Sabtu, 30 Maret 2013

It's been quiet here... too quiet

I've been quiet for a while as development slowed down while I studied for an exam in c++ but I'm back on track and have rewritten a lot of code which now runs much faster and uses much less ram. The old code was storing some block data more than once as a sort of overlap between chunks where one chunk would also contain the data of the blocks bordering it from other chunks. Now the chunk code can efficiently access other locks and pull block data to know what it's bordering on. The result is that I can generate faster and generate a lot more. Also the way chunks are sorted and stored has been updated which now makes it possible to generate infinite terrain instead of the fixed map size I used to have. I haven't implemented this because I don't have any use for it but with a function to unload chunks too far away this would be possible.


Ingame shot with Morning sunrise - medium fog preset. Ingame the sun will move over time and ambient light and fog will change to match time of day.

Scaling the textures down to 4x4 pixels resulted in this. This is probably not viable for actual gameplay because block types need to be distinguishable and the textures are gorgeous at full 32x32 resolution but it looks very cute.

Noisy terrain in sunset lighting
Daytime lighting with 32x32 resolution textures


One thing I'm working with right now is how to make terrain easier to discern, this proves to be difficult in some cases partially because of the very noisy terrain with few flat faces and partially because of the distance of the camera from the terrain and the angle. Hopefully I'll find a solution to this without toning down the noise and detail of the terrain.

Next on the programming to do list is the camera controls and the cutaway view for the player to view underground structures. Players will be able to scroll through and set a max height above which all terrain will be cut off and not rendered. This will let players see what's under the terrain so long as it's lit well enough.
templates-office.com Terrain Generation, Voxel Dwarf Game