HungryProton
commented
3 years ago Hello! Thank you for the very detailed issue, I appreciate it!
You should have all the parts already, but keep in mind this is still experimental.
The GodotSync add-on allows you to drive ProtonGraph from the Godot editor, but it's optional, you can ignore it completely and simply export a tscn or gltf file from the standalone application. If you want to use it, the whole chain goes like this.
Execution flow
- When ProtonGraph starts, it creates a new local server on 127.0.0.1:434743. This happens in the Protocol autoload script, more precisely, in the IPCServer class (uses Godot's WebSockerServer built-in class).
- I don't know how MacOS handle this sort of behavior though, maybe there are special permissions needed?
- In the Godot editor, with the GodotSync addon enabled, you can add a ProtonGraph node, it will try to connect to the running ProtonGraph application.
- You can check the connection status in the inspector, or force it to connect again.
- The node will then open the template file to look for exposed parameters, show them in the Godot inspector.
- Once any of these changes, it asks ProtonGraph to generate a new result, and sends it on the websocket connection.
Troubleshooting
Now, if the add-on fails to connect to the local server, chances are it's not even up, in that case, starting ProtonGraph from a terminal should display a few errors about why the WebSocketServer didn't start.
I'm sorry you're facing all sorts of issue with this application. I'm trying to make it work on Godot 4 to finally get access to compute shaders and custom render devices. Since it's not stable and crashes very often, the development is kind of on hold for now as I wait for Godot to be more stable.
token-cjg
Hello, I trust you have been keeping well 🙏
References
Test repo cataloguing my current attempts to kick the tires of your system (still needs a readme): https://github.com/token-cjg/TestProtongraphProject
Context
I've been looking into trying to put Protongraph through its paces again, based on the hack that I used to build the Protongraph client for OSX here: https://github.com/protongraph/protongraph/issues/100#issuecomment-845467664.
I copied some information from an earlier tag of Protongraph (v0.5.0-alpha) and also copied the sync-godot addon into my test project. I was thinking of focusing on your SimpleTree example as that worked out of the box with the old Concept_Graph addon you created (before your rebrand), so I created a couple of Protongraph nodes and copied the relevant information from the simple_tree scene across.
I've created a repo here with my bumbling attempts: https://github.com/token-cjg/TestProtongraphProject
I then ran this Godot project side by side with the compiled Protongraph application running as a separate process.
Blocker
However, I have encountered a new blocker. I notice that in your sync-godot client, it polls for a connection to a local websocket server at
ws://127.0.0.1:434743which is not up. Also, in your Protongraph application, I see that you look for connections to a similar websocket server here for port 434743 or 636763.At first I thought that the Protongraph application was supposed to have a websocketserver tagged on, but I think that there is supposed to be a node.js server mediating a WebSocketServer connection between both the client (the Godot game per my test repository above as an example) and your Protongraph application.
Question
If my assessment is correct then, and I am missing the third piece of the picture here, do you have any example code for what you had in mind for the node.js server bridging these two systems? I've had a brief look at the broader protongraph organisation and haven't been able to find anything particularly obvious.
Closing
I'm still endlessly impressed by this application that you've built and I would be very excited to have a chance to kick the tires per some pale shadow of the vision that you had in mind.
~ token-cjg