Posts Tagged ‘GAMEDEV’
Good news for the beginning of hardware accelerating the web, WebGL will now be part of the main Chrome releases not just a compile option for Chromium nightlies.
Google Chrome 9 enables WebGL support by default. “WebGL is a new web technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without installing additional software” and it can be used to create cool applications like Google Body Browser, Field, Aquarium and more.
The update for Chrome 9 also sandboxes Flash, WebGL and plugins like extensions and tabs so that using them will be more secure and not crash the browser or the tab. Hopefully Safari has this soon, and then a few years from now IE may get it. Or they will put out their own DirectX web plugin so everyone has to write it twice like currently in game development. /sarcasm
WebSockets and many other great features are now available across the iOS devices that are updated to iOS 4.2.
You can test your devices for WebSocket support and I just tested iPad and iPhone/iPods on iOS 4.2 and it is a go.
The update also adds some other excellent Safari browser features including:
- As mentioned, WebSocket support
- Accelerometer support
- Improved SVG and Canvas rendering
- Better Ajax
The new Safari on iOS 4.2 makes the iOS platform the current best html5 mobile solution for interactive apps and games in the browser. This should add some fun in terms of interactive web, games and better web experiences for iOS users.
- More on new features in iOS 4.2 Safari
- Test your browser for WebSockets
- Play with the accelerometer in javascript
We hope they add in WebGL support soon, there was mention of WebGLRenderingContext but not supported in browser yet.
It’s about time. Here at drawlogic we have been pushing hardware acceleration in Flash as it died in Adobe’s Director product that is all but history. Director was horribly not useful as a programming tool but Flash and AS3 have become a great environment, the only thing missing was getting past software rendering limitations to use hardware acceleration that have been made more apparent by mobile devices which are like late 90′s early 00′s computers.
With Flash gaming being so huge and competitors like Unity it is surprising it took this long but it seems Flash and AIR development will be kicking up a notch in 2011 with hardware acceleration.
Adobe has finally delivered or will so in 2011 on this pressing need.
It’s a good thing ByteArray (Thibault Imbert – the man inside) got in there at Adobe he has been there delivering killer stuff and presents a video on Molehill on Adobe Labs showing this new tech.
“Molehill” is the code name for a new set of low-level, GPU-accelerated 3D APIs that will enable advanced 3D experiences across screens through the Adobe® Flash® Platform runtimes. These new low-level APIs will provide advanced 3D and 3D engine developers the flexibility to leverage GPU hardware acceleration for significant performance gains. Today, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, renders thousands of non z-buffered triangles at approximately 30 Hz. With the new 3D APIs, developers can expect hundreds of thousands of z-buffered triangles to be rendered at HD resolution in full screen at around 60 Hz. Using the new 3D APIs in Flash Player and AIR will make it possible to deliver sophisticated 3D experiences across almost every computer and device connected to the Internet.
Developers will be able to create content through the upcoming Flash Player beta program starting in the first half of 2011. To leverage the 3D features exposed in Flash Player during the beta period, developers will use Adobe Flash Builder™ or the Adobe Flex® SDK with an updated SWC exposing the required APIs.
More on the capabilities and rendering tech:
Developers were told to expect “hundreds of thousands of z-buffered triangles to be rendered at HD resolution in full screen at around 60 Hz” under the new APIs, compared to “thousands” of un-z-buffered, 30Hz triangles under the current Flash Player 10.1.
The acceleration will rely on DirectX 9 standards on Windows, OpenGL ES 1.3 on Macs and OpenGL ES 2.0 on mobile platforms, and potentially puts Flash more directly into competition with 3D-centric web game engines such as Unity.
We are very excited about this development and what it means to Unity, WebGL and other technologies that have filled the gap. With Adobe making this change and recent tool support for html5 it seems the old Macromedia innovative spirit has been awoken. I only wish it could have kicked into high gear in 2007-2008 when mobile made native and hardware acceleration necessary again and probably for good.
As we learn more and get our hands on it we will be posting much more on ‘Molehill’.
Besides recently becoming the most popular configuration in the entire iPod lineup, the iPod Touch “has become the most popular portable game player in the world,” Jobs chimed. “The iPod Touch outsells Nintendo and Sony portable game players combined. It has over 50 percent market share for both the U.S. and worldwide.”
- DS = 125m
- iOS devices = 120m
- PSP = 62m
- DS = 718m games sold
- PSP = 252m
- iOS games = 1.5B games and entertainment
However, as Mike Capps commented to Gamasutra in our interview immediately following the event, “Right now, I can display from my iPad to my Apple TV on a big screen TV. How far away are we from ,’That’s my game console, and it’s displaying wirelessly to my television set?’ It’s not far away.”…What will that mean? What form will it take? How soon will it come? All unanswerable. But Sony, Nintendo, and even Microsoft are all officially on notice as of today.
Do consoles anchored to a TV suddenly seem like the old way?
To the argument that the Appstore is full of bad games, it is, but it is also the secret to their success. Apple built a platform and let indies in. Apple was very critisized about their approval process but Playstation, XBOX, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP all have more harsh approval processes and dont’ even let indies begin developing until they approve. The result is higher quality games on the latter devices however it is the same problem the web brought.
I think that was Nintendo and Sony’s downfall in that they didn’t jump on the downloadable store AND allow indies in. There are lots of fart apps that come with allowing almost everything but you also get stuff like Angry Birds, Monster Dash, Real Racing, 2XL, Gameloft etc. I’d rather let everything in and let the charts decide what is best rather than it be a closed market to indies from even trying. But that comes with lower quality games for the most part except those standouts that might have been rejected on Nintendo or Sony platforms. 99% of the Appstore is crap but 1% is awesome, that 1% might be bigger than the quality games that make it to the PSP or DS.
Pretty sweet web racing advergame for Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by C4RL05, made with Unity. Carlos Ulloa is of course the same dude that made the Unity HelloRacer. He is also famous for starting Papervision3D for Flash but has been doing some amazing work in Unity for more immersive 3D experiences.
The game is another example of how when you need really immersive experiences for advergames or brands, Unity is looking like a great choice. Unity isn’t perfect for many things that Flash is such as video, 2d games, mixing media, mic/cam apps, and data, but for games where 3d is required it seems to be the way to go.
On the web based gaming front…
Google looks to be making a gaming site to compete with Facebook only kicking the gaming up a notch? By the comment from Mark DeLoura, head of developer advocate for Google gaming, it appears they/he also favor going 3d or native client with WebGL or Unity wrapped in the native client.
Check the comment by Mark DeLoura on the gamasutra post regarding the rumored Google Me Facebook like gaming/social site:
I think Flash will continue to be a very viable platform. The Flash toolset is pretty frickin’ amazing, and there are a ton of happy Flash developers out there, and great games galore.
I would like to see higher-fidelity 3D content on the web though. It’s been a dream of many people going back to VRML days. WebGL and Native Client are two solutions to this that will be integrated into the Chrome browser. At Google I/O we talked about Unity running inside of Native Client, which combines the hardware acceleration and security of Native Client with the fantastic toolset and runtime from Unity. It’s peanut butter and chocolate (well, for me). This is a platform I’m really excited about for 3D web games.
Indeed peanut butter and chocolate is mighty tasty.
A sweet engine for getting started with Android game development is the andengine 2D OpenGL ES engine. This is very simple and compares with cocos2d-iphone for iOS development in 2D with OpenGL ES. They both support a wide range of 2d techniques with an OpenGL renderer. Some great videos are posted on the andengine google code page showing a box2D example, multiplayer example and more.
Mobile games are on slower hardware, similar to later 90′s computers so native is a great way to go for 3d and 2d game development because of this limitation at the current time and well into the next few years. Take this time to learn you some native gamedev. andengine isn’t native directly as it is Java based but compiled with the Dalvik JIT virtual machine. Another way to go native on Android is the Android NDK which allows C and C++.
- andengine download at google code
- andengine examples at google code
- andengine blog
- Mercurial repository at google code
- cocos2d-android port of cocos2d-iphone with BSD license
- rokon android is another BSD licensed android game engine
The engine also has extensions that can be easily added and some great ones exist already.
Torque 3D is out of beta and officially released to the world. Torque was one of the first indie affordable game engines and they continue that work at Garage Games with a web enabled Torque 3D output much like the Unity 3D player.
The pipeline is not yet as streamlined as as Unity 3D as Torque has many legacy formats and components such as DTS models, DIF interiors and DSQ animation files that are specific to the Torque Engine. But they have added support for COLLADA models and the community is strong for Torque 3D. Also, since Torque 3D is built on an older engine but updated for modern uses, the file formats and loading is streamlined for low poly and web based games that need small asset sizes but still have quality.
Like Unity 3D there are many paths to truly get your game published and available to many platforms from desktop on Windows and Mac to web players in all major browsers (and iPhone, Wii and XBox with more $$$). This is an amazing time in game development.
When I initially got into heavier game development in early 2003 after moving from Half-life to Unreal and then the affordable Torque, there were two major things missing, a web player export and a good editor with intellisense. Torque 3D provides the web player export and Torsion is a great IDE for TorqueScript beyond using Visual Studio or XCode for C++ source editing.
Some really nice tools include the River Editor and Road and Path editor that complement the great terrain editor and scene and asset editors that make production fairly quick in the Torque tool chain.
Road and Path Editor
Road and Path Editor – Torque 3D from TorquePowered on Vimeo.
River Editor
River Editor – Torque 3D from TorquePowered on Vimeo.
The good news is there is now two quality toolsets in Unity 3D and Torque that for about $1500 you can get a good pipeline and engine that will enable you to create great immersive games for many platforms and the web. If you got the skills the platforms are there to get your game out to the world whichever platform you choose. Similarly to the Flash vs Silverlight vs Canvas progress, with competition in this area it will keep both platforms innovating and supporting developers needs first.
For more immersive games that require hardware rendering beyond Flash capabilities Unity 3D and Torque 3D are now here for your creations.
Electronic Arts is using Unity 3D to develop Tiger Woods Online. The game is currently in beta. It was announced that they were using the engine in June on their blog but only on the reposted version here not the original post where the engine was just deemed “new technology”.
This is a major shift in the game industry and how it is being expanded into online properties that rival or better the console and desktop versions through online communities. Quake Live from id software uses their own system that wraps existing games (originally developed by Gaim Theory then bought by id Software) and instant action technology from garage games that runs instant action. All these systems have provided us browser based triple AAA style gaming fun. It looks like that movement will continue as more and more game companies and publishers see the valid capabilities of Unity 3D to deliver when you need really deeply immersive 3d experiences in the browser. Also other systems like Torque 3D, Quake Live technology and more will be seeing this trend continue when it comes to games online. It is also becoming a choice for online web based 3d MMOs such as Fusion Fall and Marvel Super Hero Squad.
JiglibFlash has been updated on a few fronts…
Recently added include, you can now use RADIANS or DEGREES to manipulate objects in the engine, also adding standard yaw, pitch and roll methods.
There is a mouse interaction now available with a MouseConstraint class to allow the user to drag a 3d element with the mouse which is great for gaming and interactive 3d physics scenes.
New class: MouseConstraint
There has been a new class to the Papervision3D plug-in called MouseConstraint and a new example to the Papervision3D examples folder. The class basically allows you to attach a world constraint to an object and simulate dragging.
The best update though is you can now use any of the major open source flash 3d engines as the renderer: Papervision 3D, Away3D or Sandy.
AS3 Flash 3D Physics Engines
