This post should provide you with a better idea of what types of games exist and which ones are possible in Flash. There are also some strong reasons for not choosing Flash as your development platform. It's important to know them as well, before you get started and encounter unpleasant surprises.
Performance Macromedia spent thousands of hours making the required Flash plug-in for the Web as as possible so that the maximum number of people could download it easily. But that required some and the major one was performance. Flash underperforms virtually all other game-development platforms speed of code execution and graphics rendering. On the other side of the fence, game-development like Macromedia Director and WildTangent perform very well—but have enormous plug-ins. As a result, few people can view such content without being forced to download the plug-in in addition to the game.
Lack of 3D support Flash doesn't provide native support for real 3D engines or for any sort of texture mapping (the act of applying an image to a 3D polygon).
Lack of operating-system integration When you run your game as a Projector file, Flash cannot easily talk to the local operating system to do things like browse files on the hard drive. (But this type of possible with the use of third-party software such as Northern Codeworks' SWF Studio, available at http://www.northcode.com.) Most of the developers who choose Flash as their game-creation tool do so because they want their games be available to many people easily on the Internet. If the intention is to have the game available offline on ROM, then Flash is still a choice—just not necessarily the best choice.
Infeasible Game Features It is much easier to talk about things Flash cannot do easily than to discuss everything it can do. Here I'll on some things that are very difficult to achieve in Flash, or that aren't feasible for another reason. I don't to say anything is impossible with Flash, because there are so many creative people out there with dozens tricks to make the seemingly impossible possible.
3D rendering with texture mapping Many people have created 3D engines with ActionScript. A 3D engine is code that can take 3D coordinates map them onto your screen. While these engines actually manipulate coordinates in 3D space and then map them correctly back onto a 2D screen, there are three major limitations:
Texture mapping You cannot map textures (bitmap images) onto an object in Flash. As I have already mentioned, many people make creative attempts to get around program obstacles. People have successfully done very simple mapping onto flat surfaces.
Z-sorting This refers to the order in which objects appear in front of other objects. In real 3D rendering games, the sorting order is not limited to whole objects, but can actually pierce surfaces of objects (if two things happen to be moving through each other). Flash is limited to sorting at the movie-clip level.
Speed Three-dimensional engines written in Flash can typically handle only simple shapes, and they retain frame rate close to the frame rate of your SWF. Complex scenes are often very CPU-intensive, and the rate can suffer as a result.
Real-time multiplayer games Creating this kind of game is certainly possible, but for many reasons it is not easy to accomplish. One of the main factors is the nature of these games. Due to network latency, it would be very difficult, if even possible, create a real-time multiplayer game like, say, Mortal Kombat. However, some real-time multiplayer games lack interaction between players, such as a scavenger hunt, might be more feasible.
Intense real-time calculation I know this sounds like a vague limitation. But when you're creating a game, it is important (although admittedly difficult) to think ahead and try to guess how intense the calculations are going to be. For a game that has dozens of enemies—who all think for themselves and constantly run around trying to decide what to do next—is an excellent candidate to bog down the computer processor! You'll have to do a lot of testing and experimenting to determine exactly how many of these enemies the computer can handle and perform well.
But...
Web deployment Since Flash files are designed to be viewed in Web pages, Flash is a good choice if you want your game to be available on the Internet.
Small file size Flash makes use of vector graphics and compressed sound files, so a Flash game's final file size can be exponentially smaller than those of games developed on other platforms.
Plug-in penetration The plug-in that's required for viewing Flash files in a Web page comes with all major browsers. More than 98 percent of people on the Internet worldwide can view Flash content. The exact penetration for each version of the plug-in is listed on the Macromedia Web site (go to www.macromedia.com/software/player_census).
Server-side integration Flash games can talk to the server seamlessly. Using Flash's built-in features, can communicate with server-side applications that make chats, multiplayer games, and high score lists possible.
File sharing Between programmer and graphic artists/designers, and between users. With Flash, programmers and artists can collaborate using the same files. This is rare in game development. Users spread a good game a lot over the internet. So, provide embedded links to your home!
Ease of use Perhaps one of the most attractive reasons for choosing Flash is that you can learn the and start creating games in a very short time. With other languages, it could take years!
if this was an useful article, please help hirudo:holter getting out of trouble. [piko!] asks you only two or three more clicks: choose some of the ads in the right sidebar and visit them. [piko!] will be grateful.
se questo articolo ti è stato utile, sostieni hirudo:holter. [piko!] ti chiede solo due o tre click: visita un paio delle pubblicità che trovi nella barra laterale. [piko!] ringrazia.
vi parla [piko!], gestore tronico. lei non può commentare, così ho deciso in maniera insindacabile.
[piko!] ti ringrazia per esser arrivato fin quaggiù, la strada era lunga.
se non sai cosa fare, puoi visitare l'archivio o la galleria fotografica relativa ad hirudo:holter. oppure tornartene alla pagina iniziale del sito per vedere cosa bolle in pentola.
your attention makes [piko!] happy: there was a long way from the top of the page!
if you don't know what to do, try our archives or the photogallery from hirudo:holter. or you can click back to the global home page to see what's going on now on amolenuvolette.it.
steal all of this, steal my code, steal my graphics. use it to feel better.
this is copyrighted so you can really steal it.
eventually you will find some crap-pieces of code like "don't right-click" in my escaped! maze. this was only because if you read source code there's no play in gettin out of the maze, cheating about the right place to click.
so, uh: i'm a media pirate. i am a native in the media landscape.
|
|
<
|
novembre 2024
|
>
|
L |
M |
M |
G |
V |
S |
D |
| | | | 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
_muy felìz :. (199)
ascolto :. (22)
io contro tutti (29)
kirlian aura (4)
ciao! marco infussi here, ready to serve you.
this is my personal notepad: i paste here all the stuff i am thinking about and working on, plus some weirdo and doodles.
if you are looking for serious work and official stuff, this is the wrong place.
amolenuvolette.it is such a disordered waste-bin, with something like 25+gbytes of stuff to browse.
here is a map to understand where you are...
trust me: it will be useful!
La pubblicità ha rotto le scatole, quindi non è più consentita.
hirudo:holter is technically based on some concepts:
a) a purposedly verbose interface
b) little isometric designs and typographical cameos
c) a fictitious character, website's engine [piko!], insulting the reader
but, what does hirudo mean? how about holter?! and what's the hidden message?
more about hirudo:holter...
InValid XHTML 1.0 / CSS
[piko!] scan rileva 357 utenti on line, tra i quali 873 + 1 cercano inutilmente di nascondersi nelle ultime file. forza, venite al primo banco per l'esame.
23/11/2024 @ 00:07:49
che velocità... [piko!] engine ha prontamente eseguito questo script in soli 49 ms
this section contains all the things that made my life what it is.
songs, books, films, artworks, fonts i love, written as lists.
read more...
questa funzione è talmente obsoleta che non ho più voglia di aggiustarla.
questa versione di hirudo:holter è in effetti chiusa al 31 dicembre 2011.
amo quelli che desiderano l'impossibile!
piko!
|