kilon

Two materials combined to one over a 3d surface where instead of mixing in certain areas you can have one or the other depending on a texture transparency acting as a mask. Or a gradient color customized to act as a bit mask with one and off values in the colors of black and white. Non continuous data in sound can be midi or any form of modulation source like a square wave that can also act as a bit and tons of other methods.

No that would have been very limited. It's very important to turn on and off execution flow and of course branch it. That applies both in graphics and in sound. Why you got that impression ?

Audio VPLs are far more powerful than what you describe.

If that is what you mean by default then yes Blueprints are generally preferred because they are accessible both by Artists and experienced developers. C++ is generally preferred for performance reasons because Blueprints being an interpreted language is around 10 times slower ( these are estimates by Epic the creator of Unreal).

Of course how much Blueprints will be used will depend on the game. There are games made entirely with Blueprints.

Also Epic recommends the use of Blueprints as first choice again because of ease of use. They have invested a great deal to it after all. It even has a debugger with break points , watching values and visualization of execution flow.

in 3d and Audio the data is anything BUT constant. You will have to be more specific than that because I do not understand what you mean. Anything can be turned off and on.

Welcome to the failures of Google search engine. Google is great but not so great when you try to make the search a bit smarter.

I am about to "work" in the industry I have a Blender plugin and Unreal editor plugin in the works , none of the use a VPL by the way because simply what I am trying to do is too technical for VPLs that target users and not coders. But of course I will be offering VPL support because users love VPLs.

I never said Blueprints are the default in Unreal , C++ is still king. However if you want proof , you can take a visit at the official Youtube channel of Unreal by Epic and see for yourself the rise of Blueprints. Most tutorials nowdays for making games with Unreal target Blueprints.

I did not downvote the parent , mainly because I rarely downvote posts, must be a facebook habbit :D

"That's an unsubstantiated claim. Point to some sources please."

Reaktor and Max/MSP vs CSOUND and Supercollider , Blender python vs Material/Texture/Animation/Compositor Nodes, Blueprints vs Unrealscripts are all examples I mentioned already. Why they are not enough ?

"These are not the only ones [1], and VPL first appeared earlier than 1995. For example, the first version of LabView was released in 1986 [2] and certainly LabView was not the first one either."

This is why I said "that I am aware of" I am not an expert on all things just a few areas.

"Even if this is true in the case of VFX (which I don't know that it is but I don't know that it's not either), it certainly is not true in video game development, which is very much an area of 3d graphics."

I already mentioned Unreal and Blueprints. But yes what I meant was on the fact of actually a VPL competing with a TPL. Obviously when no VPL exists you have no competition. In the case of 3d apps efforts have been placed into using scripting languages but the users have picked VPLs instead as much easier to use and learn.

"Blueprints is awesome but you could not TODAY make an arbitrary game implemented using ONLY blueprints and have the amount of control and freedom you have if you use Unreal or another game engine with C++ or another TPL. Thus falls your initial claim, which (quoted above also) was"

What you say its true but its not because VPL is inferior its because its not fully supported. Unreal started as a C++ game engine so of course the support will be more extensive than for Blueprints . Blueprint have been around for few years and its already growing faster than the C++ api. It was only lately that Epic added the ability to compile a Blueprint to C++ code. C++ API also make it easy to wrap any C++ code and expose it to Blueprints. So if you want to make your entire game in Blueprint its not possible but also easy.

"Some people love LabView. I certainly don't. Some prefer it and for them it's a thousand times better than using a TPL but for me 99% of the time I would go with a TPL over LabView."

VPLs are made for users not coders, its their ease of use / idiot proof mentality that have made them succesful. So yes if you are a coder in most cases you will prefer and should prefer a TPL , especially a popular one.

But again I repeat in the vast majority of case you will be extremely lucky to find a VPL to even consider moving to. VPLs are extremely rare.

Yes and Yes. VPLs are indeed specific purpose and its because of information density.

Contrary to what you may believe a VPL is not the evolution of TPL , its actually the evolution of GUI. Reaktor for example is an evolution of VSTs , synthesiser and audio effect plugins that are GUIs. VPLs in 3d are an evolution of the gui properties for material , textures etc (they are not even referred to as VPL). Even in Unreal even though Blueprint has replaced Unrealscript , its an extension of the editor GUI.

VPLs are successful specifically because the information density is so large that a linear GUI is not enough.

The success of TPL is legacy, its just has a lot of libraries. Mainly because its easier to make and has been around a lot longer.

However to be sincere here when we talk about TPLs we also cherrypick , we do not think of Assembly, Pascal, Cobol and Fortran but rather C/C++ , Java, C#, ruby, Python and Javascript. The truth is that 99.9% of TPLs have failed to gain approval of not just the users but also the coders too.

But I am not denying the fact that a TPL will target mostly pro coders than users and that VPL will target mostly users than coders. They are just different kinds of beasts making the comparison more than challenging.

Every time a VPL (Visual Programming Language) has gone against a TPL (text programming language) , VPL not only has come out a winner it has massacred its opponent.

There are 3 areas that I am aware of that VPLs have appeared a) modular audio synthesis b) 3d graphics c) game programming

(a) has been the first with origins back to 1995 , there are like a ton of programming apis for building modular synthesizers , there even programming languages that specialize in this that have existed for decades now like CSOUND and Supercolider but Reaktor and Max/MSP have literally mopolised the market. Reaktor itself has been such a massive success that made Native Instrument as the dominant company on audio software.

(b) 3d graphics is no secret that is probably the richest software industry with the generation of the well knows CGI for films and games its a goldmine for developers and has been dominated by VPLs. You are not aware of this most likely because we never refer to them as VPL but rather as procedural material, textures, animation etc. Not using a VPL for todays standards is considered insane even if you try to do it via a very lovable language like Python. Text languages like POV RAY that specialize in 3d graphics have died a miserable death. 3d is where TPLs go to die and are used strictly for generating the software alone and thats about it.

(c) computer games there VPLs are something new but Unreal has definitely changed that with Blueprints. Probably the best and most powerful VPL. If you have played any kind of AAA game chances are that the game you played uses Unreal which in turn makes heavy usage of Blueprints and C++ code. The rule of thumb among Unreal developers is "Do it with Blueprint and if you cannot avoid it do it with C++". Unity has smelled the roses and has implement its own VPL as well very similar to Blueprints.

So if VPLs are so amazing why we do not see more of them ? They are actually very hard to make. If an implementation of lisp , a basic one, needs a few hundreds lines of code a VPL needs thousands and that imposes a high barrier for language designers. Hence why we have thousands of TPL and only a handful of VPLs.

The majority of them are crappy obviously because that is how quality works , you have to have high quantity for high quality.

But a high quality VPL will kick high quality TPL ass any day and this is why VPLs are massively more popular than TPLs for the same task.

One that does not work as well as it looks and it depends on drag and drop is a crappy VPL . Yes a crappy VPL will suck, not as much as a crappy TPL (see C++ , Javascript etc) but it will suck none the less.

you can also read my quora answer here for more details why VPLs dominate so easily and why they will replace TPLs in the not so distant future to a very large extend

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-graphical-programming-language...

"but I just can't force myself to do it" Actually you can. I used to tell myself what you just said but then when I reached the dead end of lack of powerful motivation I did understand that I had to force it.

In Greece we say "The beginning is half of everything" and my problem is beginning something. Sticking to it is not a big issues assuming I do not take a large break for it , say a few days or couple of weeks . Then I have to force myself to start again. Which as you imagine happens ofter. But when I do it , its easy to continue, no pressure involved and makes me happy.

So yeah starting something can be a pain in the ass and you need to punch your way through this phase which fortunately does not last long.

Forcing yourself to start doing something is a good idea. But forcing yourself to keep doing it can be an indication that it does not make you happy or you simply do not like it. Dont do that. Pick something you really like. It does not have to be amazing, just something you like doing.

Whats the worse it can happen if you pressure yourself ? Will you head explode ? Will you be very unhappy ? Will you fail ?

Heads do not explode, happiness is not permanent and failure is part of life and improvement.

I think if you pressure yourself hard at the right time can easily solve your problem.

In the end you will realise that motivation alone is not enough always to overcome fear of failure, boredom or confusion. See pressure as your first product, self motivation. Actually self motivation is best thing you can produce. The second best, is motivating others.

Software as a service is an excellent way to protect against piracy which is why its growing so fast. You can offer your client your software free that he could get through piracy but instead you keep him close and offer him a monthly service of improvements and support that the pirated software cannot offer. If he is unwilling to pay then a) he is not really interested b) he is not able to afford it . So you know that in his case piracy is not really a problem because he is not a potential client. Just because someone pirate something does not mean he is a potential client. Also piracy is not a new thing, I have been in front a computer since 1988 and piracy was there since day 1, software, games , music and film. Sure the internet made it easier but it was already super easy when I was teenager I had ton of pirated music because the price of a CD was certainly nowhere near my budget. The problem got worse because a) the industries became very, very greedy b) quality droped for the sake of mass production (especially true for the music industry) . So companies are 90% to blame here and not piracy.

Well its not as if the content is that high quality to excuse such a monthly payments. Vue is a tool that is used and appreciated by many and is already very popular. So definitely not Patreon's fault. Also even if you put your work on Patreon you still have to promote it , it does not matter if you make the best software in the world if none knows about it. Patreon is there to help not to do the work for you. Also 10k is far from top 1, not even top 10 or top 20 more like top 50. You need 20k to be on top 10 and more than 60k to be no 1 and I am willing to bet these numbers will only go up. So 10k is certainly awesome but far from best-case.

https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators

My iPad mini I use for watching videos and video tutorials and reading PDF documents and of course surfing the web . I play games on it but it's definetly not a toy for me.

I don't like working on laptops and mobile devices , I am more than happy working on an iMac with a gorgeous 27 monitor , a real keyboard , mouse and Wacom.

I always thought that there is no such thing as best programming language in the world. After all they only recycle the same recipe , again and again. Then I found out Smalltalk and realized how wrong I was.

There is nothing that comes close that can compete with the massive success that Smalltalk has been. Its blows my mind how it can be so much better than anything else out there including the usual suspects (Lisp, haskell, blah blah).

But in the end its not about the language , its about the libraries. Hence why Python remains my No1 choice.

In the end however even Smalltalk is terrible outdated. The state of software is in abysmal condition trapped in its own futile efforts of maintaining backward compatibility, KISS and do not reinvent the wheel.

In sort software is doing its best to keep innovation at a minimum and as such pretty much everything sucks big time and is still stuck in stone age.

I once considered becoming a professional coder working in a company doing the usual thing, I am glad I was wise enough not to choose that path. I would have killed myself right now with all this nonsense that makes zero logical sense.

But my hope is in AI, the sooner we get rid of coders, the better. Fingers crossed that is sooner than later. Bring on our robotic overlords.

Saying that I know a lot of people that really love coding and respect it as an art and science, so there is definitely hope.

I am against any form of sand boxing and crippling my control of a system as a developer. Which is one of many reason I hate web developing with a vengeance. Even more than I hate Windows ( though win 10 seems to have potential ).

I am a big , not huge, but big fan of Apple but in this case of me surrendering control.

Μολων λαβέ

Eeeeeeh ... you know .... iOS is just a mobile version of MacOS ... to be specific it's macOS code plus some code to make it mobile friend. Thus there is zero need for a merge.

In Greek the equivalent to "dentist" is "odontiatros" which translates exactly as "tooth doctor". So for me a dentist not regarded as doctor sounds extremely weird.

Suffering with dysthymia taught me many things. One of the things is that I may be fine working under pressure but my brain is not.

Side projects tend to be small , fast and enjoyable. This is the way the human brain works and is actually much more efficient than taking big steps.

Also make sure that your main goal is fun, if it is not, it will only get worse. Fun is the fuel of the brain. You cannot fight fun, because you cannot fight the brain. The brain always win.

Make your brain your ally and success will come. You are not your brain , your brain is a lot more than you.

Let me say once more , brain.

Brain

Oh and if you think your code will never sell , remember that fortunes have been built selling rubber bands for hair. There is always a way.

" use the brain Luke "

You confuse knowing with expertise.

I am 37 years old, I am coding since I was 9 but this is not my full time job , I make graphics and sound with the computer since day one.

The one thing I hated more than I hate Windows and C++ is the Green monitor of my first computer, a Amstrad CPC 6128. I was drooling over a Amiga 500 but my father apparently did not want to "spoil" me. But I was lucky enough to own a computer back then it was luxury.

I have to say I am in love with the Internet , is just an amazing tool. When I was kid my go to knowledge base was a 20 tome encyclopaedia.

Even learning coding was a huge struggle, as a 9 year old kid I could not afford expensive programming books, fortunately Amstrad came with a Basic manual, not the best written book but better than nothing.

I laugh when people claim that coding is hard, because I immediately remember my struggle those days. Internet would have been a miracle to have.

Its not hard to filter noise, I have made Twitter my news site with subscriptions to people that offer tutorials and links to useful websites. I watch youtube tutorials and very rarely cat videos. I dont care about facebook and most other popular sites.

The things I do not like, is mainly that sofware has become very complex, that is difficult to keep up with technology , though that is also an advantage. I also hate internet trolls and people being rude.

My iMac is the revenge of not owning an Amiga 500 and now I can have powerful software without even spending money.

I know people take a look at the technology and say "whatever" or as a comedian once said people fly with an aeroplane and complain that they had to wait on the runway for 10 minutes instead of feeling the wonder of flight.

I am the kind of person that is amazed by the ability to fly.

I am also find extremely hard to fathom that my iMac is more than 6.000 times more powerful than my first computer.

Its crazy

just crazy

USA problems are well known for decades now

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

A glowing example of how a huge economy can also be a terrible economy . That 25% is only the tip of the iceberg.

If Russia is the fall of communism , USA is the fall of capitalism. Two extremely stupid economic and political models.

Is it a coincidence that both countries have the most rich in the world and a terrible track record on wealth and income equality, workers and human rights ?

Nope

Well if as a country you seriously suck at wealth equality and defending basic human and worker rights that 25% seems pretty low. Stupidity after all loves hard work.

Of all this is just old news for researchers

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Not true , 80s OS language for home computers was 100% Assembly, z80 assembly to exact. Basic was provided as an easy to use scripting language. Modern web tools and languages and frameworks are bloated and fragmented. Actually the only thing that keeps the 80s nostalgia is modern implementations of Smalltalk if you come from Amiga , or lisp if you come from command line CP/M OS. Web Dev is a huge pile of mess and I am surprised how you consider anything but the exact opposite of the 80s home computers.

I dont know If I am in your shoes but I am in a similar situation. I am lawyer and my father is a lawyer and the past 5 years my brain went to a lockdown, refusing to work , to make friends, to have a relationship. I tried to push myself through this by changing career since it was obvious I was not happy. It did not help.

Everybody was implying I was suffering from severe depression so I decided to visit a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with dysthymia , a condition very diffirent to depression. It basically means, no motivation to do anything.

So I have been taking drugs, they did not help, however psychotherapy did help me. After a year I realized that my problem was and still is pressure , pressure from my family but also and mostly pressure from myself. It killed my fun and enjoyment , everything became a must do, and brain refused to work under these conditions.

Now with the help of psychiatrist , I try to relearn how to relax and enjoy the process, stop working hard and instead work easy and fun. It works but old habits die last. So it will take years till I am out of the woods but the last year I have been doing psychotherapy at least I see a steady improvement.

We are be taught that we are our brain , but this is simply not true, brain is whole another monster and if you dont take good care of it , it will kick your ass. I wanted to learn this the hard way and so here I am.

So there is hope dont despair, definetly see a psychiatrist and expert advice is always helpful. The rest is up to you , go find what makes you happy and do that, the rest will follow.

Praise text programming languages all you want and you will be correct. Programming languages used by coders are by far text based.

However when you leave the coder land and when you jump to user land this turns on its head. Overwhelming rejection of text based programming languages and overwhelming embrace of visual programming languages.

Every software that integrates a easy to learn scripting language like Python and Lua and later implements a visual programming language , users will pick the visual language in the vast majority of cases.

A very powerful visual programming language is Unreal's Blueprints which can completely replace the C++ Api for creating games of any sophistication. As a matter of fact as I have discovered it's easier to find documentation how to implement something with blueprints than C++.

It's a just a matter of time till visual programming languages overtake , text based languages because more and more apps prefer the visual coding route because this is why what the users ask.

Why ? Because it's easier to learn It's easier to write, because there are no syntax or compiler errors.

But mostly it's easier to have fun with.

So if for an experience coder text based language is all he wants, for the user the choice is visual programming languages any day.

there is a new compiler this release and a new vm. Over 200 new features over 2000 fixed bugs and a ton of new documentation (my department). Busy Busy :)

I use it to script Blender

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGDQc5LUvE

I take advantage of Pharo Live coding to Live Code 3d graphics in Blender

There lies the problem, C++ reigns king in making games and many other area of coding. The language may be horrible but there are ways to avoid the horrible stuff and use some libraries that are far better design. Nowdays for example I would use something like QT which is very well made, to avoid MFC.

Thats the issue with offering an alternative to C++, its not enough to offer a better design language you also need to replace countless of C++ libraries that very capable , mature and very well established. Hence why there is no true C++ replacement out there beyond Java.

Delphi was awesome in countless diffirent ways but just lacked the library support to make it as popular. But at the time was as popular as python is nowdays with around 1 million developers and Borland C++ had 2 million. However at the same time VB had around 6 million and Visual C++ much more than that.

C++ is way safer than C but also way more complex. Which comes as no surprise why C is the go to choice for small libraries. Frankly I rather go C++ as well.

last time I used C++ was back in 1996 and my conclusion was that is a horrible language with even more horrible libraries like MFC which made me quit it for Delphi. 20 years later on, being mainly a python dev and lately working with lisp and smalltalk, I decided to go back to C++ because I will be using Unreal Engine heavily for making games. So I was eager to see what have changed in the mean time and whether that would change me my belief that C++ is the worst language I ever used .

After several tutorials, text books, learning the new features in C++ 11 etc, my mind has changed. C++ is a horrible language trying to get better. Beyond the usual crap and total disregard of good design that this language and its libraries exhibit , it does not fail to suprise me something like fstream.good() to detect that the file has not reach its end , its just blows the mind.

But C++ is a necessary evil in my case, so the torture continues.

C is super slow when it comes to compiling, if you really want fast compiling take a look at Pascal, around 10 times faster the last time I checked. There is Free Pascal that is open source and also has a great IDE called Lazarus. Both much better as a language compared to C and C++ and still close to their speed.

Dont get what the big deal is, Mac App Store is far from the most popular way to install new apps. The vast majority of my desktop apps for my iMac i got them from outside Mac App Store via the web. Out of the 20 apps I got on my dock only 2 are from App store.

And I dont think that any of the other apps I have on my dock are even available from app store.