2012/02/05 - Shadows and Shaders vs. Interiors and Terrain [Fan Art Too]

[MunkeyCheez]

Maybe it will force people into building more s
but wouldn't it put off some one who is trying out the demo? just spawning in some empty skybox with just 150 bricks. It would make Blockland feel a bit more limited


unless you could design a day and night feature, unless thats impossible in torque

The demo will obviously be looked at, day and night cycles have been talked about in previous posts. -- Rotondo

[Ad Bot]

[MrLoL]

So I say bring on the update.
I'll pity the "mapping community" for a minute, then carry on with my pretty builds.

"Bring on the nice builds with shadows, and throw the ugly maps by window!"

[CityRPG]

I think this would be cool. -- kompressor

I've built a day/night thing for CityRPG. It even includes a SunFX that moves across the sky. If you get that change I mentioned in earlier, I'll happily modify my EnvironmentSO into something independent of CityRPG and release it with a bunch of variables so it'll work well on any map.

[Melting Plastic]

For special bricks, do the shadows match the geometry of the brick? - compared to using the bricks bounding-box? - slightly hard to tell in the pics but it seems they do..

The opaque geometry as drawn is used for casting shadows. -- kompressor

[skill4life]

Should i fear working on projects on slate maps right now or will they be unchanged and loadable after the update?

Slate stuff will work. -- kompressor

[Rusty]

I suppose shadows will aid building in the sense that if you make a house, you need lights/windows in the right places.

Offtopic: Day and night implemented as a server option would definitely be fuqing cool.

[ettax1]

I've built a day/night thing for CityRPG. It even includes a SunFX that moves across the sky. If you get that change I mentioned in earlier, I'll happily modify my EnvironmentSO into something independent of CityRPG and release it with a bunch of variables so it'll work well on any map.

So long time I have it done. :P

[-Jetz-]

Since the worlds will be almost entirely bricks in the future, will we see any improvements in the loading or ghosting speeds of bricks?

Also, I may have missed if you did say anything about it, but is there any chance we could see an actual flashlight for the player in the future?

Finally, what kind of control will we get over how bricks treat light? Can we make water bricks super shiny while leaving dirt looking like dirt? Tile floors that look clean and bright while cement walls look grey and dull?

[Aphtonites]

Will this even be optional? I'd like to see how much processing power this consumes.
To be honest a backwards compatibility system that automatically turns off special effects when loading interior or terrain maps would be much more fair.

[Trogtor]

BRICK SHADOWS

THIS IS WHAT I DREAMED OF

MY ENTIRE LIFE

[kompressor]

Will this even be optional? I'd like to see how much processing power this consumes.
To be honest a backwards compatibility system that automatically turns off special effects when loading interior or terrain maps would be much more fair.

Yes it will be optional - I've said this many times.

The issue is that the complexity required to support interior and terrain is fixed whether or not any are in the scene. Go ahead and get a Torque 1.3 code drop and prove me wrong if you want.

This is not a discussion about fairness. This is a discussion about how to keep Blockland moving forward.

[MrLoL]

When is this going to be released :S  I mean, will it be released in a month or around?

WHEN ITS DONE.

[Blastdown]

Those screenshots look absolutely beautiful. Would it be too much trouble to post a few more eye-candies? :o


I'm looking forward to seeing this in action. I'm curious as to how this will affect Blockland, we've had the interiors/terrain maps since the beginning, it'll be quite the experience to see them go. You guys seem think this is the route to go down though, so we'll just see how it goes once it goes live. I can't wait!

[heedicalking]

Will this even be optional? I'd like to see how much processing power this consumes.
To be honest a backwards compatibility system that automatically turns off special effects when loading interior or terrain maps would be much more fair.

i would much rather actually have them fixed than hang on to a system that will drag down development. people like those maps because it's what they've played on and learned to enjoy. "loading up the bedroom save" is a terrible solution to not having the bedroom.

Those screenshots look absolutely beautiful. Would it be too much trouble to post a few more eye-candies? :o


I'm looking forward to seeing this in action. I'm curious as to how this will affect Blockland, we've had the interiors/terrain maps since the beginning, it'll be quite the experience to see them go. You guys seem think this is the route to go down though, so we'll just see how it goes once it goes live. I can't wait!

it's exactly what's "right for the game" $$$$

[Trogtor]

Terrain is keeping us away from the real reason of blockland

edit: Most servers with terrain and stuff are low quality servers. All they do is walk around and build weapons