Block Party (Terrain Ex. Pg.124 - 2Million Blocks)

Author Topic: Block Party (Terrain Ex. Pg.124 - 2Million Blocks)  (Read 232274 times)

Any progress on this?
I showed a teaser on Discord of one of the new features I'm currently adding. But, it's not ready to officially reveal just yet. I'm hoping to have it fully working very soon.

couple questions, are the characters going to be scaled the same as Lego minifigures?  And, if you are adding buildable vehicles, will there be special parts for them (I.E. 12x4 Lego Car Chassis, Wheel axles?)
Characters will be scaled to being about the size of Lego minifigs; I haven't decided just yet on the official size. Buildable vehicles are planned to be added later on in development, and yes they'll include special parts. I have some ideas on what parts to have available, but will keep that under wraps for now. =)

Bump! Update: 7/28/18

Custom Blender Exporter
A custom made, python-based exporter is being developed for creating custom bricks (and might support other objects as well, such as items and vehicles). By using the exporter, you'll be able to make bricks or even entire brick packs for Block Party. You'll be able to set up everything needed for bricks within the program itself: The brick model, collision, brick grid, size, vertex colors (including transparency), and even information such as the brick name, category, and subcategory. Once exported, face occlusion will be set up automatically, based on specific textures you use for model faces.

The exporter is not completely finished, but is working, and Block Party already supports custom, third-party bricks. The Blender add-on will be released later on, once finished and once the default bricks are decided on.


Brick Rotation On Any Axis
A new feature not quite finished is the ability to rotate bricks on any axis, rather than just vertically. Instead of having 4 rotation variants for bricks, there are now 24; bricks can be rotated using the new building interface that will be developed, or by hitting a single key to toggle the feature and while using the Numpad (very similar to positioning a brick). This feature will expand what's possible with builds.


New Bricks and Building Interface
With the new exporter almost finished, there's no limit to what kind or how many bricks can be added. I'm currently working on implementing as many default brick as possible, which range from basic plates, to various types of ramps, new cube variants and various detail models. A new interface for building will also be added, to make creating builds much easier. The interface is inspired by various Lego games, and will allow you to build and choose by using the mouse. You'll no longer have to use the alpha numeric keys for selecting bricks, which was meant to be temporary anyway. =P


What's Next
-Print Support
-Building Tool Functionality
-Networking Support
-Reimplementation of Previous Features (since I switched back to PC from the mobile version)
-Shader Overhaul
-Perhaps A Couple Other New Features
-In-Game and Avatar Options (?)
-Main Menu GUI and Map Selection


Still waiting on the Mac build which takes 5 minutes to set up

Thanks ghost very cool
No probs

Still waiting on the Mac build which takes 5 minutes to set up
-_-

We'll add it eventually, lol.



So if I need to pick a brick from a wide selection of bricks loaded I can rotate a bunch of 3D models of bricks at the same time and click on the exact one I want instead of clicking on tiny 96x96 icons with tiny text below them?
I'm sure this is built into Unity but do all interfaces take up the same proportion of the screen regardless of resolution? My biggest compaint with Blockland at the moment is that whenever I play in 4K mode I can't see stuff because all of the icons and text are scaled for a 720p resolution and windows only fill up like a tenth of my monitor.
https://blocklandglass.com/addons/screenshot.php?id=835
« Last Edit: July 28, 2018, 04:30:04 PM by DurkaDude »

I suggest you add an omnibrick which is a 1x1 brick that can be scaled to any dimension using like looking at a face on the brick and using your mousewheel to scale it up

It would probably invalidate some Oct tree code or require special class interface but it's definitely useful to have for those times when you need a random 462x67 plate or some other handicapped dimension
« Last Edit: July 28, 2018, 09:00:04 PM by thegoodperry »

So if I need to pick a brick from a wide selection of bricks loaded I can rotate a bunch of 3D models of bricks at the same time and click on the exact one I want instead of clicking on tiny 96x96 icons with tiny text below them?
I'm sure this is built into Unity but do all interfaces take up the same proportion of the screen regardless of resolution? My biggest compaint with Blockland at the moment is that whenever I play in 4K mode I can't see stuff because all of the icons and text are scaled for a 720p resolution and windows only fill up like a tenth of my monitor.
https://blocklandglass.com/addons/screenshot.php?id=835
With Unity, GUIs can either adjust their positions relative to the screen size / ratio, or can be rescaled with the ratio itself. I'll see what works best, I can always rescale the text. And as for building, there will be a window on the left or right side of the screen, which will allow you to easily select any brick you want while building (instead of having to open up a menu that obscures the screen. I might also add a "favorites" list as well, so you can quickly select certain bricks you'll be using often. I'm certainly open to ideas though.


I suggest you add an omnibrick which is a 1x1 brick that can be scaled to any dimension using like looking at a face on the brick and using your mousewheel to scale it up

It would probably invalidate some Oct tree code or require special class interface but it's definitely useful to have for those times when you need a random 462x67 plate or some other handicapped dimension
That's a good idea. It wouldn't be overly hard to add an "omnibrick", but would just take awhile to fully implement it and figure out how it would work. I could probably add that later or post-release.

Will this has terrain like blockland had? Just wondering.

An omnibrick could actually save you a lot of dev time if implemented correctly. For example, you have a window full of different brick sizes and stuff and it takes a while to count the dimensions so they could fit exactly into whatever spot you need to fill. Using an editor wand style brick means you can entirely eliminate all that searching. It's also more natural to edit it in 3d space rather than in a 2d window so you can get a better spacial understanding of the dimensions you're trying to replicate.

I'm sure this is an overly ambitious overhaul and won't meld well with the more niche bricks like ramps or grates, etc. But when Block Party does get released an editor wand or newdupe-style supercut and fill will probably be the first mod ever made and it's uses will be so practical it'll already render a brick menu useless, especially for larger builds

One compromise I can imagine is a purge of the brick menu to only have 1x1 brick, 1x1 ramp, all the strange one shot bricks like grate and window wall. Then one can place their choice of brick and use the dynamic scaling to do the rest of the work. You could also add things like tiling for the weird ones like grate so Instead of a giant horribly stretched 64x64 grate you'd have 64 neatly packed 8x8 grates in a square. Or maybe you want to make a giant hill. Take a 1x1 ramp, stretch it out. In my mind this would introduce smarter building styles with incredibly reduced object counts. It would end up looking a little more like vanilla bl or roblox but maybe that's just the natural evolution of streamlined building
« Last Edit: July 30, 2018, 09:00:15 PM by thegoodperry »

how will lighting look, and how does it affect performance?

I found this PCSS shadow thing for unity: https://github.com/TheMasonX/UnityPCSS, again I'm not too knowledgeable about unity so idk if you could use it or not.

Small Update: Working on the new painting and building interfaces, and will be adding new shaders very soon. Also, wanted to show off a few more builds by the testers:






Will this has terrain like blockland had? Just wondering.
It shouldn't have something very similar. Although, I'm not sure if it'll be infinite like Torque's terrain.


An omnibrick could actually save you a lot of dev time if implemented correctly. For example, you have a window full of different brick sizes and stuff and it takes a while to count the dimensions so they could fit exactly into whatever spot you need to fill. Using an editor wand style brick means you can entirely eliminate all that searching. It's also more natural to edit it in 3d space rather than in a 2d window so you can get a better spacial understanding of the dimensions you're trying to replicate.

I'm sure this is an overly ambitious overhaul and won't meld well with the more niche bricks like ramps or grates, etc. But when Block Party does get released an editor wand or newdupe-style supercut and fill will probably be the first mod ever made and it's uses will be so practical it'll already render a brick menu useless, especially for larger builds

One compromise I can imagine is a purge of the brick menu to only have 1x1 brick, 1x1 ramp, all the strange one shot bricks like grate and window wall. Then one can place their choice of brick and use the dynamic scaling to do the rest of the work. You could also add things like tiling for the weird ones like grate so Instead of a giant horribly stretched 64x64 grate you'd have 64 neatly packed 8x8 grates in a square. Or maybe you want to make a giant hill. Take a 1x1 ramp, stretch it out. In my mind this would introduce smarter building styles with incredibly reduced object counts. It would end up looking a little more like vanilla bl or roblox but maybe that's just the natural evolution of streamlined building
Depending on how development goes, I may look into adding this feature later on. It does make a lot of sense.

how will lighting look, and how does it affect performance?
There will be real-time lighting and shadows, as well as slight ambient occlusion. Some or most of these features will most likely be adjustable via the Options menu, so you can find the right balance for performance.

I found this PCSS shadow thing for unity: https://github.com/TheMasonX/UnityPCSS, again I'm not too knowledgeable about unity so idk if you could use it or not.
Thanks, I'll check it out. =)

Another small, yet impressive, build by the community: