I’d like to write a blog post to sum up the recent evolutions of Gideros, since it went open source. What in your opinion are the most important improvements it gained over the last 8 years ?
I am thinking about:
- 3D capabilities, including 3D collision engine
- GUI capabilities
- Shaders with emphasis on lua shaders, which are a Gideros unique feature in the world
- Move to luau, but most important our special additions to the language (operators and parallel threading)
- More support for business apps, not just games anymore
What do you think, am I missing something?
Comments
Second, I think you forgot Gideros Studio itself
Imho Gideros Studio brought some nifty improvements:
- code highlighting (my personal favorite)
- better profiling (my second favorite )
- step by step debugging (my third favorite )
- update to latest technologies (html5, android, ios, Mac, ...)
- new integrated plugins (scenemanager, tntvirtualpad, cbump, cute2, ...)
- ...
Third:
- I tried building Gideros from source in the past and wasn't able to, now with the new Gideros I can (at least for windows). I don't know if it's me but I think (with help from the forum) it is easier to build now?!
Fourth:
- almost full support for VSCode thanks to PaulR and antix
Likes: hgy29
i also like the multi-window/screen possibility on windows.
and some of the plugins added by @hgy29 and others (e.g., midi) are invaluable to me. the most major one is the imgui plugin, of course, by @rrraptor.
EDIT:
what i don't like is that the amazing (work)flow i had using zerobrane studio (print appearing during run, debugging etc) is much less smooth since the luau switch.
Likes: MoKaLux, hgy29
Fragmenter - animated loop machine and IKONOMIKON - the memory game
Likes: hgy29
Likes: vitalitymobile, SinisterSoft
When Gideros first went open source I was worried. I'd developed a couple of Windows games using an engine that folded, and then I moved to Gideros, and was paying for the professional license, so when it went open source I was worried that support and growth would fizzle out. I'm so happy that the opposite has happened. In fact the improvements in Gideros since then have been massive. The 3D support means that things I'd developed for that long defunct engine (especially models, including rigged and animated models) are now usable again.
I've had a 3D game in the works for a while now, that I put on hold to make a related 2D game, and I've recently returned to working on the 3D game. The LUA shader support is amazing. I've been playing with water effect shaders - one for water surface, another for fogging applied only below the water level, and it's been both fun and effective.
I haven't tapped into anything LUAU specific yet. But I've ported a non-game app to Gideros, implementing a lot of the GUI features I needed myself. I contributed the mapping plugin for that project, and I need to update that since the plugin system has evolved so much since then. That app is overdue for a major overhaul, and I look forward to trying out some of the features that have been added for user interfaces.
My most recent use of Gideros was a half-day project on a whim. A fishing guide/podcaster/lure designer I know was looking for ideas for new paint designs for a lure he'd created. I'd already modeled the lure for a game, and for a different game I'd written a system that creates new lures including paint schemes. In a few hours I was able to merge the two, tweaking and applying the dynamic paint schemes to his lure, and showing the resulting lure in 3D, and exporting it to HTML5 so anyone could see the lure with lots of possible paint jobs. The result is at www.pishtech.com/titan. If there's any other platform besides Gideros that would have made that such a quick and easy task, I don't know what that is.
The bottom line for me is that I'm elated with the progress in Gideros since it went open source. I especially appreciate the simpler exports (direct to an Android APK or bundle), and how well Gideros has kept up with versions of Android and iOS libraries, XCode, etc. I literally don't know what I'd do without it.
Paul
PS - This is a reminder to me of how much I rely on Gideros, and that it's time to donate again to keep the growth and support for this fantastic tool coming. Donating now.
Likes: MoKaLux, hgy29, keszegh, SinisterSoft, talis