Animaze runs on an indie in-house engine and is unaffected by Unity changes

[devops]

This is our take on the 2023 Unity licensing ToS changes:

Animaze is one of the few avatar apps with its own indie avatar engine, based on OpenGL to import, animate, and render 3D (including VRM) and Live2D avatars.
Most avatar apps in 2023 rely on the Unity engine to power them.

Animaze is, as far as we know, the only indie engine (not using Unity nor Unreal) vTubing app that has helped propel users, even those using stock Animaze avatars, to reach millions of followers organically, without the help of talent management agencies, large marketing budgets, and/or large commercial gaming engines.

- PuffPuff on Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@itspuffpuff (4.7 Million, the largest virtual being we know on Tiktok, worldwide)
- Obit, at 5 Million followers, https://www.youtube.com/@Obit or
- MagLobao (1M+ https://www.youtube.com/@MagLobao) on Youtube.
There are plenty who use custom avatars too.



Ever since its inception in 2018-2019, the Animaze avatar engine, the alternative to FaceRig's old Chameleon Engine (used since 2014, supporting the first implementation of Live2D for Vtubing in 2015, from an engine team that sadly disbanded in 2017), has been meant to be a future proof, safe harbor option for all types of avatars, unaffected by any problematic directions that large commercial engines, spurred by their BoDs, stakeholders or governments, might someday decide to take.


Even though the indie engine path is not easy (commercial engine apps are indeed easier to put together at lower price points if not building a new engine), to have an indie avatar engine alternative exist and evolve in parallel avoids a big tech monopoly in the long run.

This becomes particularly important when seeing how Unity's stance on several ethical aspects has evolved in the last years, culminating with the 2023 scandal that ended with the Unity CEO resigning ( www.pentadact.com/2023-09-16-unitys-trap/ )

Thank you to everyone who understands the importance of independence, and the responsibility of not making the entire vTubing community dependent on a single large corporate entity.
Thank you also to any developers who have focused on providing indie alternatives for any complex tech layer in the stack, and reduced its dependency on larger corporations.

A Unity 2023 scenario can, in theory, repeat itself with any other popular free library. They are great while available for free, and using them should be explored and pursued, but they are not guaranteed to be around under the same terms tomorrow. In the case of 2023 Unity events, we see even retroactive changes can be tentatively applied to their runtime license.

As more diverse independent engine alternatives exist and grow (not just Animaze), the whole avatar/vTubing space is more resilient and there is less of a risk caused by problematic choke points/monopolies that affect 90% or more of the apps out there.

Cheers, and happy (independent) streaming!