vcam rant

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Never has there been a more talked about user made component to flash than the vcam. And yet, while it is useful, why do people think it is the only solution to everyone's problems? ESPECIALLY programmers? I really recomend it for animators with no programming expierence, just cause it makes animating easier.

But the truth is, it's an animation tool. I really don't think it should be used in games. It's the equivalent of taking a platforming engine off the internet then modifying it to your needs. Making your own camera is not only more efficient, but easier to customize.

Think about it. I've seen people claim that the vcam reduces lag, but that's just purely illogical. If anything, it is more laggy than making your own camera class. The vcam has to calculate zooming and all that junk when it is moving about, which is a very complicated equation (trust me, I know cause I had to figure it out myself when making supersoldier. So many numbers and variables involved it isnt funny). If you dont need zooming or anything, just make your own camera that doesnt encorporate those unnecessary processor consuming actions into it.

And let's face it, by the time you actually use zooming in a game you should be advanced enough to figure it out yourself.

It's not you're engine, and you have the capabilities to recreate it yourself, so why not do it that way you can say without any guilt that the engine is 100% yours, not 99% cause of that one small component you used to cut down production time by 15 minutes.

Unless your are an animator I see no need to use the vcam. Just simply make a camera class, then you dont even have a movieclip to keep track of and worry about.

[Johnny]

Because in that 15 minutes it saved me, I was able to get 15 more minutes of Guitar Hero in. I consider it just another aspect of modular programming. Its a componant or class that speeds up the time it takes. I use it for animating too, so I'm familiar with it and I'm comfortable with it. I have, however... modified it a bit, to get rid of some of the useless crap and make it to accept an interface of my chosing.

Time is money and it saved me time.

Found my lag problem too. 2 setIntervals, one running every 4ms and one running every 6ms == bad news. Fixed.

[RiftMaster]

I've never been a fan of using components made by other people in my own projects. I like to do everything from scratch (of course I'll re-use some code from previous projects). But then I'm a fucking ego-maniac.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 9/27/06 05:39 PM, Johnny wrote: Because in that 15 minutes it saved me, I was able to get 15 more minutes of Guitar Hero in.

so why not then use a whole ton of opensource engines to make your game? You could get the same result in about 15 minutes of work

[Johnny]

At 9/27/06 05:43 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: so why not then use a whole ton of opensource engines to make your game? You could get the same result in about 15 minutes of work

Because in most cases, it would take longer to modify the code to do exactly what I want it to do, bug free... with a shitload frustration than it would to create something from scratch.

Consider these two cases:

CASE 1. I know exactly what I want in the game. I know how it's going to work, what the functions, classes and variables are going to do and where they're going to be stored. I know how the engine should react and what problems could arise. I know it's going to take me 8 weeks to program this engine from scratch, but I already have all the knowledge needed to do so.

CASE 2. I know exactly what I want in the game. I already have all the knowledge need to program the engine. Someone has already done the work for me and it will take me 1/10th the time to get the same exact result.

I'd go with case 2.

Of course, that's a bit extreme... but it can be applied to the v-cam.

I can program a camera.... I know I can, and it'll take me about 30 minutes to get it the way I want. I can plug the v-cam in and modify it in 5. Why would I waste the other 25 minutes?

If it's something I DON'T know how to do, its a different story. Then, it's all hand programming from scratch with a notebook filled with flowcharts, notes and doodles.

Bottom line... If you know how to do something, (which means you're not learning anything new) but all the work has already been done for you... why waste time?

It's the same as darkness's jumping engine. Sure, I can create one on my own in about an hour. I can create one with his engine in 3 minutes and it's going to function exactly the same.

That's what the v-cam is to me.

Its just so damned easy and I get damned near the same results.

[23450]

can i make my own camera? no. your saying that means i dont "deserve" to use another persons cam, and which by the way was origonaly built for other people to use.

sometimes you give some good points, but i have to say your wrong about everything here.

honestly, i dont feel like argueing, there is no way your going to convince me that me and hundreds of others should not be able to use the v-cam because were not as skilled as you and a select few.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 9/27/06 05:52 PM, Johnny wrote: Bottom line... If you know how to do something, (which means you're not learning anything new) but all the work has already been done for you... why waste time?

It's practice. If you don't do a certain type of engine for a while, then when you go to do it again from scratch you'll forget how. If you go into a different language, you'll be at a loss.

In the end, if you need to customize something it's much easier to do with your own engine. I'm betting that it took you a little while to understand the vcam's code before you were able to modify it. Why not just make what you want from the start and then reuse your own engine?

I mean like, if you want to remake Mario, it's already been programmed. Same with pac man. It says more about the programmer if they are able to work these problems out themselves. For practice even. Sure, i know how to make a jumping engine. However i usually remake from scratch it for every project because it's good practice. I find new ways to optimise the engine and get it that much closer to perfection every time i remake it. Look at aqua slug. I could have easily used my supersoldier engine for that, but did I? No. Instead I made a new one using knowledge I had from supersoldier, and it came out pretty much bugless.

Someone can say the vcam is perfect, but what if you want to do parallax? Or rotation? Or various other effects? You can't. Yes you can program them in, but it takes just as much time to do that as it does to make your own camera class, and you'd be rewriting code which is already present in the vcam.

[23450]

At 9/27/06 06:03 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: Someone can say the vcam is perfect, but what if you want to do parallax? Or rotation? Or various other effects?

this camera includes rotation, blurs, and various other effects.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 9/27/06 05:57 PM, 23450 wrote: can i make my own camera? no. your saying that means i dont "deserve" to use another persons cam, and which by the way was origonaly built for other people to use.

no i was saying that if you can make one yourself then you shouldnt use the vcam.

And if you are a programmer (NOT AN ANIMATOR), then you should learn how to make a camera.

Animators go ahead and use it, just programmers should learn how to make one and then use that one for their projects

[Mogly]

At 9/27/06 05:52 PM, Johnny wrote: stuff

Glaiels question still stands after that, if it's already done, why redo it? Why not just steal it.

I think it may come down to it being open to people.. for example it's flaunted about on this forums and everything, everyone knows it and is using it, so you might aswell too. Game scripts aren't out there and open, so that feels a bit more seedy.

Also, it's an add on rather than being the core thing, therefore you don't deem it as being so important.

I'm not to sure, all above speaking theoretically and from the point of an ASer, even though i'm not.

[Johnny]

Oh, I agree with a lot of that... to a point.

Sometimes, it's redundant to re-write the code over and over again, especially if the person doesn't have enough time to begin with. For example, I created a hitTest function for practice that takes some parameters and tests them just so that I never had to type..

if(blah.hitTest(blah)){
//blah blah
}

Ever again...and I use it constantly.

The vCam isn't perfect for every situation... but for some, it is. I think if something will work better, use that instead. If the vcam will work fine... use it.

People like me, for example put "Game design" above "programming." Sure, I can and do program damned near everything I do... but in the end, when people play my game, they're going to say "Cool game" not "Christ, he's using a v-cam" and that's what's important to me.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 9/27/06 06:09 PM, Mogly wrote: Also, it's an add on rather than being the core thing, therefore you don't deem it as being so important.

ay but every little thing counts.

At 9/27/06 06:06 PM, 23450 wrote:

At 9/27/06 06:03 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: Someone can say the vcam is perfect, but what if you want to do parallax? Or rotation? Or various other effects?

this camera includes rotation, blurs, and various other effects.

yes, but camerawise rotation is far more laggy than other methods of rotation which require a bunch of nested movieclips.

The simple way is not always the best way.

[ZekeySpaceyLizard]

People use the VCAM in games?
wtflol.

That tool's for animation. It just shits things up in games.

[23450]

At 9/27/06 06:13 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: yes, but camerawise rotation is far more laggy than other methods of rotation which require a bunch of nested movieclips.

The simple way is not always the best way.

if it was a graphically intense game and i needed to spare every little bit of processing power i could, then yah, but otherwise i would not see it as a hinderance.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 9/27/06 06:16 PM, 23450 wrote: if it was a graphically intense game and i needed to spare every little bit of processing power i could, then yah, but otherwise i would not see it as a hinderance.

actually speed and lagginess is a very large problem in most games, and i'm willing to bet any game that needs a rotating camera will be highly complex and laggy even without the camera.

[Mogly]

Bumping this because I think it's quite an intresting little discussion.

[Paranoia]

At 9/27/06 05:31 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: ..that one small component you used to cut down production time by 15 minutes.

That's an exaggeration. The first time I tried to do a scrolling thing it took about 10 minutes to work out from having no clue at all. Each time after that toom one or two to add in or even adapt the code I'd already worked out.

Anyway, you're not the only person pissed off by the whole V-Cam hype. Even for animators it's not the only way to do things; for coders it's just another version of copy/paste coding. There's no satisfaction or benefit for you as a coder.

[Johnny]

Here's a question from everyone who says that using the vcam is just like cutting and pasting someone elses code...

Which of you here has NEVER known how to do something, researched it a hair... found a small snipped on a website, copied, pasted and modified it a bit?

Or knew how to do something and used something you already have and pasted it.

I think the joy in programming comes in figuring out the logic of the engine and getting it to work, bug free. A camera, to me is a componant. It's like a scrollbar. If the scrollbar works fine for what I need it for, I'm not going to reinvent the damned thing.

Even for something like determining frame rate. I copied a code a year ago that was plug and play to determine the frame rate for testing.

Why would I write my own? I know how it works. I understand the logic and syntax... but I don't have to waste anytime writing something that's probably going to be exactly like, line by line, the thing I'm already using.

Anything that speeds up the process is positive in my book. I get to program MAYBE 5 hours a week, with work, college, girlfriend and fixing up my house full time. If something can save me 20 minutes and allow me to actual finish a project on time, I'm in its corner.

Am I going to use the vcam forever? Probably not. Am I going to end up scripting my own because the vcam doesn't do exactly what I need it to for a chosen application... most likely. Has that happened yet? Nope. Until then, the few minutes I have to program every day is better spent figuring out some logic behind a function or debugging my game then redoing something that works fine for what I need it for.

Just think of it as a componant. It's a scrollbar or text box. Someone had to program those and by using it, you're basically cutting/pasting their code for something you can program yourself. Some of us have created our own componants... most of us though, have used those componants without seeing anything wrong with them, even though we're more than capable of programming our own.

It's not an engine....
It's not a game...
Its just a silly componant that saves us time.

If you want something custom... yeah... it would be good to create your own.