Files
feuerwerk/README.md
T
adminandClaude Opus 5.5 cfd288c4b7 Halve the frame time of a playing scene with a tilemap (#284)
The performance panel showed Physics and Editor as the large parts of
a frame in a scene of 222 entities. Nearly all of it came from a
tilemap that only stands there.

- Whoever writes cells in place now says so with cellsChanged. Only
  then does cellsVersion compare the content. The comparison ran about
  60 times per frame and was the largest single item at 14 percent.
- The four writers call it: the painter during and at the end of a
  stroke, PaintTilesCommand on execute and on undo. A new writer that
  forgets it stays invisible.
- The game view is drawn once per frame in play. With an animated tile
  in view it was drawn twice, once by the run and once by animate().
  animate() now gets the redraw count from the start of the tick.
- TilemapField builds the geometry of a mesh only when its source
  changes: the cells, the tile size, the origin or the image. For that
  groupByTile and layerRows return the same objects for the same list.
- PhysicsSystem skips a tilemap whose source and switch are unchanged.
  The switch is kept because a map that starts switched off would
  otherwise have dead colliders once it is switched on.
- World.syncToModel looks entities and assets up in a map per pass
  instead of a linear search per object.

Measured on stein2 with a copy of the reference project, ms per frame:
Physics 2.64 to 0.97, Drawing 6.89 to 2.56, Editor 1.95 to 1.31.

Left open: syncToModel still mirrors every entity every frame. That
is its own issue.

Tests:
- Gate: 198 files, 2887 tests (2883 + 4), exit 0
- e2e 1-17,28,33,39-43,59: 810 checks passed, 40 has +3
- Smokes: 24 / 19 / 21, exit 0
- Three unit tests wrote cells directly and now call cellsChanged
- Eleven counter-probes fail. Two did not at first: the stroke needed
  a check of its own, the physics test has to start with the map
  switched off. That last one was repeated on stein2 only.
- e2e total 1613 is computed, not measured in a full run

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 09:52:57 +02:00

95 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
# Game Maker
A browser-based tool "one step before a game engine": create **assets** (scenes, cameras,
sprites), place them into scenes, tweak their properties in an inspector and press **Play** –
all in one program, all drawn inside a single WebGL canvas.
![](screenshot.png)
Live: <https://nockal.com/game-maker/> · Widget playground: <https://nockal.com/game-maker/?playground>
**The documentation is the wiki:** <https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki> – every concept,
node, tab and shortcut, plus the architecture and the development workflow. This file is the short
way in.
## In one screen
- An **asset** is a named, typed thing (scene, camera, sprite, text, behavior, variables, struct,
collider, rigidbody, container, clip area, texture, vector art, pixel art, palette, animation,
curve, tile, tilemap, state machine, shader, font, sound, particles) with properties and no
position.
- A **scene object** places an asset: position, sparse **overrides** of its properties, an optional
parent. Only what differs from the asset is stored; the inspector paints it gold and offers ↺ / ↑.
- A **container** is a reusable group edited once and placed many times; its content is resolved
from the template on every read. A **screen** is a container switched on and off.
- A **behavior** is logic as a node graph, placed like anything else and parented to the object it
acts on. Play has no built-in behaviour – everything that happens is a graph.
- An **account** owns projects: the editor asks for a user name and a password first, and each
account sees only its own projects. The Account menu at the far right of the toolbar changes
the password and signs out.
- **Play** runs a throwaway copy of the project; every panel stays usable and Stop brings back
exactly what was saved. **Release…** shares a link that plays the saved game on its own, without
the editor and without signing in.
## Quick start
Node 22 is required.
```bash
npm install
npm run dev # http://localhost:5175/game-maker/dist/ – API calls are proxied to production
npm run check # typecheck + lint + format:check + unit tests – the gate CI runs too
npm run build # writes dist/ and regenerates index.html; the folder is what nginx serves
```
The browser suite and the three example games need a machine with a GPU:
```bash
node tools/seed-e2e.mjs && node tools/e2e.mjs # the editor, 1613 checks (GM_STEPS=20 for one step)
# every tool signs in first – see the Accounts page
node tools/seed-jumprun.mjs && node tools/smoke-jumprun.mjs
node tools/seed-tetris.mjs && node tools/smoke-tetris.mjs
node tools/seed-actor.mjs && node tools/smoke-actor.mjs
```
Every push runs all of it on the Gitea runner – the gate as one job, build and suite as another
beside it – so locally take the gate plus the step your change touches and leave the full run to
CI. Details, the GPU requirement and the detached runner are in
[Development](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Development).
## Documentation
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| [Concepts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Concepts) | Assets, scene objects, overrides, play mode, the camera, the console |
| [Accounts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Accounts) | Signing in and out, the accounts, who a project belongs to, what the check tools need |
| [Scenes](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Scenes) | The edited scene, the start scene, and switching scenes from a graph |
| [Scene editing](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Scene-editing) | Placing, z-order, hierarchy, the editor offset |
| [Behaviors](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Behaviors) | Node graphs: variables, the node set, structs and lists, loops, nesting, editing |
| [Structs](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Structs) | Struct assets: a named shape that struct variables, fields and `Pack`/`Expand` follow |
| [Colliders](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Colliders) | Shapes (box, circle, capsule, polygon), collision events, blocking movement, one-way colliders and raycasts |
| [Physics](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Physics) | Rigidbodies, the collider material, gravity, the fixed step |
| [Textures](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Textures) | Images, frames, nine-slice, the filter, upload limits |
| [Vector art](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Vector-Art) | Pictures drawn from shapes: the pen, curves, gradients and texture fills, combining shapes |
| [Pixel art](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Pixel-Art) | Pictures painted pixel by pixel: the palette, the tools, layers and frames |
| [Fonts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Fonts) | Font assets, the picker, what a text falls back to |
| [Sounds](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Sounds) | Sound assets and `Play sound` |
| [Animations](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Animations) | Animation assets and the Animation tab |
| [Curves](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Curves) | Easings drawn by hand, the Curve tab, using one on a key or a `Lerp` |
| [Shaders](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Shaders) | Shader graphs a sprite wears, their node set, the properties they declare |
| [Particles](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Particles) | Particle graphs: a particle as a function of its age |
| [State machines](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/State-machines) | The asset, named transitions, `State branch`, `Set state` and `State transition` |
| [Containers](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Containers) | Templates, instances, screens |
| [Tiles](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Tiles) | The tile asset, plain tiles and the two autotile kinds, the pictures as animation steps, the Tile tab |
| [Tilemaps](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Tilemaps) | The tilemap asset, painting in the scene view, layers, what it looks like in the game |
| [Plugins](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Plugins) | Extending the editor: the plugin file, how it is loaded, switching one on and off, API v1 |
| [Keyboard](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Keyboard) | Every shortcut |
| [Architecture](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Architecture) | Stack, source layout, the rules that keep it organised |
| [Development](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Development) | Commands, the e2e suite, the example games, CI |
| [API](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/API) | The PHP JSON API and the project document |
## Ideas, gaps and bugs
They live in the issue tracker: <https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/issues>. What is not
there yet is listed on the wiki's [Home](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki) page.