WebGL / WebAssembly Target for Air

[rewb0rn]

Hello everyone,

with the Flash plugin on the demise, it would be a great solution for Adobe to offer WebGL or WebAssembly as a new target for the Air compiler. There is already a GPU render mode, so I assume in theory this should be doable. We are currently evaluating alternatives to Flash and there must be a lot of companies in the same boat right now. I assume I speak for many companies saying we would be more than happy to pay a subscription fee for an HTML target (similar to what Unity is charging) instead of spending money hiring new developers for HTML or Unity.

I know WebAssembly is still experimental, but if this idea should turn out to be an option for Adobe, there should be some announcements and a roadmap right now, so that we, the web gaming companies, can properly manage our resources and keep focused on the Air platform instead of wasting money by reimplementing everything.

Please, take our money.

Thanks

[Colin Holgate]

You may be mixing up some things. AIR isn't involved in creating Flash plugin content, AIR is for compiling to native apps on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. It also wouldn't be needed for creating WebGL content.

If you are using Adobe Animate as the authoring tool for AIR content, you can take the same FLA and convert it to either HTML5 Canvas, or HTML5 WebGL 2D. Any code you have done would need to be reworked in Javascript, but at the end you have the same export to HTML5 that Unity gives. Really though it's better in some ways. Unity uses Emscripten to convert the engine C code into Javascript, whereas in Animate you're working directly with Javascript, no need for the overhead of Emscripten.

[User_Unknow]

Colin, you partially right. But your words in most cases can be applied to simplest games like interactive banners.

When I press Publish HTML5 in Unity3D - I can get the same (with limitations) result as Unity3D Web Player target do. Also I can publish iOS/Android and etc... And in 99% anyone don't care about performance and overheating of JS because huge content anyone don't want to run in the Web. But small games like you can play in Flash - people want to do and want to play.

So AIR at this time can be used just for standalone (Where Unity3D and UE4 is leading). If it can be used for Web as HTML5 target with the same codebase (like FlexJS can offer) ...

[rewb0rn]

Yes, what Anton said. Also obviously we do not want to create a new project and write Javascript code in Animate. Instead we want a compiler target from AS3 to WebGL / WebAssembly for existing codebases, just like you could export your Flash project to mobile with the Air compiler.

Limitiations are fine, we would have the same limitations in other technologies as well, and maybe WebAssembly would allow feature parity at some point.

[User_Unknow]

I think anyone can agree that HTML5 output can use SharedObject (AS3) and be compiled to LocalStorage (JavaScript). FileReference can be removed or also compilted to JS alternative.

But if we must use JS for web and AS3 for standalone - in this case better to use something another like Haxe where we can use Haxe for anything (SWF, HTML5, Native).

[Frédéric C.]

I would love to see this implemented.For example, to be able to publish a limited web demo of my mobile AIR apps. Right now I can do that with Flash, but it doesn't run on mobile devices as it isn't well supported by mobile browsers.

[rewb0rn]

I created a feature request in the Adobe bugbase to add HTML (WebGL / WebAssembly) as a target for the Air compiler. Please vote and share if you would like to see this:

Feature#4178275 - HTML Target for Air (WebGL / WebAssembly)

[gperry91]

A WebGL/WebAssembly target for AIR would be an absolute game changer.

[rewb0rn]

Hello,

now that a couple of people have voted for this feature, is there any chance to get a comment from Adobe? Is there a chance that this will be looked into, or do you not expect this to be explored in the forseeable future?

Thanks,

Ruben

[totallyNoobular]

+1 for web assembly compiler if that is possible.

[piotrk92086443]

There is a project Shumway .  Currently is not under development, but it is open source right now.

Shumway is enough mature to run games written in Flash/AS3.

I see no reason to do AIR compilation to WebGL/JavaScript.  It will be not compatible on many browsers.  This is same idea to write Java compilation to JavaScript.

We should use advantage of Adobe AIR that is ported to many platforms.  Remember that AIR is rather like JRE then Unity3D that has many languages and compilation to native platforms (accurate to Mono VM on most of platforms).

[User_Unknow]

I see no reason to do AIR compilation to WebGL/JavaScript.  It will be not compatible on many browsers.  This is same idea to write Java compilation to JavaScript.

Just check LibGDX

[piotrk92086443]

Just check LibGDX

I'm not sure about LibGDX in comparison to Adobe AIR, Unity3D or Unreal Engine.

You should also consider that Adobe AIR has more features than HTML5/WebGL, and also as I mentioned before HTML5 has many implementations.

[User_Unknow]

I can compare LibGDX only with AIR because they booth great for 2D. But LibGDX have HTML5 output.

Most all cases that covers AIR - It's games. Flash is gr8 but undesirable (read as not supported) technology today. But not AIR.

Main problem "here" is that some ppl not willing to hear another I saying that Flash is great but not usable today. Someone said that HTML5 offers less functionality. Damn Yes. But better have 5 features and be supported everywhere than have 25 features and works only for a few user.

Flash games is deprecated. But not HTML5. If AIR can be published to HTML5 as Unity/UE4/LibGDX - this mean that Flash ca n be alive again. Most Flash developers don't care about video stream supporting. They want develop products that can play mp3/mp4, display and move images.

[piotrk92086443]

Writing MXML/AS3 compiler to HTML5/WebGL is a huge challenge.

IMHO better option is to write layer from AIR to Unity3D.  Unity3D as technology to compile application for many platforms including WebGL, PS4, XBOX and a lot of more.

AIR for Unity3D has to stages:

1) AS3 as sugar syntax for Unity3D Typescript / C#

2) porting AS3/Flash/Flex/Spark/etc frameworks to new platform

[User_Unknow]

In this case you can use haxe or develop directly on Unity

Суббота, 5 ноября 2016, 16:57 +03:00 от piotrk92086443 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>:

>WebGL / WebAssembly Target for Air created by piotrk92086443 in AIR Development - View the full discussion

[piotrk92086443]

In this case you can use haxe or develop directly on Unity

Yes, but we've talk about AS3, and it is not a wrong idea, because of many developers and many toolkits developed for Flash.

I believe that it is possible to do similar cross-compilation as with haxe.  Flash/AS3/Flex/Starling library ported to Unity3D, you can develop AS3 society.

[piotrk92086443]

Flash games is deprecated. But not HTML5.

Have you checked Shumway  ?  It is possible to run Flash games in that.  Project is closed but open sourced - so sky is the limit.

[User_Unknow]

Do you work with end-user? They want to open web firefox/chrome and press play without installing any additional software. On mobile also.

Суббота, 5 ноября 2016, 17:02 +03:00 от piotrk92086443 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>:

>WebGL / WebAssembly Target for Air created by piotrk92086443 in AIR Development - View the full discussion

[piotrk92086443]

Do you work with end-user? They want to open web firefox/chrome and press play without installing any additional software. On mobile also.

They want also cure for cancer and aids and food for free for all.... 

Web apps is different kind of story, many limitations connected with security model sandbox, problem even with fullscreen support, many browsers, etc...

[User_Unknow]

Sure I talk only about GAMES. Because Flash for web apps nowadays is dead. I know this well because I developed huge amount apps for salesforce. Nowadays they switched to JS because it's opensources and works everywhere.

[piotrk92086443]

You gave some quite nice direction - OpenFL (Open Flash) + haXe + Unity3D

OpenFL - Creative expression for desktop, mobile, web and console platforms

It is small step to do true cross-compilation from AS3 to Unity3D as a bridge to WebGL.

It is also possible that kind of project could be supported by Adobe like Apache flexJS.

Open source is not always desirable solution.  When you work as freelancer of software house it depends if client buy "solution" (product without source code) or all project with license for code development.  In case of JavaScript it is problem to distinguish solution and full project with code.  Of course not in case of agreement.  Many times our clients wanted to cut the price and order only solution in html5 technology and they assumed after that they can change the code anytime. Unity3D export to HTML5/WebGL JS assembler is nice solution.

"Flash for web apps is dead" -  I can agree with that.  The same is with almost with JRE in comparison to JS apps.

You have still huge library of components for Flash, Adobe Animate and other tools that you can use it.  For me AIR is a VM for cross-platform development for mobile.  Easy and rapid development.  I wrote the rest.  AS3->Unity3D->WebGL could be useful project.

[piotrk92086443]

Check this:

GitHub - openfl/swf: Support for SWF assets