I was working with the somewhat painful CanvasRenderingContext2D API and thought wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was enjoyable? As I have some experience working with the API, I would like to work on making a 2D engine for Babylon. The 2D engine would be completely decoupled from the main engine. What do you all think?
1 Like
well we kind of have something along these line with GUI: The Babylon GUI | Babylon.js Documentation (babylonjs.com)
1 Like
This may work, though I feel as if it is too complex and is not a full engine. Regardless of my opinions, it is comprehensive and working fine - maybe I will make my own 2D engine. Thanks!
Maybe something like Assyrian JS, since
“… Assyria was one of the two major Mesopotamian kingdoms, alongside Babylonia …” (Wikipedia)
You could have a look at https://pixijs.com/ or https://phaser.io/ which are focused on 2d - babylon does 3d well and it’s probably better to be a great tool for one use case than a mediocre tool for two
1 Like
What about people who want to learn Babylon but don’t want to start in 3D? Unity devs have to run that gauntlet, why wouldn’t Babylon devs?
1 Like
You mean with Unity 2D?
Unity employees 5000 - 10000,
Babylon.js core team around 10
Yeah, but we have the better community 
Go Babylon, go 
This I agree with. However community members have their own interests and are very unlikely to get involved with a major team project. Should community member @Vortex want to produce a 2D version of Babylon.js and others want to help him all well and good.
Completely agree with this and moreover it should stand apart and probably not come under the remit of the Babylon.js
for this reason
I know that you, @mawa, have a great passion for the GUI and making the editor the best it can possibly be and over time maybe some of your ideas will come to pass. To get it done any faster perhaps you will need to take the lead and find a team of community members to work on it and hope my lack of belief in this happening to be pessamistic.
Do love your passion for all things Babylon.js
1 Like
Yes, I know and I agree. And then, for as skilled and passioned as they are, 10 people cannot compete against 5000. As a side note and my opinion, BJS is not a competitor to Unity or Unreal, but rather to three.js. And as of today, is still the challenger. But then, things are moving incredibly fast on the side of BJS (given the resources available) and I believe, positively and in a sustainable manner.
For the above comment, understand that when I do this sort of posts, it’s mainly an instinctive communication tactic of mine. People sometimes need to be encouraged, challenged or pushed. I admit I sometimes use this ‘manipulation technique’ (but always for good, only for good 
Again, I cannot agree more. This is reasonable and sustainable thinking for project management.
Absolutely. This work on 2D GUI and editor can certainly be considered a base. Though, it would take a lot more efforts to turn in into a 2D engine (my opinion only)
Thanks for your confidence and encouraging words. However, I’m afraid I will have to decline. An idea, even a great idea, does not make a project and a project doesn’t make a consistent and sustainable tool. Problem is I know all too well what it means to commit in this type of project and even more, lead it. No matter if it’s free or for a global company, when I commit to a project (as a PM or even simple participant) I wanna make sure I will deliver. Sadly, I cannot commit to this project as of just now. But again, thanks for your words.
It sounds rather just realistic to me. But then, eventually, sometimes you can get good surprises. If the community can surprise me once again, I certainly will be the first one to applause.
Apologies, I should never have mentioned Unity (3D or 2D).
Godot then.
Sorry I’m late to the party 
So we have 2D GUI, we have sprite, sprite maps and billboard. I think it is a good start. You can set a camera to orthographic and to me it looks like a good startup for a 2D game
That being said, I think this will never compete against 2D game engine and this is not the goal
Some documentation:
I mean technically you could implement any 2d system you wanted and tie it to the 3d system for rendering or use shaders/GUI for rendering.
If you really wanna just focus on 2d dev, id recommend Phaser 3 or pixi.
Picking the correct tool for the job, is a major benefit.
2 Likes