9 ms·

What's the point of this? While I think it's cool shouldn't they spend their resources on the desktop engine?

nixarn 6y ago
Well, I suspect it's done because it's almost "free" and it's good PR for an engine I hope will become a great alternative to Unity. Here's more on the topic https://godotengine.org/article/godot-editor-running-web-browser https://godotengine.org/article/godot-editor-running-web-bro...
- captn3m0 6y ago
  It's also sponsored by Mozilla, as the link mentions. I like the idea of a web-based Godot - reduces barrier to entry, and makes for lots of interesting possibilities - collaborative game jams?
- madacol 6y ago
  A more recent post https://godotengine.org/article/godot-web-progress-report-6 https://godotengine.org/article/godot-web-progress-report-6
nohr 6y ago
There is no one who knows the projects time/financial budgets better than the team. I'm sure their free product is plenty well planned to accommodate for side utilities like this. This might even be from a contributor that has less work than the rest of the team.
- eoo 6y ago
  I met aome of the creators back in the day. The RedHat model is working well for them: open source and sell consultancy. It doesn't scale exponentially but as long as their OSS product is good they won't have a shortage of incoming deals.
Qwertious 6y ago
>While I think it's cool shouldn't they spend their resources on the desktop engine? Browser-based games are a perfectly legitimate platform, and tend to have fewer clicks than desktop package distributions. Namely, one click. Hell, there's nothing stopping this from replacing HTML5/flash games.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Other than browsers blocking 3D hardware acceleration.
  - sfjailbird 6y ago
    How recent is your experience? It definitely was a thing for a while (especially from Microsoft), but my impression is that this particular issue has been resolved in the last couple of years.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      It is a common experience on GNU/Linux, even on a netbook I own, I have force enabled it, something that most users aren't aware of.
Applejinx 6y ago
One of the targets is webassembly, and the engine is written in the Godot engine. I'm not surprised that they could do this: it's a completely natural outcome from how Godot already works. I doubt it took unusual commitment of resources to do.
thinkingemote 6y ago
Two main things: 1) Allows godot in schools etc where installing binaries can be problematic. 2) Provides more focus on improving the html5 target. From what I understand the editor is a "game". Both the desktop editor and web editor are created in the engine, so improving the engine will improve the web editor too. The web editor is the html5 export of the editor "game"
johnyzee 6y ago
Your question is unpopular because everyone here likes the web and want to see it thrive as a platform. So do I, but still, I agree with you. Unfortunately, the web is not a viable platform for games. It had its moment for casual games some years ago, but mobile devices have taken that over. Thats why all the web game portals (the bargain bin bottom of the games space) are languishing, even Facebook Games, with its captive audience, is slowly dwindling away. To put the actual game editor on the web makes even less sense. It's a cool technical feat, and the author may have thought of it as 'free', as some commenters have alluded to, given that there is already a web export, but anyone with a bit of experience knows that nothing is free, and certainly not a project like this. At the very least it's a months long effort (the author himself stated as much in the blog post), even before factoring in continued maintenance. I love it as a technical feat, but I'll agree it doesn't make sense from a 'business' perspective (for lack of a better term, given it's an open source project).
- onion2k 6y ago
  Unfortunately, the web is not a viable platform for games. Why not? The usual answer is "performance", but that's a non-answer. Not all games need cutting edge levels of performance, web performance for accelerated graphics is actually pretty good as once a shader is on the GPU there's very little practical difference between web and native, and most importantly nothing pushes performance to improve quite like developers trying to maximize performance. If we don't try to make web games (or any other performant apps) then there's no reason for browser vendors to work on improving the situations where things are slow. If Godot's devs think web is an interesting and fun thing to target then they absolutely should be making tools like this.
  - slezyr 6y ago
    > The usual answer is "performance", but that's a non-answer. Try to play https://slither.io https://slither.io The performance is horrible even in simple games.
    - andybak 6y ago
swebs 6y ago
It was probably easier to do this than port the editor to iPad/Android.
carwyn 6y ago
It means the developers are dogfooding their WASM support as Godot runs on top of its own engine. Also excellent for ease of adoption with beginners due to zero install overhead.
flohofwoe 6y ago
AFAIK this is the desktop version compiled to WASM, not a completely separate project.
TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
Its much easier to have educational content about an engine if you can run tutorials directly in the web browser. Don't underestimate the importance of this for producing accessible educational content about an engine at scale.

Well, I suspect it's done because it's almost "free" and it's good PR for an engine I hope will become a great alternative to Unity. Here's more on the topic https://godotengine.org/article/godot-editor-running-web-browser https://godotengine.org/article/godot-editor-running-web-bro...

captn3m0 6y ago
It's also sponsored by Mozilla, as the link mentions. I like the idea of a web-based Godot - reduces barrier to entry, and makes for lots of interesting possibilities - collaborative game jams?
madacol 6y ago
A more recent post https://godotengine.org/article/godot-web-progress-report-6 https://godotengine.org/article/godot-web-progress-report-6

nohr 6y ago

There is no one who knows the projects time/financial budgets better than the team. I'm sure their free product is plenty well planned to accommodate for side utilities like this. This might even be from a contributor that has less work than the rest of the team.

eoo 6y ago
I met aome of the creators back in the day. The RedHat model is working well for them: open source and sell consultancy. It doesn't scale exponentially but as long as their OSS product is good they won't have a shortage of incoming deals.

Qwertious 6y ago

>While I think it's cool shouldn't they spend their resources on the desktop engine? Browser-based games are a perfectly legitimate platform, and tend to have fewer clicks than desktop package distributions. Namely, one click. Hell, there's nothing stopping this from replacing HTML5/flash games.

pjmlp 6y ago
Other than browsers blocking 3D hardware acceleration.
- sfjailbird 6y ago
  How recent is your experience? It definitely was a thing for a while (especially from Microsoft), but my impression is that this particular issue has been resolved in the last couple of years.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    It is a common experience on GNU/Linux, even on a netbook I own, I have force enabled it, something that most users aren't aware of.

Applejinx 6y ago

One of the targets is webassembly, and the engine is written in the Godot engine. I'm not surprised that they could do this: it's a completely natural outcome from how Godot already works. I doubt it took unusual commitment of resources to do.

thinkingemote 6y ago

Two main things: 1) Allows godot in schools etc where installing binaries can be problematic. 2) Provides more focus on improving the html5 target. From what I understand the editor is a "game". Both the desktop editor and web editor are created in the engine, so improving the engine will improve the web editor too. The web editor is the html5 export of the editor "game"

johnyzee 6y ago

Your question is unpopular because everyone here likes the web and want to see it thrive as a platform. So do I, but still, I agree with you. Unfortunately, the web is not a viable platform for games. It had its moment for casual games some years ago, but mobile devices have taken that over. Thats why all the web game portals (the bargain bin bottom of the games space) are languishing, even Facebook Games, with its captive audience, is slowly dwindling away. To put the actual game editor on the web makes even less sense. It's a cool technical feat, and the author may have thought of it as 'free', as some commenters have alluded to, given that there is already a web export, but anyone with a bit of experience knows that nothing is free, and certainly not a project like this. At the very least it's a months long effort (the author himself stated as much in the blog post), even before factoring in continued maintenance. I love it as a technical feat, but I'll agree it doesn't make sense from a 'business' perspective (for lack of a better term, given it's an open source project).

onion2k 6y ago
Unfortunately, the web is not a viable platform for games. Why not? The usual answer is "performance", but that's a non-answer. Not all games need cutting edge levels of performance, web performance for accelerated graphics is actually pretty good as once a shader is on the GPU there's very little practical difference between web and native, and most importantly nothing pushes performance to improve quite like developers trying to maximize performance. If we don't try to make web games (or any other performant apps) then there's no reason for browser vendors to work on improving the situations where things are slow. If Godot's devs think web is an interesting and fun thing to target then they absolutely should be making tools like this.
- slezyr 6y ago
  > The usual answer is "performance", but that's a non-answer. Try to play https://slither.io https://slither.io The performance is horrible even in simple games.
  - andybak 6y ago

swebs 6y ago

It was probably easier to do this than port the editor to iPad/Android.

carwyn 6y ago

It means the developers are dogfooding their WASM support as Godot runs on top of its own engine. Also excellent for ease of adoption with beginners due to zero install overhead.

flohofwoe 6y ago

AFAIK this is the desktop version compiled to WASM, not a completely separate project.

TheMagicHorsey 6y ago

Its much easier to have educational content about an engine if you can run tutorials directly in the web browser. Don't underestimate the importance of this for producing accessible educational content about an engine at scale.