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I still use Flash

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Re: I still use Flash

#271

Post by detritus »

kmeisthax wrote: post #164
bambax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed! ;-) However I wonder why the OP didn't try to keep vector graphics and use to SVG for instance? That would allow for infinite scalability. It is mentioned that "GPUs don't like vectors" but if the game doesn't change too often it should not make a lot of difference?

So, I think I need to elaborate on "GPUs don't like vectors". What the OP meant was "GPUs have literally no support for rendering anything other than pixels on triangles and getting them to efficiently draw Bezier curves and fills is an active area of research". You'd need specific hardware support for rasterizing them, and as far as I'm aware no such hardware exists. When Adobe hacked on "HTML5 support" to Animate,…

> "GPUs have literally no support for rendering anything other than pixels on triangles and getting them to efficiently draw Bezier curves and fills is an active area of research"

Well fuck me, I had no idea. I figured that 'simple 2D vectors' would be beyond piss-easy for modern GPUs. I'd never considered that it wasn't the actual math space that was accelerated, rather the fast memory mapping of everything on presumably comparatively simple geometries. You've just turned my view of the world upside down :(

Re: I still use Flash

#272

Post by heystefan »

> In the end, I settled for a bit of a hack. My exporter reads the ActionScript from each frame and applies a bunch of regexes to attempt to turn it into C++.

Haha, I lost it at this part. Brilliant read!

How much time did it take you to build the whole thing?

Re: I still use Flash

#273

Post by quickthrower2 »

kortilla wrote: post #258
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fail to compete and you'll be left behind in terms of compensation, performance review rankings, and career growth, the last of which also limits your future job choices. It also puts you nearer the top of the list for layoffs when corporate finances get tight.

But those things shouldn’t bother you if you aren’t interested in the “more more more” society. It’s easy to get a stable programming job in the US that pays $80k and has very little lay-off risk. You can’t have it both ways complaining about being left behind in comp while not participating in the grind that allows those comps to go higher.

Lower paid jobs can be worse. That they can’t afford to pay you more might mean they are doing something noble but usually it is a wannabe growth startup being badly run and pushing down pressure on lower waged staff to compensate.

But you have a point: at 80k requirement you could easily freelance to earn that, for non technical people. Help set up shopify stores etc. and not need to constantly be on a learning grind.

Re: I still use Flash

#274

Post by ChuckMcM »

detritus wrote: post #271
kmeisthax wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I think I need to elaborate on "GPUs don't like vectors". What the OP meant was "GPUs have literally no support for rendering anything other than pixels on triangles and getting them to efficiently draw Bezier curves and fills is an active area of research". You'd need specific hardware support for rasterizing them, and as far as I'm aware no such hardware exists. When Adobe hacked on "HTML5 support" to Animate,…

> "GPUs have literally no support for rendering anything other than pixels on triangles and getting them to efficiently draw Bezier curves and fills is an active area of research" Well fuck me, I had no idea. I figured that 'simple 2D vectors' would be beyond piss-easy for modern GPUs. I'd never considered that it wasn't the actual math space that was accelerated, rather the fast memory mapping of everything on presu…

Yeah, this is something that many many people assume (vectors are "easy" on GPUs) and then are amazed (like I was!) that they aren't even in the function set. My thought was that if you were "accelerating" desktops you'd really want vectors right? But no.

Re: I still use Flash

#275

Post by quickthrower2 »

falcolas wrote: post #219
imperfect_blue wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because for everyone to make what they want to make is, as of current year, a pie in the sky fantasy until scarcity is solved, and perhaps not even then. There are 8 billion humans, the world doesn't need another hundred thousand programming languages or web frameworks or game development platform or even indie games or fiction or music or film, produced every year when the whim strikes someone's fancy. Even if we co…

Personal opinion: I think scarcity is mostly a solved problem, in that most of us are working on projects that only exist to make someone else more money, not to fulfill any actual needs of those 8 billion humans. There are exceptions of course. But most of us could stop working tomorrow, and aside from the lack of income, the scarcity of resources available to us would not change. The real problems that causes hunge…

If most of us “humans” not “hn subset” stopped working we’d be in deep trouble.

Who will maintain buildings, infrastructure, essential services, government etc.

I think we could work towards long term fewer hours and more people who don’t need to work though.

Re: I still use Flash

#276

Post by quickthrower2 »

legohead wrote: post #165
alxlaz wrote: post #63

> The vintage Flash UI is great. Buttons have edges. Icons look like things. Space is well-used. It's amazing! Using old UIs makes me feel like an archaeologist discovering some sort of forgotten Roman technology. The lost art of UI design. It's neat. This was one my favourites parts in the article. An the real piece of the pie comes right after it: there's a screenshot with like thirty icons and they're different en…

I am still clicking on Gmail on accident because I think it's Maps. The icons are horrible.

Classic HTML gmail https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049?hl=en (final link on that page)

Re: I still use Flash

#277

Post by karteum »

kmeisthax wrote: post #164
bambax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed! ;-) However I wonder why the OP didn't try to keep vector graphics and use to SVG for instance? That would allow for infinite scalability. It is mentioned that "GPUs don't like vectors" but if the game doesn't change too often it should not make a lot of difference?

So, I think I need to elaborate on "GPUs don't like vectors". What the OP meant was "GPUs have literally no support for rendering anything other than pixels on triangles and getting them to efficiently draw Bezier curves and fills is an active area of research". You'd need specific hardware support for rasterizing them, and as far as I'm aware no such hardware exists. When Adobe hacked on "HTML5 support" to Animate,…

I though that there were some "GPU accelerated path rendering" already 10 years ago ? https://developer.nvidia.com/nv-path-rendering https://developer.nvidia.com/gpu-accelerated-path-rendering

(OK those links are for NVidia, but if they can do it I guess others can too ?) (also see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262357352_GPU-accel... )

Re: I still use Flash

#278

Post by rogual »

heystefan wrote: post #272

> In the end, I settled for a bit of a hack. My exporter reads the ActionScript from each frame and applies a bunch of regexes to attempt to turn it into C++. Haha, I lost it at this part. Brilliant read! How much time did it take you to build the whole thing?

Thank you!

Git log tells me I started in November 2019, so 3 years, but the pace of work definitely varied a lot over that time. Sometimes I was putting full days of work into it, sometimes stolen moments here and there between paying work, and some long stretches of just not working on it at all.

Maybe I'll do another post with a graph, haha.

Re: I still use Flash

#279

Post by cogman10 »

stelonix wrote: post #177
BlueTemplar wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably how OO teachers and mentors failed horribly (AFAIK we still don't warn new students about the pitfalls of inheritance ?), so ECS got popular as a better alternative to shitty OOP code ? https://www.gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2265481-oop-is-dead-long...

Not only that, but due to CPU caches and memory alignment issues, ECS have better performance than inheritance; also because most ECS systems ditch virtual function calls.

> ECS have better performance than inheritance

Can have.

Whether or not an ECS will actually be faster depends entirely on the type of game and access patterns of the inheritance structure. Further, it matters how you are doing inheritance (LTO can eliminate a lot of the pitfalls even if you use virtual function calls).

This is nothing against ECS. I just find the current claims of performance dubious and potentially flat out wrong given modern compiler optimizations and changes in CPU caches (mainly that they got a LOT bigger).

Re: I still use Flash

#280

Post by jcelerier »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #274
detritus wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "GPUs have literally no support for rendering anything other than pixels on triangles and getting them to efficiently draw Bezier curves and fills is an active area of research" Well fuck me, I had no idea. I figured that 'simple 2D vectors' would be beyond piss-easy for modern GPUs. I'd never considered that it wasn't the actual math space that was accelerated, rather the fast memory mapping of everything on presu…

Yeah, this is something that many many people assume (vectors are "easy" on GPUs) and then are amazed (like I was!) that they aren't even in the function set. My thought was that if you were "accelerating" desktops you'd really want vectors right? But no.

> they aren't even in the function set.

they are, but on nvidia only... https://developer.nvidia.com/gpu-accelerated-path-rendering

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