Minetest compiled for WebGL?

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tashbaugh
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Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by tashbaugh » Post

Our School System users Minetest as a way to reward students for reading books. The more books students read, the more in-game currency they earn.

Image

Since we've recently provided each student a Chromebook we are phasing out the old "trip to the computer lab" method of school computing. I've struggled to make my own Android apps for Chromebook, with limited success. (Modern Chromebooks run Android Apps natively) I can compile an Android APK that uses our custom main menu and publish it as a private app to all our our district's 10000 Chromebooks. However, since Chromebooks have mouse and keyboard, all of the Android touch screen controls are a nuisance. I haven't been able to strip those out to give the Chromebook a more PC like feel.

As a K-12 Sysadmin, I'm constantly blocking our students from accessing gaming websites like https://shellshock.io/. It is more and more common to see 3D games that play directly from the web browser. Engines like the Unreal Engine, and Unity can build games directly to WebGL so that they're playable from a web browser without the need to download and install client software on your PC. I've even seen a Chrome Extension that runs Goat Simulator.

Emscripten can port C++ games to WebGL:
https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/ ... t%201).pdf

There are some voxel WebGL Proof of concepts out there already, too:
https://github.com/mitsuhiko/webgl-meincraft http://mitsuhiko.pocoo.org/webglmc/
https://github.com/danielribeiro/WebGLCraft http://danielribeiro.github.io/WebGLCraft/

That being said, I'm trying to gauge the possibility of a Minetest client that runs directly from a web browser, using something like WebGL. Since my background is in server & database administration, I don't really know if WebGL Minetest is even possible. I assume you can't just paste the Minetest source code into Unity, clear up a few errors, and export it to WebGL.

I'm imagining a Minetest client that each server admin would host on their own web server. They could brand it and configure it so that folks who browse to their client connect directly to the Minetest server(s) that they run.

Would a WebGL Minetest client be possible?
  • Could be done by one very skilled and determined programmer?

    Could be done by a team of determined programmers?

    Completely Impossible?
I like that Minetest's mission is to be device agnostic and run on nearly any platform. I think that if a browser based version is possible, even if it is a stripped down client lacking advanced features like shaders, then it would still benefit the community to make Minetest more accessible to end users.

Does anyone else have any thoughts? I appreciate your time and attention! Thank you!
Lee County Schools uses Minetest to promote student reading. https://mine.lee.k12.al.us

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celeron55
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by celeron55 » Post

This will probably happen after we've made it a bit more of a low hanging fruit by using more sdl2 and less irrlicht. The timeline for that is a big question mark.

I would say currently it is doable by a skilled and determined developer. It might take a considerable amount of work but I'm not sure - I don't have experience porting native C++ stuff to webgl.

tashbaugh
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by tashbaugh » Post

Thank you for the explanation! :-)
I'm happy to hear that a browser client may be in Minetest's future at some point. I may try to encourage someone with this particular skillset to have a look at it.

Thanks!
Lee County Schools uses Minetest to promote student reading. https://mine.lee.k12.al.us

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ywwv
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by ywwv » Post

its a shame how these things degraded. in 2010 you could run minetest in the browser as a java applet. now they're not supporting java in the browser anymore. its criminal . google doesnt want us to succeed

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rubenwardy
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by rubenwardy » Post

ywwv wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 02:58
its a shame how these things degraded. in 2010 you could run minetest in the browser as a java applet. now they're not supporting java in the browser anymore. its criminal . google doesnt want us to succeed
I think you meant Minecraft. It's never been possible to run Minetest as a Java applet
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ywwv
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by ywwv » Post

rubenwardy wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:17
ywwv wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 02:58
its a shame how these things degraded. in 2010 you could run minetest in the browser as a java applet. now they're not supporting java in the browser anymore. its criminal . google doesnt want us to succeed
I think you meant Minecraft. It's never been possible to run Minetest as a Java applet
Don't correct me . If you had done your research you would know the truth. Look at "luaj" by James Roseborough which was the original LUA implementation used by minetest in 2009

sofar
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by sofar » Post

ywwv wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 15:47
Don't correct me . If you had done your research you would know the truth. Look at "luaj" by James Roseborough which was the original LUA implementation used by minetest in 2009
Excuse me, but, public discussion is all about improving public understanding. The words "Don't correct me" are antithetical to that. Please stop this attitude that your opinion is 100% truthful and complete.

It's OK to be incorrect. It's definitely not cool to presume you are correct all the time.

Minetest has never been a browser-based java applet. Period. Full stop. If some part of minetest can be used in a hypothetical laboratory setup, then that does not mean that the entire statement you posted was correct. At best, it's a dishonest representation to make a nonsensical argument that things were better in the past.

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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by ronoaldo » Post

I'm interested on porting for webgl but I don't have (yet!) the skills for that.

On a side note, from what I have read on the subject, the part of making the game networking work using UDP seems to be the hard part, since browsers don't expose any API in that regards (best I found was a draft proposal, most browser games seem to use TCP). I'm not sure if the TCP -> UDP conversion would work properly in minetest...

I'll give it a try if I have time and report progress here, if any.
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by wsor4035 » Post

linking https://github.com/zaoqi/minetest-novnc-docker here as it may be a roundabout way to doing what you want
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Mr. Rar
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Re: Minetest compiled for WebGL?

by Mr. Rar » Post

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