Flash in games: Scaleform.

[Teiman]

copy pasta from Mr. Matteu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKDuzVbi50Q

humm....

[mh]

Hmmmmm indeed!

OK, it looks reasonably tastefully done in that video, but it's something I can see people abusing badly. Flash is the new Vista? :roll:

[Baker]

Looks nice, I wish there were some interesting fancy menu code for OpenGL that does that.

Still ...a bit inspirational when thinking about menus.

[Sajt]

Wow... POINTLESS. The UI aspect doesn't benefit at all from it, in fact it probably makes it more confusing. If you're going to "go 3D" in UI (which this video is hardly doing), you should go all in, not add pointless "tilting" to a 2D menu. I sure hope nobody is making any money off this, because they don't deserve it.

Seriously, what they are doing (2D elements in 3D space with moving "Z") is so primitive that if it becomes established, it will look dated very fast. I spent a few months doing exactly this kind of thing for a menu in 2008, and I hated the look of it, which wasn't far off from the look of that YouTube video.

[mankrip]

The fact I'm completely unimpressed by this video tells me something.

[r00k]

CUBE2 does this, is open source, and might be openGL.
But ya, its just added eye-candy that's quite useless, unless u need a 3d tilting radar.

[mh]

The big thing that occurs to me is that you could just use your 3D API and model format and get the exact same result without being dependent on an external runtime that you have no control over. Especially one that's as crap and bug-ridden as f--king Flash. (Hypothetical support desk conversation goes like this: "oh you need to upgrade to Flash 11.2 in order for this to work, but Adobe don't allow us to distribute it. Whatever you do don't upgrade to 11.3 because there's stuff we rely on that they've changed." Now you can no-longer watch YouTube!)

OK, I'm being harsh on Flash here. It has it's uses, and it's pretty damn successful so it must be doing something right, but all the same - wrong technology in the wrong place here.

[Sajt]

Indeed, Flash sucks, and it always has (in my opinion). Did they reimplement the UT3 hud in Flash, or do it in UnrealScript there?

Baker: "You are being unfair. Flash has its uses. Specifically the artists/designers who went to "game school", and are now working at typical assembly line game companies, don't know how to use anything else, and are too stupid to learn anything else."

Well, Baker, that's true. But you shouldn't defend stupid people. I believe that stupid people (and stupid companies) should be lined up and shot. If the game industry could be purged of worthless and stupid people and companies, it might end up only 0.0001% its original size, but it would be a huge step up in my opinion.

[Baker]

I said maybe 2 sentences about how it looked cool?

False extrapolation! Ah, well, let's go with it anyway ...

I don't like Flash except for YouTube videos. I have Flashblock on every browser.

believe that stupid people (and stupid companies) should be lined up and shot. If the game industry could be purged of worthless and stupid people and companies, it might end up only 0.0001% its original size, but it would be a huge step up in my opinion.

I took your little mini-article on game design and Quake's lack of a use key to heart (and the related concepts ... it made me think).

Like possibly many people here, I find almost all modern games sterile.

On the other hand, even if you go with your idea that incompetent people and companies should be purged ... where's the concept of something resembling "full employment" in that?

Japan always followed the concept that you give people stuff to do like shuffle papers to keep them out of trouble and give them something to occupy their time. The alternative is letting them just do whatever which is a bad idea.

If I agree with your idea, which I actually don't.

Someone has to make Farmville and cookie-cutter reality FPS games ...

[Sajt]

I said maybe 2 sentences about how it looked cool?

False extrapolation! Ah, well, let's go with it anyway ...

Nah, I wasn't reacting to whatever you said earlier in this thread. But you are correct about false extrapolation. For some reason I have this idea that you like to jump in and be the nice guy or the accused's advocate, the "voice of reason".

On the other hand, even if you go with your idea that incompetent people and companies should be purged ... where's the concept of something resembling "full employment" in that?

Maybe they can have jobs cleaning up oily shores, or building windmills or something. I don't like when the "working class" goes to work on creative products (I will never claim that games are art, but it's sort of similar). And I especially don't like the owners and execs who are pure businessmen. Sure, one can always try to ignore mass media, but it's not completely possible. And the legions of brainwashed consumers are depressing.

Japan always followed the concept that you give people stuff to do like shuffle papers to keep them out of trouble and give them something to occupy their time. The alternative is letting them just do whatever which is a bad idea.

Maybe you have a point. In the 1950s, before the TV entered the household, American boys would torture animals and "experiment" with each other. (But at least they were fit and active!) Now, they sit in the living room, puppeting the TV's politically correct propaganda between facefulls of potato chips. It's hard to tell which is worse. (But Japan is a special case. It's never possible to totally prevent them from decapitating people, ejaculating on women in the street, and so on. Why? I don't know, but their distinctive modern culture must be part of it.)

I guess it all comes down to a cynical view of people (which seems to be what you are also hinting at): 95% of them seem to be low-minded, inborn non-entities. In old times, they were the peasants. Nowadays they are less able to take care of themselves. In old times, their work required massive amounts of people and work, there was always more for them to do. Nowadays the robots are taking over. The idea of deliberately inefficient "green" jobs is encouraging but probably will fall through, which leaves us to wonder what we are going to do with these people. I guess we (or they) make worse and worse video games until they melt into puddles on the ground.

Anyway, this is all off topic, but the video in the first post wasn't really worth more than a couple words' discussion anyway. I guess we could start to complain about some explosion of mediocre by-the-books middleware. The "Scaleform" company (if it is a company) really put the bare minimum into this one.

[Baker]

And I especially don't like the owners and execs who are pure businessmen. Sure, one can always try to ignore mass media, but it's not completely possible. And the legions of brainwashed consumers are depressing.

It isn't depressing, it is an expectancy violation and your reaction to it is to see it as depressing. But it isn't depressing, it is just how it is and new information contrary to your view of how things should be.

The reaction is a choice. Maybe it is depressing or maybe you should see it as an opportunity and it should cause you to be enthusiastic that you have a special role you can play.

The main reason for information to be "depressing" -- information is neither good or bad -- is because you feel you cannot control it. All life wants to control their environment.

The problem with something being "depressing" is that it represents a conscious choice to concede something is immutable, when nothing is -- anything can be changed, but not if you have decided in advance that it cannot be. I call that a forfeit, where someone loses the game without even showing up on the football field to play the game.

Maybe you have a point. In the 1950s, before the TV entered the household, American boys would torture animals and "experiment" with each other. (But at least they were fit and active!) Now, they sit in the living room, puppeting the TV's politically correct propaganda between facefulls of potato chips. It's hard to tell which is worse.

I'd rather have bored kids eating potato chips and playing some mindless video games than torturing animals, vandalising property and stealing stuff.

Video games are a panacea to juvenile boredom!

I guess it all comes down to a cynical view of people (which seems to be what you are also hinting at): 95% of them seem to be low-minded, inborn non-entities. In old times, they were the peasants. Nowadays they are less able to take care of themselves.

Why does it have to be "cynical"? I bet the world has always been like that, with the bottom 95% not having much of plan and just doing a routine to make it through the day.

It could be the natural order of things.

[ I hate to say this, but some of those people just doing that is the best they can absolutely do and have every right to be proud of it [they've overcome their own obstacles and maybe as lowly as that seems to you, maybe they are doing really great compared to their family origins -- they might have, for instance, a brother in jail or a sister who is a drug user or a chronically unemployed cousin and they beat the odds, for example. Success is a relative thing and one guy's success might be something like graduating from college or not becoming an alcoholic.] .

If so, it isn't "cynical" -- just new information that was different than you hoped.

I would put that in the "it is a good thing" column because I think you recognized you aren't in that 95%.

It could be worse. You could have been one of those guys where some alternate Sajt is looking at you thinking "Wow, that guy is low-minded and inborn. He would have been a peasant in old times!"

Count your lucky stars you aren't "that guy"!

Sounds like a really great thing to me. Nothing to be cynical about whatsoever.

[Sajt]

It isn't depressing, it is an expectancy violation and your reaction to it is to see it as depressing. But it isn't depressing, it is just how it is and new information contrary to your view of how things should be.

The reaction is a choice. Maybe it is depressing or maybe you should see it as an opportunity and it should cause you to be enthusiastic that you have a special role you can play.

Well, I don't think it's much of a virtue to be too opportunistic (to constantly throw away old ways in order to chase new things). A species does that, but an individual likes to settle into some outdated and ignorant thinking as he ages... I like to see my views and tastes crystallize as I get older, and at some point I have to stick to my guns. I could think about how in two generations, nobody will know anything about what I thought was "good", but I need to ignore that and just be myself *sniff* 'cause that's who I wanna be!

[ I hate to say this, but blah blah blah, blah blah. ]

Yeah, it was a hyperbolic generalization. Everything is relative. All the "low-minded" people actually turn out to be nice guys when you meet them, and I'm just some jerk living in a secluded middle of nowhere forming unhealthy thoughts due to lack of the stimuli which keeps most people sedated.

(But it must be a weakness to fall in love with individuals of a group you theoretically dislike. Hitler wouldn't have gotten anywhere if he didn't avert his eyes and think of something else when he pressed the gas button.)

Anyway... I'm not a revolutionary so I'm not going to try to change anything. I guess that's why I hang out in this misfit-populated niche dedicated to some dead game.

It could be worse. You could have been one of those guys where some alternate Sajt is looking at you thinking "Wow, that guy is low-minded and inborn. He would have been a peasant in old times!"

Count your lucky stars you aren't "that guy"!

Hey... what am I doing on this couch, and why is Baker wearing a turtleneck? No, I can think of plenty wrong with myself. But that other Sajt is a jerk too, and he thinks he's so great. (Also, technically, if you look at my genealogy all you see for occupation in the two centuries since family names were instituted, is "arbeider". Not exactly peasants, but close!)

[Baker]

Hey... what am I doing on this couch, and why is Baker wearing a turtleneck? No, I can think of plenty wrong with myself. But that other Sajt is a jerk too, and he thinks he's so great.

(Also, technically, if you look at my genealogy all you see for occupation in the two centuries since family names were instituted, is "arbeider". Not exactly peasants, but close!)

My recent geneology is probably a bit boring.

But going deep into the past I have interesting ancestors like Australopithecus, Eohippus and more distant ancestors related to those guys you find in a petri dish

[I like to see my views and tastes crystallize as I get older, and at some point I have to stick to my guns. I could think about how in two generations, nobody will know anything about what I thought was "good", but I need to ignore that and just be myself *sniff* 'cause that's who I wanna be!

I have no idea what the future will hold and spend little time thinking about it. I don't believe in "free-will", per se --- all reactions are governed by laws of nature, chemistry, physics -- so life is a ride on rails. Decisions and actions are just highly complicated illusions. But what makes it fun is that while it may be "obvious" what is going to happen from the universe's perspective, since I don't know it is exciting to me because I'm watching the movie for the first time.

[Sajt]

I am... hungry. Feed me!

[Baker]

I am... hungry. Feed me!

Very well ...

If you can handle it ...

World Perspective You Are Taught --> Disappointment --> Sadness (You are here. i.e. A value system unintentionally designed for you to fail.)

[I mean, it's the status quo value system designed by those peasants you were talking about.]

And if you are strong enough ...

Sadness --> Nihilism (Destruction of old value system) --> Recreation of new value system --> Optimism

If you accept the world on the terms you have been taught, you are doomed to disappointment in the world.

The next step is realizing all of those concepts are wrong, losing your solid ground --- I'm mean if your old value system is invalidated, the next step is nihilism (i.e. "I don't care" or "nothing matters") --- you have nothing to replace it.

All that matters in this world is:

1) Acts of creation
2) Encouraging acts of creation
3) Encouraging learning
4) Using your talents, whatever they are.

Money, titles, praise of others --- these are all illusions. Money is made from trees and printed on paper. Titles are arbitrarily given whether on merit or not. Praise is always in the eye of beholder -- well, what if the beholder is an idiot? (Isn't it ironic that your complaints about the gaming industry all fall in this category? By coincidence? Or is it?)

The most powerful force in anyone's life is yourself. And you are the only one capable of stopping you.

Others may mock you. You can choose to ignore them.
Others may doubt you. This matters only if you value their opinion.
The world may try to interrupt you. This only matters if you question your own resolve.

If you have ideas for the world, give birth to them. No one can stop you from such ... except yourself. Every person's own worst enemy is themselves. All one must do is defeat that single enemy to break all the shackles.

Case in point: some people think Quake is obsolete. On the contrary, I feel Quake is more relevant than ever. Quake pointed the direction to a beautiful modding-friendly future. It never happened. I refuse to concede this forgotten future, as an example. It doesn't matter to me if 10 people, 10,000 people or 10,000,000 people believe I am wrong. It doesn't matter as I am the sole arbitrator of matters of what I choose to do. I don't bother to convince others, I never required their approval or consent to my point of view any way.

Likewise, in the real world ... you can infect other people's heads with your ideas. In particular, the "good ideas" that happen to be right are particularly infectious.

You say you are not a revolutionary. But this cannot be true; it is a built-in property of life. Somewhere is the distant past, that revolutionary first fish that chose to crawl on land is mad at you.