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daredevildave

594 karma · joined October 6, 2009

CEO and co-founder of Auto https://auto.inc - personal apps for your camera Previously Eng. Director for Games/Minis/Bitmoji at Snap Previously co-founder at http://playcanvas.com
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daredevildave··on Anagram Word Game
That's a fun game. I made an anagram game myself a few years ago.

https://conundrum.fun/

Seeing some of the other comments reminded me that most of the work went into trimming the word lists so that it wasn't rude or randomly impossibly difficult.

daredevildave··on Build WebGPU apps with PlayCanvas
Support for Javascript modules looks like it is in-progress: https://github.com/playcanvas/engine/issues/4767

Developing offline with the engine-only (https://github.com/playcanvas/engine) is obviously an option, but I wouldn't hold your breath for an offline editor.

daredevildave··on Build WebGPU apps with PlayCanvas
They unlock a lot of advanced graphics techniques that are too slow to do CPU-side but work well in parallel on GPU. It's a pretty wide variety of things, but e.g. lighting, mesh manipulation, terrain, voxels, post-processing.
daredevildave··on Build WebGPU apps with PlayCanvas
I can't wait for compute shaders to be widely available on the web!
daredevildave··on Townscaper Running in the Browser
PlayCanvas[0] is the probably the closest "web-first" solution compared to Unity. Used by lots of Snap Games & Instant Games. It's written in JS which means that it's way smaller ~350kB for an empty scene if I recall.

[0] https://playcanvas.com

daredevildave··on Three.js editor
It's worth checking out PlayCanvas for the asset pipeline. Texture compression is supported directly in the editor. https://blog.playcanvas.com/webgl-texture-compression-made-e...
daredevildave··on Three.js editor
Clara.io is a modelling, animation and rendering tool (in the style of Maya/Max/Blender)

PlayCanvas is a game engine (in the style of Unity/Unreal)

To put it another way. You build your 3D assets in Clara and import them into PlayCanvas to add interactivity.

daredevildave··on Three.js editor
And a handy link for anyone who wants to check out PlayCanvas: https://playcanvas.com
daredevildave··on Gameroom
>"but there's no real "game engine" for them along the same lines as Unity/Unreal"

https://playcanvas.com/

daredevildave··on Gameroom
Define large? You need a graphics driver more recent than Jan 1, 2009.

And slow compared to what? Flash? Canvas 2D?

daredevildave··on Gameroom
Please don't associate WebGL being bad with Unity being bad at exporting to WebGL...

PlayCanvas is generating WebGL games that run on mobile and download in only a few megabytes. You can generate great WebGL games today.

daredevildave··on What every coder should know about gamma
And if you want to use a WebGL engine with gamma correct rendering... https://playcanvas.com ;-)

http://developer.playcanvas.com/en/user-manual/designer/sett...

daredevildave··on Closed Source Engines Are a Big Risk
Especially if you want to support mobile: http://blog.playcanvas.com/playcanvas-versus-unity-webgl/
daredevildave··on Bret Victor, Inventing on Principle (2012) [video]
PlayCanvas are doing this. Live development for WebGL across all devices simultaneously. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PS4oMLPyYfI
daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
It's trivial to generate "some" UVs. However, in this case there is a texture with a lighting pattern as part of the generator. Ideally the model would be unwrapped so that the correct areas of the texture correspond to the correct area of the model.

In the case of an artist working from scratch the skill is generating UVs that allow the artist to easily paint the texture and provide an even area for each part of the model. Otherwise some areas will be stretched and blurry.

daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
They are still very much required for games/real-time rendering :-)

I hadn't heard ptex before, it's interesting stuff. Sounds like the reason it isn't in general usage for realtime stuff is the memory overhead: http://sebastiansylvan.com/post/casting-a-critical-eye-on-gp...

daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
Oops, also just realized there were some 4096 textures in there. I've resized them down.
daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
Nope, that's right. There is no UV co-ordinates generated in the blender script. (Well, I think it uses world space cube for UVs, which is an option that PlayCanvas doesn't support).

I used the automatic Cube Projection unwrap in blender before exporting to FBX and importing into PlayCanvas.

daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
Interesting, could be the particle effects. They fall back to CPU if your machine doesn't support float textures.
daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
Unfortunately, the ship generation is done offline in Blender. I'd have to re-write his ship generator in javascript.
daredevildave··on Spaceship Generator
Sadly it doesn't seem to generate UVs for the models. But using the cube projection in Blender seems to do an OK job.

Add a skybox and a couple of simple particle effects in PlayCanvas.

And we have some WebGL spaceships :-)

https://playcanv.as/p/kZtPZpnH/

daredevildave··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2016)
PlayCanvas | London | REMOTE | https://playcanvas.com

PlayCanvas is looking for an exceptional game coder to head up an online game project.

* WebGL & Javascript Client * NodeJS Server * Networked Multiplayer Game * Looking for someone who wants to tackle issues of gameplay, networking, scale and monetization.

More details: http://forum.playcanvas.com/t/playcanvas-is-hiring-game-code...

You should have a portfolio of games or professional games development experience.

Remote working is an option. Though EU timezone preferred.

Contact: dave@playcanvas.com

daredevildave··on I Have Created 50 Games in 2014
For Swerve http://swerve.playcanvas.com/ we designed the UI to be responsive for desktop and mobile. We're using HTML/CSS for this so it works well, but unfortunately you end up getting some stalls for browser layout and compositing.

For Swerve this is a problem because we're aiming for smooth 60fps but in a less twitch-based game this wouldn't be so much of an issue.

daredevildave··on The Scary Efficiency of Autonomous Intersections
Funnily enough the results of our AI for The Getaway on PS2 led to a very similar result. We had to tone it all down to make it look like actual London traffic. :-)
daredevildave··on Why are submarines demagnetized?
Tom Scott talked a bit about magnetic warships and the magnetic mines in one of his "Things you might not know" videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG-X23aVud0&list=PL96C35uN7x...
daredevildave··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2015)
PlayCanvas - London - (ONSITE || REMOTE)

Two coding positions available at PlayCanvas the leading WebGL interactive 3D engine. http://playcanvas.com/

---

PlayCanvas is looking for a top flight game coder to join our growing team.

We have an exciting online multiplayer game project that you will be leading.

Ideally, you have a portfolio of games you have already made or worked on. We are looking for a talented all-rounder. Can you enter a game jam on your own and make something awesome? Can you pick up new skills and technologies quickly?

More info: http://forum.playcanvas.com/t/playcanvas-is-hiring-game-code...

---

PlayCanvas is looking for a creative coder to join our family. Come and help us build award-winning apps and games that are the best on the web.

More info: http://forum.playcanvas.com/t/playcanvas-is-looking-for-an-a...

Email: info@playcanvas.com with CV and cool stuff. Check out http://playcanvas.com/

daredevildave··on BlaBlaCar raises $200M at $1.4B valuation
I've heard of it (in the UK) because of their heavy advertising on Spotify.
daredevildave··on Keep Out – WebGL Game Experiment
I played this for half an hour earlier today. Great fun and superbly executed.

Just tried again on my tablet and unfortunately I just got the spinning loading bar. Not sure if it's just a bandwidth thing?

daredevildave··on Keep Out – WebGL Game Experiment
You might want to take a look at playcanvas [https://playcanvas.com] if you are looking for something a little more game specific than threejs. We've designed it specifically for WebGL and hence it works a lot better than Unity or Unreal.
daredevildave··on Node v4.0.0
Presumably, this means Ubuntu will always be one release behind...
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