[gameprogrammer] Re: Browser capabilities for a 3D game

--- Kevin Jenkins <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
---8<--- snip snip
> Shockwave 3D
> * Performance-wise this seems promising.  There is a commercial
> site 
> here: http://www.shockwave3d.com/
> There are a It features a number of games that use this technology
> and 
> they run and look fine.  However, none of them feature a huge
> number of 
> polygons, as what you would expect in a complex shooter for
> example. 
> Whether this means it cannot be done or they didn't do it I don't
> know
> * I believe it is Windows only

Shouldn't be.  Director movies play on both platforms so I would
suspect it plays on mac browsers as well.  Someone else will hae to
confirm that though.

---8<--- snip snip
> * To program, you use a scripting language called Lingo.  According
> to 
> Macromedia's website, there are two scripting languages but the
> site is 
> vague I haven't found any references to any other scripting
> languages. 
> Lingo seems to be similar in syntax to C.  Lingo is totally
> proprietary, 
> used only in Shockwave.  To me that is a big negative, because it
> means 
> my time spent learning it won't carry over into other fields.  If I

Sorry, felt compelled to correct this.  I've worked in Lingo and C
and they aren't at all the same.  Lingo felt more like Apple's
Hypercard scripting than anything else.  If anything on the PC, BASIC
would come the closest to what lingo feels like in my opinion.  Lingo
may actually have a slight advantage over BASIC.  It's not difficult
to learn but Director is not fun to work with on big coding projects.
 Or at least the version I had to toil with wasn't fun to work with. 


Problems I hit with Director some time ago which may now be corrected
but has soiled my opinion of Director for eternity:
- Color syntax highlighting was slow and spotty.
- Debugger wouldn't show the correct location in code if the script
chunk was largish, say more than 2 screens full.
- The way code is organized can be tricky to find out where the code
is to set a break point or when the code gets executed.
- Like BASIC you don't need to define a variable before use, so if
you misspell something it can be a real nasty problem in finding it. 
- Director is a memory pig.  If it sees free memory, it will take it.
 
- Performance even with 2D sprites can be a dog.
- When there is a lot of information in the (I forget the proper term
for the window.) actor scrubber stage thingy, it is such a bear to
use.  
- Too many ways to hang yourself.

...  I need a cold shower.

---8<--- snip snip


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