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Whoa, JavaScript support is deprecated? News to me! I always use C# anyway but still seems like a shame. And yeah, agreed, it's probably pretty clunky compared

Whoa, JavaScript support is deprecated? News to me! I always use C# anyway but still seems like a shame. And yeah, agreed, it's probably pretty clunky compared to what some WebGL-specific frameworks might give you. I don't know if anything out there has quite the UI setup or polish as Unity though. Do you know of any? Edit: Saw your edit. That sounds super cursed.

klodolph 7y ago
Deprecating JavaScript (UnityScript) is a good thing. Language bindings are a nightmare, and the more languages you support, the worse it gets. Consider that you might want to write a class in C++, wrap it in a C# interface, and then use it from UnityScript. Consider that if you write something for the asset store, the consumers may be using C# or JS. If you’re looking for something with good UI and polish, maybe GameMaker Studio fits the bill? I don’t keep tabs on this space. I use Unity when I’m collaborating with people, and use simpler frameworks when I’m working alone.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  I totally agree that UnityScript and Boo were terrible ideas and executions that were cursed, and it's a great thing they're deprecated. JavaScript itself though is great. But the standard ways of integrating Unity and JavaScript in the WebGL back-end are extremely inefficient, terribly designed, and leave a lot to be desired. There are much more efficient ways of communicating by judicious use of P/Invoke and insight into how WebAssembly and the C# / Unity JavaScript runtime binding works, which I've studied and leveraged in UnityJS. See some of the links in the other message I posted about UnityJS that discuss the JavaScript/C# JSON messaging bridge I developed, which is based on P/Invoke instead of Unity's terrible "GameObject.SendMessage", and techniques for blitting images and raw arrays of typed numbers back and forth between Unity and JavaScript. The great thing about Unity that makes it worth all the effort of making up for its other weaknesses is its editor, and the ability to extend the editor with custom user interfaces, by widgets and editors in the object property sheets and 3d gadgets and objects in the world itself. The editor and its customizable UI facility is a common ground for artists and programmers to meet, that enables programmers to give artists a huge amount of power and flexibility, and artists to see and totally control what they're creating immediately and interactively. Here's a demo of Unity3D pie menus that shows and explains some custom editors, as well as in-world editing tools. (It's kind of old, so the demo requires the now-obsolete Unity browser plug-in, since it isn't compiled for WebGL.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMN1LQ7qx9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMN1LQ7qx9g I've made a general purpose pie menu component in C# for Unity3D, which supports text items, image items, and 3d object items too! I will make it available as free open source software on the Unity3D app store! Here's a silly demo, showing a set of SimCity pie menus: https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.html https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.html (If you don't have the Unity3D browser plug-in installed, it should show you a link to install it.) They have a full set of useful notifiers so you can tightly integrate them with your application to give rich feedback during tracking (for example, modifying the 3D menu items, or previewing the effect of the menu item and distance parameter in real time, making them more like "direct manipulation"). For example, to show how you can implement feedback like The Sims pie menus with the head in the center that looks at the selected item, I've made a 3d object in the pie menu center with the webcam texture on it, so YOUR head is in the center of the menu, looking at the selected item! (That's why the demo asks for permission to use the webcam.) The pie menu and each item has a title as well as a description. One feature I've added is the ability not only to disable an item, but also to provide an explanation of why the item is disabled! (PacMan in the demo is disabled, for example.) I wish other menus and widgets would do that -- it's frustrating when you can find an item you want, but can't figure out why it's disabled! Another nice thing about them is that you can either configure algorithmically with an API, or with JSON data (which makes it easy to make dynamic data driven menus downloaded from a server or database), or construct them in the Unity3D editor out of objects (which makes it easier for artists to design them)! I've made a custom Unity3D editor that lets you edit the properties, drag and drop textures and objects, edit and rearrange the items, and has some convenience commands, so you can place the 3D item objects in a circle in the 3D world, and call a command that figures out which item is in which direction by their position, and tidies them up. (That is much easier than arranging their order in a linear list of items.) I'm going to play around with more in-world editing features, to make them easier for artists to design them. Source code: https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.zip https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.zip
  - klodolph 7y ago
    I can’t agree that JavaScript itself is great.
    - AdieuToLogic 7y ago
      > I can’t agree that JavaScript itself is great. Especially when working in an environment where Quaternions[0] are a core concept and one which often must be manipulated. Never mind JavaScript's inability to encapsulate. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotati...
      - klodolph 7y ago
        Eh, I don’t buy that reasoning. JavaScript is excellent at encapsulation, since you can just use closures. Never had a problem manipulating quaternions in JavaScript. I’ve written a few 3D games in JavaScript or TypeScript. Some using engines like Three.js, others using bare WebGL, and some using math libraries like glMatrix, others using math routines that I wrote. glMatrix is a fine way to work with quaternions. http://glmatrix.net/docs/module-quat.html http://glmatrix.net/docs/module-quat.html
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      I totally agree that JavaScript sucks, but that's not a good enough reason to boycott it, because it's absolutely ubiquitous and so well and widely supported. And no matter how bad it is as a language, it still beats compiled languages as a dynamic extension and scripting language. Another non-technical advantage: Apple allows iOS apps on their app store to dynamically download and execute JavaScript code, as long as you run it in Apple's Safari browser component (which UnityJS does). But even though it's technically possible, you aren't allowed to do that with Lua, Python, TCL, Visual Basic, Pascal, C++, C#, or any other interpreted or compiled language. So JavaScript occupies a special spot in the universe, the web ecosystem, and also the iOS ecosystem, that makes it not matter if it sucks. Plus a lot of smart people and big projects are working hard to mitigate its suckyness, make it run faster, and integrate it with all kinds of different platforms and APIs, like TypeScript, WebAssembly, AssemblyScript, React Native, Chrome Embedding Framework, Electron, and all the apps like PhotoShop you can script in JavaScript. Even Adobe finally figured out they should use the real thing instead of jerking you around with ActionScript or some other weird language like AppleScript. UnityScript sucks much much more than JavaScript, and has none of its advantages of tooling, libraries, running in every browser, etc. It's a terrible idea to make or use yet another language that's almost but not quite entirely unlike JavaScript. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAswvg60FnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAswvg60FnY

klodolph 7y ago

Deprecating JavaScript (UnityScript) is a good thing. Language bindings are a nightmare, and the more languages you support, the worse it gets. Consider that you might want to write a class in C++, wrap it in a C# interface, and then use it from UnityScript. Consider that if you write something for the asset store, the consumers may be using C# or JS. If you’re looking for something with good UI and polish, maybe GameMaker Studio fits the bill? I don’t keep tabs on this space. I use Unity when I’m collaborating with people, and use simpler frameworks when I’m working alone.

DonHopkins 7y ago
I totally agree that UnityScript and Boo were terrible ideas and executions that were cursed, and it's a great thing they're deprecated. JavaScript itself though is great. But the standard ways of integrating Unity and JavaScript in the WebGL back-end are extremely inefficient, terribly designed, and leave a lot to be desired. There are much more efficient ways of communicating by judicious use of P/Invoke and insight into how WebAssembly and the C# / Unity JavaScript runtime binding works, which I've studied and leveraged in UnityJS. See some of the links in the other message I posted about UnityJS that discuss the JavaScript/C# JSON messaging bridge I developed, which is based on P/Invoke instead of Unity's terrible "GameObject.SendMessage", and techniques for blitting images and raw arrays of typed numbers back and forth between Unity and JavaScript. The great thing about Unity that makes it worth all the effort of making up for its other weaknesses is its editor, and the ability to extend the editor with custom user interfaces, by widgets and editors in the object property sheets and 3d gadgets and objects in the world itself. The editor and its customizable UI facility is a common ground for artists and programmers to meet, that enables programmers to give artists a huge amount of power and flexibility, and artists to see and totally control what they're creating immediately and interactively. Here's a demo of Unity3D pie menus that shows and explains some custom editors, as well as in-world editing tools. (It's kind of old, so the demo requires the now-obsolete Unity browser plug-in, since it isn't compiled for WebGL.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMN1LQ7qx9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMN1LQ7qx9g I've made a general purpose pie menu component in C# for Unity3D, which supports text items, image items, and 3d object items too! I will make it available as free open source software on the Unity3D app store! Here's a silly demo, showing a set of SimCity pie menus: https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.html https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.html (If you don't have the Unity3D browser plug-in installed, it should show you a link to install it.) They have a full set of useful notifiers so you can tightly integrate them with your application to give rich feedback during tracking (for example, modifying the 3D menu items, or previewing the effect of the menu item and distance parameter in real time, making them more like "direct manipulation"). For example, to show how you can implement feedback like The Sims pie menus with the head in the center that looks at the selected item, I've made a 3d object in the pie menu center with the webcam texture on it, so YOUR head is in the center of the menu, looking at the selected item! (That's why the demo asks for permission to use the webcam.) The pie menu and each item has a title as well as a description. One feature I've added is the ability not only to disable an item, but also to provide an explanation of why the item is disabled! (PacMan in the demo is disabled, for example.) I wish other menus and widgets would do that -- it's frustrating when you can find an item you want, but can't figure out why it's disabled! Another nice thing about them is that you can either configure algorithmically with an API, or with JSON data (which makes it easy to make dynamic data driven menus downloaded from a server or database), or construct them in the Unity3D editor out of objects (which makes it easier for artists to design them)! I've made a custom Unity3D editor that lets you edit the properties, drag and drop textures and objects, edit and rearrange the items, and has some convenience commands, so you can place the 3D item objects in a circle in the 3D world, and call a command that figures out which item is in which direction by their position, and tidies them up. (That is much easier than arranging their order in a linear list of items.) I'm going to play around with more in-world editing features, to make them easier for artists to design them. Source code: https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.zip https://www.donhopkins.com/home/PieMenuDemo/PieMenuDemo.zip
- klodolph 7y ago
  I can’t agree that JavaScript itself is great.
  - AdieuToLogic 7y ago
    > I can’t agree that JavaScript itself is great. Especially when working in an environment where Quaternions[0] are a core concept and one which often must be manipulated. Never mind JavaScript's inability to encapsulate. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotati...
    - klodolph 7y ago
      Eh, I don’t buy that reasoning. JavaScript is excellent at encapsulation, since you can just use closures. Never had a problem manipulating quaternions in JavaScript. I’ve written a few 3D games in JavaScript or TypeScript. Some using engines like Three.js, others using bare WebGL, and some using math libraries like glMatrix, others using math routines that I wrote. glMatrix is a fine way to work with quaternions. http://glmatrix.net/docs/module-quat.html http://glmatrix.net/docs/module-quat.html
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    I totally agree that JavaScript sucks, but that's not a good enough reason to boycott it, because it's absolutely ubiquitous and so well and widely supported. And no matter how bad it is as a language, it still beats compiled languages as a dynamic extension and scripting language. Another non-technical advantage: Apple allows iOS apps on their app store to dynamically download and execute JavaScript code, as long as you run it in Apple's Safari browser component (which UnityJS does). But even though it's technically possible, you aren't allowed to do that with Lua, Python, TCL, Visual Basic, Pascal, C++, C#, or any other interpreted or compiled language. So JavaScript occupies a special spot in the universe, the web ecosystem, and also the iOS ecosystem, that makes it not matter if it sucks. Plus a lot of smart people and big projects are working hard to mitigate its suckyness, make it run faster, and integrate it with all kinds of different platforms and APIs, like TypeScript, WebAssembly, AssemblyScript, React Native, Chrome Embedding Framework, Electron, and all the apps like PhotoShop you can script in JavaScript. Even Adobe finally figured out they should use the real thing instead of jerking you around with ActionScript or some other weird language like AppleScript. UnityScript sucks much much more than JavaScript, and has none of its advantages of tooling, libraries, running in every browser, etc. It's a terrible idea to make or use yet another language that's almost but not quite entirely unlike JavaScript. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAswvg60FnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAswvg60FnY