Cube Designer tool ( Facebook Instant Game )

[will]

Hi @Mal_Duffin. Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond to this. But I wanted to have a chance to actually make some progress on things before coming back to you. OK, let’s go:

@Mal_Duffin

( mainly due to not having visual access to the hierarchy in an imported FBX )

It’s on our roadmap for this year.

@Mal_Duffin

( most of which seem to get ignored )

I’m sorry it has seemed that way to you. I had the team prioritize and fix the particle bug that was affecting you. Actually, the overhaul of the particle system we deployed today just allowed me to close 8 particle-related issues on GitHub which is really cool.

@Mal_Duffin

The PlayCanvas development team need to have a more visible presence in these forums

We’re on the forum perhaps a little more than you realize but yes, spending more time would be good. We try our best to balance development vs support activities - I wish there was more time in the day!

@Mal_Duffin

Yaustar does an excellent job, as do some other developers

I absolutely second this!

@Mal_Duffin

( or hire a support engineer )

Already on it! Stay tuned.

@Mal_Duffin

Have an actual Bugs category

Could do that, yeah. But the forum isn’t a great bug tracker. When we read about bugs on here, we either redirect the reporter to GitHub (if it’s regarding the engine) or we create an issue on our internal bug tracker if it’s about the Editor. We’ll consider creating a new category though.

@Mal_Duffin

Take a few days out to update a number of the larger demos that were created by PlayCanvas for showcasing ( eg Swoop Tanx ) to use the current version ( they are currently Legacy, so can’t really be used as examples for new users )

I have spent the last few weekends updating the original Seemore demo (which is now broken) to the latest version of PlayCanvas. It’s taken a huge amount of my personal time but it’s been fun (and challenging). It’s a very complex demo indeed. I’m in talks with ARM at the moment about open sourcing it when it’s ready.

But yes, generally, I’m all for updating demos to the latest engine version and keeping them working. If you have any requests beyond SWOOOP, let me know. BTW, the TANX project still works fine. But the server bust a while back. I’m trying to allocate some time to get that repaired too because IMHO, it’s an awesome game! Plus a great example of what PlayCanvas is capable of!

@Mal_Duffin

Maybe have an AMA every few so often, to help increase customer engagement?

How would we run that? Is that normally done on Reddit? Or should it just be a forum thread. I mean, I would hope any PlayCanvas user could ask us anything at any time on the forum!

@Mal_Duffin

Fix the issue with playcanv.as/p/… breaking on iOS ( having to use the /e/p workaround )

Fixed today!

@Mal_Duffin

I also recently gave a one day PlayCanvas course about a month ago to about 10 artists, one of the first things I do is show how quickly users can publish their content and see it on their mobile phones.

Awesome!

@Mal_Duffin

having to explain that this was currently broken, was reported, and would hopefully be fixed soon, is a step I’d rather not have to add

Once again, sorry about that, but hey, at least it’s fixed now.

@Mal_Duffin

Update the WebVR polyfill - quite a few people have asked for this, and have reported issues with the camera shaking ( due to radians / degrees change ) in Chrome.

We’re working on adding the ability to add any JS framework to your project and have it load as soon as the page loads. This will allow us to stop adding the WebVR polyfill ‘internally’ and instead allow you to drop in whichever one you want. This should resolve this problem. Stay tuned.

@Mal_Duffin

This is a great example actually of many devs reporting an issue and asking for a fix, and it being seemingly ignored by the PlayCanvas developers

I think the key word here is seemingly. I know I read these requests and I genuinely feel bad when I can’t jump on them immediately. I care a great deal about problems being faced by PlayCanvas developers. But in this particular case, there should be a workable solution coming soon.

@Mal_Duffin

Just to wrap up on the original question about writing a tutorial - a) I’m not sure if I’m doing it the right way, I want to try a few different methods to strealine the process, b) Up until now, four days game development takes me a month, due to trying to work around bugs etc, so I don’t have any spare time. c) It would totally make sense for one of your team to spend time doing this. If a tutorial had existed, it would have saved me about 8 days ( two months for me ).

No worries. I just often try to encourage developers to contribute to the open source aspect of what we do. We’ve had some incredible contributions over the years and I hope that continues to accelerate. But people shouldn’t feel obligated to do so, of course. It’s just cool that you spend time making stuff with PlayCanvas in the first place!

@Mal_Duffin

Hope that all makes sense. Basically, take your good product and make it a great product. Also, the customer isn’t always right, but if enough of them are pointing out some issues, then maybe they aren’t wrong

Thanks so much for taking the time to send us your thoughts on PlayCanvas. I really appreciate it. And I hope this response goes some way to proving it.