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Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

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Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#61

Post by msk-lywenn »

jalbertoni wrote: post #37
ambientqtns wrote: post #5

"Why not Rust?" is a question I ask about game development a lot these days. I'm an engineer with a decade of experience as a web services engineer, and 5 years of game development engineering. Rust seems like the right direction for game developers -- safer code, faster compile times, more portable binaries. Ambient looks very cool, but I had some questions -- 1) WebAssembly, but no native web player? One of the mos…

> Yes, this is performant enough for games. Yes, it's being done in AAA games. Every time someone says something mildly controversial about weird technology being used for UI in games, I like to point out Skyrim used Flash for its UI. Bunch of .swf files inside the packed data file. It used some weird non-100%-standard player, but it was still Flash.

Probably used scaleform. It was used by many games. It was a massive headache for engine programmers. The thing really had very very poor performance... I think it was always heavily hacked so that it could run decently, both the actionscript side and the scaleform side. At least that's what a programmer did for a year to get something decent. I can't believe it could have ended up anywhere else with that tech. Still, it was amazing for artists.

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#62

Post by bootloop »

modeless wrote: post #46

> The compiled assets are always streamed to clients, so that they can immediately start playing without having to download all of the content first. I think there's a real opportunity here, if done well. It should be feasible to get initial load times down to single digit seconds, https://venge.io style, but then with progressive enhancement to AAA level graphics assets. I think that could be disruptive. Load times…

This is what I didn't understand about Google Stadia. I thought they will make gaming bigger in Youtube and automatically show a "play now" button next to the video. Maybe even the possibility to join the game of the streamer. It would work in an instant without download.

And because you have control over the game you can give everyone a hour or so free demo time, only then they need an abo.

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#63

Post by timeon »

pjmlp wrote: post #31

A game engine for the Web without any usable demo, only a video. Who knows how it came to be. Being used to most Web productions never coming at the level of Infinity Blade, seeing a video isn't really something that impresses the crowd. https://www.polygon.com/2013/9/10/4715534/infinity-blade-3-c...

I'm sorry this is not really relevant to your comment, but I think it is important to restate the obvious. Why this page needs to put cookie panel? It takes 1/3 of page. Also there is just 'I Accept' button.

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#64

Post by pjmlp »

tomcam wrote: post #33
pjmlp wrote: post #31

A game engine for the Web without any usable demo, only a video. Who knows how it came to be. Being used to most Web productions never coming at the level of Infinity Blade, seeing a video isn't really something that impresses the crowd. https://www.polygon.com/2013/9/10/4715534/infinity-blade-3-c...

Not trying to be rude, but I can’t decipher what you are saying in the second paragraph. Is infinity blade created using the Ambient engine, or does it have deceptive demo videos, or what? Sorry, not trying to be dense.

Besides what the others answered, not only it showed off what was capable on iPhone, it showed what OpenGL ES 3.0 (the WebGL 2.0 foundation) could do.

Most stuff on the Web thus far, with exception of Google Earth and a few ecommerce sites, is closer to Flash 2D games than anything else.

Hence when a game engine advertises itself as WebGPU, I expect a browser demo at the same level as Infinity Blade, Unreal Citadel, or After the Flood graphics, not a video.

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#65

Post by pjmlp »

wlesieutre wrote: post #48
jnwatson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infinity Blade was an iOS game released 13 years ago that was among the first to truly show off what you could do in 3d on an iPhone. It was an early killer app.

Might also be thinking of Epic Citadel which was a related UE3 to WebGL tech demo https://web.archive.org/web/20140210210113/http://www.unreal...

Historical note, it was originally done as UE3 to Flash C++ Crossbridge / Stage 3D, the WebGL version came later.

https://www.shacknews.com/article/72813/epic-releases-epic-c...

"Unreal Engine 3 Support for Adobe Flash Player - Epic Citadel"

-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzyCTt5KLKU

https://adobe-flash.github.io/crossbridge/

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/as3/dev/WSF24A5A75-38D6-4a44-BD...

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#66

Post by davedx »

Features look quite similar to what Unity offers (networking support, asset streaming, runs in browser). Maybe would be good to have a comparison page with Unity and other similar engines, so you can see "why choose Ambient"?

Congrats on the release, and good luck!

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#68

Post by whizzter »

This seems like a mostly very well thought out design (I have a qualm about one detail but maybe they're hiding it), I've been rebuilding an old prototype of mine in a very similar way.

The DoD ECS pattern should allow for easy state/log shipping to clients, with those 2 parts you can easily build what fighting games terms as "rollback" based netcode.

Rollback is often characterized as complicated but clean, the truth is that if you structure your data around rollback capable simulation from day one it becomes easy (and DoD ECS naturally fits there just like shipping to separate CPU parts back on the PS3)

This "trick" of fully shipping state images isn't exactly new, some emulators has done memory image shipping in the past and Ian Kettlewell published a WASM-heap shipping experiment(1) recently that works on the same principle.

Compared to the snapshot/heap shipping of emulators/WASM is that Ambient should allow for server introspection and upgrades of state.

Overall I like Ambient, and I'd recommend a look. Only big omission I see right now is audio being missing and it can be a tricky part to synchronize (due to how mixing works).

1: https://github.com/kettle11/tangle

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#69

Post by [deleted] »

jalbertoni wrote: post #37
ambientqtns wrote: post #5

"Why not Rust?" is a question I ask about game development a lot these days. I'm an engineer with a decade of experience as a web services engineer, and 5 years of game development engineering. Rust seems like the right direction for game developers -- safer code, faster compile times, more portable binaries. Ambient looks very cool, but I had some questions -- 1) WebAssembly, but no native web player? One of the mos…

> Yes, this is performant enough for games. Yes, it's being done in AAA games. Every time someone says something mildly controversial about weird technology being used for UI in games, I like to point out Skyrim used Flash for its UI. Bunch of .swf files inside the packed data file. It used some weird non-100%-standard player, but it was still Flash.

[deleted]

Re: Ambient: The Multiplayer Game Engine

#70

Post by pjmlp »

jalbertoni wrote: post #37
ambientqtns wrote: post #5

"Why not Rust?" is a question I ask about game development a lot these days. I'm an engineer with a decade of experience as a web services engineer, and 5 years of game development engineering. Rust seems like the right direction for game developers -- safer code, faster compile times, more portable binaries. Ambient looks very cool, but I had some questions -- 1) WebAssembly, but no native web player? One of the mos…

> Yes, this is performant enough for games. Yes, it's being done in AAA games. Every time someone says something mildly controversial about weird technology being used for UI in games, I like to point out Skyrim used Flash for its UI. Bunch of .swf files inside the packed data file. It used some weird non-100%-standard player, but it was still Flash.

Most likely Skyrim used Scaleform, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaleform_GFx.

Arena Wars was one of the first games using .NET already in 2004, years before Managed Direct X or XNA came to be, with direct bindings to OpenGL. [0]

Then we have quite a few sucessful ones in XNA, some of them them ending up as quite relevant IP franchises.

Minecraft being a success, regardless of being written in Java.

Runescape, a plain Java applet that kept legions of gamers occupied.

Or for that matter the 1990's game development literature trying to move the ecosystem from raw Assembly to C, and how long C++ needed to gain traction over C in most studios. Even today many of them rather code in "C with C++ compiler" style.

Which shows that even C++ had quite an uphill being adopted by the industry.

Tech doesn't matter if game design and IP is compeling enough to make people enjoy the game.

A great engine, with a top language and bad game design, doesn't go far.

[0] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_Wars

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