Flash 3D v Unity 3D
- Started
- Last post
- 10 Responses
- Ancillary
Interesting article on Flash's new Mole Hill 3D API.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/fe…I wonder how much support Flash is going to have for exporting to iPhone an app moving forward, as I think this is the main thing Unity has over Flash's Mole Hill.
- NONEIS0
Unity has a lot more over Molehill than just it's 3D, it's inherently designed to make games – have you used the demo?
A little bird tells me you can expect a full-force reinvestment from Adobe in terms of the recompiling...
- Boz0
It's like this.. I'm an Adobe partner.. so I know a bit about this..
Mole Hill 3D API is really the super low level API and part of a larger incentive for Flash Player / AIR to get full GPU acceleration for things other than video.. just as they have done with StageVideo API in Flash Player 10.2, Molehill allows access directly to hardware on the lowest level.
These APIs are not really that easy to code with because they require significant knowledge of how things work with 3d and shaders and all that stuff on a GPU level (this is all very low level) however the great thing about Flash is that we already have several engines that are being ported over now to Molehill APIs.
I like Unity a lot.. it's a great 3d engine and tool (I've checked it out and it's really very nice).. but as the article says, one of the biggest issues with it is that it's another proprietary plugin and people need to download.. I'm not agains that.. but Flash will offer similar quality and quite possibly even more once all of the Flash devs get in on it..and it will be pretty ubiquitous, it will definitely revolutionize online gaming because it is already established and now we will get some kick ass graphics that are super fast.
As far as mobile.. the goal of Adobe team is to integrate the same APIs into the AIR runtime for mobile devices and TVs and leverage the full GPU acceleration of new processing units in devices like Tegra 2.. This is what's going to happen this year and it will be the final obstacle in high performance apps made in AS3/Flash for devices.
I have seen some additional demos and what people are doing (I'm not really that great with 3d programming aka don't know shit about it, so I'll leave the 3d low level engines to other people) and they look very very impressive. Especially stuff from Alternativa3D.
The main thing is that Molehill API is so efficient that it allows large environments with tons of objects, which I haven't really seen in Unity.
I can tell you right now that new Flash Builder, Flex, Flash CS 5.5 will all have upgrade iOS support along with Android and Blackberry. Like packager style.
So when Molehill APIs get into the next revision of AIR (probably not this one 2.6 is getting close to completion, but the one after that or possibly 3.0 that might happen towards the end of the year) it will be included in the AIR Runtime and you will be able to use all these Flash 3D engines build on it.
For those who want to read more about Molehill and AIR/Flash runtime:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologi…
- Ancillary0
Hey Boz,
thanks for the info,
nice to know that there will be further iOS support in Flash. I moved from AS3 to Objective C so as to build apps about 12 months ago. A few days ago I thought I'd try exporting a Flash app to the iPhone just for fun, it turned out it was really easy to do. The only problem I encountered was there's no community online, so it's very hard to find out info. It's good to hear MoleHill will be supported for mobile,
*sometime in the future*
- Boz0
yeah Ancilliary.. same here.. that's why I got into Obj-C..
But you wouldn't believe where iOS Packager and iOS support in Flash is right now.. it's crazy (and I've been building demo apps for iOS when CS5 was in beta and the latest iPhone was 3GS)..
Btw, there is a huge community of devs working with AIR (this includes iOS support) but a lot of them can't talk about anything because we are all under NDA until the final AIR 2.6 comes out. Previously Adobe quit on iOS packager so that thing was completely abandoned. But now, they almost cought up with Android support which is pretty amazing.. AIR is growing so much it's pretty awesome to just watch that happen.. Adobe engineers are working their ass off..and what's more interesting is they are listening to our requests to what we need..
For example.. many of us requested WebView API so we can load native HTML pages inside AIR apps just like they behave with iOS SDK.. for example:
[webView loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.googl...
But in AS3 it's so easy now.. they allowed us to use camera and mic now so you can make some really cool apps with it... etc etc..
It's growing by leaps and bounds and with the support of low level GPU acceleration we will be able to fully take advantage of device's speed and OpenGL ES capabilities.
- Ancillary0
Hey cool,
I was wondering about webview support in the AS3 API
- pauliusuza0
This just became irrelevant. Unity3D announced support for publishing to Flash Player 11 (Molehill)
- abettertomorrow0
Interesting...I wonder if this will end with Adobe eventually purchasing Unity.
Despite all the excitement about Molehill, I don't see anything on the horizon with Flash that remotely parallels what Unity offers in terms of a GUI to build 3D environment, and easily import models from Maya or 3D Studio Max.
Of course Unity could remain independent and eventually offer both Flash and WebGL export.
- Unity going Flash is definitely the future and they know it. I do agree, Adobe might buy them.Boz
- nthkl0
Unity is sex. But man, Adobe needs to hurry the fuck up. Yesterday. And support hardware acceleration to boot.
- Boz0
Unity3D working with 3D low level APIs in Flash is fantastic..
It pushes Flash to the Unity crowd as well and will only reinforce the Flash Player/AIR domination for games and everything interactive.
- Ancillary0
there're a lot of Flash developers suddenly feeling a whole lot less redundant today.
I'm not sure how Adobe's going to make any money out of this though.- They have this thing called the "Flash Ecosystem"pauliusuza
- "less redundant " Implying any of them can be arsed learning new shit and not just getting fatanimatedgif