Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

arewegameyet.rs

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 139 posts

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#11

Post by datalus »

pansa2 wrote: post #7

I assume most game development (or, at least, game engine development) is still in C++? How easy would it be to start moving parts of it to Rust? For example, if I were to write a library (e.g. a physics engine) in Rust, how easy is it for game developers to incorporate it into their C++ games? Would they need to set up a separate Rust toolchain alongside their existing C++ one? It seems it would be much harder to fo…

Rust has good C interoperability. So from C++ it’d look like a C library. You can either write your own glue code or use something like cbindgen to autogen the header file.

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#12

Post by gameswithgo »

pansa2 wrote: post #7

I assume most game development (or, at least, game engine development) is still in C++? How easy would it be to start moving parts of it to Rust? For example, if I were to write a library (e.g. a physics engine) in Rust, how easy is it for game developers to incorporate it into their C++ games? Would they need to set up a separate Rust toolchain alongside their existing C++ one? It seems it would be much harder to fo…

simple matter of programming

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#13

Post by adwn »

hectorlorenzo wrote: post #4
pizza234 wrote: post #2

It'd be very interesting to read real-world experiences of experienced game programmers with the language itself; all the discussions around the net are purely academic. Long ago I've read on Reddit a programmer posted his detailed experience of the problems they've found on a non-trivial game, but I can't find it. I also wonder if anything changed.

I just recently came across these two videos. Using Rust For Game Development by Catherine West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLntZcp27M Counter-rant from Jonathan Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1K66dMhWk

> Counter-rant from Jonathan Blow

I've just watched the first 20 minutes of that video. So far, it's all "yeah, she's basically right". When does he get to the point? I.e., what does he actually object to?

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#14

Post by mqp »

girvo wrote: post #9
pansa2 wrote: post #7

I assume most game development (or, at least, game engine development) is still in C++? How easy would it be to start moving parts of it to Rust? For example, if I were to write a library (e.g. a physics engine) in Rust, how easy is it for game developers to incorporate it into their C++ games? Would they need to set up a separate Rust toolchain alongside their existing C++ one? It seems it would be much harder to fo…

The rise of Unity (C#) and Godot (GDScript or C#) would make me think that most game code is starting to move away from raw C++ — but of course the core engine code is still C++ indeed.

Unity has a c# scripting api, layered on the core c++ foundation. Unreal, on the hand, is C++ top and bottom.

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#15

Post by gameswithgo »

adwn wrote: post #13
hectorlorenzo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recently came across these two videos. Using Rust For Game Development by Catherine West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLntZcp27M Counter-rant from Jonathan Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1K66dMhWk

> Counter-rant from Jonathan Blow I've just watched the first 20 minutes of that video. So far, it's all "yeah, she's basically right". When does he get to the point? I.e., what does he actually object to?

tldnr is that Rust guides the programmer only halfway to the solid engineering solution, the programmer is on their own to make the arena solution safe.

its a pedantic nitpick, as is his way. also keep in mind that of late Blows focus has been single player video games made by very small very talented teams. A domain where the benefits of Rust are very small, possibly even a net loss compared to the fast compiling language they use now.

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#16

Post by [deleted] »

adwn wrote: post #13
hectorlorenzo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recently came across these two videos. Using Rust For Game Development by Catherine West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLntZcp27M Counter-rant from Jonathan Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1K66dMhWk

> Counter-rant from Jonathan Blow I've just watched the first 20 minutes of that video. So far, it's all "yeah, she's basically right". When does he get to the point? I.e., what does he actually object to?

[deleted]

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#17

Post by hn8788 »

pansa2 wrote: post #7

I assume most game development (or, at least, game engine development) is still in C++? How easy would it be to start moving parts of it to Rust? For example, if I were to write a library (e.g. a physics engine) in Rust, how easy is it for game developers to incorporate it into their C++ games? Would they need to set up a separate Rust toolchain alongside their existing C++ one? It seems it would be much harder to fo…

Godot is written in C++, but it has a stable C ABI, so it's pretty straightforward to include functionality written in Rust.

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#18

Post by gmueckl »

datalus wrote: post #11
pansa2 wrote: post #7

I assume most game development (or, at least, game engine development) is still in C++? How easy would it be to start moving parts of it to Rust? For example, if I were to write a library (e.g. a physics engine) in Rust, how easy is it for game developers to incorporate it into their C++ games? Would they need to set up a separate Rust toolchain alongside their existing C++ one? It seems it would be much harder to fo…

Rust has good C interoperability. So from C++ it’d look like a C library. You can either write your own glue code or use something like cbindgen to autogen the header file.

Many interesting SDKs come with C++ APIs that aren't necessarily translatable to C. Choosing Rust for engine development has the potential of severely hamstringing the team. It is the same tough uphill battle for all languages that aren't C++. Even more so now that the smoke is slowly rising from the battlefield of licensed engines and only a few contenders remain standing. And all of them have a massive C++ codebase and litttle incentive to toss that out.

If there will be a transition to any other language in that space, it'll take a decade or two.

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#19

Post by slezyr »

mqp wrote: post #14
girvo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rise of Unity (C#) and Godot (GDScript or C#) would make me think that most game code is starting to move away from raw C++ — but of course the core engine code is still C++ indeed.

Unity has a c# scripting api, layered on the core c++ foundation. Unreal, on the hand, is C++ top and bottom.

> Unreal, on the hand, is C++ top and bottom.

They have Blueprints[1] (visual scripting) and had a scripting language. However, they have removed it since then.

1: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/...

Re: Are we game yet? – A guide to the Rust game development ecosystem

#20

Post by slezyr »

hn8788 wrote: post #17
pansa2 wrote: post #7

I assume most game development (or, at least, game engine development) is still in C++? How easy would it be to start moving parts of it to Rust? For example, if I were to write a library (e.g. a physics engine) in Rust, how easy is it for game developers to incorporate it into their C++ games? Would they need to set up a separate Rust toolchain alongside their existing C++ one? It seems it would be much harder to fo…

Godot is written in C++, but it has a stable C ABI, so it's pretty straightforward to include functionality written in Rust.

They have [semi?]official bindings for Rust https://github.com/godot-rust/godot-rust
Post reply on HN