4 ms·

I built something with A-Frame in two days

108 points by achairapart 9y ago

ngokevin 9y ago
A-Frame maintainer here! If you wanna check out what else the community has done, we do a weekly round-up. Lots of Google-based stuff this week: https://aframe.io/blog/awoa-77/ https://aframe.io/blog/awoa-77/
viridian 9y ago
A-frame seems to fall into the "super easy to do something basic, but very restrictive at the upper end" category of software tooling. That said, this is still pretty cool, and I'm a fan of tools like this, Game maker, etc existing. This is a great way to get newbies interested in building stuff, because at the core of it, the knowledge overhead is low enough that a middle school aged child could build something with it given some time.
- ngokevin 9y ago
  Not actually. it's an entity-component three.js framework at the end of the day, even though it offers easy entry on the surface. Same pattern as Unity. Here's pretty much Tilt Brush built with A-Frame: https://github.com/aframevr/a-painter/ https://github.com/aframevr/a-painter/ , and Google Creative Labs just released a piece using it: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/webvr/inside-music/view/ https://experiments.withgoogle.com/webvr/inside-music/view/
  - viridian 9y ago
    The unity thing is sort of what I was trying to describe. Game maker is much the same, where GML functions much in the same way as C++ with a custom framework centered around entity and collision management, but most newbies won't use that, instead they use the very user friendly action and response controls. I know unity had something similar in playmaker. I guess my point was just that those user friendly build options will often end up as design capability caps people run into eventually.
    - ngokevin 9y ago
      That's fair. I mentioned Unity not much about Unity's UI, but about the core pattern. I was mostly honing in on the restrictive part since A-Frame was designed to have no restrictions and permissionless extensibility. Advanced users use A-Frame's underlying framework to build advanced applications mostly in JavaScript land. But as is nature, there will be more novice users than advanced.
  - moron4hire 9y ago
    Unity's value prop is not that it uses an Entity-Component architecture, it's that it has a comprehensive asset pipeline and relatively accessible editors for it. EC is just trendy in gamedev. There are lots of other ways to build software.
- abhirag 9y ago
  I think GameMaker doesn't fall in the "super easy to do something basic, but very restrictive at the upper end" group at all, and though I definitely fall in the newbie spectrum when it comes to gamedev but I feel that games like Hyper Light Drifter, Hotline Miami, Undertale, Risk of Rain, Spelunky should be proof enough that it is a great tool for the job, if the job is making 2d games.
  - cableshaft 9y ago
    I disagree. I don't think GameMaker is a great tool for making 2D games (at least not all of them). I tried using it for awhile. For certain things it's very, very good (moving a character around on a screen and attacking enemies and collecting things, it's great at that). But if you start wanting to do things more complicated or different from its wheelhouse, while it can be possible, the interface tends to get in the way and I eventually got to the point where I just wanted to write code. In particular I was trying to get a puzzle game with a slightly more complicated method of removing and clearing things, and I just kept fighting the system and not knowing how to get it to do what I wanted it to do. I don't think GameMaker is unique in this, though. I've felt this way about pretty much every overly opinionated Game making tool (Construct 2 was even worse for me). Only game making tool I think got it just right was Flash and Actionscript 1.0, opinionated but you could still do pretty much everything (A previous version, Flash Player 4, was too restrictive, it wasn't until 1.0 that it became everything needed to make games fast and without any real restrictions). Unity is also good, albeit a bit more complicated than Flash ever got.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      GameMaker + GML is not overly opinionated IMO. That combination was one of the environments that grew my general ability to program as a kid
      - cableshaft 9y ago
        It's better than others, I just got frustrated with it for what I was making. And I think for a learning program it's excellent (I mean, I learned how to program initially from making text games on my TI-Calculator in TI-BASIC, talk about limited :) I think the Pico-8 system does a pretty good job of being open to pretty much whatever you throw at it for game logic (it's just lua scripting), while having a bunch of other things built in to allow for sprites, music, etc. You're limited in colors, graphics, and music, but the actual programming process feels a lot smoother to me (in fact I was able to port the logic of a game of mine with only converting it into lua code). If I were just getting started nowadays, I'd probably be making games in Pico-8.
- kfarr 9y ago
  I would disagree, I'd say A-Frame is a rare library that is both "super easy to do something basic" AND "super extensible at the upper end" -- a rare feat in software development. I've worked on a number of A-Frame projects and so far the only restriction I've found is my own skills. Since it's all JavaScript & three.js under the surface you can extend custom components to do anything you want. Like any framework it has "opinions" of the right way to extend things. You can ignore them and cowboy code, or you can follow them with the added bonus that your contributions are modular components that others can use too. And you are totally right - a middle school aged child can learn using A-Frame! We taught a course doing just this a month ago: https://medium.com/@kfarr/teaching-webvr-using-a-frame-and-glitch-for-intro-to-3d-programming-summer-course-ff63a0dd3884 https://medium.com/@kfarr/teaching-webvr-using-a-frame-and-g...
thedonkeycometh 9y ago
FullStackfest just had a presentation from Shagufta Gurmukhdas(https://2017.fullstackfest.com/speakers/shaguftagurmukhdas https://2017.fullstackfest.com/speakers/shaguftagurmukhdas) which had some impressive demos. Looks good to knock something up, and the interopability with the other javascript frameworks seems a win. I believe its just an entity adapter around the ThreeJS libraries.
tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
Site is unavailable? I see “Registration has been disabled”. Edit: It is working now.
- fhood 9y ago
  It made browsing the site very simple. More websites should follow this elegant model.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
blunte 9y ago
I was halfway expecting (hoping for) an article about building A-frame building structures. Those structures seem to have faded into the past, but they were so iconic for a while.

108 points by achairapart 9y ago

A-Frame maintainer here! If you wanna check out what else the community has done, we do a weekly round-up. Lots of Google-based stuff this week: https://aframe.io/blog/awoa-77/ https://aframe.io/blog/awoa-77/

viridian 9y ago

A-frame seems to fall into the "super easy to do something basic, but very restrictive at the upper end" category of software tooling. That said, this is still pretty cool, and I'm a fan of tools like this, Game maker, etc existing. This is a great way to get newbies interested in building stuff, because at the core of it, the knowledge overhead is low enough that a middle school aged child could build something with it given some time.

ngokevin 9y ago
Not actually. it's an entity-component three.js framework at the end of the day, even though it offers easy entry on the surface. Same pattern as Unity. Here's pretty much Tilt Brush built with A-Frame: https://github.com/aframevr/a-painter/ https://github.com/aframevr/a-painter/ , and Google Creative Labs just released a piece using it: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/webvr/inside-music/view/ https://experiments.withgoogle.com/webvr/inside-music/view/
- viridian 9y ago
  The unity thing is sort of what I was trying to describe. Game maker is much the same, where GML functions much in the same way as C++ with a custom framework centered around entity and collision management, but most newbies won't use that, instead they use the very user friendly action and response controls. I know unity had something similar in playmaker. I guess my point was just that those user friendly build options will often end up as design capability caps people run into eventually.
  - ngokevin 9y ago
    That's fair. I mentioned Unity not much about Unity's UI, but about the core pattern. I was mostly honing in on the restrictive part since A-Frame was designed to have no restrictions and permissionless extensibility. Advanced users use A-Frame's underlying framework to build advanced applications mostly in JavaScript land. But as is nature, there will be more novice users than advanced.
- moron4hire 9y ago
  Unity's value prop is not that it uses an Entity-Component architecture, it's that it has a comprehensive asset pipeline and relatively accessible editors for it. EC is just trendy in gamedev. There are lots of other ways to build software.
abhirag 9y ago
I think GameMaker doesn't fall in the "super easy to do something basic, but very restrictive at the upper end" group at all, and though I definitely fall in the newbie spectrum when it comes to gamedev but I feel that games like Hyper Light Drifter, Hotline Miami, Undertale, Risk of Rain, Spelunky should be proof enough that it is a great tool for the job, if the job is making 2d games.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  I disagree. I don't think GameMaker is a great tool for making 2D games (at least not all of them). I tried using it for awhile. For certain things it's very, very good (moving a character around on a screen and attacking enemies and collecting things, it's great at that). But if you start wanting to do things more complicated or different from its wheelhouse, while it can be possible, the interface tends to get in the way and I eventually got to the point where I just wanted to write code. In particular I was trying to get a puzzle game with a slightly more complicated method of removing and clearing things, and I just kept fighting the system and not knowing how to get it to do what I wanted it to do. I don't think GameMaker is unique in this, though. I've felt this way about pretty much every overly opinionated Game making tool (Construct 2 was even worse for me). Only game making tool I think got it just right was Flash and Actionscript 1.0, opinionated but you could still do pretty much everything (A previous version, Flash Player 4, was too restrictive, it wasn't until 1.0 that it became everything needed to make games fast and without any real restrictions). Unity is also good, albeit a bit more complicated than Flash ever got.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    GameMaker + GML is not overly opinionated IMO. That combination was one of the environments that grew my general ability to program as a kid
    - cableshaft 9y ago
      It's better than others, I just got frustrated with it for what I was making. And I think for a learning program it's excellent (I mean, I learned how to program initially from making text games on my TI-Calculator in TI-BASIC, talk about limited :) I think the Pico-8 system does a pretty good job of being open to pretty much whatever you throw at it for game logic (it's just lua scripting), while having a bunch of other things built in to allow for sprites, music, etc. You're limited in colors, graphics, and music, but the actual programming process feels a lot smoother to me (in fact I was able to port the logic of a game of mine with only converting it into lua code). If I were just getting started nowadays, I'd probably be making games in Pico-8.
kfarr 9y ago
I would disagree, I'd say A-Frame is a rare library that is both "super easy to do something basic" AND "super extensible at the upper end" -- a rare feat in software development. I've worked on a number of A-Frame projects and so far the only restriction I've found is my own skills. Since it's all JavaScript & three.js under the surface you can extend custom components to do anything you want. Like any framework it has "opinions" of the right way to extend things. You can ignore them and cowboy code, or you can follow them with the added bonus that your contributions are modular components that others can use too. And you are totally right - a middle school aged child can learn using A-Frame! We taught a course doing just this a month ago: https://medium.com/@kfarr/teaching-webvr-using-a-frame-and-glitch-for-intro-to-3d-programming-summer-course-ff63a0dd3884 https://medium.com/@kfarr/teaching-webvr-using-a-frame-and-g...

thedonkeycometh 9y ago

FullStackfest just had a presentation from Shagufta Gurmukhdas(https://2017.fullstackfest.com/speakers/shaguftagurmukhdas https://2017.fullstackfest.com/speakers/shaguftagurmukhdas) which had some impressive demos. Looks good to knock something up, and the interopability with the other javascript frameworks seems a win. I believe its just an entity adapter around the ThreeJS libraries.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago

Site is unavailable? I see “Registration has been disabled”. Edit: It is working now.

fhood 9y ago
It made browsing the site very simple. More websites should follow this elegant model.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

blunte 9y ago

I was halfway expecting (hoping for) an article about building A-frame building structures. Those structures seem to have faded into the past, but they were so iconic for a while.