Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

gamedev.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#41

Post by justinschuh »

azakai wrote: post #34
justinschuh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hostility. It's just that you're a very passionate Mozilla employee and a very passionate creator of asm.js. And from past experience I expect that you'll be willing to continue a debate longer than I can. Plus, you already know that I have reservations about asm.js, and it's just not worth rehashing that debate (accepting that WebAssembly appears to be heading in a direction that addresses most concerns, so…

I think I see where you're coming from. Overall, I think it's hard for us to estimate how much effort it would take for Unity to support another platform. Perhaps I was overly pessimistic when I said supporting a platform just for a single browser is too burdensome; perhaps you were overly optimistic in saying that maintaining their existing port would have been a good option. Only Unity knows the answer. So I admit…

I think you're reading something different than what I intended. I don't work on V8, and what I know about their priorities is no different from what they've stated publicly. That is, the V8 team wants to improve asm.js performance by improving overall JS performance, and not special case behavior just for asm.js. I know that's not the route you took, but that was my point about "not everyone agrees with the path you chose" with Firefox. And regardless of what either of our personal views are, it's hard to objectively argue that the V8 team is wrong in focusing on areas that positively impact the overwhelming majority of their users.

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#42

Post by azakai »

justinschuh wrote: post #41
azakai wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I see where you're coming from. Overall, I think it's hard for us to estimate how much effort it would take for Unity to support another platform. Perhaps I was overly pessimistic when I said supporting a platform just for a single browser is too burdensome; perhaps you were overly optimistic in saying that maintaining their existing port would have been a good option. Only Unity knows the answer. So I admit…

I think you're reading something different than what I intended. I don't work on V8, and what I know about their priorities is no different from what they've stated publicly. That is, the V8 team wants to improve asm.js performance by improving overall JS performance, and not special case behavior just for asm.js. I know that's not the route you took, but that was my point about "not everyone agrees with the path you…

Yes, and I think it's fine that v8 took that route - it's actually the route that I recommended that Firefox take. It is also the route that JavaScriptCore is taking. So I completely agree with you that the v8 team's approach is reasonable.

But they haven't optimized it well enough yet. The main issue Unity (and other big asm.js codebases) are seeing is OOMs and crashes in Chrome. The v8 and JavaScriptCore approach can avoid those, by not compiling everything at once, more efficient in-memory data structures, and so forth. This helps overall JS performance as well. It's just engineering work that needs to be prioritized and done.

(AOT, as in Firefox and Edge, does have an advantage in startup speed that I think v8 and JavaScriptCore will have a hard time approaching, but that is not a blocking issue the way that crashes and OOMs are.)

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#43

Post by tedmielczarek »

com2kid wrote: post #35
justinschuh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be clear that I fully intend to spend my weekend with my family, and not arguing this with you. So, I'll avoid rehashing any of our past discussions regarding technical concerns with asm.js. However, as the person responsible for Chrome's NPAPI deprecation, I just want to set the record straight regarding Unity. Unity previously had a high quality NaCl port (long before asm.js ever existed) and I fully expe…

> However, as the person responsible for Chrome's NPAPI deprecation, I just want to set the record straight regarding Unity. Why? You have regressed a feature that your users want. I realize that plugins aren't sexy, but Unity is something that both developers and users want. Entire development studios are based around creating online games in Unity that have active user bases who enjoy those games. For better or for…

> This just as much applies to Mozilla as it does Chrome. Mozilla's response to why they won't implement Pepper is just as "pie in the sky, who cares what users want" as Chrome removing NPAPI is.

This seems like an unfair comparison. "Remove existing functionality that we no longer want to support" and "support a large technology with a single implementation and no specification" are not even in the same ballpark.

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#44

Post by Dantus »

akira2501 wrote: post #32
azakai wrote: post #14

The article puts too much blame on Unity and not enough blame on browser vendors. This is hinted at in the article: > Browsers are the programs which eat all of a computer's free memory, and the half-finished Unity WebGL build often causes crashes and closes browser tabs (especially in Chrome). The main problem is that Chrome has deprecated NPAPI before it is capable of running content like Unity well. If you look at…

> As those threads say, many Unity games run well in other browsers, but since Chrome is dominant in the market (over 50%), poor Chrome performance makes Unity look bad. But this isn't Unity's fault. If your product runs poorly on the dominant market platform, then that _is_ your fault. Especially as Chrome provides source, a reasonable community centered around that source, and strong developer tools to allow third…

Unity's WebGL is still officially marked as being experimental, so it can't be expected to be a perfectly smooth experience. If Chrome uses more memory than other browsers, it is definitely not Unity's fault. Having access to the source code won't change anything. Chrome is behind the competitors right now when it comes to memory usage with WebGL, but that may change even in the near future.

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#45

Post by lucss »

azakai wrote: post #14

The article puts too much blame on Unity and not enough blame on browser vendors. This is hinted at in the article: > Browsers are the programs which eat all of a computer's free memory, and the half-finished Unity WebGL build often causes crashes and closes browser tabs (especially in Chrome). The main problem is that Chrome has deprecated NPAPI before it is capable of running content like Unity well. If you look at…

I agree, in the earlier days of chrome I was not a fan because of the performance it had with the flash player. Now is kinda the same story with unity... this plugin is heavy, well lets cut it. We should protect unity and stop using Chrome I say.

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#46

Post by Dantus »

Aardwolf wrote: post #15

Good. Anything that goes away from Unity is good. I dislike Unity because they refuse to make their web player for Linux. So several Newgrounds games don't work for Linux users due to Unity. The Blend4Web Mars Rover demo here works perfectly for me in Linux btw, and guess what, the linked old Unity version says "unsupported platform", so, thank you NASA for thinking about more users :).

Unity's goal is to improve their WebGL builds, such that the experience is basically what you got with the WebPlayer, with the exception that no PlugIn is needed. This means, you are going to get the Unity WebPlayer experience on Linux thanks to WebGL.

Re: Why NASA Switched from Unity to Blend4Web

#47

Post by codewithcheese »

lisivka wrote: post #40
codewithcheese wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you really love your home :-)

I hoped that I will start building of my home in 2014, but revolution and war with Russia delayed it. I bought plan of "Starboard Solar home" built in Boulder, Colorado 30 years ago. It uses Trombe wall to heat and/or cool home. I will also use G.R.E.B. technology to build "Passivhaus". Unfortunately, I spent all my savings at revolution, so now I am waiting until I will have at least $15K in savings to build enclosu…

Just saw this comment now. Interesting to hear your story. Do you have a link for your home HTML5 model?
Post reply on HN