Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I used OpenAL for some work many years ago and as soon as things got more complex and/or audio input was involved, it caused problems with no one being in charge. With fmod everything just worked out fine and you got tons of cool new options which make a huge difference on top. It’s a completely different thing. One world is limited and cumbersome, the other one is more working and fun. Mark should integrate fmod/wwise and keep the old stuff, so it’s up to you to decide which audio experience you want, if you can deal with the licence or prefer to go with the limitations the available options offer.
A.o. Unity is powered by fmod, so users get it sort of for free. Mark could talk to the fmod/wwise people. If not, it should be down to the licences they already offer.
As far as i know, OpenAL also can crash, can cause issues in 3D mode, no tracker support, no reasonable mixing and effects, no support for higher audio concepts and it’s not in active development since years. Due to this and because fmod/wwise introduced indie friendly licences, devs don’t use it anymore (except they only need very basic audio support).
@roadmaps
I think Mark got more open to share some of his thoughts than he ever was before but it also doesn’t feel consistent and there isn’t room for a dialogue with influence which can make you feel frustrated because you might be thinking: Oh man, really, he’s working on these things whilst all that other stuff is way more important.Roadmaps don’t hurt. Sometimes they can motivate you getting things done. Sometimes you can make those things happen, sometimes you need to delay stuff, somtimes things don’t work out as expected and change completely. At best they keep you on track, your audience up to date and offer a possibility to interact with your users and based on this feedback having an influence on your work for the better.
@availablility
As for improvements, the current situation is awful for new people getting into monkey2. Learning a new tool already takes time & effort, so you want to make this as easy and transparent as possible. You don’t do this by offering outdated binaries or going through compilation issues. You offer the latest binaries and tested working ready for compilation packages. Otherwise you’ve lost some of those potential new devs/customers already. People (at least those i know) support stuff because they like it, not in order to avoid obstacles. Did i mention docs?@3d engine
And this brings me back to the 3d engine. You have to be very clear about what the purpose of mojo3d is. Is it primary for Mark personally or is it for an audience. Which audience does he wants to target? A certain percentage of the Blitz crowd certainly is fine with a max3d like mojo3d already but this is not what devs from outside will be happy with because 3D has evolved a lot. Therefore certain features Mark was talking about are rather nonsense and others would be very much needed.Dunno, all these things are obvious when you look at how 3d content is being created these days (just looking at gfx), some devs might use a toolchain like zBrush, Modo, Maya, Photoshop and Substance (or for the smaller budgets Blender and some local/free paint app like Pixelmator/Gimp on OS X). As 3D game engines many use Unity and Unreal. Todays hardware and APIs, these tools and the options they offer define the current workflow. FBX is a popular way to exchange models. If assimp can’t deal with FBX properly, it’s rather worthless. A.o. the tool vendors are trying to get physical based definitions more easily from one tool to the others. This also illustrates how outdated the thinking about if a game editor makes sense or not is. Anyway without going further into details, this is what you’re dealing with in the world outside of Blitz.
To really get people interested form outside, you’ll have to offer something ‘good’, people are already familiar with and some of Blitz’s own quality. In my opinion this doesn’t involve many (and outdated) platforms on a gles2 level. This is about some of the cool features gles3 offers plus a working simple fun experience for platforms which matter.
@Mark
Shit is not swearing (which btw. you’re into on your own, if i remember your activity on the net correctly) but it describes how gles2 feels like, whilst being this old, considering the drawbacks it comes with and its function often as a fallback less devs utalise because the market changes.The metaphors make sense if you understand the meaning behind.
I’m not fond of emscripten and was against html5 because i know how web development works, the problems which are involved, … and it was easy to see that it won’t take off and turns more into a waste of resources which could be spent more wisely on other aspects.
And the same is likely to happen if you concentrate on aspects which aren’t relevant to the market today. But as far as i know, you’ve never made it clear for whom you’re writing what exactly. So, is it to please primary yourself? Do you intend to offer some benefits for others too? How would you describe the target audience of your product? Why do you think new devs will be attracted by the tool? Do you plan to listen to feedback? Do you plan to get some basic engine for yourself done, then quit and working on a game using what has been finished till then?
Due to your lack of communication it’s not clear what your intentions are and your track record isn’t saying: Trust me, give me time and money and everything will automagically end up being fine. That’s not how it worked out the last two times.
Add on top of a lack of business sense, then it’s hard to survive and the lights got out for BRL already. Now it’s Patreon and with the help from the Blitz and Monkey-X communities it was enough to gave birth to an alpha of monkey2. After that, without the help of some brave souls, the lights would have gone out again.
So yes, it seems to make sense to reflect and having a open and honest discussions about what you want and what people want and if there could be some consensus about where we want to go and how we do this best. And if there show up real conflicts, it could safe some peoples’ time and money. It doesn’t need some magic but some common sense, respect for each other and good manners to sort things out.
You know, talking to you, and i heard this from others too, is like talking to a black hole, a lot of goodwill, feedback and offering help goes in but nothing ever comes back. Not a good starting point for helping each other out and a rather false description considering that allegedly there never has been input/facts/reasonable suggestions.
This reminds me of how to sell a song. The whole song doesn’t need to be great but it needs a hook, people get interested in. gles3 offers a number of such hooks devs could get attracted to but no talk about such things yet.
As for Simon, he’s old enough to speak for himself and contrary to him, i offered facts within all of my posts, in some way or another. If he did the same, we could have had a conversation but certainly not the mediocre way.
@Simon
I’ve put goodwill in this here, at Mark directly and towards other people over the years. I know what i like and dislike about this whole thing. As for your opinion towards me, I don’t want to be involved into your simplifications and ‘style’ of discussion where people who disagree with you are mostly negative, stupid or get silenced. Try to discuss with some class, differentiate, bring up arguments or just don’t talk to me. The thing is, no matter how much you dislike my opinions, they’re reasonable and reflect the reality we’re living in. I rather put some effort into showing up drawbacks before, expressing my feelings, than wondering afterwards about how it all could fail. We’ve tried the second option already.Emscripten is an unattractive platform, it’s the same like it was with HTML5 and Monkey-X. Many who are serious about their content don’t publishes for it now and it’s holding back the rest. If you’re interested in new users and want to move things forward, then you don’t come up with something dated as gles2. mojo2d is no reason too, because what’s working, is very basic and what’s more complex, isn’t there (yet) or not this well designed. You should rather change mojo2d according to how mojo3d shapes up.
Look, guys, quite many of us came from the Amiga. We’re used to good stuff, right?! Not some crap from the second or third row. Since years you see the other kids running around with new toys and we’ve got nothing, our mum telling us that it’s okay playing with ten years old broken trousers. No, it’s not, it sucks. And since mum watches TV shows all night long, you can’t argue with her either. And now would be the right time to make some smart decisions and head into a better future.
I’m not giving up stuff, I truly enjoy on a gles3 level (Metal/Vulkan would be cool).
Take a look at what gles3 brings to the table. It’s fun and a different game.
I don’t have time right now but I knocked together a scene with a sphere being tessellated. It works, the workflow is easy, it’s flexible and enables a lot (and looks great in motion). Dunno if we need to invest time to illustrate the benefits of gles3’s features.
No, i’m emotional on this one because i know what it means.
He’ll wake up this morning and it will hit him like a stone that gles2.0 is shit.
For people who aren’t into 3d tech or facts: gles2 = Trump, gles3 = Hillary/Sanders/some Kennedy clone/your favourite local clown/whatever. It’s not Buddha, it’s not perfect but way more interesting to deal with in the future. gles3 is 3d on a whole different level, even if you only cherry pick certain features. The boys using gles3 get the hot girls.
This is what he’ll tell you.
I like the name monkey, i just don’t like the -X.
Regardless of any bad decisions in the past, this could be about making good ones for the future which also involves a reasonable open discussion about what the 3d module could be. Something like VR support is great but it should be on the agenda more due to that it’s an immersive technology with its own restrictions but a large enough mass market appeal in the future and less because Mark somehow found it under his(?) bed. VR could be useful for devs using monkey2. What else makes sense, what’s useful, what’s exciting and fun to have?!
Mark has the chance to cherry pick tech which is relatively easy to implement, easy to use and offers a great bang for the buck. There exists a large enough niche who would be interested in such a small focused and efficient technology. But it’s more about clever decisions, less about ‘I do what I want to do’. The first has a chance leading to a product, with a increased number of users, paying money for a dev tool. With the second option chances increase that people are struggling on the market and Mark at some point moves away. Last but not least, Unity and Unreal were built from scratch but throughout the years they took their chances, made more right than false decisions and kept on working.
I had multiple platforms in mind already (although I favour a focused strategy).
Take a look at hardware stats for desktop, console and mobile. Understand how game development in this industry works, where the future is heading to. Imagine how the situation will be, when the 3d module will be released. Add some further time for devs creating content. Devices which only support gles2.0+ by then, aren’t the ones you want to target because they are slow, suffer from hardware-/software issues and aren’t in active usage anymore. If you own a iPhone 5/6/7, you don’t play 3d games on your iPhone 3.
And you’ll be limited again to retro styles putting all the effort into the art. Whilst the competition offers great visual enhancements with more performance. It will be like comparing monkey2’s 2d engine to a modern one.
Again, read the hardware stats, understand them, talk to people who know what they are doing, then it’s easy to see where gaming happens and what the market offers, that’s a world beyond gles2.0+. Don’t just have an opinion, check the facts and have an educated one.
Going for gles2.0+, with time working against you, that’s a mistake and no developer magnet.
Mixed feelings: gles2.0+ only 3d for 2017/2018 sadly sounds pretty dated, more than a decade behind the times. In 3d, such old tech mostly isn’t relevant anymore. Who is playing 3d games on a 10+ years old desktop? Who is developing VR for such old hardware? Who’s using a phone from those days?
For 3d hardware stats look different than for 2d and so is the definition of what makes sense to support for a reasonable range of systems. gles2.0+ sounds like the next least common denominator issue no one will be happy with.
The competition is ahead already and their tech is packed with features, not gimmicks as it used to be for years, reasonable stuff which is supported by hard and software and which enables you both, looking good and running fast. Further technology builds on the latest tech and workflows how to use all this best were established already.
Why would ‘new’ devs want to go back to gles2.0+ if it’s not just for a specific retro flat shaded 3d title? Why not designing a 3d module with a realistic view of the market and considering devs’ needs? Doing so could end up being financially secure in the long run too (like, many want something and are willing to pay). Maybe you want to reconsider your position and debate.
One more thing: 3d import/export should work for a real world scenario, like, what does really work for most modelers?
Apart from such things, looking forward to whatever comes out, good luck!
liane, yesterday in the jungle park (for OS X). Input: esc,f,space. Image
Sometimes parents push their kids just a little bit too much.
[hint: Sam & Max Hit the Roa?]
Some of the things i faced when using monkey2-1.1.01 (OS X 10.11.6) more recently:
a) ted2 (the real one) crashes from time to time, dunno why. Fix: restart.
b) ted2 sometimes also crashes when it thinks there are file issues. Fix: restart.
c) After returning from fullscreen, ted2’s content window is messed up (with gfx mem dumps). Fix: drag the window out of screen and then back.
d) There is no Redo. Undo only works till a certain depth. Fix: Either don’t use it or copy&paste to Sublime, do your stuff there and copy&paste back into ted2.
e) ted2/monkey2 don’t handle low and retina resolutions properly. ted2 doesn’t select the right icons. monkey2 can’t release non-/retina content. Not saving images with the appropriate dpi settings. …
f) Using multiple of sdl2’s channel options like pan and rate can crash monkey2 content.
g) Going fullscreen the usual way, only works from 1280×800 on. Lower resolutions like 1024×640 or 720×450 are wrongly placed and/or show screwed up content.
h) ted2 shows you with red lines where there are bugs. But when you’re fixing them, the red lines remain. It’s hard to read code on these lines. Sometimes the explanations for what’s wrong could be more helpful.
i) 2 finger pinch only scrolls the vertical text scroll bar, not the horizontal one.
j) It would be nice to see syntax highlighting in the prefs/documented, so that you can easily define what you would like to be highlighted and define the colours.
k) It would speed things up if you could mark code at a given position and then split the code window into two windows (horizontal/vertical) so that you’re able to scroll and edit in both but at different positions. Closing a window by icon and shortcut.
l) Marking text in the source sometimes helps, sometimes it doesn’t. Sparse info below (which you can’t copy & paste into the code), some info on the right. In the end you scroll through a huge commands’ list on a tiny part of the window on the right but often without meaningful relationships -> which can be inefficient.
m) In the docs, chipmunk could be structured in a more reasonable way (without this you only get chipmunk’s alphabetised commands’ list) and offer a little bit more info, like, #cpDampedSpring’ a.o. wants ‘stiffness’ to be defined and it’s a ‘float’ but how about its range? Just like with pan for channels.Generally:
1) Ideally a command is part of the documentation. Firing up by search or fn+F1 (the shortcut should be definable in the prefs).
2) You can switch through similar ones, show the classes they’re embedded in, like it’s already implemented. When there is some meat, it works quite good.
3) Once you choose a command, you get a description for it, how the parameters can be defined, etc.
4) Ideally there would be one example (or more than one if the command can be used in very different ways) showing a simple usage of the command.
5) There would be a history allowing you to jump forth and back.
6) There also would be links which show you where you are and where you could go within the house which is the docu. Like looking up a spring could bring you to other constraints/a level up/general physics/showing the other modules on the same level and so on. Making the docs a surf&enjoy-able experience and so getting a better understanding of what exists and how it works together.n) Ogs aren’t replayed properly. The rate is too low. If you increase the rate, then the data gets cut (problems occur with stereo, mono seems to be fine). No flac support.
o) … out of time.
