frameworks, desktop environments, and web
| browsers all share a lot of features. The Arcan project is
| my favorite piece of software running with this idea rn
| jmalicki wrote:
| A game engine is sort of just a UI toolkit for interacting
| with 3d objects. If you want a 3d model you can interact
| with, you call that a game engine. Should they invent
| something new because they dislike the word "game"?
| samiv wrote:
| Because you need and want all the fancy features such as
| - fancy HDR rendering with reflection planes,atmospheric
| effects, tone mapping, camera effects, all kinds of
| animations for doors opening, lights turning on off etc
| - content pipelines to get all this data from digital
| creation tools into packages deployable on target
|
| When everything is said and done this is the same bread and
| butter what game engines use so the industry has pushed to
| leverage those and spread to these markers. Both unity and
| epic have tried with but not without issues.
| numpad0 wrote:
| They needed a GUI toolkit for dash display, and didn't really
| like long engine init time of Unreal/Unity/Godot.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Was bevy considered?
| debugnik wrote:
| I don't think anyone's seriously using Bevy's 3D renderer,
| only the ECS. The only successful 3D game made with Bevy so
| far seems to be Tiny Glade, which used its own renderer.
| pornel wrote:
| I'm surprised Toyota even used something as new-ish as
| Flutter. Carmakers usually are the last to adopt anything.
|
| Bevy is the opposite of an old boring solution. It's a cool
| engine, but I imagine a manufacturer would like to have
| long-term support with 15-year timelines. Bevy doesn't
| offer that, and even trying to have that wouldn't be good
| for Bevy.
| homarp wrote:
| The talk at Fosdem about it
| https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/7ZJJWW-fluorite-game-...
| Jyaif wrote:
| Interesting, they flipped the problem around.
|
| The UI toolkits in game engine usually suck hard, so here they
| started from a good UI toolkit and made it possible to make
| relatively performant games.
|
| There's more info at
| https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1r0lx9g/fluori...
| sho_hn wrote:
| Qt Quick 3D in Qt is I guess a similar value prop.
|
| They have a fun demo of a 3D shooter in it.
| oritron wrote:
| It doesn't say Toyota anywhere on the page and they don't have a
| link to a repo or anything like that, so I was a little confused.
| But it is from /that/ Toyota (well, a subsidiary that is making
| 3d software for their displays) and there was a talk at FOSDEM
| about it: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/7ZJJWW-fluorite-
| game-...
| wasmainiac wrote:
| > They use this game engine in the 2026 RAV4
|
| Funny how "game engines" are now car parts in 2026.
|
| Can I just have an electric car that's a car and nothing else?
| Seats, wheels pedals, mirrors, real buttons, no displays just a
| aux jack. I'd buy it, hell I might even take the risk and pre-
| order it
| x0x0 wrote:
| That car is the Slate truck.
| oritron wrote:
| Ah sorry, I quickly edited that out of my comment! I had the
| video playing while posting, they were talking about a
| precursor project for embedded Flutter which this in some
| ways builds on, /that/ is running on the new RAV4.
|
| One of the example uses given in the talk is 3D tutorials,
| which I could imagine being handy. Not sure I'd want to click
| on the car parts for it but with the correct affordances I
| could imagine a potentially useful interface.
| leecommamichael wrote:
| The "interactive user manual" sounds neat. It probably
| doesn't need to be part of the car's computer.
| cwillu wrote:
| Dear god do I _not_ want to be trying to deal with an
| interactive user manual when pulled over on the side of the
| road trying to look up the lift point to jack the car up.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| We're all just waiting for the Slate for exactly that reason.
| mcny wrote:
| I was hoping it would be under USD 20k including all taxes
| but now rumors say likely NOT under USD 25k?
| ghostly_s wrote:
| well the website says "mid-twenties" so Id say more than
| a rumor.
| fwip wrote:
| The announced "under $20K" price was including the now-
| cancelled $7,500 EV subsidy.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| A Toyota Corolla starts at $23K. I think the "Under 20"
| and "Under 30" price points (a la the original Model 3
| goal) are simply a thing of the past for any volume car
| with reasonable demand.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What you get for that $23k is now quite substantial
| though.
|
| Power windows are standard. 169hp. _Automatic climate
| control_ , central locking and key fobs, Automatic
| emergency braking and other radar based features. Digital
| gauge cluster. Modern infotainment. Modern crash safety,
| which is really good compared to 20 years ago.
|
| That's a lot of car for $10k in 1996 dollars.
|
| That's ignoring the $3k in fees, taxes, and whatever scam
| the dealer runs.
|
| The reason we don't see more of it is that selling one
| $23k Corolla to one value minded shopper can't make line
| go up as much as selling one $60k MEGATRUCK to one easily
| influenced shopper. The new car market is exclusively for
| people who buy new cars regularly, and are therefore
| willing to get very bad deals for cars. The market is
| driven by people who self select for bad ability to parse
| value.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| Yup. The expectations are set higher and to a point since
| cars are bigger for safety reasons (crumple zones,
| airbags) and have more pedestrian safety features like
| spring loaded hoods, it invited incremental additions
| until the new price points were set. A spartan 19K car
| isn't going to sell as well as a CarPlay equipped 23K
| car.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No, it's better than that. Inflation adjusted, this $23k
| corolla costs _less_ than a base model 1995 Corolla. That
| one had an MSRP around $12k
|
| There has been real price decrease in small cars!
| bradchris wrote:
| That was based on the $7.5k EV subsidy. California will
| still give you $2.5k, though, so just over $20k.
|
| Crazy to think had the federal subsidy not been cut, that
| car would be possible to get for around $15k. Unheard of.
| xnx wrote:
| Cars should be a USB-C peripheral to a tablet that docks on
| the dash.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Honestly, I'd be okay with this, and then you can upgrade /
| replace said tablet if you wanted to. In an Alternate
| Universe, your iPad drives your car, your iPad Pro drives
| your car through hell and back, or whatever.
| danudey wrote:
| Given how many cars have Carplay or Android Auto, but also
| have their own e.g. Toyota app that you need to/ought to
| install, it feels as though this isn't that far off from
| how things basically are.
|
| Personally, I'd be happy with some kind of situation where:
|
| 1. You have a small in-dash touchscreen, as most small
| sedans have these days, as the basic level of "backup
| camera and radio view" 2. Everything the car does has a
| physical button so you don't NEED to use the touchscreen 3.
| The car has a USB-C port that can power a tablet and which
| provides a standardized interface that e.g. iOS and Android
| can interface with, so that users don't have to worry about
| their new OS doesn't support the not-updated app, or the
| app doesn't support their not-updated device 4. Sell an
| optional tablet mount that attaches to the dash the way a
| built-in one would be 5. Sell an optional 'tablet' that
| does nothing but interface with the USB-C port and provide
| what it needs, in case someone wants a larger screen
| without having to buy an iPad Pro
|
| Then again I don't drive, so I'd be happy with none of this
| also.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I can build you this for $140k, I think. Interested?
| speedgoose wrote:
| It's a very small market, but yes you can. In Europe, the
| Citroen Ami is about that. Or the base Dacia Spring.
|
| More expensive cars will have more electronic. They kinda
| want to sell them.
| munificent wrote:
| _> no displays_
|
| In the US, no. Backup cameras are required by federal law as
| of 2018. The intent of the law was to reduce the number of
| children killed by being backed over because the driver
| couldn't see them behind the car.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It is crazy how many things are downstream of the
| structural issue where US regulations favor ginormous SUVs
| and pickups where this is a problem, but if we introduced
| legislation to fix this we would end up ruining US
| automakers which have pivoted almost entirely to this
| segment alone
| fnord77 wrote:
| deaths from people backing up over their kids predated
| "ginormous SUVs".
| kimbernator wrote:
| While I agree with you that the issue is far worse with
| larger vehicles, I do find that backing up in my wife's
| 2011 camry (without a backup camera) feels significantly
| less safe than I feel backing up my 2017 accord with a
| backup camera. I'm all for fixing the structural issue
| you are referring to, but I think the requirement for
| those cameras is sane in an age where the added cost to
| the manufacturer is miniscule.
| alt227 wrote:
| Its not just the added cost, its the supply chain.
| Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all
| manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need
| before.
|
| There was the chip shortage during covid which held car
| production back becasue the auto makers couldnt source
| their chips fast enough. I am waiting to see if the
| current supply issue for ram chips modules will produce a
| similar effect.
| nebezb wrote:
| All of that is worth the extra safety.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Stability control, pre-collision braking, lane departure
| warnings, the complexity is pretty inevitable as we
| improve the safety of vehicles.
| AngryData wrote:
| I mean you can buy add-on 3rd party backup cameras for
| like $20. They don't have any cost excuses for including
| backup cameras, camera sensors and display screens are
| literally cheaper than dirt.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's great for cars built before the regulation were
| put into place. Without that regulation, you'd then be
| dependent on the end user purchasing an after market part
| and installing it. The vast majority of them won't. So if
| it is so important to have, you make it part of the car.
| They did not leave seat belts up to the owners to install
| after market versions.
| AngryData wrote:
| My point is that if a 3rd party manufacturer can produce
| and sell a combination screen and camera for $20 for a
| profit, an automotive manufacturer has no reason to
| complain about the "expense" of such a setup. It is even
| cheaper for them than a 3rd party addon supplier since
| they buy in larger bulk and can integrate mounts for
| those devices into the car, rather than trying to devise
| some sort of one-size-fits-all mounting system that the
| addon manufacturers need.
|
| They might as well be complaining about the costs of a
| rear view mirror, it is nonsense from the start. If a $20
| gadget breaks the bank on a $30,000 minimum vehicle, they
| are a shitty business to start with and we should all be
| clapping our hands when they go out of business.
| pornel wrote:
| Legacy automakers still use these for upselling trims.
|
| It's so silly when they make some "Advanced Technology
| Package" with a VGA camera and a 2-inches-bigger
| infotainment screen that's still worse than junk from
| Aliexpress, and charge $3000 extra for it.
|
| I know it's just a profit-maximizing market segmentation,
| but I like to imagine their Nokia-loving CEO has just
| seen an iPad for the first time.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all
| manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need
| before.
|
| Was there a single mass market consumer car sold in the
| United States in this millennium that didn't already have
| processors and RAM in them?
|
| I would be absolutely shocked if there was a single car
| for which the relatively recent backup camera requirement
| required them to introduce processors and RAM for the
| first time.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that you can buy aftermarket backup
| cameras. The car can be a dumb bunny, and still have a
| good camera.
| stefanfisk wrote:
| Yeah, my 2005 beater has both CarPlay and a backup
| camera. Cost me $40 and an hour of labor.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I believe that in some vehicles the backup camera
| actually runs on a separate (possibly real time,
| otherwise certainly heavily nice'ed) system. Tesla has a
| recall where they had to nice the backup camera software.
| The problem was if the display freezes or is delayed,
| then the driver is backing up and not aware that he
| doesn't see where he is going (he thinks that what he
| sees is representative of the area around the car
| currently).
| pornel wrote:
| In Hyundai and Renault I've seen it first hand that it's
| a separate subsystem that works even when the
| infotainment is dead/unresponsive/glitchy (it's like that
| probably everywhere, these two are just the sample I
| have).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Was it ever a problem to get the kind of phone SoC or
| camera chips you'd need for a backup camera if you were
| willing to pay an extra $20? I thought the issue was more
| specialized things. And you need one gigabyte of ram or
| less.
| spease wrote:
| A gigabyte!?
|
| You shouldn't need any dedicated RAM. A decent
| microcontroller should be able to handle transcoding the
| output from the camera to the display and provide
| infotainment software that talks to the CANbus or
| Ethernet.
|
| And the bare minimum is probably just a camera and a
| display.
|
| Even buffering a full HD frame would only require a few
| megabytes.
|
| Pretty sure the law doesn't require an electron app
| running a VLM (yet) that would justify anything
| approaching gigabytes of RAM.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I tried to think of a wording that wouldn't get this
| response, I guess I failed. Ram is generally bought in
| gigabytes, "1 or less" is as low as numbers go without
| getting overly detailed.
|
| So what microcontroller do you have in mind that can run
| a 1-2 megapixel screen on internal memory? I would have
| guessed that a separate ram chip would be cheaper.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Back in the mists of time, we used to do realtime video
| from camera to display with entirely analog components.
| Not that I'm eager to have a CRT in my dashboard, but
| live video from a local camera is a pretty low bar to
| clear.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I just went on Amazon and a 1GB stick of DDR3 ram is
| about 30% cheaper than a 128mb stick of RAM. Why would
| any RAM company make tiny RAM chips when they can make
| standard-sized chips that work for every application that
| needs less?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Your CPU's L4 cache is normally DRAM, and it's cheaper to
| shove some RAM into a microprocessor than to have a
| separate chip.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I simply refuse to believe the cost difference between a
| CPU with hundreds of megs of DRAM is cheap enough to be
| an appealing choice over the same chip with a gig of RAM.
| We're not talking about a disposable vape with 3kb of
| RAM, this is a car that needs to power a camera and
| sensors and satellite radio and matrix headlights or
| whatever. If it's got gigahertz of compute, there's no
| reason it's still got RAM sized for a computer from 30
| years ago.
| TylerE wrote:
| All cars have required "chips" since OBDII was mandated
| in the early 90s. That ship has sailed around the world,
| returned to port, and sailed again.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all
| manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need
| before.
|
| Call me old fashioned but in my opinion,
| processors/ram/chips/components are a good trade-off
| versus squished children
| Zancarius wrote:
| I have to agree. Backing up my Tundra (8' bed) feels
| substantially safer since I can see immediately behind
| the vehicle than any pre-regulation vehicle I've driven.
| That doesn't even account for the convenience with lining
| up for towing, hauling, etc. (It's no replacement for
| GOAL--Get Out And Look--but it definitely helps!)
| harrall wrote:
| I like it because I can see kids, no matter what vehicle
| I'm in.
|
| I have unusually good spatial skills. I have parallel
| parked and reverse parked perfectly every single time for
| over 5 years...
|
| ...but no matter what, I cannot see behind my bumper. No
| mirror on any car points there.
| nobody_r_knows wrote:
| As someone who can only afford cars that are 10+ years
| old, i've never owened a car with a backup camera. And in
| a way-- good. That part of my brain, let it continue to
| develop. I am much better at "feeling out" where a car is
| than my friends who rely on back up cameras.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| Being good at driving doesn't fix the huge blind spot you
| have behind your car
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I used to be ornery about this but having a camera
| mounted on the back of the trunk that can see all the way
| down both ways of the aisle is actually a huge boon when
| backing out of a spot. Especially if I am parked next to
| something that is taller than my golf, which is most
| vehicles.
| commakozzi wrote:
| unless you're Yoda or Luke Skywalker, you're not
| "feeling" a 4-year old walking behind you in your blind
| spot.
| DerArzt wrote:
| If they are feeling it, the worst scenario has happened.
| luqtas wrote:
| like a vehicle touching a body in a speed of 3/4 km/h and
| the kid shouting or stepping away? or worst case your
| motion sensor beeping?
|
| how much the conversation diverts on a commentary about
| someone not wanting a car shipped with an OS capturing
| telemetry even of farts on the right back seat
| mosburger wrote:
| I understand your skepticism 100%, but I suspect you
| might change your mind if you, say, rented a car with it
| for a week. It's definitely a net positive for safety,
| and it probably costs the auto maker less than the seat
| belts (literally).
| anticorporate wrote:
| I've owned cars with backup cameras since about 2014. I
| still mostly back up the old fashioned way, and really
| only use the camera for very tight situations where a few
| inches matter.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| Backup camera are insanely nice. Modern cars give you
| things that even great awareness won't give you. The
| bird's eye view you get with multiple cameras is sheer
| magic.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Sure, and you may as well walk around with a blindfold on
| to develop your "spidey" senses too.
| allenrb wrote:
| Give me a backup camera without a screen and then we'll
| talk. Doubly so because once you've got that screen, no
| automaker will resist making it do other things.
| falcor84 wrote:
| You piqued my interest. What is the alternative output
| for a camera without a screen?
| JoeBOFH wrote:
| My old F150 had a screen in the rear view mirror. I miss
| that.
| tempest_ wrote:
| My 2010 Tacoma has a 2 inch square in the rear view
| mirror that works wonderfully.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| It's not just ginormous SUVs with this problem, though,
| right? You're not going to see a 18 month old out the
| back window of your compact hatchback if they're too
| close to your car. Especially now that windows seem to be
| tinier than they used to.
| Aurornis wrote:
| No, it's common to all vehicles. You can't see small
| children behind a small passenger car, either.
|
| Blaming trucks and SUVs for everything is a favorite
| pasttime of internet comments, but all vehicles benefit
| from backup cameras and collision detection sensors.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think the difference is that a 3 year old barely-
| walking child tends to wander behind moving cars far less
| often than an 8 year old playing football.
| discreteevent wrote:
| That could be true but the 8 year old gets out of the
| way. I can remember two incidents on the news where a
| toddler was killed in a driveway. Tragic.
| kube-system wrote:
| 1-4 year olds are the age group most likely to be injured
| in this type of incident.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5406a2.htm
|
| I suspect older children are more likely to be able to be
| aware of their surroundings and have better gross motor
| skills to react.
| nsbk wrote:
| The US averages 23 pedestrian deaths per million people
| per year. The EU averages 8. The US fatalities have
| increased by 50% since 2013, while in the EU have
| decreased by 25% in the same time frame.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7408a2.htm
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| What's really crazy was Trump forcing the UK to change
| road safety rules so they could sell more American pick
| up trucks in the UK.
|
| So pedestrian deaths would start rising again.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| I'm having trouble imagining American pickup trucks
| fitting on the road in the UK. Aren't the lanes and the
| cars all much narrower?
| drnick1 wrote:
| > The US averages 23 pedestrian deaths per million people
| per year. The EU averages 8.
|
| Americans drive significantly more miles per year, and
| larger/more comfortable cars are in part needed because
| Americans spend far more time in their cars than
| Europeans.
|
| Euro governments are also increasingly anti-car, which
| means citizens are loosing their freedom to travel as
| they wish and unreasonably taxed, policed, and treated
| like cash cows for the "privilege" of driving.
| myko wrote:
| > which means citizens are loosing their freedom to
| travel as they wish
|
| Most of my European friends brag about how they can get
| anywhere via train and how much more comfortable it is to
| travel that way. When I visit Europe I have to agree.
| Just haven't really seen this viewpoint, though I do
| think I would feel this way as an American if I moved to
| Europe to some extent (though I'd be extremely happy to
| have viable mass transit).
| Aurornis wrote:
| What does this have to do with the comment you're
| replying to?
|
| The US was ahead of the EU in requiring backup cameras on
| new vehicles.
|
| The majority of pedestrian accidents aren't involved with
| backup cameras.
|
| Are you just trying to turn this into a US vs EU
| argument?
| pasquinelli wrote:
| i think they're talking about the types of cars popular
| in the us vs. the eu.
| Aurornis wrote:
| They're talking about pedestrian accidents. If they had
| some deeper connection to make, it wasn't communicated.
| ikr678 wrote:
| Collision detection sensors do the job just fine without
| a screen though.
|
| I have a 2016 vehicle with no console screen and they
| have saved me from hitting all sorts on things, and are
| sensitive enough to detect minor obstacles like long
| grass.
| stetrain wrote:
| Right, backup cameras make sense even for sedans and
| other small cars. The high-hood trucks and SUVs in the US
| are the reason we'll probably get mandatory front cameras
| eventually as well.
| Zigurd wrote:
| It's a little ironic that the truck that diverged from
| the trend for high butch looking hood lines for no real
| reason is... Cybertruck. We kill pedestrians in the name
| of macho.
| XorNot wrote:
| The front camera is the best thing I added to my 2004
| Prius. The hood on that car is very good for visibility,
| but with the birds eye cameras I can roll it up within
| centimeters of things in front of me (there's a slight
| risk that you can absolutely poke the nose under stuff
| but at that point it's quite obvious out the windshield
| too).
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This has nothing to do with SUVs. A 3 year old is
| difficult to see behind ANY vehicle.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| It wouldn't be HN without a commenter shoehorning the
| topic of a thread into proof of their pet problem. See
| also any topic even remotely tangential to city planning.
| rkapsoro wrote:
| Wait until you hear what kind of vehicles the CAFE
| regulatory framework has incentivized US automakers to
| build.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| This is ultimately the thing that needs to be fixed. The
| exemption for small trucks was stupid, and it should have
| been reserved for literal farm equipment (as that was
| intended). The fact that SUVs slip by on this now has
| created such a dumb market.
| derektank wrote:
| The OBBB Act passed by Congress last year eliminated the
| financial penalties associated with violations of CAFE
| standards, so there's presumably no reason why automakers
| have to abide by them anymore, except possibly for
| concerns about future legislation.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Someone in another thread unironically called a midsized
| SUV a "matchbox". The vehicle in question has a size
| comparable to a Toyota 4Runner.
|
| Was a great example of the ridiculous expectations some
| of us Americans have on ridiculously huge vehicles.
| torginus wrote:
| Personally I don't own a huge SUV, but I feel backup
| cameras are a godsend. You're so much better off looking
| from the point of the actual back of the car to judge the
| distance to the car parked behind you.
|
| The perk of not having to twist your body around while
| steerins is also pretty nice.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > In the US, no. Backup cameras are required by federal law
| as of 2018.
|
| Backup cameras are required for new vehicles in a lot of
| markets: EU, Canada, Japan, and more.
|
| So it's not just a US requirement.
| Fwirt wrote:
| Backup cameras do contribute significantly to safety, to
| the point that I installed one in my 2002 vehicle with a
| cheap aftermarket head unit. The important thing to realize
| is that all the modern conveniences can be decoupled from
| the drivetrain. My $50 Android head unit does basically all
| the things that the OEM head unit on our 2018 vehicle does.
| It even does many things better.
|
| The problem with modern cars is that everything is so
| heavily integrated and proprietary. If I swapped out the
| OEM touchscreen, apparently I would also lose the ability
| to set the clock on my instrument cluster. Now that this
| has become normalized, automakers have realized they can
| lock Android Auto/CarPlay behind a paywall and you'll have
| no recourse but to buy one of those tablets that you stick
| on your dashboard and plug into the aux port. If your car
| still has an aux port.
|
| I'm excited for the Slate, but unfortunately I have the
| feeling that the people who buy new cars aren't the same
| people that want the Slate. The rest of us who keep our 20+
| year old vehicles reliably plugging along don't make any
| money for automakers.
| alt227 wrote:
| > buy one of those tablets that you stick on your
| dashboard and plug into the aux port
|
| Every single car I have been in in the last 5 years or so
| has Bluetooth. No need for aux ports in this day and age,
| especially when devices dont have headphone jacks
| anymore.
|
| Are you stuck in the 2000's?
| AngryData wrote:
| I still use headphone jacks on my phone, I wouldn't buy
| one without it. It is just more garbage to manage and
| more stuff to fix when it doesn't work. It takes half a
| second to plug in a cable and I don't gotta run around
| broadcasting a bluetooth signal which drains battery when
| not in use and takes as long to disable as pulling out a
| plug. Plus it is often lower quality than the cord.
|
| Bluetoothing to your car is to me the same energy as
| using "wireless" charging stands for your phone. You are
| just replacing a physical tether with a less efficient
| digital tether of higher complexity for no actual gains.
| ikr678 wrote:
| I thought the same until my latest pixel refused to use
| the headphone jack to the car because it detected the
| hands free communications in the steering wheel as a
| microphone and decided to block audio out with
| notifications telling me to set up Google Voice Assistant
| first (get fucked).
| richardlblair wrote:
| Yet everyone drives a truck and are incapable of seeing a
| child infront of their vehicle.
| danudey wrote:
| When I'm 5'11" and I often see trucks and SUVs whose
| hoods come nearly to my shoulder, it just boggles my
| mind. Of all the regulations around vehicles, I don't
| understand why "being able to see the road five feet in
| front of the vehicle" isn't one of them.
| AngryData wrote:
| Because marketting doesn't really care about vehicle
| safety, they care about how cool and powerful it looks so
| they can sell it for a higher price.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Because trucks are extremely popular, and frankly there
| is a cultural identity associated with them. Most people
| don't haul things with their truck, and if they do, it's
| very infrequently. BUT in American fashion, the
| optionality to do this partially drives purchasing
| decisions.
| wussboy wrote:
| But that identity was crafted by marketing. It could just
| as easily craft another identity if required.
| 725686 wrote:
| Cameras are required, but not displays :~)
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Ford has the backup camera integrated with the mirror. So
| it is possible to have a dumb simple display vs an
| infotainment system.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The Slate truck has a small backup camera integrated into
| the gauge cluster, and many vendors implement it in the
| rearview mirror itself.
|
| It doesn't need to be a giant infotainment display.
| ProAm wrote:
| > The intent of the law was to reduce the number of
| children killed by being backed over because the driver
| couldn't see them behind the car.
|
| Wish they would do that for all the trucks with 5ft high
| hoods with no cameras.
| HiPhish wrote:
| Backup cameras are great for people who wear glasses. My
| visual cone is narrower, so I effectively have to turn my
| head 180deg to see accurately enough, otherwise it's just a
| blur.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Real buttons are more expensive than electronic. Not sure if
| you care, but people make that mistake more generally.
|
| Game engines are probably trivially cheap to produce in 2026.
| You forget that Toyota sells 10M cars per year. In 3 years
| thats 30M cars. What does it cost each buyer for the game
| engine? 30 cents?
| criddell wrote:
| > Real buttons are more expensive than electronic.
|
| It might add up to a lot of money for the manufacturer who
| is cranking out thousands or millions of vehicles, but to
| the consumer buying one car it isn't a meaningful
| difference.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| This is 10 year old outdated, but 10 years ago 1 button
| was ~1.00. Probably closer to $1.20 or $1.30. But
| sometimes buttons had 2 buttons on them, Those would go
| for $2.10-$2.30.
|
| Then you had wiring each button wire I believe was $1.
| This wasnt 1 wire, but a few wires, power, ground,
| signal. Each button had them. This wasnt my job, so I
| didn't follow this price too much, but I asked the
| question at the time. I think going into the ECU, there
| is also a cost associated with it.
|
| Anyway, you could assume 10 years ago, each button was
| $2. A car has 40-70 buttons? So its probably like $100 a
| car. Maybe $150 or $200 in today's money.
|
| Also buttons and wires break, causing warranty problems.
|
| At the time these vehicles were selling for under $20k at
| the bottom, and $40k at the top. So 1% of costs were
| buttons.
|
| This doesn't even include the cost of hiring ~20
| engineers to handle the buttons. ~6 people to check
| appearance and do testing... It doesn't include the
| assembly costs on the line. That 1% was just the cost of
| button + wire.
| fwip wrote:
| From looking at some new car options lately, it seems
| like you're lucky if you can get floor mats for $200.
| This doesn't take away from your point - I suppose I'm
| just griping.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Anyway, you could assume 10 years ago, each button was
| $2. A car has 40-70 buttons? So its probably like $100 a
| car. Maybe $150 or $200 in today's money.
|
| I have a late 90s Range Rover. It has about 12 buttons on
| the dashboard, most of which I never have to bother with
| (they do things that turn on and off the fog lamps, which
| I don't need to use, or adjust the air suspension, which
| I rarely need to use). I turn the lights off and on, and
| I switch the heating from "normal" to "BLAST EVERYTHING
| ON, FRONT AND REAR DEMIST ON, SEAT HEATERS ON, EVERYTHING
| ON, EVERYTHING ON, EVERYTHING UP FULL, WE'RE AN AIR FRYER
| NOW" mode.
|
| What do you actually need an LCD for in a car?
| criddell wrote:
| > What do you actually need an LCD for in a car?
|
| Backup camera. They are required by law.
| nottorp wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a LCD. Why not a CRT :)
| danudey wrote:
| > Also buttons and wires break, causing warranty
| problems.
|
| It's a good thing that doesn't happen to giant 15"
| integrated touchscreens. Imagine how much of a problem
| _that_ would be!
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > This doesn't even include the cost of hiring ~20
| engineers to handle the buttons. ~6 people to check
| appearance and do testing... It doesn't include the
| assembly costs on the line. That 1% was just the cost of
| button + wire.
|
| That doesn't make sense. $1 uninstalled might make sense
| for a fancy custom-molded button, even if it's too much
| for a generic button. (I'd rather have some generic
| buttons with labels than use a touchscreen, by the way.)
| But there's no way a few feet of signal wire and the
| proportional share of power wires get anywhere near $1
| uninstalled.
|
| Also I can find entire car stereo units with 15 buttons
| on them for $15? That kind of integrated button is cheap,
| has been common in cars for a long time, and can control
| things indirectly like a touch screen button if that's
| cheaper than direct wiring.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| You are underestimating the quality you are getting with
| a car. The light colors match perfectly with science and
| experts. Its wild how much effort goes into it.
|
| Your after market has not been tested to react with
| sunscreen.
| dsr_ wrote:
| I can buy a 104 key mechanical keyboard for under $75
| retail. That's 104 switches, 104 labelled button caps, a
| circuit board, controller and USB interface, with
| reliability likely much better than any other moving part
| found on an automobile.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| That is very factually wrong. The reliability will be
| worse. That $75 keyboard is going to be used be hundreds
| of thousands of people, not millions. There is no safety
| involved. No one is testing to see how sunscreen and 50
| other liquids interact with it. Dump a sugary drink on
| your car buttons, they will still work. Do that on your
| keyboard and it wont.
| mikeryan wrote:
| Unity has a whole template and asset library for creating
| car displays.
|
| https://unity.com/blog/industry/automotive-hmi-template-
| take...
| numpad0 wrote:
| JPY2690k($17,594) 2025 Honda `N-ONE e:`[0], 12km(7.45 mi),
| unregistered, 4 passengers, 29.6kWh battery, WLTP 295km(183
| mi) of range, pack liquid cooling, has one-pedal, airbags,
| basic LKAS, rear seat ISOFIX, etc etc[2]
|
| It's like, at least one exists in Japan, on used market even,
| if you absolutely have to have one, I guess
|
| 0: https://www.honda.co.jp/N-ONE-e/webcatalog/design/images/e
| _g...
|
| 1: https://driver-web.jp/articles/gallery/41396/36291
|
| 2: https://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/detail/AU6687733258/inde
| x.... | https://archive.is/gbBzc
| wasmainiac wrote:
| Hahah super, ugly I love it. If only it was easy to import.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Can I just have an electric car that's a car and nothing
| else? Seats, wheels pedals, mirrors, real buttons, no
| displays just a aux jack. I'd buy it, hell I might even take
| the risk and pre-order it
|
| You can buy a tubular frame chassis for Beetle-based kit cars
| from a factory in the south of England, that's been adapted
| to take modern coilover suspension and an MGF or MGTF engine
| and gearbox, because Beetles are so rare that anyone wants to
| put the engine back into a Beetle.
|
| I reckon with a minor amount of fettling you could squeeze a
| Nissan Leaf transaxle and a sufficient amount of batteries
| in, and still drop your Manx beach buggy shell over the top.
| Or any other shell you like.
|
| You'd be running around in a solar-powered beach buggy.
| _THAT_ is the future.
| stetrain wrote:
| Part of what has made modern EVs successful in the wider
| market is the connected navigation system that knows your
| battery level, current consumption, planned navigation route,
| and what charging stations are available along the way.
|
| To have a decent travel experience in an EV you'd likely at
| least need this data ported out to your phone via an OBD
| adapter or CarPlay / Android Auto integration with an in-car
| infotainment display.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Connecting via ODB? Come on. The car does not need any of
| that built into it. You can connect an app on your phone to
| handle all of that and just use the screen as a display.
| There is no need for a car to have a cellular connection
| just to give this functionality. That would also prevent
| the car from being able to communicate with the mother
| ship. If there's an update, have the app do that as well.
| itintheory wrote:
| > ODB
|
| Ol' Dirty Bastard? I jest, but I think the theory behind
| wanting an 'On-board Diagnostics' [1] connection would be
| to get data from the vehicle. You can get cheap bluetooth
| OBD-II adapters to transmit that info to your phone, it's
| not a given. I don't know much about electric cars, but
| if you want your phone to know the fuel level in an ICE
| vehicle then you'd need this kind of connection.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics
| dylan604 wrote:
| I make typos like that lot. The one that is most common
| for me is CVS instead of CSV. No, this isn't a list of
| things to get from the drug store ::facepalm::
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I believe Tesla use/d Godot in their automative
| entertainment-instrumentation system.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| The dream. Although a map display would be nice to keep us
| from needing to fiddle with our phones. And backup camera
| AngryData wrote:
| No because more basic cars have much lower profit margins
| while requiring higher volume and investors/capitalists will
| not accept that. Why earn 5% on their investment selling a
| million cars and building brand name when they can instead
| earn 20% on selling 100,000 cars at the expense of a brand
| name they never cared about maintaining in the first place?
| Brand tarnishment is something other smucks will have to deal
| with down the road, not the guys making these decisions right
| now who get performance "bonuses" and not the shareholders
| that want large returns.
| dgently7 wrote:
| do you know about the slate truck? give it a search. it
| doesn't even come with speakers. or electric windows. or
| paint. it does have a backup camera afaik.
| ashleyn wrote:
| I feel like "game engine" is a misnomer for what we're
| actually dealing with here. It's more like an "ECS-based
| scene rendering engine, which can be used for games or for
| advanced UI". But that doesn't have a succinct label yet.
| munificent wrote:
| I think "game engine" is a pretty succinct label for that.
| :)
| nelsonic wrote:
| You're describing the Slate truck. Really hope they deliver
| what they've promised.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The last car that I remember being just an engine and seats
| was the Dodge Viper. I think some K class Japanese domestic
| vehicles are also likewise basic.
|
| I loved the Viper, but its spartan interior and features list
| were its detriment.
| parpfish wrote:
| But once they replace gas engine with electric motor, car has
| NO engine. Gotta slip in a game engine.
| Kapura wrote:
| dawg idk how you have a car that's "electric" and also
| "basic." everything in an electric car is _necessarily_
| mediated by software. if you want a simple car, you want
| combustion.
| hamdingers wrote:
| Basic does not mean "no software" it means "no cellular
| modem" and "no 15 inch tablet" and "no subscription based
| features"
|
| There is functionally no difference between the powertrain
| of an electric road car and a brushless drill. How much
| software is there in your brushless drill? More than zero,
| far less than an electric road car.
| oceansky wrote:
| "Nice car. What kind of engine does it have?"
|
| "V8"
|
| "Which kind of V8?"
| m0llusk wrote:
| > Funny how "game engines" are now car parts in 2026.
|
| Seems almost inevitable. Game engines end up supporting user
| interface elements and text with translations, but with an
| emphasis on simplicity, performance, and robustness. Many
| currently trending user interface stacks readily generate
| bursts of complexity, have poor performance even with simple
| usage, and are buggy and crash prone.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I guess they mean a car's console. Not a game console.
| aabajian wrote:
| The combination of Flutter + Claude Code makes cross-platform app
| development really, really fast. I've been impressed with how
| well Clause handles prompts like, "This list should expand on the
| web, but not on iOS." I then ask it (Claude) to run both a web
| instance and an iOS simulator instance. Can usability test in-
| tandem.
|
| I recently (as in, last night) added WebSockets to my backend,
| push notifications to my frontend iOS, and notification banner to
| the webapp. It all kinda just works. Biggest issues have been
| version-matching across with Django/Gunicorn/Amazon Linux images.
| germandiago wrote:
| How are you going to maintain all that when you find bugs if it
| generates a ton of code you did not get through to understand
| it?
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| You ask it to fix it.
|
| I've tried fixing some code manually and then reused an agent
| but it removed my fix.
|
| Once you vibe code, you don't look at the code.
| h4ch1 wrote:
| > Once you vibe code, you don't look at the code.
|
| Truly one of the statements of all time. I hope you look at
| the code, even frontier agents make serious lapses in
| "judgement".
| robby_w_g wrote:
| I loved learning Computer Engineering in college because
| it de-mystified the black box that was the PC I used
| growing up. I learned how it worked holistically, from
| physics to logic gates to processing units to
| kernels/operating systems to networking/applications.
|
| It's sad to think we may be going backwards and
| introducing more black boxes, our own apps.
| h4ch1 wrote:
| I personally don't "hate" LLMs but I see the pattern of
| their usage as slightly alarming; but at the same time I
| see the appeal of it.
|
| Offloading your thinking, typing all the garbled thoughts
| in your head with respect to a problem in a prompt and
| getting a coherent, tailored solution in almost an
| instant. A superpowered crutch that helps you coast
| through tiring work.
|
| That crutch soon transforms into dependence and before
| you know it you start saying things like "Once you vibe
| code, you don't look at the code".
| samiv wrote:
| And before you realize you're nothing more but a prompter
| ready to be displaced by someone cheaper.
| Quothling wrote:
| I think a lot of people, regardless of whether they vibe
| code or not are going to be replaced by a cheaper
| sollution. A lot of software that would've required
| programmers before can now be created by tech savy
| employees in their respective fields. Sure it'll suck,
| but it's not like that matters for a lot of software.
| Software Engineering and Computer Science aren't going
| away, but I suspect a lot of programming is.
| blauditore wrote:
| Ah yes, like no-code programming in the past, or what was
| it called again?
| falcor84 wrote:
| It's called Excel, and there's probably more logic
| written in it driving the world economy than in all the
| rest of the programming languages combined.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I assume he's mostly joking but... how often do you look
| at the assembly of your code?
|
| To the AI optimist, the idea of reading code line by line
| will see as antiquated as perusing CPU registers line by
| line. Something do when needed, but typically can just
| trust your tooling to do the right thing.
|
| I wouldn't say I am in that camp, but that's one thought
| on the matter. That natural language becomes "the code"
| and the actual code becomes "machine language".
| pschastain wrote:
| > Once you vibe code, you don't look at the code.
|
| And therein lies the problem
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Honestly I'm not so strongly opiniated now as I was a few
| weeks ago. I'm in a huge questioning phase about my
| work/craft/hobby.
|
| I've worked places where junior made bad code that was
| accepted because the QA tests were ok.
|
| I even had a situation in production where we had memory
| leaks because nobody tried to use it for more than 20
| minutes when we knew that the app is used 24/7.
|
| We aim for 99% quality when no-one wants it. No-one wants
| to pay for it.
|
| Github is down to one 9 and I haven't heard them losing
| many clients, people just cope.
|
| We've reached a level where we have so much ram that we
| find garbage collection and immutability normal, even
| desired.
|
| We are wasting bandwidth by using json instead of binary
| because it's easier to read when have to debug, because
| it's easier to debug while running than to think before
| coding.
| written-beyond wrote:
| You don't, and as long as you're comfortable with that you
| keep prompting to dig yourself out of holes.
|
| The problem is unless your ready to waste hours prompting to
| get something exactly how you want it, instead of spending
| those few minutes doing it yourself, you start to get
| complacent for whatever the LLM generated for you.
|
| IMO it feels like being a geriatric handicap, there's
| literally nothing you can do because of the hundreds or
| thousands of lines of code that's been generated already, you
| run into the sunk cost fallacy really fast. No matter what
| people say about building "hundreds of versions" you're
| spending time doing so much shit either prompting or spec
| writing that it might not feel worth getting things exactly
| right in case it makes you start all over again.
|
| It's literally not as if with the LLM things are literally
| instantaneous, it takes upwards or 20-30 minutes to "Ralph"
| through all of your requirements and build.
|
| If you start some of it yourself first and you have an idea
| about where things are supposed to go it really helps you in
| your thinking process too, just letting it vibe fully in an
| empty directory leads to eventual sadness.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Yeah... I wonder how you write complex software without
| something that looks like a spec, other than slowly. It
| seems like the prep work is unavoidable, and this
| contrarian opinion you are offering is just that.
| written-beyond wrote:
| Writing the spec is becoming the default for pet
| projects. Which would be a good thing if the spec wasn't
| also partly written by an LLM.
|
| You can already see people running into these issues,
| they have a spec in mind. They work on the spec with and
| LLM, the spec has stuff added to it that wasn't what they
| were expecting.
|
| And again, I am not against LLMs but I can be against how
| they're being used. You write some stuff down, maybe have
| the LLM scaffold some skeleton for you. You could even
| discuss with the LLM what classes should be named what
| should they do etc. just be in the process so the entire
| code base isn't 200% foreign to you by the time it's
| done.
|
| Also I am no one's mother, everyone has freewill they can
| do whatever they'd like. If you don't think you have
| better things to do than to produce 3-5 pieces of
| abandonware software every weekend then good for you.
| u1hcw9nx wrote:
| That's also how you get security nightmares.
|
| The way I use LLM's is that I design main data structures,
| function interfaces etc. and ask LLM's to fill them. Also
| test cases and assertions.
| harel wrote:
| This. I find bringing in the LLM when there is a good
| structure already in place is better. I also use it
| sparingly, asking it for very specific things. Write me
| tests for this, or create me a function that does this or
| that. Review this, extend that etc.
| mym1990 wrote:
| LLMs would not be popular if "spending those few minutes
| doing it yourself" part was true. In actuality it can be
| hours, days, or weeks depending on the feature and your
| pickiness. Everyone acts as if they are the greatest
| developer and that these tools are subpar, the truth is
| that most developers are just average, just like most
| drivers are average but think of themselves as above
| average. All of the sudden everyone that was piecing
| together code off of stackoverflow with no idea how to
| build the damn thing is actually a someone who can
| understand large code bases and find bugs and write
| flawless code? Give me a break.
|
| To the degree that those same people are now writing
| 10-100x more code...that is scary, but the doom and gloom
| is pretty tiring.
| blauditore wrote:
| The SO copy-pasting is actually quite accurate. The same
| folks are now just blindly generating code. That's why
| most software in the world is shit, and will continue to
| be in the future. There might just be more of it.
| mym1990 wrote:
| There will most definitely be much more of it, maybe
| machines are doing this on purpose to increase dependency
| on them haha. Ultimately, wagging a finger at someone
| will have no outcome, allowing someone to make real
| mistakes while vibe coding will be a much better learning
| experience. Someone that drops a prod database using
| Claude will have a very lasting memory of that(not saying
| that should be the goal, critical thinking obviously
| matters A LOT). Cars didn't used to have seatbelts, a lot
| of people died, then they got seatbelts and now the world
| is a better place.
| written-beyond wrote:
| I never said anything against using LLMs. You're
| projecting.
|
| Any engineer worth their weight will always try to avoid
| adding code. Any amount of code you add to a system,
| whether is written by you or a all knowing AI is a
| liability. If you spent a majority of your work day
| writing code it's understandable to want to rely heavily
| on LLMs.
|
| Where I'd like for people to draw a line on is not
| knowing at all what the X thousand lines of code are
| doing.
|
| In my career, I have never been in a situation where my
| problems could be a solved by piecing together code from
| SO. When I say "spend those few minutes doing it
| yourself" I am specifically talking about UI, but it does
| apply to other situations too.
|
| For instance, if you had to change your UI layout to
| something specific. You could try to collect screenshots
| and articulate what you need to see changed. If you
| weren't clear enough that cycle of prompting with the AI
| would waste your time, you could've just made the change
| yourself.
|
| There are many instances where the latter option is going
| to be faster and more accurate. This would only be
| possible if you had some idea of your code base.
|
| When you've let an agent take full control of your
| codebase you will have to sink time into understanding
| it. Since clearly everyone is too busy for that you get
| stuck in a loop, the only way to make those "last 10%"
| changes is *only* via the agent.
| scottyah wrote:
| Same as any other software team? You keep an eye on all PRs,
| dive deep on areas you know to be sensitive, and in general
| mostly trust till there's a bug or it's proven itself to need
| more thorough review.
|
| I've only ever joined teams with large, old codebases where
| most of the code was written by people who haven't been at
| the company in years, and my coworkers commit giant changes
| that would take me awhile to understand so genAI feels pretty
| standard to me.
| bsder wrote:
| The trick is to separate your codebase into "code I care
| about that I give the AI a fixed API and rarely let the AI
| touch" and "throwaway code I don't give one iota of damn
| about and I let the AI regenerate--sometimes completely from
| scratch".
|
| For me, GUI and Web code falls into "throwaway". I'm trying
| to do _something else_ and the GUI code development is mostly
| in my way. GUI (especially phone) and Web programming
| knowledge has a half-life measured in months and, since I don
| 't track them, my knowledge is always out-of-date. Any GUI
| framework is likely to have a paroxysm and completely rewrite
| itself in between points when I look at it, and an LLM will
| almost always beat me at that conversion. Generating my GUI
| by creating an English description and letting an AI convert
| that to "GUI Flavour of the Day(tm)" is my least friction
| path.
|
| This should be _completely unsurprising_ to everybody. GUI
| programming is such a pain in the ass that we have
| collectively adopted things like Electron and TUIs. The fact
| that most programmers hate GUI programming and will embrace
| _anything_ to avoid that unwelcome task is pretty obvious
| application of AI.
| maweaver wrote:
| I love using AI and find it greatly increases my
| productivity, but the dirty little secret is that you have to
| actually read what it writes. Both because it often makes
| mistakes both large and small that need to be corrected (or
| things that even if not outright wrong, do not match the
| style/architecture of the project), and because you have to
| be able to understand it for future maintenance. One other
| thing I've noticed through the years is that a surprising
| number of developers are "write only". Reading someone else's
| code and working out what it's doing and why is its own
| skillset. I am definitely concerned that the conflux of these
| two things is going to create a junk code mountain in the
| very near future. Humans willing to untangle it might find
| themselves in high demand.
| polotics wrote:
| source code not available?
| strix_varius wrote:
| I wonder if a slightly broader search for existing solutions -
| for instance, https://defold.com - would have shown that quick-
| startup, 3d-capable, c-integrable, low-end-hardware performant
| game engines could have been grabbed off the shelf.
|
| That said, this is cool and I would have probably celebrated a
| similarly fun project in their shoes. Perhaps the real
| accomplishment here is getting Toyota to employ you to build a
| new, niche game engine.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is specifically designed to embed into Flutter apps, which
| have specific requirements how they interact with the GPU and
| renderer.
|
| They already tried other engines, such as Unity. The team
| didn't just go off and build something without trying existing
| solutions first.
| debugnik wrote:
| Toyota complained about poor performance on all of Unity, UE
| and Godot, but also about long startup times with Godot.
|
| I don't know how bloated Godot is, but AFAIK libgodot
| development started as part of Migeran's automotive AR HUD
| prototype so I'm surprised to hear it has poor startup time
| for a car.
| james2doyle wrote:
| Having used both, the experience of building actual UI with
| Flutter is a breeze compared to building UI in any game engine.
| I can imagine that most of the usage of Flutter is leveraging
| the huge amount of work that was already done to get efficient
| and capable UIs done with just a stack of widgets.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| This definitely looks cool, flutter is still my tool of choice
| for small apps that aren't games, and I see a big company embrace
| it warms my soul.
|
| Toyota assuming they move forward with this, might even become
| the main corporate sponsor since Google appears to be
| disinterested.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Filament is not a console grade renderer, not even close. It's
| architectured around GL. Yes, it can use Vulkan but it's not in
| any way optimized like a console engine.
| andrewcl wrote:
| What is a console grade renderer? Specifically, what's
| considered table stakes and what is Filament missing?
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| This is a very interesting but also frustrating comment. If
| you're right that it's not a console grade renderer (not that I
| know what that even means) then that's really interesting - but
| why not? And could it be in future or is it fundamentally
| impossible for some reason?
| leecommamichael wrote:
| I understand what your intent is in saying this, and I agree
| with the intent, but for onlookers, you don't really need a lot
| to make a good game and this would likely be just fine. I don't
| actually know if it's possible to ship GL games on modern
| consoles now that it's in-fashion to have your own proprietary
| graphics library. That said, the way Google has factored the
| back-end of the renderer, it won't take a PhD to target one of
| those GPU APIs.
|
| Aside: GL is still a good practical choice for games built by
| small teams.
| Aurornis wrote:
| For others who were curious like I was: The website doesn't
| mention "open" or "source" anywhere, but they did give a talk at
| FOSDEM 2026 about it.
|
| There was a passing comment about "when we open up the GitHub
| repository" in the talk. So it's not open yet, but they've
| suggested it might be in the future.
| amelius wrote:
| Does it mean it also runs in a browser? Why isn't there a demo?
| bsimpson wrote:
| It does look like Filament has a web target:
|
| https://github.com/google/filament
|
| but if they're targeting embedded systems, maybe they haven't
| prioritized a public web demo yet. If the bulk of the project
| is actually in C++, making a web demo probably involves a whole
| WASM side-quest. I suspect there's a different amount of
| friction between "I wanna open source this cool project we're
| doing" and "I wanna build a rendering target we won't use to
| make the README look better."
| hoppp wrote:
| Looked great. How is it associated with toyota?
| wiseowise wrote:
| Now we're talking. If Flutter is dying, how come I still see
| projects like this popping up instead of using native or KMP?
| bsimpson wrote:
| It is interesting to see players other than Google invest in
| it.
|
| Makes me wonder if you might eventually see the OG Flutter team
| move to a shop like Toyota, the same way the original React
| team moved to Vercel. It's nice to see open source projects be
| portable beyond the companies that instigated them.
| sgt wrote:
| Flutter is probably still growing. Definitely not dying but
| it'll probably plateau at some point this year.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| This trend of "complexity == moar gooder" makes me itchy. Why
| does a vehicle display system need a whole-ass game engine? I
| want my high-speed death box to have utilitarian, well-tested and
| well-written software, not fucking Unity.
|
| Please stop, all this does is introduce new ways for things to
| break.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Interestingly this name (fluorite.game) is in the HaGeZi normal
| blocklist.
| https://adguardteam.github.io/HostlistsRegistry/assets/filte...
| xyst wrote:
| Not written in rust? No thanks
| chrisjj wrote:
| > console-grade
|
| So... not PC-grade?
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| Meh.
|
| I've been burned by using closed source game engines before.
| There's just too many edge cases and nuances that come up when
| debugging physics or graphical issues. I strongly recommend
| against using this until they become at the very least source-
| available.
| koolala wrote:
| Seems like it will be open-source if they are presenting it at
| fosdem. They said it will have a github. It's currently
| unreleased.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Rust based ECS game engine, with 3,000 word diatribes about what
| decentralized, federated social media presence it should have,
| woefully incomplete, full of bugs, with no consideration of how
| any actual games are written other than Factorio, because that's
| the game that programmers who write open source game engines and
| not games play: "Aww, you're sweet"
|
| Something about games authored by a giant company that will
| presumably actually ship in some products: "Hello, human
| resources?"
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