playMaker

Author Topic: Performance by Default  (Read 4212 times)

realrobo

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Performance by Default
« on: April 04, 2018, 05:26:17 PM »
Hello,
I have been watching a lot of keynotes and videos from Unity at GDC 2018.  One of the biggest push from Unity for the next several iterations seem to be all about performance, and I've watched number of presentations regarding C# jobs system,  ECS, Burst Compiler, etc.  It was exciting to see Unity being able to push 10s of thousands of characters and particles and AI objects, even on lower end devices. 

Now while I am trying to slowly digest how to utilize them in C#, I was also wondering how/if these would effects the future roadmap of Playmaker.  So I figured I should ask here.  Would Playmaker have any plan to take advantage of Jobs system / ECS / Burst compiler in the future? 

Thank you in advance.


« Last Edit: April 04, 2018, 05:31:54 PM by realrobo »

Windom

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Re: Performance by Default
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2018, 09:45:54 AM »
That's a great question, Realrobo. I noticed that too about Unity and the presentations that they had. I think that's a great goal tbh. I hope they can deliver.

Fat Pug Studio

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Re: Performance by Default
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2018, 12:29:53 PM »
Can't wait for that new compiler, supposedly the acceleration will be somewhere between 5 and 20 times.
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jeanfabre

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Re: Performance by Default
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2018, 02:11:11 AM »
Hi,

 yeah, Exciting times indeed! Unity certainly never fail to improve and impress us.

PlayMaker relies on the regular Unity GameObject/Component based approach, going for ECS means a total revamp and rethink on how visual definition of your code and logic can be made. All solutions that attempted it failed so far, because likely too early and too soon for the majority of developers, the closest, most impressive visual ECS I know of is:

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/47548

So, it is possible and there is a open source solution for this, and I am pretty sure there would be ways to port this to use the Unity own ECS ( it was created well before Unity publicly jumped on the ECS wagon).

As for PlayMaker, It will be likely a totally different solution to be created from the ground up, so Hutonggames could definitly provide an asset for this, but it would likely be "PlayMaker ECS", or another name.

Bye,

 Jean

realrobo

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Re: Performance by Default
« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2018, 07:47:10 PM »
Thank you for your insight on this matter, Jean.
Yeah I thought it's little too early for a proper solution yet.  I mean unity's own engine itself barely started converting to ECS bits by bits, so, and I assume there will be some maturation time at the least for this year.

As a loyal user, I do love the Playmaker, and was just curious if there was any ECS use on the roadmap of Playmaker.  I love playmaker, and how fast I can get things done.  It's definitely not a typical visual scripting, as I found out by trying out practically all others as well.  Even when I learned of C#, I still fall back on Playmaker.  After all, my background is more on the creative art side, so playmaker's visual  behavior designing like interface is perfect for me to create and debug.

In all honesty, I would actually welcome a new Playmaker from ground up, using ECS for the performance, but similar conceptual workflow.  I'll be one of the first to buy it.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2018, 02:34:42 PM by realrobo »

jeanfabre

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Re: Performance by Default
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2018, 08:04:44 AM »
Hi,

 yep, I would too. I actually tried hard to give uFrame a go, but it was too early, and I did not feel it would last, and it proved not to...

 With Unity taking ECS on board, that's now a different deal. Exitgames is also embracing ECS with its Quantum solution, and it starts to make more and more sense.

I would be the first one to use a PlayMaker ECS solution too :) however, one need to be very careful and weight the pros and cons of using ECS over Component based programming. the level of complexity and ALL the goodness you loose when move to ECS may not worth it for the performance gain you would get for 90% of your projects.

 Really, we have seen what Unity is capable of doing and it's mind blowing already. Yes, the next generation of AAA games are going to be all ECS, but really, do we, mere mortel also need to suffer all the downsides because of this ? I really don't think so. Are all our favorite tools will move instantly to ECS on the asset store? I very much doubt it. I'll be using Unity component based system for a very long time, this is a guarantee as far as I am concern, and will only get into ECS when I really need to do a highly effective part of a project.

Basically, it depends how well Unity integrate ECS for a intuitive workflow, and how well a potential PlayMaker ECS would also bring that extra level of intuitiveness for non coders.


Bye,

 Jean