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Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#11

Post by danbolt »

Computer programmers are relatively expensive to hire, especially ones that have specialized knowledge about making games (eg: deferred rendering, ECS gameplay patterns, network topology models, etc.). There's generally a minimum amount of technical knowledge to create the sort of art you're looking for.

If you can abstract that technical knowledge away from making the art, it can lower your costs. Plus, it becomes easier to hire programmers as they don't necessarily need skills in the visual arts or design.

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#12

Post by oneoff786 »

I’m a huge fan of blueprints. A few things it does well:

* makes the engine api very discoverable, which is huge. It’s a step above intellisense and auto complete. The api is likely the reason it’s so dominate in games. It’s the bulk of game programming. Visual programming isn’t very good for coding new things from scratch.

* let’s you read code and clearly follow execution from start to finish.

* let’s you visually document concepts with collapsed nodes, and colored containers and what not. Good blueprints are literally written as long form pseudo code, with double clicks to see actual implementation.

* concepts like const functions are just conceptually clearer. Const functions have no execution pin. They (should) have no side effects. Just a calculation. The engine doesn’t enforce this I don’t think but it’s close…

What it explicitly does not do is allow you to code games without knowing how to code. Countless beginners just die on the first steps. You still need to understand object oriented design and basic coding concepts to do well.

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#14

Post by darkteflon »

oneoff786 wrote: post #12

I’m a huge fan of blueprints. A few things it does well: * makes the engine api very discoverable, which is huge. It’s a step above intellisense and auto complete. The api is likely the reason it’s so dominate in games. It’s the bulk of game programming. Visual programming isn’t very good for coding new things from scratch. * let’s you read code and clearly follow execution from start to finish. * let’s you visually…

That’s a really interesting comment, thanks. It always seems like UE’s Blueprints are a victim of poorly-informed expectations. Hearing the additional context here is hugely helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#15

Post by pphysch »

ReflectedImage wrote: post #5

If you can use a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for a task, or in this case a Domain Specific Modelling Language (DSML), why wouldn't you use one? It's no different from using SQL for database access. Basically, someone has to do a ton of upfront work designing a domain specific language for a task, in this case game scripting then it's easier for people to do the game scripting using the domain specific language tha…

> why wouldn't you use one?

Mental overhead

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#17

Post by trynewideas »

Accessibility. For newer developers, it puts the component parts in front of you as visual objects you can manipulate, instead of relying on you memorizing keywords (or knowing enough about syntax to leverage things like IntelliSense). For design teams, it lets people who have less or no code experience - writers, artists, mechanical designers - safely manipulate parts of complex game logic for balance and feel.

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#18

Post by pphysch »

Developer GUI is a practical necessity for building 3D scenes, unlike 2D. Many of those GUIs were extended to add support for OOP scripting.

From a programming perspective, this often leads to poor data access patterns and poor performance (walking over a scene graph and running arbitrary code for each object is not cache friendly at all).

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#19

Post by eternityforest »

pcwalton wrote: post #10

I remember hearing that studies have shown that the biggest impediment to absolute beginner programmers is the strictness of language syntax. Visual programming makes syntax errors impossible, and that's a huge benefit to those who don't have programming experience. (This was the whole motivation underlying Scratch's visual programming language, by the way.)

I really wish someone would invent something like Excel but with Scratch for the macros and functions. I'm pretty convinced average non coders can do quite a bit of programming with the right tools.

If kids can do Redstone, and business people can do Excel, there's probably a lot more possibilities for average citizen programming.

Re: Ask HN: Why is visual programming so popular for game programming?

#20

Post by xsmasher »

Beacuse you can expose functionality to non-programmers and let them go HAM with the components you have created. I'm constantly amazed at what artists and animators and producers can do themselves if given half the chance. Plenty of people have the "engineering Tao" but not the training for traditional programming.

Removing the engineer from the content loops lets a lot of work happen really quickly.

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