*drawlogic » gaming http://drawlogic.com interactive and game development technologies for the web - flash, flex, unity3d, silverlight, javascript Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:55:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Adobe Flash Vs. Unity: The Near Future Of Hardware Accelerated Web Games http://drawlogic.com/2011/01/12/adobe-flash-vs-unity-the-near-future-of-hardware-accelerated-web-games/ http://drawlogic.com/2011/01/12/adobe-flash-vs-unity-the-near-future-of-hardware-accelerated-web-games/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:09:54 +0000 drawk http://drawlogic.com/?p=941 There is an article at gamasutra about Flash vs. Unity for the future of web 3d games.  But it really is the future of true, hardware accelerated gaming, applications and interactives, not just 3d but massive, immersive 2d+3d works/projects on the web and available via browser.

Adobe, or Macromedia previously, owned 3d games with Director (8.5 with Shockwave3d) for a time, but that was really before mainstream was ready (2000-2001-ish).  There was a lack of computers with dedicated video cards and GPUs.  Today, even the bottom line computers have a decent video card. Also, the surge in mobile and the need for native level access to graphics hardware has spawned this new battle (Thanks Apple!).

Unity has the pipeline, 3d and has been doing that well since 2005/6. They emerged from Director and even have some members of the Director team working at Unity.  Adobe is just getting back into this, they dropped Director (or left it wavering) and are now going to attack on the Flash level not just against Unity but to hardware accelerate it for mobile and better video playback hopefully (they currently hardware accelerate scaled video to full screen).

Like the Silverlight vs. Flash product competition, Unity vs. Flash is actually a good thing for developers and both platforms.  With Torque3d wavering, html5 and WebGL more than a year out (and WebGL maybe 2-3) for broad mainstream support (I am looking at you IE), this is the time for Flash to move on this and Unity to keep going they way they have.  Hardware acceleration makes these plugins relevant and ahead of the current standards emerging in html5 and WebGL.

I love using both tools and they have come a long way since painful Director lingo/w3d/plugin hell for hardware accelerated gaming, apps and interactives. The gaming industry and web are merging, these two products should get a good portion of that projected $87-billion total game market’s annual revenue in five years, as investment advisor Digi-Capital predicts.

It is also a great time to be a developer having these companies vie for developer support.  It is exciting that hardware acceleration, 3d games, and widening game industry are all emerging and will be a big thing for the next few years at a minimum.

It is finally time to kick it up a notch. Game on!

]]> http://drawlogic.com/2011/01/12/adobe-flash-vs-unity-the-near-future-of-hardware-accelerated-web-games/feed/ 7 Handheld and Console Gaming is Changing, How Apple is Changing It http://drawlogic.com/2010/09/01/handheld-gaming-is-changing-how-apple-is-changing-it/ http://drawlogic.com/2010/09/01/handheld-gaming-is-changing-how-apple-is-changing-it/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:18:55 +0000 drawk http://drawlogic.com/?p=864 Apple and other mobile platforms like Android might change the big three in gaming consoles faster than people think.  Gamasutra has an article about Apple’s assault on the gaming industry.
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.”
Small caveat is that the DS still has the most units but that will only last for a month or two more:
  • DS = 125m
  • iOS devices = 120m
  • PSP = 62m
Game sales
  • DS = 718m games sold
  • PSP = 252m
  • iOS games = 1.5B games and entertainment
But as far as devices Apple will surpass Nintendo this quarter as Apple handily beats them each month currently.
I believe that the Apple TV is also a notch in the future to console gaming, replacing the console with a thin client that can be controlled by handheld devices such as iOS devices. This may or may not happen but I think it will and it may be an Apple TV feature in the next year or two.  The Apple TV is an iOS device.
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.

]]> http://drawlogic.com/2010/09/01/handheld-gaming-is-changing-how-apple-is-changing-it/feed/ 6 Web Sockets in Google Chrome and Proposed Standard for HTML5 http://drawlogic.com/2009/12/09/web-sockets-in-google-chrome-and-proposed-standard-for-html5/ http://drawlogic.com/2009/12/09/web-sockets-in-google-chrome-and-proposed-standard-for-html5/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:24:37 +0000 drawk http://drawlogic.com/?p=705 Google is pushing Web Sockets into Chrome based on the Web Socket standards being developed at all major engineering standards groups.  Web Socket is an interesting direction but it is great to couple that with O3G or WebGL for some multiplayer 3d game development with just a browser.

Starting in the Google Chrome developer channel release 4.0.249.0, Web Sockets are available and enabled by default. Web Sockets are “TCP for the Web,” a next-generation bidirectional communication technology for web applications being standardized in part of Web Applications 1.0. We’ve implemented this feature as described in our design docs for WebKit and Chromium.

Sample Code

if ("WebSocket" in window) {
  var ws = new WebSocket("ws://example.com/service");
  ws.onopen = function() {
    // Web Socket is connected. You can send data by send() method.
    ws.send("message to send"); ....
  };
  ws.onmessage = function (evt) { var received_msg = evt.data; ... };
  ws.onclose = function() { // websocket is closed. };
} else {
  // the browser doesn't support WebSocket.
}

Socket Advantage

Flash has long been the answer for sockets for web applications and once sockets were added to Flash it instantly became a better interactive and gaming platform for multi-user applications and multiplayer games. They started with XmlSocket then recently added Socket for raw binary data in as3.  Silverlight and Java also have this feature but having this in script is pretty significant because many applications could really use a browser supported bi-directional communication link.

What is Missing

The biggie missing from Flash, Silverlight, etc and Web Sockets is UDP and preferably RUDP or Reliable UDP which allows UDP datagrams to be sent back and forth either verified delivery or broadcast. Unity does support UDP.  The best socket layers are reliable UDP based because mixing TCP and UDP can lead to queuing and not all messages are critical so having just UDP isn’t enough, having TCP is too much.  Reliable UDP is the way to go but so far no web layers are doing it well except Unity on that one (you still have to make your own RUDP implementation – libraries like Raknet or enet in C/C++ give you this but you can’t use that in Unity client only on the server). (Edit: Flash does have RTMFP which is based on UDP and uses FMS for nat for p2p but it is still not a true low level UDP socket just yet as it supports more features. A low-level UDP socket would also be nice in flash.)

Web Communication Evolving

I am a big Flash fan and have been developing it since 1999 among other platforms, I have recently watched other technologies nearly match the features and some go beyond it.  The interesting thing about Web Sockets is that it does go after a core feature of flash; Canvas and WebGL or O3D also do. Flash still has the webcam, mic, sound mixers/tranform, and for now sockets which put it at an advantage in gaming and interactive. Flash used to  be the sole greatest video player but Silverlight is doing a pretty good job of that as well so that is still an advantage but others are entering including possibly browser support in html5. I still think it is the best video but they would need to keep innovating.

Another interesting point about this is XMLHttpRequest objects.  Originally “AJAX” was created by Microsoft for IE, pushing new features and innovating back when IE was a good browser and ahead in IE4. Mozilla and others adopted this feature (as well as editable text areas for html) because they were great features for web applications to evolve to.  now Google is pushing with Chrome and Web Sockets is the next step that should be in web browsers even if it is only TCP based for now.  This will add great capabilities and will probably be preferred over AJAX/XMLHttpRequest for really interactive and real-time tools/games should it take hold.  Ian Hickson is running the table on the standards with this effort and it is a good one to get behind.

]]> http://drawlogic.com/2009/12/09/web-sockets-in-google-chrome-and-proposed-standard-for-html5/feed/ 10 List of 2008 Unity3D Games and Recently Launched Minotaur China Shop by Flashbang Studios http://drawlogic.com/2008/12/14/list-of-2008-unity3d-games-and-recently-launched-minotaur-china-shop-by-flashbang-studios/ http://drawlogic.com/2008/12/14/list-of-2008-unity3d-games-and-recently-launched-minotaur-china-shop-by-flashbang-studios/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:55:18 +0000 drawk http://drawlogic.com/?p=316 Unity3D is a great platform for developing 3d games where you need hardware acceleration beyond what Flash 3d can give you for the web.

There are lots of great independent gaming companies and web gaming companies realizing this and here in the #phx Arizona market a few good ones including Flashbang Studios on their Unity3D gaming site Blurst. I have been developing Unity3D for about 6 months and it is great where you want 3d environments over 2000 polys for the web.  The power of 3d hardware rendering on the web combined with a great development environment is making it possible to make really fun games with unity3d.

Unity3D Games Released Recently

Flashbang recently released Minotaur China Shop to add to their Blurst.com site of Unity3D games and community. They detailed the launch day at their blog.  It is a pretty fun game and once you get further into the game design with different paths, selling products or thrashing your china shop for insurance and strategic upgrades it has legs to keep interest.

Minotaur China Shop Trailer

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2474951[/vimeo]

There are lots of great Unity 3d games out there here is a list of the best of 2008:

      [source]

      ]]>       http://drawlogic.com/2008/12/14/list-of-2008-unity3d-games-and-recently-launched-minotaur-china-shop-by-flashbang-studios/feed/ 5       Hardware of the Casual Gamer http://drawlogic.com/2008/08/02/hardware-of-the-casual-gamer/ http://drawlogic.com/2008/08/02/hardware-of-the-casual-gamer/#comments Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:38:25 +0000 drawk http://drawk.wordpress.com/?p=241 Making great games, applications and tools using flash, silverlight or other tools that are emerging such as Unity3D takes great style, effort and knowing your target. We need to know what the end-user machine has at hand.  The Unity 3d guys put together a great post on the capabilities of casual gaming machines. With all the talk about flash 3d, unity3d and silverlight what level are you targeting and what group of people can actually PLAY your games as you envision.

      Pretty much everyone knows Valve’s hardware survey – it’s a very valuable resource that shows what hardware the typical “hardcore PC gamer” has (that is, gamers that play Valve’s games).

      However, the “casual gamer”, which is what Unity games are mostly targeted at, probably has slightly different hardware. “Slightly” being a very relative term of course.

      Lo and behold – we have a glimpse into that data.

      How? First time the Unity Web Player is installed, it submits anonymous hardware details (details in the EULA). This happens only once, and contains no personally identifiable information. It’s much like visitor statistics trackers on the websites that gather your OS, browser information and whatnot.

      …

      Remember, all this data is from people who installed Unity Web Player (most likely because they wanted to play some Unity content on the web). Hardware of standalone game players might be different, and hardware of your game’s players might be different as well. The data set is well over a million samples at the moment.

      Check out the full stats here.

      The most interesting stats to me:

      OS Platforms

      Windows 96.8%

      Mac OS X 3.2%

      CPU Core count overall

      1 54.7%

      2 44.1%

      4 1.1%

      8 .1%

      Wow this one is surprising, but with the type of gamer that will play and download a quality new plugin to get to a game, maybe not.  They need to have the latest and greatest.  Multi-core processors have been selling for about 2-3 years so this is a continuing trend that will make Flash 3d and even plugins like Unity 3d better over the short term.

      Also when you check it over at Unity Blog note the top cards, it is a bit painful if you are a casual gamer developer.  Not a decent card in the top 10-15. But that is changing rapidly over the next 1-2 years in this regard. But this also vyes well for flash based games that rely on dual core software rendered results right now as a decent constraint for developers to keep content painfully accessible to all states of machinery out there.

      I wonder if this information is available on the flash player and public? This is specific to the Unity 3D plugin that is also a bit of a different market that is willing to install a plugin for better experiences.  With Flash it is usually preinstalled or auto updated for a casual user and might be different as Flash has a 98% penetration rate.  Or for that matter the Director users which would be more gaming focused which amout ot about 40% of internet users.  But as with the case of Unity it is specific to games right now and a small penetration rate, Flash is also apps, ads, tools, demos, interactives in addition to games.  Having this information on Flash or Director would be nice.

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