Defold roadmap H2-2018

Roadmap
#10

What about physics improvements?
Where is immediate raycast results? Is it even planned?
Ability to make something like this within same frame is crucial:

  1. Cast some ray. Get raycast hit result with collision object and hit point at (for example) x = 100.
  2. Move collision object towards caster (dx = -10)
  3. Refresh spatial information about collision object.
  4. Cast another ray. Get hit point at x = 90.

Nothing complex here. Physics engine like Chipmunk2D can do this. Box2D probably can do that too.
Defold can’t do that right now. This is makes some games very difficult to implement.

3 Likes
Teaser Fridays and Roadmap talks
#11

We have nothing planned, BUT we are doing experiments with physics improvements. @Mathias_Westerdahl recently played around with joints and constraints in Defold (I think he posted about it somewhere). We also have plans to explore if it’s possible to move Box2D to a native extension.

Also please note that the roadmap listed above isn’t what we will exclusively work on over the course of the next 12 months. There are many other things we will work on, big and small, but at least it gives you an idea of some things to come.

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#12

Looking forward to improve sound engine and more control!

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#13

What @britzl says, not everything is listed here.
For instance, we will at some point add some (currently unplanned) physics improvements such as joint support, physics scaling and also synchronous ray casts. ETA? We’ll see.

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#14

It may seem insignificant, but I am looking forward to the improved undo workflow the most. :heart_eyes:

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#15

This looking really promising and I can say that we are eager to see most/all of listed features!!
EDIT: Removed question about Firebase/Push notification, was already answered here

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#16

I should have made a new forum topic for that but, what about automatically cleaning old versions of Defold ? Every update creates a new 150MB folder in C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\Defold\unpack.

On small SSD it is problematic and I have to regularly clean older ones myself. Is that something you’re aware of ?

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#17

I couldn’t find an issue for this. @mats.gisselson and eriklizzard? @Erik_Angelin

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#18

Think there is a jira issue. Anyhow, we’ll likely look at it when we refine the update mechanism. Maybe @eriklizzard knows more :smile:

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#19

Haha, yeah, maybe he does! :slight_smile:

1 Like
#20

Awesome! Thanks a lot for giving us an updated roadmap. Really useful and interesting to know what what the rough plan is.

Is there a rough idea of which systems this is likely to include? Physics? GUI? Always nice to reduce build size by removing systems that aren’t used at all.

Great! When I started using Defold I was very surprised how lacklustre the current audio functionality is.

My vote is Nintendo Switch :slight_smile:

Suuuper useful thank you.

Good job :muscle:

Very much looking forward to this, local undo is so much more intuitive and useful. Are there plans to also snap the view to where the change occurred? Currently if I’m typing at the bottom of my script and undo something at the top there’s no feedback at all, sometimes I don’t even realise I’ve done it.

From my experience this is absolutely critical to effectively making games in Unity. All of the upvotes.

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#21

+1 This is also mostly what I hope will come with the revision to the undo workflow. I don’t mind the global level undo(which can be useful in some cases), as much as simply not being able to see what was just un-done.

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#22

I am really looking forward to 3D and material improvements! Hopefully that includes features such as being able to define meshes (such as using low poly version of a mesh for collisions) as collision meshes and use dynamically generated meshes for collision.

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#23

Yes, we’re thinking things such as: Webview, IAP, Physics, Spine, Facebook, Push

Yes, the Switch is the most likely first platform to port to.

Yes, this might get fixed soon (before local undo).

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#24

Just making sure you know it’s already possible to remove the physics from the build?

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#25

No I didn’t! It’s possible I’ve already done this and forgotten, but I don’t see a ‘disable’ option in the project settings and can’t think where else to look.

#26

Found this guy, thanks britzl. https://britzl.github.io/manifestation/
Excluding physics, record (didn’t know that existed), profiler and facebook reduced my build size by 119kb. I’ve not ticked the ‘generate build report’ box before, think I know where my build size is coming from now :sweat_smile:

image

Edit: just changed all the .wav files to .ogg (vorbis) and brought the build down from ~60MB to ~8.5 MB :blush: … I’ll stop derailing this thread now!

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#27

Yay, great success! 8.5Mb is a really impressive number. @Oleg_The_Evangelist has been tweeting a lot about the impact of APK size for install numbers.

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#28

let me join @connor.halford in being a derailleur =]


The thread is long, but fun to read. My main take away that in mid 2018 American Reddit users still care about their games’ footprint on device, let alone the download size. We have Live Updates feature in Defold to mitigate the size problem. Recording the video about it next week.

Finally, for Connor and everybody else - here’s a video explaining the App Manifest, a Defold feature that enables your Defold games strip out unused Defold runtime features.

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#29

As for the new platforms, probably the smartest idea is to start with UWP. I mean it’s what windows is/will be using, and you can get access into xbox as an extension.

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