Messages

61

Games / Re: Block Party [Demo Announcement Pg.104]

« on: April 19, 2018, 03:22:08 PM »

Minor Update: Decided to bring back Trog's avatar model for the mean time; I thought it would be better for the demo as well. Also fixed the transparency sorting issue by making some changes to one of the shaders - it uses a technique similar to how BL handles it (which is also better for performance):

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Games / Re: BuildScape [Demo Announcement Pg.104]

« on: April 16, 2018, 12:07:39 PM »

As long as all of the filters are optional I could care less if they're in the game or not.

They will be optional; players will eventually be able to toggle them in the graphics options GUI.

Stacking 9 million filters on an image doesn't make for good aesthetics.

Adding anti-aliasing, ambient occlusion, and better color grading does.

The bottom left one should be the final one

Yeah, the 3rd and 4th images were meant to show how rendering itself can be cleaned up with the effects, which were much more subtle.


Also, decided to rename the game to Block Party, due to community request.

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Games / Re: BuildScape [Demo Announcement Pg.104]

« on: April 15, 2018, 08:21:48 PM »

Everything looks so blurry with those effects. I feel like I need glasses after that

Bloom, in my opinion, is the best way to ruin a game's visual appearance. Honestly, most post-processing filters are just ugly and annoying to look at anyways.

I was just experimenting with the effects earlier, that's not what the game will actually look like. Post-processing will be used to clean up rendering, as well as provide more options to mod makers (or used for various game features).

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Games / Re: BuildScape [Demo Announcement Pg.104]

« on: April 15, 2018, 04:08:07 PM »

block party wasn't on the poll... the fix is in... Sad!

I do like Block Party, but I'm not sure if that accurately conveys what the game is about. It will include building, but many other features as well.

no mac build? hng

A Mac build is planned eventually, but for the mean time we'll release a web-based version.


Also, just stumbled upon Unity's post-processing effects. Currently experimenting with film-quality color grading, ambient occlusion, bloom, motion blur, depth of field, antialiasing and with adding a vignette.

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Games / Re: BuildScape [Demo Announcement Pg.104]

« on: April 15, 2018, 03:08:45 PM »

The name was the most popular choice, as voted on by the Discord community. If anyone has something better in mind, feel free to let us know either here or on Discord.

66

Games / Re: BuildScape

« on: April 15, 2018, 01:55:06 AM »

The name is kind of just a placeholder for the mean time lol. I wanted to start giving the game it's own unique identity, especially with the first demo release approaching. Speaking of which...


Update: 4/15/18

New Name
"BuildScape" has been chosen as the name for the project (at least for the mean time).

Graphics
Made slight improvements to brick shaders and textures. Bricks now have a more "plastic" feel to them. You can change graphics settings on game startup (such as quality and screen resolution).

Brick Selection
A method for cycling through all bricks has been included. You can choose between the 5 different brick categories in-game by using the alpha numeric keys 1-5, and then use your mouse scroll button to choose between bricks within that category.

Repainting & Removing bricks
You can repaint planted bricks by using the E key, and remove planted bricks using X. Removed bricks will have physics applied to them, and can be moved around by the player (or pushed / repainted using X or E). Interactive bricks removed from builds automatically despawn after 20 seconds. The infinite floor plane can also be repainted using E.

Pre-Alpha Public Release
If no major issues arise, I'm aiming to release a public pre-alpha demo on Discord by next weekend. The demo will include building, painting and removing bricks (individual brick physics); the floor plane of the map will be infinite. Note: The game is not finalized nor fully optimized by any means, this is still pre-alpha.

A windows version will be available, as well as a web-based version for everyone else (if your browser supports HTML 5, i.e. Firefox). The web version will not have the same graphics quality, but will allow other members of the server to at least try the game.

Demo Control Scheme
-Controls can be remapped on game startup, under the Input tab.
-Designed to work for computers both with or without the number pad.
A S D W or the Arrow Keys will move your player around, TAB will switch between 1st / 3rd person.
Holding Left-Shift will allow you to sprint while walking., pressing Space will cause you to jump, holding Space will allow you to fly.
4 5 6 8 or J K L I will reposition your brick, 7 9 or U O will rotate it; Numpad + - or ; P will raise / lower it.
Enter or Return to plant the ghost brick, Numpad 0 or Backspace will cancel it.
X will remove a planted brick, E will recolor it, R will toggle the paint GUI.
Numpad 1 2 3 or , . / will change the brick positioning / shifting methods.
Alpha 1 2 3 4 5 will switch between the 5 brick categories, your mouse scroll wheel will allow you to cycle all bricks within them.
+ (on the keyboard not numpad) will take a .jpg screenshot.
Escape will shutdown the game.

67

Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [New Screenshots]

« on: April 13, 2018, 10:40:49 PM »

Small Update:
-Made some graphical improvements
-Added a way to easily cycle through all bricks in-game.
-Added the ability to paint the floor plane (in addition to physics and planted bricks).
-Added a despawn timer to interactive physics bricks, which are spawned when bricks are removed from the build.
-Various bug fixes.

I also experimented with lighting, and ran a stress-test having 10,000 bricks on-screen at the same time - with a reasonable framerate (the brick system is not completely optimized yet):

 




A public pre-alpha demo is currently being finalized, and should be released sometime this month - hopefully by next weekend or the following week.

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Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [Brick Removal & Repainting Added! Pg. 103]

« on: April 10, 2018, 10:51:23 AM »

Watch the video but listen to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Cv0XFYaRM

Seems very fitting. =P

i'm not gonna lie, ghost, you're being awfully indulgent with people asking you for random features that really seem more like unnecessary addons than integral, necessary parts of a game

i'd watch out for that feature creep

I hear ya, but a lot of the requested features have actually been discussed already in the past by the team and I. We're planning on adding them long-term - either in the initial release, or in subsequent updates.

69

Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [Brick Removal & Repainting Added! Pg. 103]

« on: April 09, 2018, 06:09:02 PM »

Also, decided to do a test to see how many physics-based objects the engine could handle onscreen at the same time:

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Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [Brick Removal & Repainting Added! Pg. 103]

« on: April 09, 2018, 02:49:35 PM »

I'm interested in seeing your approach to colour management in the future. By giving players free reign to pick their own RGBA colours there's cause for concern for mismatched tones and the like.

Maybe client-side coloursets would be the best approach? Kind of like a categorised "favourites" but if you've thought of this already I'd like to hear what you've considered

I suggest you add a palette tool as well that people can create colorsets to access quickly when they're building. It'll help on larger builds when you want to access similar colors without having to go all the way back just to use like a color selector or something

Presets / color packs are planned, which will allow you set, load and share sets of your favorite colors. Using a palette tool for them would work as well.

maybe you could do ctrl (paint key) to pull out an eyedropper to pick colors?

Brilliant idea. =) I never considered that, but it would be really useful.


Btw, small update. A fadeout was added to texture mip maps, to reduce the annoying rendering artifacts. Textures look much more smooth at a distance now (thanks to Longor for informing me about it):

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Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [Brick Removal & Repainting Added! Pg. 103]

« on: April 09, 2018, 11:19:32 AM »

nice, gl

Thanks =)

but but
rube goldberg machines!

damn, never thought of thatp

please add optional server side phys

Rube Goldberg Machines would actually be quite epic, lol. I'll look into having a toggle option for physics. But, I need to research how Unity handles networking first.

72

Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project

« on: April 08, 2018, 08:56:35 PM »

Update: The brick removal and replanting features have been added! This will allow players to modify planted bricks, such as destroying bricks to allow new ones to be planted in it's place, and changing it's color. Destroyed bricks will still stick around for a few seconds as interactive physics objects, which you can push around and also repaint.

Here's a new video demonstrating these features:


All I have left to do is finish the animations and adjust the scale of the player, add a brick selection menu and make a few other changes, and the first playable demo will be ready to release!

73

Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [Brick Physics Video! Pg. 102 & OP]

« on: April 05, 2018, 06:09:34 PM »

idea:  fakekillbrick = brick falls, but cant interact with players,   killbrick = brick falls, players can collide


fakekillbrick can be useful in cramped spaces

Interesting idea, and definitely doable.

add epic brick fall sounds
like mid 2012 roblox stuff

oh yeah and brick materials???!?!? with moddable sounds and collision sounds

I'm not too familiar with the Roblox brick fall sounds. But, brick materials - which could be similar to brick prints - would be a good idea.

Real brick physics or the fake client-side thing Blockland has?

For now it's real brick physics, in which you can still interact with them (like walking on top of plates that have physics enabled), and they properly react with other bricks. I might look into client-sided physics though, which would be better for server performance.

74

Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project

« on: April 04, 2018, 02:27:58 PM »

Update: Lately I've been working on brick removal, which is almost finished. This will allow players to remove bricks they've already planted, and will spawn a temporary brick with physics enabled - which will have velocity applied to it, as if it was hammered.

I've also been messin' around with brick physics, just to get an idea of how they would work and to try out the physics engine. I just need to finish brick removal (which will later be used when the hammer tool is added), and the option to repaint planted bricks. I also need to finish the placeholder avatar and make a few other changes before the pre-alpha demo can be released.

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Games / Re: Blockland-Inspired Project [Update Pg.100 - New Bricks!]

« on: March 29, 2018, 11:32:44 PM »

okay okay

what i mean is,

what if you could have two brick grids

one for tiny ones, and one for big ones

That would be possible.

Any progress on brick rendering? How many are you able to get on screen now and what's the avg fps for you?

Lately I redid how bricks are handled related to mesh grouping. They are now added into mesh objects relative to their size and location, rather than just one large, overall mesh. This is meant to maximize the use the frustum culling (i.e. bricks that are not onscreen will not be rendered). This is a slight performance drop for bricks that are on screen, but once face occlusion (and later occlusion culling) are added, that shouldn't be a problem. There's no point in testing fps right now until face occlusion is added.