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Could VR use it's own programming language?

Arowx
Explorer
After hearing the Jonathan Blow talk about games having their own programming language, it got me thinking could VR be an ideal candidate for the development of a new programming language.

I think a language that provided features to allow easy multi-threading, across CPU's, GPU's and the Cloud, write shaders, have physics, audio, video, haptics and other features built in making it very easy to write VR experiences/simulations that run extremely fast and can take advantage of the Cloud and CPU/GPU processing.

What features would your ideal VR programming language have?

On a side note could syntax be optional/flexible so people that prefer a syntactical style could choose their own style.
22 REPLIES 22

violin
Honored Guest
Virtual Reality Machine?! :geek:

Is that a PC + Rift, or you add more to it?

Cgpnz
Honored Guest
What we need is an environment formed by a scheme (xml structure) that defines a very wide
capability that is implemented in a very complex engine. You write into this scheme using any
language/editing environment you choose. Such a schema implementation would be design
independent.

Separate this from the overbearing editing enviroment which are closed source corporate gate-wayed.

So the editing environments/implementation engines such as cryengine, ue4, unity, uninge
are too genre design specific. This is why games are stuck in the fps rut with the BFG thingy.

Arowx
Explorer
"Cgpnz" wrote:
What we need is an environment formed by a scheme (xml structure) that defines a very wide
capability that is implemented in a very complex engine. You write into this scheme using any
language/editing environment you choose. Such a schema implementation would be design
independent.

Separate this from the overbearing editing enviroment which are closed source corporate gate-wayed.

So the editing environments/implementation engines such as cryengine, ue4, unity, uninge
are too genre design specific. This is why games are stuck in the fps rut with the BFG thingy.


I would disagree, as XML is a text based data format, so it is slower than binary formats to parse and use. It has already been used by the WWW and really can you imagine what the internet would be like with just static XML and not javascript.

If you would like VR to by static and slow to load, chew through your bandwidth and then depend upon each VR browser (game engines) interpretation of what your XML syntax actually means in 3D.

Ask any mature web developer or games programmer if the VR web should be built with XML and I think the answer will be a simple NO.

But if we make a VRM and a VR language then it can parse the data you send to it any way you want. That's the flexibility of using a language.

And a VRM is not just a game engine it's aim is to be a standard that any VR world can build to that would allow any VR Browser or game engine to run it. Also any game engine can export their games to be played on a VRM and regardless of device or browser anyone can experience that VR product.

erick
Honored Guest
"Cgpnz" wrote:
What we need is an environment formed by a scheme (xml structure) that defines a very wide
capability that is implemented in a very complex engine. You write into this scheme using any
language/editing environment you choose. Such a schema implementation would be design
independent.


I mostly agree with Arowx. That would mean deserializing every game asset when you load an area into memory. Plus it would require a huge amount of additional storage because you're limiting the usable bytes to the available character set while adding a large amount of syntax. Especially for XML; the syntax overhead of XML is one of the reasons JSON was created. You could compress the data but you'd slow performance further. It would really create an unnecessary waste of time and storage. It's far, far more efficient to store data in binary.

However, your suggestion does have merit. It would be nice if there was a open standard export/import format for assets (both 2D and 3D).

"Arowx" wrote:
But if we make a VRM and a VR language then it can parse the data you send to it any way you want. That's the flexibility of using a language.

And a VRM is not just a game engine it's aim is to be a standard that any VR world can build to that would allow any VR Browser or game engine to run it. Also any game engine can export their games to be played on a VRM and regardless of device or browser anyone can experience that VR product.


You aren't even clarifying what a VRM is.

EDIT: I was in a meeting when I replied but now that I'm reading it again, it's sounding more like you're describing basically what I suggested above: an open standard for representing assets. That's not a programming language or anything like a VM environment.

mta
Honored Guest
A library would be useful, as an example recently I created a rift application where an object property needed to change when I looked at it. This involved several methods combining a look object attached to the camera, raytracing and collision to return the object data. This could all be rolled into one method with some target parameters.

bar10dr
Honored Guest
vr++

Instead of integers we could have it represent how deep the rabbit hole goes

Let's do this

Cgpnz
Honored Guest
"Arowx" wrote:


Ask any mature web developer or games programmer if the VR web should be built with XML and I think the answer will be a simple NO.
They would refer you back to what html and AJAX is.

A schema in the form of xml is not necessarily a storage scheme. You can do whatever bit serialisation or indexing you like.

The main point is the open sourcing of such a very wide and diverse schema and the implementation into a back end engine WITHOUT the closed environment of an editor. All the engines have gone down this route hoping to lock their users in. Of course this is a commercial imperative, but so is the open source imperative. And BOY do we need it now. There needs to be such a revolution.

A task: figure out the number of coders employed by the top several engines. You might be surprised as to its low number.
In effect nobody but them do the innovation at large. Yes we have all the indies all doing parallel very old wheel reinvention. As Micheal Abrush said 'anything you come up with has already been done' paraphrasing.

Cgpnz
Honored Guest
"erick" wrote:
the syntax overhead of XML is one of the reasons JSON was created. You could compress the data but you'd slow performance further. It would really create an unnecessary waste of time and storage. It's far, far more efficient to store data in binary.


JSON (javascript object notation) is a serialisation of nested hashes (key/value pairs), a basis of AJAX web interactive.
So yes for data transmission, but we need a flexible schema definition and automated implementation. XML is not the means to define schemas, just that we got a schema defined somewhere.

I got (book and kindle) the fantastic web design book 'Ajax Design Patterns', the best by far of the range of web design guides.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Would not the VRM need to automatically generate a GUI using visual basic, so that it can do dns-queries and traceroutes? Like in CSI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU

violin
Honored Guest
First you tell me that there could be a "Virtual Reality Machine" (whatever that is) and that you think it would be very nice idea to have "byte-code" execution of some new language in a Virtual Machine. Then you claim XML is bad for the web... Come on...

@AxelBernadotte, GUI Interface using Visual Basic is all we need :mrgreen: