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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?

#21

Post by SN76477 »

lostgame wrote: post #8

Why the heck wouldn't it be? Game design - especially in 3D environments - is an incredibly visual process! Unless you are incredibly familiar with programming to start - why, if you were approaching game design, and - for instance - had level layouts, character and enemy designs, etc - prepared in advance - wouldn't you? It's literally the most logical way to approach filling in those gaps with functionality with a…

I love this answer. . . There is really something to be said about context. Thank you for your this!!

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

#22

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

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…

I’ve been trying to clarify my own opinion on this in words for awhile now and what you’ve written is pretty much what I think too.

I hate coding stuff that I know could be better expressed with a visual graph or say, an animation curve. As a software dev on a team I view my job as making tools that the actual game designers and artists can then use to make better games with less effort and while having more fun doing so.

I work with Mecanim in Unity a lot, so it’s not quite Blueprints but it’s similar in that you need to think like a coder still when you’re setting things up.

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

#24

Post by easrng »

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…

And visual editors for DSLs are also easier to implement with libraries like Blockly, because the user is editing the AST directly, there's no parsing step. Also, you can make it much more obvious where things are invalid.

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

#26

Post by thurn »

Even for me as a programmer, waiting for a lengthy compile cycle in order to test something like a simple logical change is pretty painful. Game programming is overwhelmingly done in low-level languages like C++/Rust which have awful compilation performance and very limited hot-reloading support.

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

#27

Post by beaconstudios »

vzaliva wrote: post #13

Is it? You make a generalization giving just one example: Unreal Blueprints. As somebody not familiar with game programming but familiar with critical thiking I am unconvinced.

Houdini is also pretty popular. Just another example I'm familiar with, as a non-game dev.

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

#28

Post by beaconstudios »

truckerbill wrote: post #3

A counter question to programmers in other fields - do you visualise the structure of code in your head almost like a graph, or do you think in code blocks? I feel like more visual thinkers would naturally also be drawn to games. I’m a visual thinker myself, so I can’t imagine not thinking about code as a diagram. But it seems that from the way most tools are designed , this is not the majority view.

Depends on the context! I think in terms of state machines for state, reactive code is a dependency graph, object graphs for OOP architecture.

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

#29

Post by johnnyanmac »

Because many people getting into game development aren't technical people. And Epic and other engines are more than happy to sell the pitch of "Make your dream video game without any coding!" (nevermind that visual programming is STILL programming, but I digress)

I'll admit a node based system is much more preferable for some systems, like UI or animation. But otherwise, I've yet to meet a technical person who prefers Blueprints over simply typing out the logic. There's a reason why there are several articles and videos out there dedicated to trying to organize "blueprint spaghetti" once our project scales up. It gets messy fast

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

#30

Post by charcircuit »

thurn wrote: post #26

Even for me as a programmer, waiting for a lengthy compile cycle in order to test something like a simple logical change is pretty painful. Game programming is overwhelmingly done in low-level languages like C++/Rust which have awful compilation performance and very limited hot-reloading support.

scripting languages can similarly solve that too. OP is asking why they use visual programming instead.
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