-1

I want to use Stage3D to speed up my 2D graphics rendering (and perhaps add a shader or two).

I use Flixel at the moment; Flixel offers pretty much everything I want from game framework, aside from not utilizing Stage3D. So, I don't necessarily need a full-blown game framework: I only need this framework to do the rendering part for me.

I found some potential candidates (ND2D, Starling, Genome2D etc.), but having no experience with them I thought I might first ask here. What I'm looking for is:

  • fully open-source (I often modify, or at least look at, code I'm including) and freely usable in commercial projects
  • ability to draw primitives; here I'd like it best for "ability" to be something like draw_line(int, int, int, ...) :D
  • ability to handle AGAL shaders without having to directly access Stage3D (simpler = better, for example I like how ND2D does it)

If I'm asking for too much, could you give me some quick pros-cons of ND2D and Starling? Online discussions on this topic seem to be outdated and too general to be useful. I'm thinking of using ND2D since I already played with it for a bit, and Starling since it seems to be more popular. Size of community is a factor since I'll probably look for tutorials and examples.

Thanks!

Luka Mikec
  • 417
  • 4
  • 20
  • I've just started myself (with Alternativa3D, which seems OK in my book, very impressive demos), but I'm pretty sure you'll want to look at Axel - it's heavily inspired by Flixel.
    In short, my impression (not necessarily facts):
    - Away3D - ugly website, but popular, stable, solid. Maybe not easy for advanced effects.
    - Alternativa3D - not superfast, but robust and easy. Documentation is hit and miss.
    - Starling - easy to learn, as it copies Flash API.
    - Flare3D - okay, but paid
    - Minko - supposedly the most advanced. Amazing ShaderLab project in cooking.     – analytik Oct 16 '12 at 19:47

1 Answers1

3
  • If you want something similar to Flixel, Axel might be right for you. I couldn't get it to run under Flash Builder 4.7 beta and AIR 3.4, though. http://axgl.org/
  • Starling is now officially supported by Adobe. There are also two other higher level game frameworks built on top of Starling:
  • ND2D seems to be stable, but the development has been discontinued
  • Genome2D seems to be nice, but I dislike their lack of dedicated website.
analytik
  • 792
  • 6
  • 16