Xcylin: A Sci-Fi open-world voxel RPG [Updated][Greenlit :D]

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#81

The water moves not in real time but with the speed of the physics engine (60FPS at the moment) but this is by design to keep the used CPU cycles at a reasonable level. And you are right, that makes it look a bit like jelly. But you have to understand that the player can place water anywhere(!) in the (currently) 50x50x32x32x128 blocks world and then the simulation has to take care that it behaves in a way like water. It is also important to know that each change in water level makes a retesselation of the given sourroundings necessary, so this is not a simple process. But I agree that it is not 100% accurate - the question is, is it possible to make it more accurate without making it unreasonable complex and slow? If you compare it to Minecraft for example, then you see that water is also not simulated in any completely accurate way, just because it would most likely not be feasible.

And to explain why the water moves vertically first is simply because gravity is the bigger force here. I implemented it to first check if a block is below the water and if so the water should flow down, then if there is still water in the current block it would flow in the x/z-directions. You can check the javscript code below that I currently use - any suggestions are very welcome :slight_smile:

The water javascript code: http://pastebin.java-gaming.org/5c2af2e3581
The onChange() function is called every time when a block is changed that is a neighbor of this block or the block at the position of this block has been changed.
You get four parameters:

  • world - the world to access all world relevant stuff (like terrain, player, npc …)
  • blockInstance - the instance of this class that is adjacent to the change
  • blockInstanceBefore - the instance of a block before it was changed
  • blockInstanceNow - the instance of a block after it has been changed

Soon when we release the alpha version, you can play around with the block definitions for yourself to optimize these things if you like :slight_smile:

#82

Water should simultaneously flow to the bottom and right, now the vertical flows faster then horizontal, maybe you could speed one up or slow the other down.
To overcome the tessellation problem, you could create a flowing (opaque) effect, so you have less updates when water changes place.

#83

Looks good but unfortunately the voxel design is getting beaten half to death Lol.

Fortunately for you must of them don’t make it but this one actually seems more unique than shitecraft

#84

I hope you mean clones of mine craft by that - even that I would disagree with - it might be worth taking a look at Notch’s status in the ratings board before you say anything rash about his baby.

#85

I’m sick of seeing this attitude.

Yes, I’m sick of the in-it-for-the-money, poorly done clones of any game too, but I don’t need to go around saying everywhere how I don’t like it.

I honestly don’t care if some random person doesn’t like poorly done clones. If posted in response to a poorly-done clone, it’s not like the creator is going to go and fix it. If posted in response to a well-done one, it has no meaning. Just keep your opinion to yourself and don’t post until you find something constructive to say. Otherwise you’re justing wasting people’s time.

(Okay, I am venting at quite a lot of people right now, due to the recent drama around King/RoyalGames, Flappy Bird etc. Your comment was relatively okay, but I have to say this anyway)

#86

Why don’t you have the amount of acid decrease every time it burns through something? That way it will be self contained, also more realistic. So If a player is mining they could run into a packet of acid (That was contained by a certain of rock) and they would either have to let to create a hole, or try to contain it.

Shouldn’t this be in the “Cube Worlds Projects” Sub Forum? </Off Topic>

#87

I know there are a lot of Minecraft clones that just try to quickly clone notch’s success. Let me make one thing quite clear: I don’t intend to do a blunt copy of MC, I see MC more as the first representative of a new game genre. A genre that didn’t exist before simply because most of what MC does is cutting edge (even if it looks pixelated). That’s by the way IMHO also the reason why most games are never finished/released. I don’t know any game before MC that had the possibility to change the entire game’s world, I mean there are games where you can change the level to a certain degree or even the whole level but not in this dimension!

With my game in particular the main difference to MC is that it is set in the future, has a storyline (though it’s also open world) and an ending (which MC had not by the time I started Xcylin). But I also won’t decline that it is of course inspired by MC a lot. But I see no point in recreating a game that already exists. So I think you will also see the main differences to MC when you get to play it this year :slight_smile:

I completely agree with you. But although I’m not entirely sure I think Gibbo3771 just refered with “shitecraft” to the poorly written rip offs of Minecraft and not Minecraft itself. Surely he knows that notch created a really remarkable game and if not he should look it up as it is all documented in this very forum!

Totally agree! And I’m as sick as you are about the recent Flappy Bird clone rush … :stuck_out_tongue:

#88

I hope you mean clones of mine craft by that - even that I would disagree with - it might be worth taking a look at Notch’s status in the ratings board before you say anything rash about his baby.

#89

Yes that’s exactly what I was about to do. I think every block should have a value of blocks it eats through and if that number reaches 0 the acid is considered saturated.

Maybe you are right, I don’t know the forum rules about that in particular but in the light of recent discussions I hope that my game is not considered just another MC clone and therefore put into “Cube Worlds Projects”. But rather if “Cube Worlds Projects” is a genre sub forum, then I’m okay with moving it there.

#90

I completely agree. It is a shame to see many voxel, world-shaping type of games quickly branded as a Minecraft clone. It is evident from the videos that you have posted that your game has quite a bit of uniqueness to it.

One could easily brand many top-down RTS games as clones of Dune, or FPS games as clones of Wolfenstein (or whatever came first). Following a genre or theme is hardly cloning.

#91

I’m sick of seeing this attitude.

Yes, I’m sick of the in-it-for-the-money, poorly done clones of any game too, but I don’t need to go around saying everywhere how I don’t like it.

I honestly don’t care if some random person doesn’t like poorly done clones. If posted in response to a poorly-done clone, it’s not like the creator is going to go and fix it. If posted in response to a well-done one, it has no meaning. Just keep your opinion to yourself and don’t post until you find something constructive to say. Otherwise you’re justing wasting people’s time.

(Okay, I am venting at quite a lot of people right now, due to the recent drama around King/RoyalGames, Flappy Bird etc. Your comment was relatively okay, but I have to say this anyway)

#92

Why don’t you have the amount of acid decrease every time it burns through something? That way it will be self contained, also more realistic. So If a player is mining they could run into a packet of acid (That was contained by a certain of rock) and they would either have to let to create a hole, or try to contain it.

Shouldn’t this be in the “Cube Worlds Projects” Sub Forum? </Off Topic>

#93

I know there are a lot of Minecraft clones that just try to quickly clone notch’s success. Let me make one thing quite clear: I don’t intend to do a blunt copy of MC, I see MC more as the first representative of a new game genre. A genre that didn’t exist before simply because most of what MC does is cutting edge (even if it looks pixelated). That’s by the way IMHO also the reason why most games are never finished/released. I don’t know any game before MC that had the possibility to change the entire game’s world, I mean there are games where you can change the level to a certain degree or even the whole level but not in this dimension!

With my game in particular the main difference to MC is that it is set in the future, has a storyline (though it’s also open world) and an ending (which MC had not by the time I started Xcylin). But I also won’t decline that it is of course inspired by MC a lot. But I see no point in recreating a game that already exists. So I think you will also see the main differences to MC when you get to play it this year :slight_smile:

I completely agree with you. But although I’m not entirely sure I think Gibbo3771 just refered with “shitecraft” to the poorly written rip offs of Minecraft and not Minecraft itself. Surely he knows that notch created a really remarkable game and if not he should look it up as it is all documented in this very forum!

Totally agree! And I’m as sick as you are about the recent Flappy Bird clone rush … :stuck_out_tongue:

#94

Yes that’s exactly what I was about to do. I think every block should have a value of blocks it eats through and if that number reaches 0 the acid is considered saturated.

Maybe you are right, I don’t know the forum rules about that in particular but in the light of recent discussions I hope that my game is not considered just another MC clone and therefore put into “Cube Worlds Projects”. But rather if “Cube Worlds Projects” is a genre sub forum, then I’m okay with moving it there.

#95

I completely agree. It is a shame to see many voxel, world-shaping type of games quickly branded as a Minecraft clone. It is evident from the videos that you have posted that your game has quite a bit of uniqueness to it.

One could easily brand many top-down RTS games as clones of Dune, or FPS games as clones of Wolfenstein (or whatever came first). Following a genre or theme is hardly cloning.

#96

I love the style you’ve started here. I’m curious since I just started playing around with cubic frameworks in JME3. How many verts/tris are you rendering textured at once? Do you import models of the blocks, assume their structure is all cubic or do you have other shapes too? (I thought I saw some slanties in there).

Looking great though!

#97

Man I love this. Been following the thread for a while now but never really posted.
I just have a question, what method do you use for the SSAO? An SSAO shader of some sort or do you just edit the vertex color based on surrounding blocks?
Thanks, and good luck :slight_smile:

#98

I love the style you’ve started here. I’m curious since I just started playing around with cubic frameworks in JME3. How many verts/tris are you rendering textured at once? Do you import models of the blocks, assume their structure is all cubic or do you have other shapes too? (I thought I saw some slanties in there).

Looking great though!

#99

Man I love this. Been following the thread for a while now but never really posted.
I just have a question, what method do you use for the SSAO? An SSAO shader of some sort or do you just edit the vertex color based on surrounding blocks?
Thanks, and good luck :slight_smile:

#100

Thanks. In a normal world like the one in the video there are about < 600000 textured faces (51 of 32x32x128 blocks sectors are visible). But the more difficult thing to solve is to keep the amount of objects (geometries) low while at the same time allowing to modify the object’s mesh within a reasonable time.

And yes, as you already noticed there are not only cubic shapes possible: I also added the possibility to use cusom meshes (from blender). They are also tesselated to one big shape per stripe but overlaping faces are not removed due to the immense amount of permutations needed to determine what block with what other block would have what faces removed (but still I also think about possible solutions for that). Meanwhile I plan to limit the objects with custom meshes that the player can place by natural factors like the items that are needed to replicate (=craft) them.