NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

My Unity 3D Trial

Well, my Unity 3D Windows trial has come to an end. I am totally impressed with the quality of the engine. I am amazed at what the Unity team has accomplished. Unity has so much power, and development capability, all deliverable via browser. The platform is simply incredible. So, am I going right out and buying a license? Will I forsake Flash for the opportunity to develop “real games” in Unity? Nope, or at least not yet.

Why not you may ask? Well, simply put, for the very reason that Flash is great. The ubiquity and ease of installation of the Flash player and the UI capabilities of Flash far out shadow its short comings. I can’t justify the time split learning Unity, when I still have so much to learn in Flash/Flex, and that is where my money is being made.

I had some designer friends checking out the features of Unity, and some of the games out there done in Unity. Feature wise, they were very impressed. Unity player download is what they felt absolutely sucked. Not that it was a horrible ordeal, but that it took longer than expected and interrupted their experience. That is the attitude of the net: Don’t make me wait.

The general consensus:
‘No one but diehard gamers will take the time out for installing yet another player. If casual games are your aim, then you lose your audience, because the player is far from a “casual” download. Conversely, diehards will not be convinced that their time won’t be wasted on a browser based game.’

Ok, I could have argued with them, but they did have a point. There will have to be a huge culture shift in terms of the game platform being in the cloud and not the console. Until we nail down this broadband bandwidth thing, Flash is still going to look pretty good for the casual game dev simply in terms of ubiquity and scale. In other words, grandma can download the Flash player in no time flat, and play ‘Texas Hold Em’.

If all goes well, and the US infrastructure enrichment plans come to fruition, Flash will have to ante up in the game dev area (particularly 3d) to remain competitive in that area. Until then, Flash is sitting pretty, and will continue to do so. If it continues to target business apps and is adopted, then it becomes even more entrenched. Unity has to bide its time, keep building its following, and offer more UI features. If you can make a 3D game with it, then you can most certainly do Rich Internet Apps with it. When and if Unity hits 50% browser penetration, then I will be seriously looking at it. Flash better look out.

-DCF

Flash/Flex/Air Debuggers

I am always on the lookout for a good debugger for the Flash environment. Back with Flash 8, I used Xray written by John Grden of Papervision3D and Red5 fame. It does AS3 now and works very well. Xray is definitely one of the best in terms of functionality. For the longest, it was the ONLY way to go. Well, now there is a new debugger out there called De Monster Debugger.

De Monster is an open source debugger for Adobe Flash, Flex and AIR. De MonsterDebugger was created in Flex and AIR by design studio De Monsters. It is an Air application that you install on your system. It is so easy to get going, and does much of what Xray does. Like Xray, it will work with Flex, Flash and Air. I work with FlashDevelop which some have found difficult to get trace information out of. Using either one of these debuggers with Flash develop will solve your trace problems if you have not figured out the recommended way to do it.

Which will I use? Well, looks like Monster is a new kid on the block, and I’m kind of liking the whole setup. Not that one is better than the other. I kind of want to see where these guys are going to go with it. So for now, I am going to be debugging with De Monster just for the sheer novelty and the support it is getting.

-Xray
-De Monster Debugger
-Arthropod

-D

104 Free Opensource tools for the Flash Platform

My goodness have I been busy! Too much so to blog. Busy is good though. As soon as I finish these projects, I will be back into the blog. Here is a link that I found while looking up info on 2.5D engines (more on that later). Lot’s of good stuff:

The Flashchemist - 104 Free Opensource APIs, Libraries, and tools for the Flash Platform

-D

Attack Proof

I’ve been doing martial arts most of my life. Started out in Karate, and when I was in my twenties, was introduced to Wing Chun Kung Fu, and have never looked back. Now that I am in my forties, I have discovered some things that are not so great about Wing Chun. It is not the end all, be all for every situation. I believe that many students of the martial arts come to a point in their system, when they realize the style or system can’t address everything that may come at them. I believe that this realization is why systems like Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga, and other MMA systems have emerged.

One such system called ‘Guided Chaos’, inspired by the book ‘Attack Proof’ by John Perkins, addresses what might be termed ‘combat sense and flow’. In all the conflicts that I have been in, there have been points when training breaks down, and form simply goes out the window. I have seen it time and time again in my students when sparring, and on the street. To get the point when you have the drills and simulated fight forms down such that you move “formlessly” is something that takes years to develop. In many cases, after one reaches “black belt” such formlessness is not ever mastered. Guided Chaos seeks to reduce the time it takes to reach that state of awareness.

This is a good, if not great system, but it may not be the best for beginners. What I mean by this is that this system can be great for supplementing an existing system or style, but without the basics mastered (punching, kicking, blocking, fighter fitness) it may take just as long for a novice to become proficient as with any other style, but the end result may be more effective than conventional systems. That being said, the system fosters a modern methodology that promotes flow and ruthlessness the likes of which are difficult to cultivate in other systems. I highly recommend checking it out as it may be the “missing link” you were looking for.

AttackProof.com

-DCF

Push Button Engine

Ya know? I really love(d) the GarageGames (GG) concept: Make game development accessible to the common person for a relatively low price. For the most part, it did work, and the company has done well with it’s “indie” offerings. Now Jeff Tunnel and Rick Overman, two of the original founders of GG are out to do it again with a new company and a similar concept.

Banking on the concept that the Flash environment is solid and online is the future, Push Button Labs (PBL) was started with these ideas in mind:

“Flash has huge momentum and we think there is a great opening to supply Flash developers with even easier and more modular methods of making their games. We envision thousands of free and premium components, starter kits, and content packs all rated, ranked, and easily distributed through our store bringing in great money for the developers creating them. “

- Jeff Tunnell (makeitbigingames.com)

With their open source Flash game development platform the Push Button Engine, PBL hopes to capitalize on the same ideas that made them successful at GG. There is no doubt that the ubiquity of Flash will continue, and Flash will continue to increase in power. With the right tools and support, the PBL engine could be a winner. I will definitely be watching this one.

Push Button Engine

DCF

AS3 Data Structures

I remember back in the day taking a class on abstract data types or ADTs (also called Data Structures and Algorithms). At the time, the language for the class was ‘C’, and that was the game programming language of the day. The ADT essentially is a methodology for performing operations on data. In an object oriented environment, this translates into a repeatable (object based) way to work with data.

There are quite a few common structures that can be identified : Arrays, Queues, Stacks, Linked List, Graphs, Iterators, Trees, Hash Tables, Heaps, and Vectors just to name a few. Usually, programmers will roll their own versions of these for their own libraries. They are quite useful particularly in game development.

AS3 has a couple of these built in, but one pretty much has to create their own and using books like Algorithms in C, C++, or Java by Robert Sedgewick for reference one can easily create these structures. Or you can go find a library that already has them implemented. why re-invent the wheel?

Michael Baczynski has created such a library called AS3 Data Structures for Game Developers and has released it as open source. The library has all types of data structures implemented, and can be used directly in your programs. If you were thinking about creating your own, this library will save you a lot of time.

DCF

Flash and Facebook

Recently, Adobe announced that they will support an API for Facebook. I totally understand the move. With millions of users on Facebook, and Adobe trying really hard to be the premiere RIA dev environment for the web, Facebook represents an awesome opportunity to test and disseminate Flash/Flex based content. Considering what has happened with iPhone apps, and the missed opportunity for Adobe there, this move makes a lot of sense.

Facebook is a phenomenal social networking environment. Flash is an incredible development environment for producing rich interactive experiences. Both are continually evolving in terms of how they address user experience. The Facebook environment is a catalyst that inspires developers to create apps for interaction that most likely would not be realized anywhere else. Flash is a great dev tool, but you have to have a compelling reason to create content, and an audience. Facebook offers that audience. Not a bad move at all, and could be a catalyst for other such unions.

Deliver rich, social experiences on the web

DCF