On the current state of things: Our role here and the use of StaticShapes

[honytawk]

McEdit is good and all, but it is a tool designed for Minecraft as it edits an already generated world.
No, a better program to use would be World Painter.

Sjin's video

I think it would be pretty easy to convert something like that to use ModTerrain.
Let it just generate savefiles.

[Ad Bot]

[otto-san]

yeah something like that would be relatively simple to convert since it'd already be stored in a 2D grid or something

the main challenge is definitely placing the modter efficiently and nicely
i've gotten simple prototypes of this working but modter has some pretty bad face culling issues that made it look really gross
also it looks weird if it's just cubescape with modter used to ramp up levels

[portify]

I'd like to state that a large issue regarding the game is that how divided the two primary creative sides of the game are.

There are many people who spend their time creating great, high quality builds in the game, and in the end, just stand there and look at it.
Likewise, there are many people with the ideas and ability to develop new and entertaining/interesting ways of playing the game, but are often hindered by a lack of ability regarding the former.
Something similar goes for the opposite case as well, however. The bottom line is that the community is stuck on a "private content lock":

• People who create gamemodes lack the content to bundle with their creation and thus provide an "actual" playable (applies to most cases) experience.
• People who create builds lack an unique way to present them; either they will never end up with an use for their build, or perhaps if they don't people will pass it off as "yet another generic DM".

While yes, I'm in the middle of creating a so-and-so standard library for TorqueScript (with tons of non-game-related features), I don't believe that to be the way forward for this game. TorqueScript is fine as it is for the purposes it is intended to serve. What the game really needs is to embrace sharing much more than currently. Stop complaining about build stealing because they're used on other servers than yours - be glad that people appreciate your build enough to use it. Stop keeping add-ons private for the purpose of keeping them private - if people respect you for the content you create, give them something in return for believing in you.

While yes, this divide isn't always as razor-sharp as it appears, as it's not explicitly categorized into "builders" and "scripters", it's still a large barrier regarding content. Blockland is getting stale from the perspective of old players because they've seen all the game has to show - very few if any at all are creating new experiences and sharing them with the community. Additional tools for Blockland would be an extremely appreciated addition, but in the end, way more than you and the other 10 people on your server could be enjoying the game in a new way.

[Farad]

As a builder with minimal coding experience, I can say that the easiest solution for me when my builds require code is to recruit a scripter to help (do it for me). But now that I'm not as mentally stimulated by building things, I've taken a shot at coding and now blockland seems entirely new. It's given me motivation to keep making new things even though I'm one of the older players.

So in addition to sharing mods and builds, I recommend you builders out there to also try scripting at some point. Try setting a very, very specific goal that you can accomplish with script, look for add-ons that do something similar and modify them, ask a friend, ask in coding help, whatever it takes.

[Planr]

all i know is that i want terrain maps back. no more bullcrap shaders making my building process 1000x less inspiring.

while shadows and shaders are nice, they are just sparkly graphical effects to make the game look "prettier", while taking away one of my favorite elements of the game. the game is still fun to play, but i know that the best times i had in blockland was back in the years when there were terrain maps and you actually felt inspired to build towns and such. it was amazing being able to explore and enjoy such massive endless maps.

[Honno]

That is really damn easy to interpret. I might just write a small library to parse bls-files...
But it would be written in Java (my primary language, C++-Compilers hate me), which I guess some people here don't like.
Should I?

Done.
You can download the sourcecode here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/o3x96899ej04cma/BLSReader.zip
The reader outputs the parsed data to the console as JSON. Look into the files BLSReader.java and BLSReaderTest.java for more details.
I was too lazy to document the thing, but its so small anybody (even a noob'y-coder) could understand it.

No license on the files contained within the zip-archive, you can do whatever the hell you want with the files!

- Longor1996

thank you, you are awesome =)

[#Ravencroft]

Most coders have no problem making things for me when I ask them. I don't view it as an issue.

[The Brighter Dark]

Most coders have no problem making things for me when I ask them. I don't view it as an issue.

[otto-san]

Most coders have no problem making things for me when I ask them. I don't view it as an issue.

yeah, we have a p nice modding community here. i think it says something when there's an entire section of the forums where people can request things and people actually make them without thought of compensation

[General]

I'm always put off by the limits of torque too, usually when I try and make something it ends up stuffter than expected due to limits

[Cybertails1998]

quick question: apparently bricks use fxDTS instead of static shapes. has anyone tried reverse-engineering that or is is another case of Not Happening?

[Thorfin25]

Not Happening

Pre-Retail static shapes were used, and abandon for the fxDTS system we use now. Static shapes could be scaled and moved easily, however if you have 100+ you'd lag like hell.

[Cybertails1998]

as in, is fxDTS terrain possible

[Dannu]

fxDTS terrain is very possible. Just crack open your Blockland and start building

[Cybertails1998]

for the Special, here's a hint to what i meant by 'terrain':