Ubisoft says it plans to make the UbiArt Framework behind Rayman Origins open source, and free for everyone to use.
"UbiArt has been built to be shared," said Michel Ancel in a statement to the game developer magazine Develop. "It won't be like other games technologies, which are often just locked away."
"If the guys who invented the paintbrush only kept it for themselves then fine art [would be in a sorry state], it would be ephemeral. So yes, I want it to be open source, I want it to go out and be shared and evolved."
"If you look at the best artists at Disney for example, they create incredible books and artwork and share their processes—it's interesting because those same people are happy to look at how other artists are developing their style," he said. "The whole medium has evolved on the basis of sharing ideas. But in games we lock it all in a black box and keep it to ourselves."
"A lot of independent developers fail or struggle because of that trend. We need to be more open. I don't believe that keeping the technology to yourself is interesting. It is more interesting to have a community and share our content."
Rayman Origins is set for a late 2011 release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. The company also intends to bring the game to the 3DS and the PS Vita.
