Programming: all joy, one horror.

Thanks to Antares Universe, I am programming again. Universe is a visual programming add-on for Unity3D. I have been using it virtually exclusively to program our prototypes and games since several months. Thanks to Universe, I have been able to get my hands dirty again with actually programming, with actually expressing ideas for interaction and procedures in working logic. As opposed to battling with the Javascript syntax checker and hurting my head trying to think of linear text as a way to represent non-linear logic.

When I’m programming in visually, all mistakes I run into are mistakes I have made myself. Logical mistakes, oversights, etc. As opposed to the constant struggle with logistics that is coding in script for me. Universe allows me to get my work done.

And more than that. The way in which a visual programming language lays out the logic, inspires me too be more creative. Looking at some dead text with odd characters is meaningless to me. But seeing the living graph light up while my programming is running gives me ideas.

Bientôt l’été has been entirely programmed visually. Until today.

I decided to have a closer look at the strange hiccups I was hearing in the wonderful music Walter Hus has composed for the game. And sure enough, my Universe graphs were the culprit. In Unity’s profiling tools I noticed regular spikes that were identified as something mysterious called Garbage Collection. When I turn off the graphs, the spiking stops. The average framerate of the game is fine, but the spikes in performance mess up the music.

When I transcribe the visual logic to scripts, the problem does not occur. So the fault is not with my programming. Once again, my creativity is being mangled by engineering flaws. I love computers, I adore what we can make them do. But they’re so sensitive, so weak. The slightest thing that happens out of the ordinary, throws them off. You have to be so terribly careful with them. Careful in a way that only obsessive engineers can be. How am I supposed to make art with this thing?