I Tried to Make Star Wars Battlefront II in JavaScript

[@simondev758]

Help support me: www.patreon.com/simondevyt

[@herewardthewake5433]

Where did you get that space HDRI/cubemap?

[@pechgehabt8355]

no thanks

[@n8programs733]

Your use of shaders is so spectacular. You do all this advanced texturing and noise without any node-based programming or other GUIs.

[@n8dev]

wowowoowowow

[@blackcitadel37]

As they say, knowledge is power.

[@aceman0000099]

It's not much of a leap to go from node programming to code, if you're not dyslexic

[@alyctro8158]

This straight looks like the oldschool battlefront game, amazing. Take me back to the glory days Simon.

[@julianstorm7722]

One of the most inspirational channels on this topic - if not the only one. Thanks for your work Edit: You might not consider yourself an artist but this is definitely a piece of art. Cheers

[@Cal97g]

Any similar channels?

[@Bluepaccao]

Sebastian Lague is great!

[@almostthere6116]

Sometimes it isn't if you can, it's if you should, but you have my support anyway.

[@simondev758]

So keep doing everything in js is what I'm hearing?

[@Soremwar]

In today's world where you can write the more demanding parts in C++/Rust and the rest of it in JS/typed JS why wouldn't you?

[@jimmychoong3014]

Learner here trying to understand- is there a reason why it shouldn't be done? Performance related reason?

[@simondev758]

@@jimmychoong3014 Historically JS has been a slow language, that's been turning around a lot thanks to work from teams like the V8 team. As mentioned, you can develop parts in other languages (like Rust/C++), or just do the whole thing in JS, or just use Unity at this point. Everything has it's tradeoffs. JS tends to be easier and more forgiving than something like C++, although not as performant. See one of my last videos for a bit of a comparison. If you're interested in my background, I was a game developer for about 10 years, often led optimization on major titles, and was hired at Google for optimization, all C++. These videos are fun because they break the mould a bit, showing that complex games can be built without much trouble in languages you thought weren't capable of it. Ultimately it's up to you to decide what tradeoffs you're willing to live with.

[@Merthalophor]

@@simondev758 JS has one thing going for it that the others don't: It's going to be huge. I think it's pretty plausible that web technology are going to take over 99% of graphical applications. The industry as a whole is moving away from local workstations, and towards cloud based applications that work 100% in the browser. MS Office will become browser based. VS Code runs in Chromium. Discord rund in Chromium. Slack runs in Chromium. Three.js ist just the start of 3d, there will be more & better tools. WASM will bring performant code & a diverse set of compiler front ends to the platform - C, C++, Java, Haskell, OCaml just through llvm alone. And JavaScript will be at the center of it. Modern JavaScript is pretty nice to write with. Transpilers for jsx & reason bring gui features to js that most other languages are still far away from aquiring. There is actually a react port of three.js in fact, if you're interested, called react thee fiber. Blew my mind how well it works. Haven't decided on weather it's good for game programming yet, but at the very least it expands the design space for regular websites to the entire world of 3d. You can literally mix & match html & three.js as you wish, 3d positioning and projection all work the way you'd intuitively expect them to. I'm pretty sure 5, 10 years from now, Windows will be dead, everything will be linux or macosx, but no one will notice because you'll work exclusively from your cloud storage via a fully integrated web browser. File systems will be more intuitive, and most importantly: all front end code will be built using current web technologies.

[@drdonalfons]

You can export custom properties from Blender to GLTF files like this: 1. In Blender, go to the Settings panel. There, you want to use either the "Object" or "Material" settings (maybe "Mesh" works, too). 2. In those settings, scroll all the way down to "Custom Properties". Click Add 3. Add your custom property. You can add numbers or strings 4. Go to the export GLTF dialog (File > Export > GLTF / GLB) 5. In that window in the "Include" section, hit the checkbox "Custom Properties". 6. When loading the model in ThreeJS, custom properties are available under the object / material (mesh?) in the "userData" property. Keep up the good work! I definitely enjoy your videos - both from the technical level and style!

[@simondev758]

Sweet, thanks!

[@mjs28s]

you need to do some Udemy course for JS games! The current Udemy game selections are nothing like this. typically just bad side scrollers.

[@geelemo]

we need

[@blackcitadel37]

It'd be one entire course just for all that physics black magic.

[@dominiksmeda7203]

pleas take my money

[@UrielHK]

second that

[@theomegamale5335]

Id buy it too. You should really consider this.

[@AntonioCorrenti]

Who wants a crossover with Sebastian Lague? SIMONDEV X CODING ADVENTURES

[@diegolazcano3934]

Please

[@luapmartin]

That would be interesting 🧐

[@ivanraulsanchezdiaz7499]

C# and JS, sounds hard

[@danielli3288]

@@ivanraulsanchezdiaz7499 use wasm

[@Ab-cj6gl]

oh it'll be cool

[@kyou.rocher]

"I'm a leaf on the wind" made me cry a little, still got PTSD from that scene

[@simondev758]

Yeah that one really sticks with you.

[@CathrineMacNiel]

@@simondev758 just like a harpoon would.

[@simondev758]

Zing!

[@MatthiasSchicker]

9:22 "Noise is a great subsitute for actual art direction" :D

[@ThunderstruckElectronix]

I'm learning Web Dev and I think it's awesome to see all the cool stuff you can do with js. Cool video 👍

[@gamershow5944]

I can't believe you made this in JavaScript. It's really good looking. Your very talented to be able to code this together.

[@LegoDinoMan]

9:39 Underrated Futurama joke wasn’t expecting Elzar

[@russiangravy3870]

I like how smooth the movement is. Makes the actual game look like 100% lighting and particle-flare.

[@AssasinZorro]

When you showed your full game, I instantly understood the UI of Freelancer games that highlighted enemy ships and where to aim

[@GiusePooP]

10:52 tie fighter smashing into eachother

[@UnidayStudio]

Amazing video! I have a small tip to help you on 7:06 of the video: You could simply select all the turrets in blender and then use this bpy code to return their locations: [list(obj.location) for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects] To run it, simply open a new blender tab and select the python console (or press shift + f4).

[@simondev758]

Ooh thanks, I'll give that a try. Didn't even know there was a python console.

[@GhorthalonTheDragon]

One of my favorite parts of this is that it uses web audio. And web audio by default uses HRTF for 3d positioning of sounds. So few games do this. I personally think all of them should at least have the option. Once you get used to actual 3d audio you never want to go back. Sound is extremely important. More game devs should be aware of this. Seriously put on some headphones and listen out for the explosions and how they move around. Web audio is epic. I'm very happy it exists. One of the most underappreciated things in web game dev I think.

[@simondev758]

Yeah I was pleasantly surprised with how three.js integrated that.

[@Retrofire-47]

Sound design has always been disregarded in game design, erroneously I think. Look at every one of the most revered games in video game history, ALL of them, with almost no exceptions, have exceptional OST's, SFX, and ambient immersion.

[@UnityOfPlurality]

"I'm just gonna crap out some manual particle systems" damned amazing! You sir are an inspiration to say the least, subbed!

[@Tjillevirpen]

You can export metadata using the extras property in the gltf. According to the docs for the blender gltf exporter you should be able to check a box exporting custom properties as gltf extras. If I recall correctly, when loading the gltf the data ends up in userdata on the loaded model.

[@simondev758]

Awesome, thanks!

[@mobslayer211]

This is where the fun begins I found you through the BOTW inspired rpg earlier. You've seem to have grown a lot in the last 5 months!

[@matthewhigley1018]

Things I'll never be able to say: "I'm just gonna quickly crap out some particle systems..." "Then you gotta make a quicky crap AI for them..." Thing I have said: "Take the code and make this look less like crap..."

[@stolensentience]

4:07 I’m crapping out particle systems myself as I watch this

[@danielzaiser]

Keep on rocking js game dev, you are unique, talented, entertaining, awe inspiring

[@geelemo]

I'm laughing/smiling watching this. especially when I saw the kid playing the game. wow!!!

[@stolensentience]

Surprised no “do a barrel roll!” At the end Great work btw!

[@Bluepaccao]

I love your dedication, awesome work man!

[@N_IndratejReddy]

KID: MY DAD MAKES VIDEO GAMES FOR ME , HE IS A LEGEND.

[@laja6108]

This is so cool, I love when you make these videos 🙌🏽

[@Skeffles]

Absolutely fantastic game! I loved the space battles in the now named 'Classic' Star Wars Battlefront 2

[@bunyslayer]

So uhh... turns out your a pretty good coder, this was fun to watch =)

[@jimmyrustle271]

Man I'd go crazy trying to write this in JavaScript instead of TypeScript. Nice job.

[@aunyks]

Always so impressive. Thanks for sharing this with us!

[@michaelschlachter8865]

You can export metadata into gltf from blender.. you add "custom properties" to the mesh... and then make sure Include->Data->Custom Properties is checked in the Exporter,

[@alvesvaren]

Looks really good, I think adding some not too bright light source reflecting from the planet would make it look even better

[@liamdormon7822]

"I Tried to Make Star Wars Battlefront II in JavaScript", proceeds to write C code inside of javascript

[@simondev758]

If only it ran at C speeds with C memory efficiency.

[@sycration]

i think that was glsl; weird C that gives each pixel a thread and comes with a stdlib full of matrix math

[@liamdormon7822]

@@sycration I see, still a bit weird that a javascript library has you write C or some shader language inside of a javascript string.

[@dhkatz_]

@@liamdormon7822 Yeah it's not C. It's GLSL, which is used for shader programs which run on the GPU. There is no good way to get around writing it.

[@simondev758]

Older school way was to program the TEV stages.

[@francisofthefilth8829]

Yes you can export metadata in Blender/GLTF. Simply set it as a key/value pair in the object's properties area, then access as mesh.userData inside three.js.

[@simondev758]

Sweet, useful for next time.

[@theFuzzyWarble]

Awesome inspiration, many thanks... and that Farscape reference in the game!! KUDOS!@# Long Live MOYA!!

[@simondev758]

I miss that show.

[@esmailkhorchaniarts1142]

This guy's JavaScript is on another level

[@dempa3]

Very interesting to listen to how you go about making these JavaScript games!

[@__leftistVegan]

@6:08 I have no art skills. That's a lie generating something purely from code is artistic

[@americatoken3334]

A gem on youtube , either I have not search enough or you are the only one doing this 🤭

[@drunkenpirate47x81]

Man the idea of a web game is just a pain in the ass, like imagine making a responsive game, just the thought of it makes head start hurting

[@stef9019]

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

[@jet-pack-zombie2258]

Actually really amazing. Simulates halo reach campaign misson and battlefront 2 amazingly great job

[@felleg4]

Epic again! Came for the coding, stayed for the comedy (too) :D

[@JetLee1544]

Exactly what I was looking for, thank you so much!

[@darialyphia]

The legend is at it again

[@CesarFelipeLopez]

Amazing as always👍

[@meepybeebaw4013]

Not even into coding, still a super interesting video. And incredible how you did it. I'd give three thumbs up, if I had them.

[@infocyde2024]

You make me second guess my life as a developer :) You are brilliant man. Keep up the good work.

[@buzbuz33-99]

On the Destroyer gun turrets you could create animated parts in Blender, load the model and animations into JS, and then manipulate the animations within the game to move the turrets. (I used that method to creating working parts on an aircraft - ailerons, rudder, etc. - and to create a full set of working cockpit gauges with little animated pointers.) But that took many days. Alternatively, you could have created simple 3D turrets in JS, and attached them at various points to the model you downloaded (in three.js you would make each turret a 3D object and make them part of a Group). But I suspect that whatever method you used is much much simpler. Well done!!!

[@simondev758]

Great ideas, there's so many ways to approach it.

[@entityengineer]

Another amazing video

[@yeahaddigirl]

fyi custom property blocks of blender objects (think python dict or js obj) get exported to userData on gltf exported from blender and imported with threejs gltfloader

[@sebajsilva]

Wow!!! Looks great!

[@francoisvermeulen706]

love your work

[@andrewwoan]

yoooo that's epic

[@krazybubbler]

I love your content. Awesome channel. I suggest you to check out react-three-fibre, maybe with use-cannon (physics) as this react stuff really makes game dev much easier IMO.

[@DylanZingler]

Do you have a live demo hosted somewhere? I feel like you'd get a ton of traffic on it!

[@simondev758]

Yeah I'll upload it to my website when I get the chance.

[@DylanZingler]

Nice, we gotta get you on that front page of HN

[@kanpekiken2481]

God it’s like Simon reads my mind when he makes new videos

[@martinnel2810]

Really love your tutorials! Just a question, I'm looking for that explosion effect specifically... Is there anyway you can share just that 'ExplodeEffect' and 'ExplosionEffectEmitter' classes with me? It's around 3:04 in the video? Thank you very much and keep up the great work!

[@xherdos400]

10:32 the gameplay there reminds me just of Star Fox free roam battle. still wish for a Star Fox game for pc :D

[@sanjaysinghbhandari3793]

really amazing job ❤️ please put a video where you tell how you know so much, your journey...

[@spaceymen]

Awesome video! WebGPU and Unreal engine 5 (web support) is coming soon, that would give so much power to web game devs.

[@UstymUkhman]

Hi! Really awesome work, as always. And you've made me smile even more this time with your comments and the kid.

[@simondev758]

Codes coming, I don't work much on these videos/projects so it's whenever I have a spare moment. I'll upload the code when I get a chance to clean it up a bit.

[@UstymUkhman]

@@simondev758 Totally understand that. Thanks for the reply, man!

[@ASTERisk44946]

@@simondev758 tried to play it but opened and nothing showed???? why doesnt the index display

[@vegard172]

haha, love the "Shut up Meg" x)

[@IwanPieterse-iwanzbiz]

Incredible Job. This reminds me of the old Rogue Squadron game.

[@omgnowairly]

You inspired me to get busy again. Thank you.

[@marmont8005]

you are such a cool guy!

[@SykoSilver]

This is fantastic. I was wondering, have you seen Sebastian Lague's channel? It's not JavaScript but if you ever want to go into procedural planet generation it might give you some ideas.

[@simondev758]

His videos are awesome, love the quality of those videos. I have a series on procedural planets too. I kinda go in a slightly different direction than Sebastian, overall goal is to one day make a JS version of No Man's Sky, but I get sidetracked with other projects like this one :)

[@santozard]

You’re amazing.

[@eduardotobarjaque7758]

Really Amazing!!!!

[@aaronhenry5376]

I laughed quite a bit about the blender comment, because I am the same exact way with it.

[@Buttersaemmel]

lol in the end he say's "now let's look at the complete game" but actually shows just the real Battlefront II!

[@cidadaodeatlas125]

omg, a true genius

[@erratic54]

Could someone explain me how to "play" the actual code? I see that he uploads all his coding to github but im not sure where to actually put it (sorry for being newbie, im just coding websites)

[@BrianHaddad]

He's coding websites too! Though I've never tried it myself, I'm pretty sure you just need to clone or download one of his repositories and launch the index.htm or index.html file in your web browser. If for some reason it doesn't run, launch the developer tools console for your browser and check the error messages. If you can't make sense of what is wrong or missing, try posting in a forum somewhere and be as specific as you can about the problem you're having (link to the repository, exact text of the error, what browser you're running it in, and what you've tried so far).

[@jackxn5807]

the easiest way to "play" is to down load the files from git hub. Then down load visual studio code. inside visual studio code install a extension called "Live Server". Then last part is to open the folder you downloaded and on the bottom right side of the screen it should say "Go Live", click on it you should be able to "play" the game.

[@erratic54]

ahh, I see. Thank you very much!

[@omgnowairly]

Its not up on GitHub yet to check out.

[@petebaron]

For html pages to run locally, you need to fool the browser into thinking they're remote. I use WAMP on Windows but it can require some fiddly set-up depending on your machine configuration. The visual studio code suggestion from @xin jack nian sounds like it might be easier, especially if you've already got that installed for coding with. Alternatively, if you have ftp and some web-space, you can just upload the distribution and run it online!

[@hc3d]

I've been using JS for about 10 years now. Right now I'm working on a mobile app which uses WebViews for the UI. I was using some modern syntax such as the Let syntax as well as For-of. But I completely overlooked that classes are now supported by modern JS engines. I also see you using imports? If this could improve the scalability of the language, then javascript and html would really be the way to go when it comes to UI's (web and mobile).

[@samuelbarrett5701]

I am actually quite jealous of this, have always wanted to create a game ( a sequel to a dead franchise long forgotten).

[@simondev758]

Which franchise?

[@samuelbarrett5701]

@@simondev758 Turok. I would want to end the cliff hangar from Turok 3.

[@simondev758]

@@samuelbarrett5701 Oh man I remember playing that on N64 as a kid

[@Ryan_Perrin]

I love three.js!

[@MHW-nu7pz]

This is really amazing! I am going to start to learn the threejs. Before starting to learn about it, is it that we have to be good at math? If you don't mind, can you please give some advices, thank you very much!

[@simondev758]

It's a lot easier if you understand the math. I have a math course that covers more than what you need to make games.

[@MHW-nu7pz]

@@simondev758 Thank you very much!

[@CodingAbroad]

Loving your videos. Have you used phaser js?

[@JayanthBagare]

Love your work and how you explain them. Just a suggestion, maybe you could cover 2d graphics also and some deep simulations such as fluid dynamics smoke etc. Would love to learn more from you

[@QuesterDesura]

and again you did a great job :)

[@jesusbibieca52]

Since you are using VSCode, try using a GLSL extension for linting and highlighting

[@russiangravy3870]

Technically this is just Starfighter Assault. I expect 10 more videos for the other game modes.

[@simondev758]

Full disclosure: I based this on a trailer, I have never played any of the games :D

[@gamingnoah9807]

This is star wars squadrons

[@pist5343]

Awesome work! Great beta testers! Can't wait for the third edition a year from now 😁 Btw simple way to make a space game look cooler is to add bloom. Its a pretty easy setup in 3js, wondering why didnt you go for it?

[@simondev758]

Laziness :(

[@pist5343]

@@simondev758 :(

[@simondev758]

3rd version next year!

[@pist5343]

@@simondev758 :>

[@nttn3666]

Can you make a series on game development fundamentals, that would be very useful. You mindblowing me with your skills, keep up the good work

[@davidconnelly]

Holy smokes! I saw the video title and thought it was a joke. That is staggering!

[@therealjtgill]

Just found your channel, happy to become a patron

[@simondev758]

Thank you so much!

[@blain20_]

Very cool 😁👍

[@arkadyvinkovsky5879]

It's so cool !!! Have you had some experience with path-tracing algorithm?

[@simondev758]

A bit, why?

[@arkadyvinkovsky5879]

It would be nice if you could explain some of the details of how this works. I've seen 2 implementations with three js on github, but they look very confusing

[@UrielHK]

Amazing!

[@silviu.iordache]

Me: I tried to center a div SimonDev: I made Stars Wars Battlefront II in javascript

[@michakrecisz5100]

please make whole course about it... I will pay any money for that!

[@russiangravy3870]

Awesome!

[@jombones3324]

LEXX references are rare to an extreme degree.

[@simondev758]

Hah was wondering if anybody would catch those.

[@MyXNH]

Thank you for your awesome work! Can you please explain the benefits of using sphere mesh and shader material for the skybox instead of just a scene's background property? P.S. Would definitely love to see more of your videos with shaders explanations

[@kallehalvarsson5808]

Regarding metadata in GLTF: You can add empty objects in Blender, and they will be imported as THREE.js object3D's that you can search for by name in the model hierarchy. Also, art direction tip: The key to cool space visuals is to have an extremely strong direct light with low ambient. Adding some bloom and chromatic abberation postFX would also help, though i know that unfortunately disables MSAA for TREE.js. :/

[@simondev758]

That's perfect (the empty objects thing). Also yeah totally should have worked the lighting more, got lazy and didn't try to tweak the bloom and all that to look nice. PostFX are totally doable, I can swap in FXAA instead, its no MSAA, but it's decent and after youtube compression probably doesn't matter much.

[@kallehalvarsson5808]

@@simondev758 I've personally never been a fan of the FXAA quality, but yeah, probably good enough for youtube. But if you are going to add an EffectComposer stack, then you might as well also add some chromatic abberation using a custom ShaderPass, here is a simple example: www.shadertoy.com/view/ltByR3

[@kayak118]

Can't wait to watch! 😁 I'm gonna give UE4 a shot, and see what I can do with it.

[@tomm.4447]

they've just released UE5. Mb looking into that instead might be a good idea

[@tylerclinton3475]

@@tomm.4447 fight the temptation for now. UE5 still has bugs where UE4 doesn’t. If you jump into learning UE4 now, by the time UE5 gets a full release you’ll be fully prepared to take advantage of what it has to offer, and learn the new features

[@tomm.4447]

@@tylerclinton3475 fair point. Well decide for yourself OP

[@thomaseichler2368]

Hy Simon, you did a great job here (again). Did you add a directional (sun)light in the scene? The over all design is too dark. I guess the light is coming from the skybox only. For space scenes you usually have to add a simple directional light, with an 0 degree angle to get sharp shadows. And you have to overexpose your light source, so that your materials are very bright for some angles. In blender i would take an intensity between 5-10. Speaken from an technical artist point of view you could think of simple post processing work. Like a slightly visible vignette effect, chromatic aberation, mildly used depth of field and also little bit of bloom. Motion blur would be awesome too, especially for a space shooter. I know, nobody likes the imrpovement guy. But i am stunned what YOU can do with three.js.

[@simondev758]

Those are great suggestions! Yeah I had a simple directional + an ambient term, but I didn't pump the intensity enough. Need to have an artist around to tell me when things don't look great hah.

[@thomaseichler2368]

@@simondev758 Who needs an artist, if he could use his own youtube swarm intelligence from youtube comments? ^^