I know this is a kind of multi-pronged question, but I'm about to embark on a WebGL 2D game, and in the future I would like to port it to IOS and android.
I've got a little OpenGL experience but I would rather use an established 2d WebGL Library from the start, so does anyone have any experience with these; and do you know what approach will be easiest to port to IOS/Android in the future?
I'm aware webGL isn't currently supported by IOS so perhaps the process of porting it will require re-writing all the non openGL code, which is why I'm wondering if any WebGL libraries were built with this in mind..
I'm also away IOS will probably in the future support WebGL so perhaps I should consider this a mute point and just assume that it will be supported before I'm ready to port anyway..
Any resources that might help me get started on the venture are also very welcome!
Thanks!
TLDR: What's a good 2D WebGL library that will save me heartache in the long-run porting to other devices?
I think that you may have picked wrong tech. HTML5 Canvas is also 2D but it works on iOS and Android!
And do not forget to try first some high level game-specific library, or maybe ready to use game engine. This way it will be a lot easier.
ChesterGL Looks like a promising up-and-coming.
Honestly this sounds like a good candidate for Unity.
Easle JS (of the CreateJS suite) is an excellent webGL graphics/games library backed by big names like Microsoft and Adobe.
Seems to be best.
Related
I am new in cocos2d development. I developed some stuff on andengine on Android and I know C++ language. Now I want to rewrite some stuff from andengine and make it available to iOS as well. I am reading and reading and testing from couple of days, everything is just ok, but few days ago I explored Lua. I adopted language semantics, wrote some scripts and realized that in Internet there is a lot of usage of this language. It is so common that I cannot believe that I know about it from couple of days. So I thought that would be nice if I try to use it. I have only few questions for now.
Can I load some Lua scripts and use it in my cocos2d-x game (written in C++)?
What is the difference between cocos2d-x 2.x and new 3.x beta branch (about Lua treating off course)?
I think about Lua only as way to implement AI for now (is this so good idea or not necessary?). I think it could be good idea because it is portable and I can use very the same AI algorithms for different platform (andorid, iOs, windows, linux, web...).
Please just give me some light about usage of Lua in cocos2d-x, because I cannot find any sense tutorials. If there is something the headers are bad, or version is deprecated or something else which is really annoying when you have no clue how to use it.
Maybe better is to write entire project in lua?
In short:
Yes.
What do you mean?
It works.
As LearnCocos2D suggested, they cover too much and are not good questions. I suppose you're wondering if you would like to use cocos2d or cocos2d with lua. I suggest you take a look at quick-cocos2d-x, because you mentioned cross-platform AI and it worths to have a look.
Is there some free and easy to use 3D library for iOS (and Android) that simplifies Open GL ES framework. Just like there is cool WebGL library: ThreeJS for javascript.
So far I saw Unity but it's not free and I would like something simplified.
My usage would be setting the scene, meshes, camera, rotating the camera etc...
For Android you can use AndEngine which supports GL ES1 and GL ES2. For IOS you can use Cocos2D.
I decided to go with Cocos3D because it has all the features I need and is similar to JS libraries. It is free and you don't have to use any special engines with it.
Well, there is Sparrow for iOS, and as for Android you can consider AndEngine
(easier) or LibGDX (faster).
One option I believe is SiO2.. And Oolong too.. I once played with blender and SiO2 and it went well..If you are only interested in 2D games only then Cocos2D is best bet for iphone..
For android AndEngine is good,and I believe SiO2 works for android too..
Ahh, Unity did give away the iOS/Android versions back in March/April this year - maybe if you asked them nicely?
OpenSceneGraph has a large and active following in the Vis/Sim community, and is starting to creep into games, here's a couple iOS/game related topics from their forums:
http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?t=10291
http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?t=10308 (p.2 of this thread has links to a couple osg-based games in the iTunes store)
For Leaning very basic of open GL for iOs I would suggest to have a look at this http://antonholmquist.com/blog/opengl-es-2-0-ios-tutorial-getting-started/. This gives the basic idea of vertex and fragment shaders. After going through this a beginner can go through other tutorials which explains the detailed concepts of openGL.
I have gone through so many links but this one explains the basic really well.
I'm trying to make an android game here, but I'm not sure what is it that I need to learn - J2ME or flash development?
Also, if flash then is there a difference between flash development (coding) & flash animation?
I'd really appreciate any help here.
Maybe a good read for you
if you want to go the easy route, I'd recommend Flash/Flex/ActionScript. Flash/Flex/ActionScript programming can all be comingled to a certain extent. Flash animations are typically done in a more graphical environment but you can absolutely create your objects programmatically and make them do the same things through Flex/ActionScript.
Also, you may want to look into the controversy over HTML5 and Javascript. That might be a viable alternative for you. Plus, it would double as getting familiar with desigining sites as well.
Java would be the way to go. Due to the fact that java has greater flexibility and is easier to start off with in certain aspects.
Flash/Flex/ActionScript can be easier with designing graphics but the scripting can get a bit complex and tedious.
http://androidforums.com/android-games/217545-should-i-use-flash-air-java-develop-games.html
Google yields many results.
Android game development tutorials
Java is the only way to go. Adobe has abandoned mobile Flash, and even before that, only a limited subset of Android devices supported flash.
The only sensible option is Java with the Android SDK.
As the topic states - is there any technology that would let me write code for a simple commercial 2D game which could be then compiled to work well on Android, iOS and Web browsers or at least two of them (e.g. Android and iOS)? There is so much buzz about cross-platform nowadays that I was wondering if I'm missing something.
My goal (set by my producer) is to make this game for all of these three platforms, and so far I planned to use:
- Web browsers: Adobe Flex,
- Android phones: Java (since my favourite C++ is recommended only for short snippets),
- iPad/iPhone/iPod: Objective-C (are there any alternatives?).
It pretty much means re-writing the same source code three times. Is there any way to speed it up by using a technology that would work on at least both of them?
However, I don't want to use Adobe Flex for all three (though it's possible), because it requires Adobe AIR (works only with Android 2.2 and higher) and not a lot of phones have it (it's totally different with browsers where 98% of people have Flash).
I don't mind adding some platform-specific code for each version, of course.
Also, if you have any suggestions about choosing a fancier technology for any of the platforms (maybe some nice frameworks?), I'd really appreciate that, too.
Take a look at Corona and Moai both are Lua-based frameworks for game development targeting multiple platforms.
I would like to say that Multimedia Fusion was capable of doing this, but it isn't quite ready yet. There are currently a number of runtime exporters for the product which allow you to export your game to multiple target platforms which include flash, java and iOS at the moment. XNA and Android exporters are currently in the works. I should probably mention that I am only affiliated with these guys as a happy consumer of their products. It is probably worth checking it out even if they can't do everything you want yet. If it's not suitable for your needs it is still a very good choice if you wish to rapidly prototype your application.
See:
http://www.clickteam.com
On a side note, personally I would recommend against going down the js+html5 route, particularly if you are targeting mobiles. I should probably stress that it's simply an opinion I have and that there are plenty of people here who will disagree with me. In all javascript games I have played, I have felt the garbage collector. The issue is that without control over garbage collection it is free to run when it feels like, causing infrequent but very obvious pauses in the middle of your game. You can work around this but I don't see why it should be that difficult. I can definitely align with the ideals of being able to write the thing once and run it on all platforms, but I can't see it working just yet.
To offer some advice assuming you find no suitable tools for the job, your aim is to maximise reusability. This means all of your games resources and levels should be well defined as independent resources. For non-critical logic you can make use of embeddable scripting languages such as Lua, which will maximise your code reuse. C (or C++) code will also be reusable on a lot of platforms, and might be a good choice if you are familiar and confident with the language.
I'm personally using Phonegap and Zepto.js. But you may have more luck with jQuery mobile. Phonegap is nice because its website will compile the apps for you.
1) If you write your game in C++ you can use it for iPhone & Android (NDK) as well. Preferably, you write your game engine in C++, than you can use a OS specific layer for UI stuff..
2) Implement your game in HTML & Javascript. iPhone/Android users will have to use a webbrowser to play your game. For iPhone, you can even create a launcher, that looks like an app, but actually is a webview with HTML & Javascript
Unity3D should be able to do this for you, if you purchase some extra sprite addins to handle 2D (like Ex2D or SM2 or Toolkit 2D). Also right now until Apr 8, the iOS and Android license is free.
Game Maker Studio. It has a package that let's you deploy on all of the platforms you outlined.
http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio
I was wondering if there is any 3D scene graph toolkit available or at least in development for Android? I could not find anything, assuming that all existing solutions for Java won't run on the Android platform.
I played around with the simple but quite powerful JPCT library that is supported by quite an active forum. The author has ported the libary to Android, and shows some nice demos on his site.
http://www.jpct.net/jpct-ae
You might look into JMonkey Engine. They are working on an Android version:
http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/forum/index.php?topic=13643.0
http://jmonkeyengine.com/blog/blog/2010/02/10/android-support-confirmed-for-jme3/
Have you tried out JavaFX Mobile? http://java.sun.com/javafx/index.jsp
I'm looking for one as well. I came across this today, but I have no idea if its actually any good -- the company site looks kinda sketchy!!
http://www.artfulbits.com/Android/aiCharts.aspx