posted by
n1
on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:39AM
from the still-seething-about-programming-languages dept.
from the still-seething-about-programming-languages dept.
From Boing Boing:
Hunter Loftis, who created the fractal terrain generation in 130 lines of Javascript engine, has done it again: a full-blown first-person shooter engine in 265 lines (source). He used a technique called ray casting, and goes into some detail about this choice and where this could go next.
More information can be found here.
Raycasting feels like cheating, and as a lazy programmer, I love it. You get the immersion of a 3D environment without many of the complexities of "real 3D" to slow you down. For example, raycasts run in constant time, so you can load up a massive world and it will just work, without optimization, as quickly as a tiny world.
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First-Person Shooter Engine in 265 Lines of Javascript
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:54AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 07 2014, @08:46PM
Actually, its performance improves with object density. Rays that get stopped quickly on nearby objects don't have to be traced to the far hills.
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 07 2014, @09:12PM
I guess there *is* an optimization data structure -- the terrain is modelled as a 2-D array, and all objects are aligned with grid lines. This limits the number of places it has to test to trace the ray. No fancy data structures like octrees, but the algorithm does rely on rays terminating early. A grid only sparsely populated with objects, and having to show object that are thousands of grid squares away would definitely slow it all down.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:44AM
But, it is still Javascript. Fail
(Score: 1) by Gremlin on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:00AM
I don't see the fail here? What he's done is pretty cool. Sure, Javascript may have limitations but you could take what he's done and re-write in a 'proper' language if you like.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:06PM
He hasn't done anything but implement 20+ year old technology in Javascript. And why bother rewriting what he's done? Why not simply use the Wolfenstein 3-D engine instead?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:04PM
I think you'll find that javascript will become a much more important language in the next five years. It is replacing server-side languages.
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(Score: 1) by larku on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:57AM
So what's the catch?
Are there some limitations with using this technique vs traditional 3D?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Jaruzel on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:53AM
Using his code directly, you are limited to only a 2D environment, there is no up/down movement/look (Think the original Wolfenstien 3D). To add movement and rendering in the third dimension, you'd need to significantly up the maths* quota in the code.
Nonetheless, this is still a pretty good breakdown of how to do a simple '3D' environment. I've bookmarked it, as I've always fancied writing a dungeon crawler type game but the 3D maths* have always eluded me (I'd have to convert the JS code into a real language first, but the maths principles and the concept are the same).
Now I think about it, Wolf3D and Doom probably used a very similar technique...
-Jar
*Maths not Math, as I'm British.
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:06AM
> Now I think about it, Wolf3D and Doom probably used a very similar technique...
That's true, I made a longer list in my reply, but the list of games using this technique is quite long.
> I've bookmarked it, as I've always fancied writing a dungeon crawler type game but the 3D maths* have always eluded me (I'd have to convert the JS code into a real language first, but the maths principles and the concept are the same).
You read my mind my friend !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:12AM
I've written js raycasters before, I could have used C / SDL but it was something I did for fun. I think you'll find that javascript is quite real.
(Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:56AM
Yes, but I can't deploy a JS based game via Steam or Google Play though, can I ?
Which is kinda what I meant. Plus writing extensive stuff in javascript is like pulling your teeth out via the back of your own skull.
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marneus68 on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:02AM
The main catch is that it's not really 3D, it's merely 2.5D (and not in the way that it's a platform game made with a 3D engine) much like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. Basically, you can't have overlapping rooms without a lot of fiddling, and rendering 3D models will be a real pain. If you've played Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D of TES:Arena.
And despite the claims of the dev, Daggerfall uses a real 3D engine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:14PM
The catch is that it's Javashit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:19PM
The catch is that it pegs a multicore i7 CPU to do nothing more advanced than what Wolfenstein 3-D did 22 years ago and could do it on a 386.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:16AM
I think you'd be much better off browsing Shadertoy.com than looking at raycasting done in JS.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Jaruzel on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:18AM
Shadertoy.com totally nuked my browser (Firefox), thanks for that :)
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:00AM
I just get a json parse error.
(Score: 1) by larku on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:26AM
Shadertoy is really good for sharing and playing with shaders but what does that have to do with using raycasting to achieve a 3D like environment?
(Score: 3, Funny) by jimshatt on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:59AM
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:02AM
(Score: 2) by chebucto on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:34AM
I wrote a first-person shooter in _1 line of batch script_, and that was 20 years ago!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:32PM
Did it simply launch Wolfenstein 3D?
(Score: 2) by chebucto on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:20PM
Perhaps, but use of external libraries is good programming practice!
On a more serious note, I paged through the linked JS and by my reading the author isn't using any libraries, so hats off to him :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:26PM
Using Canvas to render the scene.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SpallsHurgenson on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:18PM
This reminds me of .kkrieger [wikipedia.org], a first-person shooter written in 96KB; it was full 3D and the package included multiple levels, weapons, procedurally-generated textures and sounds.
Still, a pseudo-3D game in 120 lines of code isn't anything to dismiss outright either; limited as the final product may be, it is still amazing in how much you can do with so little.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:22PM
It's only 120 lines of code because the browser uses thousands of lines of code to actually implement the hard stuff for him.
(Score: 1) by kaganar on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:00PM
It's only 120 lines of code because the browser uses thousands of lines of code to actually implement the hard stuff for him.
I used to think this way -- hated libraries because you had to stomp through mediocre documentation to get simple seeming things to work. Then I woke up one day, realized that I was saving hours if not days of time by not reinventing the incredibly mundane wheel of how to draw a dialog box or how to initialize OpenGL buffers. These tasks were so commonplace that they had literally been done thousands of times before, with scores of books and websites telling you how.
Now I shop for the right library before I jump off the cliff into the oblivion of coding it all myself. Even better is when there's a near-standard library that already does it -- fantastic support, very likely to be right (compared to my own code which is far less tested), and features I didn't know I wanted.
Are there downsides? Sure. Sometimes I feel more lost while debugging, other times I have to mind how I set up linking, and yes, I still have to look through documentation. But overall I get 3x the work done -- and that's just smart.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:15PM
You're absolutely right, but it is a bit tangential to the AC's comment. The article summary talks about a specific (and small) number of lines of code that is clearly meant to impress the reader; however, it is cheating to quote code line counts and rely on libraries, unless you count the lines of code in the libraries.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:45PM
However, even "hello world" relies on tens to hundreds of thousands of lines of OS code to work. It doesn't seem unreasonable to draw the line at, "how much code do I have to write myself?"
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Friday June 06 2014, @09:07PM
Not when writing it to a parallel-port matrix printer using DOS assembly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:00PM
Where did I say that I hate libraries? Smells suspiciously of strawman. My point is his LOC statement is disingenuous. Now if he wrote all of the rendering code as well in the same lines of code that would be impressive, but he just implemented the easy part and then patted himself on the back.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:08PM
The small size is impressive but not the result. For something that looks impressive, take a look at threejs: http://threejs.org/ [threejs.org]
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by arslan on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:41PM
What's with all the JS hate here in SN? Its not such a bad language, it has its quirks, but if you can get past that its pretty good. Its powerful enough that any moron can write unmanageable code with it, but that is no different than C or Java or Scala.
The whole web is driven by it nowadays and frankly I'd rather have JS content than Flash, Java Applets or Silverlight.
It is also evolving very rapidly as newer versions with features are being added. As for JS on the server side the jury is still out on that (for me at least), though that movement is still growing strong. Its a technology like anything else, although it had a pretty bad start and poorly named, propeller heads should look at it like any other tool. Given its significance for the web, I'd say its a pretty important tool.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 06 2014, @12:13AM
If some can write high quality server-side [doctrine-project.org] frameworks [symfony.com] in PHP (I repeat: yes, PHP, no less), then it should be possible to do it in Java-/ECMA-script as well.
(the links provided: essentially, they're Hibernate-like and Spring-like frameworks in PHP. Including the possible use of annotations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday June 06 2014, @01:25PM
I'd say it's fairly normal. I'd go further and say that almost every dynamic language mentioned here will draw hate, that is just the way it is : /
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @04:39AM
265 lines in a HLL? Well, in that case, here's most FLOSS in one line shell:
You even get different programs depending on where and when you run that single LoC! Can I have an SN article now pls?
I mean, what really matters is the resultant binary, time and space complexity of algorithms used, how many and what dependencies there are, and what platforms it runs on. FFS.