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Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

blog.artillery.com

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Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#51

Post by dustingetz »

slacka wrote: post #29
monsterix wrote: post #9

Wow! This is mesmerizing. These posts on HTML5 stuff that pop-up on HN from time to time hint on what is to come on the web in the near term. I think HTML5 is a huge Tsunami gathering energy and steam out there! It will and should beat all these "I-am-the-best" closed systems (already does in some areas) sometime soon, and be on the top. System agnostic, immersive, inclusive, what not. Love it.

We may be seeing the same HTML5 demos on HN, but we're living in two different universes. In my world, I always open up these demos in a browser that's incompatible. If I do manage to get them working, my reaction is always like wow, I saw better native demos 10 years ago, and those just worked. Let's be honest. JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of. As a gamer, performan…

Think about why we build browser apps instead of native apps today. All those reasons apply.

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#52

Post by ghostdiver »

codexon wrote: post #46

I think Javascript is too slow for 3d gaming. If you look at this HTML5/WebGL minecraft engine, it stutters even without any other players or bots in the environment. http://voxeljs.com/#gallery Meanwhile Minecraft running in Java is smooth on even the slowest machines. Benchmarks indicate that Javascript is 4x slower than Java. http://j15r.com/blog/2013/07/05/Box2d_Addendum The alternatives like ASM.js and PNACL are…

JS port of Box2D is dead since 2008.

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#53

Post by joshuacc »

slacka wrote: post #50
untog wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of They are, but I very much doubt these guys are using the DOM or CSS. And if they're using asm.js then they're using a very different JavaScript, too.

I was talking about HTML5 demos posted on HN. Like this one that DOES use CSS: http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/css3-fps-new/ Granted, it's a terrible abuse of a CSS, but it's also a perfect example of how I'm supposed to be wowed by a buggy HTML5 demo my PC could render better in every way 15 years ago. And no one has answered my question yet. What benefit does HTML5 bring me as a gamer? Why are HTML5 games better t…

The same benefit the web apps generally bring:

* The ability to play the game without installing anything

* The ability to play the game on other peoples computers

* Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.)

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#54

Post by debacle »

dustingetz wrote: post #51
slacka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may be seeing the same HTML5 demos on HN, but we're living in two different universes. In my world, I always open up these demos in a browser that's incompatible. If I do manage to get them working, my reaction is always like wow, I saw better native demos 10 years ago, and those just worked. Let's be honest. JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of. As a gamer, performan…

Think about why we build browser apps instead of native apps today. All those reasons apply.

Because it's easier, so the programmers to build those apps are cheaper?

Not a really good rationale when it comes to game development.

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#55

Post by codexon »

ghostdiver wrote: post #52
codexon wrote: post #46

I think Javascript is too slow for 3d gaming. If you look at this HTML5/WebGL minecraft engine, it stutters even without any other players or bots in the environment. http://voxeljs.com/#gallery Meanwhile Minecraft running in Java is smooth on even the slowest machines. Benchmarks indicate that Javascript is 4x slower than Java. http://j15r.com/blog/2013/07/05/Box2d_Addendum The alternatives like ASM.js and PNACL are…

JS port of Box2D is dead since 2008.

Why is that relevant? It is still a valid example of non-trivial game code.

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#56

Post by joshuacc »

statico wrote: post #28
joshuacc wrote: post #25

Interestingly, the demo video hints that they are using CoffeeScript (see the `./publish.coffee` command in terminal toward the end). Can anyone comment about whether this is actually the case?

Yes, the command "publish.coffee" is a CoffeeScript tool which publishes a given game target to the CDN. The different colorful letters represent the state of each asset as it moves through the upload pipeline, e.g. "U" for unchanged and "F" for finished. Our engine and Project Atlas are written entirely in CoffeeScript, but that's not a requirement of game code.

Can you comment about your experience using CoffeeScript? Personally, I'd love to see a whole blog post about that. :-)

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#57

Post by irrlichthn »

codexon wrote: post #46

I think Javascript is too slow for 3d gaming. If you look at this HTML5/WebGL minecraft engine, it stutters even without any other players or bots in the environment. http://voxeljs.com/#gallery Meanwhile Minecraft running in Java is smooth on even the slowest machines. Benchmarks indicate that Javascript is 4x slower than Java. http://j15r.com/blog/2013/07/05/Box2d_Addendum The alternatives like ASM.js and PNACL are…

Too slow? Then try this: http://www.endtime.at/demo.html#gamestart

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#59

Post by slacka »

joshuacc wrote: post #53
slacka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about HTML5 demos posted on HN. Like this one that DOES use CSS: http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/css3-fps-new/ Granted, it's a terrible abuse of a CSS, but it's also a perfect example of how I'm supposed to be wowed by a buggy HTML5 demo my PC could render better in every way 15 years ago. And no one has answered my question yet. What benefit does HTML5 bring me as a gamer? Why are HTML5 games better t…

The same benefit the web apps generally bring: * The ability to play the game without installing anything * The ability to play the game on other peoples computers * Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.)

* The ability to play the game without installing anything

Obviously you haven't played any HTML5 games. They all make you wait to download game data. And if the Internet gods have been good to you, it won't be cleared from your localstorage next time you start it up. Steam is far better.

* The ability to play the game on other peoples computers

So can Steam.

* Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.)

10-20% of the games on Steam have Linux ports, and most of the others run fine under Wine.

So 2/3 are better on Steam and the 3rd is primarily a benefit for the developer.

Re: Artillery is building a hardcore RTS with HTML5 and WebGL

#60

Post by jsolson »

irrlichthn wrote: post #57
codexon wrote: post #46

I think Javascript is too slow for 3d gaming. If you look at this HTML5/WebGL minecraft engine, it stutters even without any other players or bots in the environment. http://voxeljs.com/#gallery Meanwhile Minecraft running in Java is smooth on even the slowest machines. Benchmarks indicate that Javascript is 4x slower than Java. http://j15r.com/blog/2013/07/05/Box2d_Addendum The alternatives like ASM.js and PNACL are…

Too slow? Then try this: http://www.endtime.at/demo.html#gamestart

That actually stutters rather a lot on my Chromebook Pixel :(
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