So a pv3d developer has found out about unity

[tomsamson]

Yeah, you know, i´ve been talking about unity3d on the pv3d list for a while and its nice to see how it looks when one of the core developer crew members of papervision checks out pv3d at the end:
http://rockonflash.wordpress.com/200...ould-buy-them/

I totally disagree with his view that Adobe should buy unity (god beware,no!!!) but its interesting that one of the core members of the pv3d dev team, so one who hs pushed all the time to make 3d in flash run to some degree (as much as possible) and also someone who has probably been one of those most profiting of flash´s current state with performance and 3D has such a view when experiencing unity3D.

Hope adobe finally wakes up and does something about flash´s downsides in propper way now that more and more flash developers get the hang onf unity3D (and probably way more will do so once the windows IDE is out).

[renderhjs]

I also hope they dont buy them,- makes them even more fat and expensive. Instead I hope that they burry Director and launch a complete new platform that is similar to
- unity
- virtools
- quest 3d
- vvvv
in short a 3d tool that lets you create interactive content without the actual need of programming but instead primary with a visual rich interface, easy to learn easy to understand- and with the ability to extend with JavaScript or whatever language.

[tomsamson]

well,i´d hope they´d fix all the downsides of flash i talked about various times instead of making something entirely new.
And yeah, i agree on the reasons you gave for adobe better not buying UT.
Adobe in my eyes has turned so big thanks to buying macromedia
(i mean honestly, back then Adobe was the giant but the giant from the past, had become huge back when print was the most important thing and thanks to the money piled up from back then they could buy out macromedia which was basically the thing of the future which would have made them become less and less relevant in the future if they stayed independant).
Well, now adobe is so big that they feel really ignorant to me, like slow fat arrogant dudes too slow too move and too much in love with themselves to change anything about it.

As i said, i really hope Adobe wakes up and does some good things to fix the issues, but with how they act these days the worst thing would be if they just swallow up UT and ride another awesome thing into overpriced stagnation.
Also i feel like everything adobe does these days to "address" the many problems, especially regarding flash tools/player side is only making it worse.
(Like people moaning about lack of performance and instead of them bringing propper hardware acceleration they force AS3 onto people and a buggy garbage collector and yet another new pseudo language to use pixel bender, then a way to port ofver c++ stuff (to make it then run in worse than java performance) etc etc, ok adobe, you can keep your crappy copy-other-languages-pseudo languages you cook up for yourself, really, come up with propper solutions).

[chriserrorplain]

If Adobe (and I know this is all entriely make believe at the moment) make a new product to take on Unity et al, let's say which used a modified Actionscript, one advantage they would have is 'Flash' the brand.

Almost everyone knows what Flash games, banners or apps are these days, and it would be so much easier to convince people to commission/ use things if all you had to say was "oh it's a new plug in called Flash-3D" or whatever, even if it isn't really related to Flash in a real way under the hood.


ChrisError x

[tomsamson]

noh, i don´t agree. Flash doesn´t have a that awesome reputation, the only really cool side left to me is that the plugin is so widespread and that its good for some 2d stuff.
If they bring out something completely different that doesn´t use the same plugin then its totally useless to me. I´d rather use unity3d then where i know its good stuff.
Its like with Adobe air: lots of hot air (in my eyes)
The idea is nice in theory: be able to do standalones in platform specific format or also with yet another runtime platform independant.
Well,the thing is only a small amount of people has that new runtime of course and then the thing itself is so limited that one could do more with zinc etc 5 years ago, so really, i wonder what was the point in adobe releasing that. And yeah, if they now release a new plugin which is in any way worse than director, flash or unity3d then i´d wonder,too why they even bother trying.

Adobe has to integrate all the good stuff into the flash player; if they make another plugin they have just as much left to catch up as any other plugin maker who starts out new from the ground up today.

[renderhjs]

I was more thinking about a engine or environment that supports the latest GPU`s, multi Core setups, 64 Bit Architecture (e.g 16 GB RAM), multi monitor support and DX input like Joysticks, Camera Tracking,...
There is a completely different industry as flash games that produces software like in the old days of Director that gets distributed on DVD`s or CD Roms because of their massive data to process. Or stuff that is beeing used at concerts (vJays), presentations (auto shows) and alike that requires special hardware to work with like beamers, trackers ect. Flash is not meant for such stuff.

Flash would not fit within that area- just like it never can compete with the 4 applications I mentioned earlier and unity- because flash is more a low level design tool - something more 2d orientated- something that compresses well- something that relies alot on actionscript for interactive stuff- not some node construction stuff.

Whereas on the other hand there would be indeed a need for a new tool that:
- can process very big data (the kind that needs 4+GB ram- like geo data, realtime voxels,...)
- supports complex 3d stuff like: Vertex skinning, bones/IK, vertex shader, LOD, mip mapping, morphing, 3d physics,...
- runs as standalone on all major OS
- BlueRay JS support, or PS3/ xBox360/ Wii support (propably with a extra license just like virtools)


flash and 3d is another story,- I too want low level 3d support for the flash player so that I can code with basic 3d functionality without sacrifying performance. But I am pretty sure that this will be included within the next releases if not the next major version of the flash player.
With the high flash player penetration it requieres a high responsibility to ensure flash player not just works on 70% of all computers (like silverlight) but at least 99% so that consumers as well as developers can build upon that security.
Many computers in Asia for example are not up to date,- same for many office computers. If then a flashmovie would block itself from beeing played- or crash/ freeze the computer it would be a much bitter pill as just a few developers moaning about the lack of 3d in flash.

[tomsamson]

if,yes, if flash would still run nicely on most systems i´d agree with you: yeah, let´s not waste that, let´s make something edgy seperate instead.
But yeah, its not the case (at all) that flash runs well on most systems.
In fact newer flash player versions run pretty sucktacular on older systems.
Also newer garbage collector/flash api setup stuff basically endorses using way way more memory in flash content, again no good for lower end systems.
Next up only a few graphics cards are supported for newer features.
Next up do you know that the unity3d plugin is smaller in filesize than the flash plugin?
Next up: flash runs performancewise way worse than most other plugins do for similar content on much older hardware.
Flashlite is running at laughable performance, flash player on linux is always a good bit behind the windows release, on many other platforms there is no readily and publicly available player, so yeah, what´s with the distribution and the often praised platform independence?
Etc etc..
so, what´s the point again in keeping flash in its sleeping mode as in "hey, we want to ensure that it still runs on most systems..blabla"?
Its really marketing bull for: "we can´t or won´t do it propperly and here´s the excuse"
totally lame, anyone can compare the performance of flash with anything else on the market and see its laughable what they say.

[renderhjs]

well since you are arguing against flash let me try doing the same against unity

I never installed the plugin on any computer, never seen any realtime demos because I hate installing yet another plugin that possibly
- installes autostart stuff just like evil JRE, Acrobat,... and other annoying nagware
- propably wont run within my beloved Opera browser
- requires a decent GPU that is not present on my 4 years dated home PC, older notebook ect.
- is just good for 1 special eye-candy demo but not for +70% of the web I browse- why even install it then
- will slow down my computer if 8+ tabs are open with Unity3d stuff

and honestly I indeed never installed the plugin because of some of the reasons I guess I was not convinced enough so far same goes for silverlight. Once in a while booth are hyped and even $ms sponsers some developers to exclusivly develop with silverlight but in the end no consumer will care that hard because installing extra *free* stuff on the computer comes always with some little disadvantages like:
- autostart
- new myDocuments folder structure (e.g DivX movies with the DivX plugin, or Acrobat)
- additional adware toolbar gets installed (yahoo or google crap)
- installs extra software I never approved of (e.g Safari browser installes iTunes with the next update by default)
- a nag balloon in the system panel (next to the clock) appears every hour telling you there is new update available
- update services that try to get through your firewall to send computer and usage statistics and sometimes downloading updates with more crap features I did not wanted in the first place


he he I know I am a pain the ass with this,- but I just wanted to list some reasons why people like me or others sometimes dont wish to install something additional or experimental like unity_3d_activeX_plugin_xpVista.exe

[tomsamson]

well, its understandable when someone totally uninformed has general worries like that and then applies them to everything without informing himself, but man, you should know better.
How come you moan about all these worries and yet don´t want to install unity but install the flash plugin (which comes with more of the things you moaned about than the unity plugin) ?
Hm, makes no sense.

[renderhjs]

no it was not making that much sense,- the real truth is I dont have time to play with it.
I watched some videos but just like you my main interest is the developer side,- not the one of a consumer.

I just thought it would be a bit unfair letting you downtalk flash as I think there are valid reasons for not yet boosting with GPU and other things. Unity is looking great so far but its main problem is the pentration not just to the regular end user or gamer but far more importantly to the developer, the agencies and the people that can create great content with it. I guess that is what i wanted to point out- even though you propably know it already

[hatu]

well, its understandable when someone totally uninformed has general worries like that and then applies them to everything without informing himself, but man, you should know better.
How come you moan about all these worries and yet don´t want to install unity but install the flash plugin (which comes with more of the things you moaned about than the unity plugin) ?
Hm, makes no sense.

I'm pretty sure Flash doesn't come with any of those. Can you point out the ones it does have.

I don't have Unity plugin installed yet either, I guess because I haven't come across any really cool looking Unity games that made me want to install it.

[tomsamson]

no it was not making that much sense,- the real truth is I dont have time to play with it.

ok, fair enough.

I just thought it would be a bit unfair letting you downtalk flash as I think there are valid reasons for not yet boosting with GPU and other things. Unity is looking great so far but its main problem is the pentration not just to the regular end user or gamer but far more importantly to the developer, the agencies and the people that can create great content with it. I guess that is what i wanted to point out- even though you propably know it already

ok, cool, obviously in my eyes there´s no propper argument for why flash has no propper gpu support, its not as if without it adobe came up with solutions that would make it run as well as unity does on a 5 year old box (the contrary, flash requires a way higher end cpu and way more ram to run basic 2d stuff).




to hatu:



"- requires a decent GPU that is not present on my 4 years dated home PC, older notebook ect."

-->flash content usually requires a pretty high end cpu and lots of ram to run most average common content at decent performance, it can´t make any propper use of even 5 years old gpus and the laughalble (not noticable at all) gpu support it has only runs on less than 20 cards.

"- is just good for 1 special eye-candy demo but not for +70% of the web I browse- why even install it then"

-->see pv3d stuff compared to propper in depth 3d stuff (not to talk down pv3d but yeah, you get the point, its nice they got some nice bump map effects going, let´s see how much of that works out in a game at 30 fps)

"- will slow down my computer if 8+ tabs are open with Unity3d stuff"

-->ok, sure this is a crazy goal (the aim to run media intensive plugin content in several tabs) but yeah, flash content performs way worse on the same hardware than other plugins like unity,so..how much are you enjoying browsing a page with 10 flash ads

"...installing extra *free* stuff on the computer comes always with some little disadvantages like:
- autostart"

-->flash has auto update and auto launches with browser content targeting it of course

"- new myDocuments folder structure (e.g DivX movies with the DivX plugin, or Acrobat)"

-->check folders created on flash install

"- additional adware toolbar gets installed (yahoo or google crap)"

-->its "optional" with flash install: adware toolbar install option with flash download is toggled on by default


etc etc

overall i don´t think at all flash is one of the malicious plugins that does more bad than good for the system of course, but yeah, it doesn´t make sense to say i don´t install unity3d because i´m worried about this and that while you have flash installed which comes with more downsides.

[Ray Beez]

bleaahhhh.
this thread is better suited to the Coffee Lounge.
:-P

[Incrue]

Such nonsense, nobody is buying anything now,only selling and downsizing
But in one or two years someone will and i hope its not adobe.Unless they fire everyone and hire better ppl that understand their own game.

[Incrue]

bleaahhhh.
this thread is better suited to the Coffee Lounge.
:-P

I dont think they care about making games as much as we

[chriserrorplain]

"Such nonsense, nobody is buying anything now,only selling"

that would kind of imply that there is someone buying as well.

Chris Error x

[Incrue]

Yeah thats true...but you got the idea
When in crisis is not time to expand

[hatu]

ok, fair enough.
etc etc

overall i don´t think at all flash is one of the malicious plugins that does more bad than good for the system of course, but yeah, it doesn´t make sense to say i don´t install unity3d because i´m worried about this and that while you have flash installed which comes with more downsides.

I've just always thought Flash as one of the most transparent plugins. Never really noticed any baggage anywhere and it's always super fast to run on websites. Every other plugin has had a splash screen and freezing the browser etc.

I'm gonna install Unity and see for myself now.
edit: Ok installed it and it was very smooth, still it has a splash screen which I hate to see in a web browser. Hope they get rid of that later

[MikeMD]

I think the most important thing here is that it took a Papervision guy 3-4 years to even find out and bother checking out Unity and then he writes about this blog ( and he is in the 3D industry ).

Like I told you more than a year ago. Unity, at least until windows version comes out is irrelevant as a competitor to flash. After windows version comes out it will still take a while if ever, to be competitive with flash.

Sure , like he says, you can buy a mac and go with it, but the truth is most will not. Nobody really cares. Demos are still just demos. There are no games better than ( here I go again ) older Director games and some flash games can beat Unity's current ones at its own game ( with fake 3D ).

[tomsamson]

I thought you finally realized that yes, director is dead and no,its ridiculous to say director comes anywhere close in 3d capabilities to what unity can handle. What´s always that demos are just demos talk? If you don´t like demos check out the meanwhile many games made in unity (and many of those can´t be made with director at all).
Also check out wii and iphone stuff made with unity.
We´re talking about developing games here so its a bit narrowminded to limit oneself to browser based games,no?

man, it doesn´t make sense talking with you if you don´t want to accept reality, last time i reply to your same remarks now.