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Why you should use WebGL

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Re: Why you should use WebGL

#11

Post by socialist_coder »

Right now I think WebGL still does not make any sense to develop for. The best path for making money developing video games is either mobile, desktop, or Facebook. WebGL covers 2 of those bases but you lose mass market potential because of browser support and it's still ultimately not the best choice. For desktop you're better off just making PC / Mac apps and for Facebook/Web you really have to use Flash as it has far more browser support.

Personally I'm going with Unity and targeting mobile (iOS / Android). I don't really care about publishing to the web right now (Unity Flash doesn't work too well because the full feature set of C# .NET is not supported) but when Unity adds support for WebGL (which I'm sure they will) it might be a good option.

If I wanted to make hardcore games or games with higher graphical requirements I would publish to PC / Mac and not to the Web.

So, right now I don't see a compelling reason for publishing to the web or developing in WebGL.

edit- I'm speaking from a business perspective. If you just want to make cool stuff deployable to the web, then go for it =)

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#12

Post by ilaksh »

socialist_coder wrote: post #9
jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, if you want to run WebGL games you probably don't use IE anyway.

It is not an issue of users who want to run WebGL games, it is an issue of developers who want to target customers who run IE. In that sense, you are still virtually forced to use Flash if you want to hit the largest possible market. Niche / hardcore game developers can potentially ignore this but if you are going for mass market you really can't.

Right, that is why Microsoft did not include.webgl support in IE, because then the web platform would.compete with their Windows PC gaming monopoly. To get around that people just need to another browser, which is what people obviously should do, unless they want to be.forced to buy Windows pcs for.the rest of their gaming lives.

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#13

Post by purplelobster »

count_zero wrote: post #3

Total lack of IE support is a bit...problematic.

I have no problem dropping IE support for app-like experiences. Honestly, people on IE are mostly at work or don't know much about technology and are less likely to play games. I don't see how asking the user to install another browser is bad compared to having to install steam or be limited to your flavor of mobile OS or console.

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#14

Post by count_zero »

socialist_coder wrote: post #9
jiggy2011 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, if you want to run WebGL games you probably don't use IE anyway.

It is not an issue of users who want to run WebGL games, it is an issue of developers who want to target customers who run IE. In that sense, you are still virtually forced to use Flash if you want to hit the largest possible market. Niche / hardcore game developers can potentially ignore this but if you are going for mass market you really can't.

Exactly, it goes beyond games.

As a web developer at a creative agency, it's impossible to pitch an interactive 3D simulation or data visualization project to a client if it won't work in IE. I'd be happy if even CSS 3D transforms were widely supported.

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#15

Post by hartror »

A grain of salt, cannot fault the article except it skimmed over a couple of areas. Keep these things in mind, especially if 3D graphics is something new for you:

Why you shouldn't use WebGL

* Performance: This is the big one. In 3D graphics and in particular games performance, both execution speed and memory usage, is everything. You can do some great stuff in WebGL but fitting lots of complex stuff (physics, AI, motion) in 1/60 of a second is hard enough when you can scratch around in ASM if you have to, let alone being constrained to javascript.

The Three.js demos are fantastic examples and a great learning tool. But they do feel to me like 90s demo scene[2] stuff. Working within strict limitations and using all the tricks of the trade to produce more than the sum of its parts.

* Libraries: the leading library Three.js is great and getting better and I enjoy using it. But I have a background in 3D graphics and know my way around 3D and OpenGL. Alternatives such as Unity hold your hand and have larger communities from which to draw help from if you don't know much about 3D.

[1] http://mrdoob.github.com/three.js/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#16

Post by shanester »

If Unity projects could be exported to WebGL I would use it for some projects. Many programmers / designers (myself included) don't have the time or skill to code at such a low level for common functionality. I really enjoy the ease of use certain engines such as Unity3d and UDK bring to the table and it appears I am not the only one looking at all the 3D indie games being released using these tools.

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#17

Post by rjd »

purplelobster wrote: post #13
count_zero wrote: post #3

Total lack of IE support is a bit...problematic.

I have no problem dropping IE support for app-like experiences. Honestly, people on IE are mostly at work or don't know much about technology and are less likely to play games. I don't see how asking the user to install another browser is bad compared to having to install steam or be limited to your flavor of mobile OS or console.

... and people at work won't play online games?

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#18

Post by prodigal_erik »

Blindly trusting webgl is even more unwise than blindly trusting js, because most stacks are accelerated via passing third-party data to shoddy native code. If you're actually putting content on the world-wide web (not just a game that's useless without interactive behavior) js+webgl should never be the only rendering, but I fear that most authors don't care about this.

Re: Why you should use WebGL

#20

Post by irrlichthn »

hartror wrote: post #15

A grain of salt, cannot fault the article except it skimmed over a couple of areas. Keep these things in mind, especially if 3D graphics is something new for you: Why you shouldn't use WebGL * Performance: This is the big one. In 3D graphics and in particular games performance, both execution speed and memory usage, is everything. You can do some great stuff in WebGL but fitting lots of complex stuff (physics, AI, mo…

Well you don't need a lot of CPU for doing AI and motion. In modern games, game logic like this usually takes not even 1% of the CPU time.

And more complex stuff than 90ies demo scene stuff is possible easily. There are lots of sophisticated 3d libraries to choose from, take a look at the demos of CopperLicht for example: http://www.ambiera.com/copperlicht/

But you are right: Physics is a major bottleneck. Fortunately, you don't need real rigid body physics engine in most games. In most situations, you can live with a small subset of it.

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