HaxeFlixel website

[Chris D]

We have made a website live for the HaxeFlixel 2D game engine www.haxeflixel.com

It was ported largely by Alexander (Beeblerox), from the popular As3 Flixel 2D game library to NME.

A big improvement over the as3 version is the use of drawTiles for cpp targets and of course it uses a far superior language ;)

The game engine itself is in quite a usable state and some impressive demos are available to play with and test http://haxeflixel.com/demos more https://github.com/Beeblerox/HaxeFlixelDemoes

Big thanks to Haxe community to making this possible.

[Cambiata]

Great addition to the Haxe eco system!

Maybe the following could be highlighted on the front page:
- Haxe, like as3 but far superior - for people not knowing Haxe
- Explicitly mention the target platforms (flash, js, cpp, ... ) - for people not knowing NME

/ Jonas

[impaler]

Thanks Jonas that's worth a thought.

I am planning on redoing the homepage and putting a showcase section as well, there is a small list of games made forming.

[Chris D]

I added your suggestions along with a bunch of others cheers, I linked to http://ncannasse.fr/blog/haxe_comparison_chart for the comment about as3

[Tarwin Stroh-Spijer]

Again, amazing work! Have you posted much about it on the official Flixel forums etc? Have you talked to Adam Saltsman about it? I know he was very interested in haxe a few years ago and was just waiting for someone to make a good port that would do iPhone etc. Maybe they would even link on the actual site?

Tarwin Stroh-Spijer
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[Malek]

That's pretty cool :)

One thing I never seem to quite get though, is is NME really suited to Flash development ? I've read (or misread) everything and the opposite about this. I had more or less reached a temp conclusion that if you want to use Flash on desktop browser, NME is not suited for you currently.

Am I correct ? I mean, compared to other solutions.
Thanks.

[j...@justinfront.net]

I have found that NME is not as easy to install as haxe on some systems, on Windows it is often the best way.  I do not see it offers any advantage when working with pure flash, infact largely because of the required complexity of NME it adds additional sources of error for new users of haxe and is not supported by as many IDE.  So in general I think if you just want to code for flash Target since NME largely does noting to the flash code in these cases, you should avoid it's use entirely since you will be then more free to use haxe svn / or not and you will not be reliant on the current NME installer.  When targeting flash, NME is an irrelevancy and only there mainly, so you can easily switch to flash for quick testing of a C++ target.  So, really if you use NME when creating flash it is somewhat irrelevant, there maybe a few features that NME has built in, but I suspect none that you can't easily replicate.

But for a user like you Malek it really does not matter if your using NME or not when creating haxe flash and likely like me you will switch depending on specific factors, if you want to later move to cross platform having it setup will allow you to watch your code for areas where compatibility will later be a problem.  It seems there is a lot of confusion about NME and it is fustrating when users come to IRC wanting to use it to do flash but need us to fix NME specific issues, so to clarify.... it is only there to provide a basic replication of flash approaches on other targets, nothing more. At doing this it does really well but flash is not ideal to copy in it's entirety anyway.  But you must know all this right?

;j

[Malek]

Thanks a bunch, that's the most detailed and to the point information I've read so far. I pretty much figured that NME is interesting when you want to target mobile platforms in particular, but the fact that it is presented as an active game framework for Haxe that leverages the GPU made me think about it as an alternative to current AS3 Stage3D frameworks. It took me a while to half-conclude that it was possibly a wrong assumption at least for desktop browsers.

Now I'll probably know much more clearly when it will be time for me to try NME out. Anyway I'm quite happy to see gaming libraries such as Flixel ported to Haxe NME, it's a sign of healthiness :)

[j...@justinfront.net]

There is stuff like drawTile or something for sprite sheets but its fast on NME and slow on Flash, but not sure NME has any starling support.

Some frameworks/stuff that work on NME that maybe interesting...

I am yet to be convinced on awe6 since its quite inheritance based, but suspect it has lots of goodness, just more of a composite coder myself.

http://code.google.com/p/awe6/

Flint is cool, met the guy who created it in AS3, not easy to use to full extent but loads of demos to copy and paste, but very very powerful, I tried using the haxe port maybe a month before it was ready, so it crashes after a few sec but hopefully fixed now?

http://code.google.com/p/flinthx/

Sandy3D ... I thought you were the dev from that? Works on NME but needs some small changes and most of the loading parsing is flash specific so broken, struggling getting my extrusions working any help welcome.

http://code.google.com/p/sandy/

Waxe for file stuff ( and wigets? ) , need to explore more ( but not work in flash so rem #flash ).

http://code.google.com/p/waxe/

Physaxe and hx3d good but I think Nape is preferred now for physics and hx3d is a bit broken with recent code, sandy is more complete and easier to get working.  But maybe good places to understand good haxe coding.

Nape some physics stuff, i think there is simpler Ape around but needs fixing to use on NME.

http://code.google.com/p/nape/

Polygonal - data structure genius, and pathfinding loveliness.

http://lab.polygonal.de/

Back2dos macro wizardry + tweens

https://github.com/back2dos/tinkerbell/wiki

Probably a lot more that I forget but these are not a bad start and ones I should spend more time with.

Best

Justin

On 5 Dec 2012, at 00:43, Malek wrote:

Thanks a bunch, that's the most detailed and to the point information I've read so far. I pretty much figured that NME is interesting when you want to target mobile platforms in particular, but the fact that it is presented as an active game framework for Haxe that leverages the GPU made me think about it as an alternative to current AS3 Stage3D frameworks. It took me a while to half-conclude that it was possibly a wrong assumption at least for desktop browsers.

Now I'll probably know much more clearly when it will be time for me to try NME out. Anyway I'm quite happy to see gaming libraries such as Flixel ported to Haxe NME, it's a sign of healthiness :)

[Tony Polinelli]

Well, NME follows the flash API (largely) - but adds the ability to target a lot of places that you cant run flash (mobile). Its benefits vs desktop flash are debatable, as it really depends what you are doing. Flash probably still does some thing (Vector rendering, Video) better - and if these are what you're wanting, and you are just targeting desktop - then it makes sense to just simply target SWF. If you need other features, or crossplatform, then look to NME

On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Malek <male...@gmail.com> wrote:

gam

--
Tony Polinelli
http://touchmypixel.com

[Tarwin Stroh-Spijer]

I think if you want to optimize for the Flash platform, then you can do this easier if you only target Flash using the pure Flash API. But that's not really rocket science eh ?

Tarwin Stroh-Spijer
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Touch My Pixel
http://www.touchmypixel.com/
cell: +1 650 842 0920
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[Raoul Duke]

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 5:29 PM, Tarwin Stroh-Spijer
<tar...@touchmypixel.com> wrote:
> I think if you want to optimize for the Flash platform, then you can do this
> easier if you only target Flash using the pure Flash API. But that's not
> really rocket science eh ?

no, but i think it is surprising when NME goes to all these lengths to
smell like Flash, and then in the end the secret thing is that it
doesn't even have even remotely the same performance profile. all for
reasons that sorta make sense in retrospect, but still, it feels like
being led down a garden path.

[Chris D]

I think you guys are forgetting to mention one key advantage with using NME over flash. That is Haxe language itself, for obvious reasons.

"the secret thing is that it doesn't even have even remotely the same performance profile"

@Raoul Duke I would like to see this statement backed up I have not seen such a performance issue that would deserve that statement?

All in all I wouldn't recommend NME, HaxeFlixel or whatever for every type of game or every type of developer.

JLM is wise in saying "you will switch depending on specific factors".

Going back to Haxeflixel the current features and the api (although heavily opinionated) are often found to be very appealing to make most kinds of 2d games quickly and easily. The endless as3 games made with flixel proove this.

Now thanks to nme they get the wonderful drawtiles implementation for cpp which is much more appealing than the Adobe Air alternative.

[Raoul Duke]

> "the secret thing is that it doesn't even have even remotely the same
> performance profile"
> @Raoul Duke I would like to see this statement backed up I have not seen
> such a performance issue that would deserve that statement?

er, didn't it even come up in this thread? flash vs. nme in terms of
e.g. vectors vs. drawTiles, because flash is historically a software
renderer whereas nme is opengl(es) on gpus, no?

[Rob Fell]

@Justin my good sir, re comments that awe6 is inheritance based ... it is interface based, and was designed as a Composition / Entity framework.

A multi target implementation of that interface is also provided within the library so users can Extend the core package if they wish (but they don't have to) :)

Current demos and templates are geared around awe6.core (swf target) for practical purposes, which may be misleading in isolation?  But really the crunch is in the awe6.interfaces package.

[Nicolas Cannasse]

[..]

> Now thanks to nme they get the wonderful drawtiles implementation for
> cpp which is much more appealing than the Adobe Air alternative.

Would be great to have actual benchmarks comparing HaxeFlixel speed on
mobile versus the corresponding AS3+Flixel+AIR version, and show them on
the front page :)

Best,
Nicolas

[Chris D]

Good idea, that should prove to help the point. Besides its been a while since I wrote any as3 thanks to you Nicolas ;)