Enlightenment's EFL Gets Its Own Physics Library

[Teho]

Because why should we fix the bugs that already exist when we can add some cool features like a doom 4 engine right into your desktop! Because why the fuck would you want to open a folder in the open dialog when you can play a Left 4 Dead campaign and if you win then you get the menu!

What the fuck are talking about? EFL is meant for building different kinds of applications including games. This has nothing to do with your desktop even if it's based on EFL.

[mirv]

Because why should we fix the bugs that already exist when we can add some cool features like a doom 4 engine right into your desktop! Because why the fuck would you want to open a folder in the open dialog when you can play a Left 4 Dead campaign and if you win then you get the menu!

Yeah good idea! Everything should be fun! Including pressing the shutdown button! Add some cool physics mini game there! Those idiots there have just fade in and out effects with water and other shit! We can be cooler! Lets add a first person shooter right after login!

Sometimes i fell that these idiots running these projects just try to show of their shitty programming skills so instead fixing stupid bugs and listening to their users they add pile upon pile of useless halfworking shit that nobody needs, but hell! It looks cool!

I feel like sometimes programmers actually need managers no matter how bad they hate them. It's just better for them to be told what to do then to be left at their own devices. At least then we might get something that works and maybe some coherency.

....you're either trolling, or have no idea what the purpose of EFL is. Given the tone of your words, my guess is trolling, but just in case it's not: EFL offers a wide range of support libraries for anything you can use on your desktop basically. That means gui widgets, media players, system control interfaces, the whole works. This includes desktop games, transition effects, splash screens, etc, all of which can use physics for various effects. Now considering who the "users" are here (the people paying money for these features) - this is what they want. They want fancy effects, and eye-catching gimmick goodies. And the EFL people generally like to have a nice, clean interface that's well coded - there's a reason Tizen is using EFL instead of gtk based windowing systems.

[log0]

I am wondering why they picked a full 3d physics engine. They could have used Box2D for the job, much more compact and much cleaner/nicer code base.

[del_diablo]

log0: And what if I wanted to write a native 3D application with box physics? Nevermind that the difference between 2D physics and 3D is one addition vector coordinate and some extra rules, making the difference moot.

[log0]

log0: And what if I wanted to write a native 3D application with box physics? Nevermind that the difference between 2D physics and 3D is one addition vector coordinate and some extra rules, making the difference moot.

It is not just about one extra coordinate. Vectors will take 4 values, transform matrices 16. Algorithms for intersection/collision tests are more complex, you can take a lot of shortcuts in 2d here. And maybe more important, the api is much simpler.

Or are they attempting to create a complete programming framework? Does it mean they'll get a full blown 3d renderer too? So that your 3D app runs at some decent speed.

[BO$$]

....you're either trolling, or have no idea what the purpose of EFL is. Given the tone of your words, my guess is trolling, but just in case it's not: EFL offers a wide range of support libraries for anything you can use on your desktop basically. That means gui widgets, media players, system control interfaces, the whole works. This includes desktop games, transition effects, splash screens, etc, all of which can use physics for various effects. Now considering who the "users" are here (the people paying money for these features) - this is what they want. They want fancy effects, and eye-catching gimmick goodies. And the EFL people generally like to have a nice, clean interface that's well coded - there's a reason Tizen is using EFL instead of gtk based windowing systems.

gui widgets, media players, system control interfaces, the whole works. WTF do these things need physics???

If I'm making a 3d game be sure I won't use EFL not by a long shot. So basically they haven't added physics thinking at game developers, they added physics support thinking about UI. Again, why do you need physics in UI?? It's totally insane to add bullet engine to UI!!! Madness I tell you.

Sure you can probably take the doom3 source code and use it to build a cool UI, but then you are insane! It's pointless to take bullet that has been used like in every major game (GTA 4 one example the rest wiki it) and put it in EFL to be used for something... anything desktop related! Think about it, we own laptops that could use more battery time, physics engines suck cpu cycles and thus battery time decreases. The move is completely irresponsible. Now we'll see kids building calculator apps with shadows and realtime physics and god knows what just because they can. We will never have anything efficient anymore (not that we had but... this is a move in the wrong direction).

[XorEaxEax]

I thought the same thing - this would be an excellent addition to compiz. While it may be a little gimmicky, if implemented properly it could actually add functionality to the UI.

Heh, well after the window contents bounce around they should 'automagically' move to their correct positions, also the windows should bounce against the screen borders unless you hit them very hard at which point they will fly into the next workspace (or even pass through several workspaces if hit hard enough)

Also by moving one window slowly against another you could make that window smaller by squeezing it in the direction you are moving (if the window you are pushing against is leaning towards the window border, else it would just bounce away)

tiling window managers are dead, 'physics-based' window managers are the future!!

[Teho]

gui widgets, media players, system control interfaces, the whole works. WTF do these things need physics???

They don't. EFL is modular set of libaries so applications that don't need EPhysics do not depend on it.

[mirv]

gui widgets, media players, system control interfaces, the whole works. WTF do these things need physics???

If I'm making a 3d game be sure I won't use EFL not by a long shot. So basically they haven't added physics thinking at game developers, they added physics support thinking about UI. Again, why do you need physics in UI?? It's totally insane to add bullet engine to UI!!! Madness I tell you.

Sure you can probably take the doom3 source code and use it to build a cool UI, but then you are insane! It's pointless to take bullet that has been used like in every major game (GTA 4 one example the rest wiki it) and put it in EFL to be used for something... anything desktop related!

The question is: why not have the possibility of physics effects? Physics is more than a few bouncing boxes - there are particle effects, cloth animation, etc. It's not really there for workflow productivity, it's there for looking fancy. FYI: I wasn't referring to media players and system control interfaces needing physics, but they do need something like EFL - I was pointing out that EFL is for more than just a window manager. If you want to think of it only in terms of games, then think of something such as angry birds; angry birds isn't a 3D game, but does use physics. Similar things can be done using the native gui engine of the device (which does have an OpenGL backend, but is also very fast in software mode) - no flash anything like that.
Primarily, I think the focus of it will be for writing EFL based games, but I can see applications for eye-candy too.

[BO$$]

My problem with all these is that it creates a precedent. If someone makes something for desktop that uses physics everybody will copy them. And then we will have all desktops using fancy stuff that with the current trend of dumbing down everything means we won't be able to disable them. Which means wasted cpu cycles. That is my problem! We are wasting power needlesly. And since most users are idiots they will like the fancy stuff and it will be made mandatory! Linux will be fancier than windows and OSX and it will probably run worse on the same hardware! Is it really what we want?