Leosallespoli

Wait what? Rain and waterfalls?

It's progressing but my productivity was shot in the face by planet explorers and Stardrive.... But I got some cool stuff and new ideas to show in the next update. What I'd like to show now is a project a friend of mine is working on, it is a platformer/dungeon crawler which the dungeons are proceduraly made.

If you know portuguese this is the site http://uspgamedev.org/ I'm learning much from him and the people who work there, there are a bunch of cool projects like a whole 2D game engine being made from scratch, very cool stuff.

P.s. USP stands for Universidade de São Paulo ( University of Sao Paulo ).

It implies that you cant research things, but instead have to aquire a script to create anything new from some NPC or something.

Maybe there will be research in future updates but you can excuse it saying that it is a advance civilization, you just need to find out who knows how to do the stuff you want and learn from him.

oblivion type graphics, which isnt terrible... it just shows its age.

That is one of the things that got me worried, the game is in development for about a year or so and it seems that they are pleased with the graphics, it seems that they are focusing on features which is not bad but the graphics ain't good, either it could be more stylized or more realistic but in my opinion it looks dull... Like an old mmo... This game reminds me so much of old MMOs, the quest system, the inventory, the player, when cutting trees... Still it has so much to offer! Well, I guess I'll keep waiting for Voxel Farm...

She's still trying to figure out where the 21k that 'wasn't asked for' is going... At least she promised she won't keep it, anyway back to Space Explorers I'm still unsure about pledging for a simple reason: I fear being disappointed with the final version, when you have high expectations you're bound to be disappointed...

One thing is a kid wanting to learn about making videogames, another thing is one eight year old raising 22k to do it.

Indeed... more like a creepy bug, all seems nice until you zoom in.

It is a bit disappointing, to say the least, that this project has gathered almost the same amount of money that Planet Explorer has.

Well, this week I was experimenting on how the building generator would be handled in the world generator and for my surprise it is damn fast! (I haven't calculated how fast it is butt it is fast!) Really... I could even generate most buildings at the start of the game, which I won't since I'm planning to add more detail to them, on the other side a lot of bugs came up, strange bugs... I'll try to clear them out in order to show you guys next week.

It's hard to talk about good sandbox games because its is a very big genre and not very well defined but I can suggest a few others.

Under the ocean. Still very WIP but it is a very promising game, you'll try to survive on an island using the things you find and building stuff with them.

Kinect void. Also in development, you get to build your own space ships and explore a procedural universe.

UnReal World. Survival as it should be... hehe, nice sandbox roguelike also a very challenging game.

Project zomboid. One of my personal favorites, the 0.3 version is coming out soonish, it is in closed beta as of now.

Kenshi. You can even build your own towns in this tactical squad-based game, I think it is based on eastern medieval era.

X3 Albion Prelude, one of the best games I ever played! Sandbox space simulator with even a stockmarket simulator and you build space stations and connect them to make a production chain.

Menoch, Planet explorers is made in unity, it SHOULD be playable on MAC, but if there's a problem probably it is because of OpenCl that they use in it, I found that problem in some PCs. But my impression of that game is that it has a LOT of good stuff but Major gamebreakers like the mmo-like quest system, god that is annoying... Like fetching the same item 50 times!! But as starforge changed their methods I hope they also do.

For this week update

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_RXpfy4bKo&feature=youtu.be

I still have some work to do there like placing stairs to go from one floor to another, improving the algorithm and windows of course.

Hmm, since words wouldn't work I tried using links and pictures.

Also, nice scapegoat there. You lost an argument so you call me a troll. And on top of that an arsehole, I remember somewhere some guy making a remark about stones and glass houses.

Sorry if you feel like I'm an arsehole, if you want to continue this 'conversation' without memes I'm at the IRC. Otherwise I'll try to keep this on-topic. Thank you anyway.

Cool.

Plus if you don't know you should read Crysyn's rules for this forum. http://en.wikipedia....Wheaton.27s_law

http://pastebin.com/vN2Etpda

still not finished, didnt get much done honestly. but I've left a note on what the next story will be.(yay murder)

Oh I liked that!

I can't help myself to not respond...

Ok, firstly you are arguing about something you have no experience in and making statements on what you think is right.

Go back in the first response I gave you, so now I'm a part of that team and I actually know the development process of a 2D engine, not a big one, but I don't think we're talking about those, are we? No I never tried to make one, but you didn't try to make a PCG (procedural city generator) also, right?

Secondly, saying its not about difficulty and about time is exactly like saying its not difficult, by removing the variable of difficulty from the argument you are distinctly disagreeing with its significance therefore saying that the difficulty is the same.

I wasn't saying it is not difficult, they can both be easy or be hard as hell, depends on what you want to do, if you want to make a simple asteroids game then making the engine would be harder. If you think that if something takes too long it is because its difficult things can be easy but at the same time require a long process, well it took what 10 years for you to finish school(depends on where you live), was it that difficult?

Thirdly, I never disagreed with your time argument, time is not the factor, you can make a text based interface and you can make a graphical interface and the graphical might take more time but the difficulty is the same. When making a game engine you must take into consideration every aspect of what you might use the engine for, this is much more difficult than just using the engine. (at least when working alone or with comparable workforce) If I am doing a tile engine I need to ensure to take every aspect of what might be drawn using it into consideration. When I'm using said engine I already know what I can and can't do and therefore know how to use it. It is much more difficult to invent something than to use it or even replicate the result. Please stop beating a dead horse, stop being so solid on your point, there is no more points to make. Iv'e even took the time to discuss your argument in real life with friends who program themselves and this argument has been mocked many times. You can try to "beat sense" into me all day, but unless you actually state a valid argument without being overly protective of what you do then I will not listen.

For me Time is the main variable, because I've learned in this experiment that it is not difficulty that unables something to be developed but time, with time I can with some certainty make almost anything, surely somethings could take a lifetime and those are out of the table. See, before this, I was making a reservoir simulator, I'm no programer, no... I'm a petroleum engineer undergraduate, so this simulator first worked on forward Euler, which is a basis for some physics engines out there, but the simulation took so long to give an output that we've switched to an implicit method with sparse matrix, which then proved to give better results and faster, with that we've tried to go to 3D simulation, well let's say that that is difficult! The physics behind it is freaking hard but the coding side it was simple enough, I'm still working on it. What I want to say with that is that for me that was hard, not to program it but to develop the numerical analysis behind it, that was challenging and it didn't took so long... In this case it is the opposite, I have a lot of little things to develop with no extended numerical analysis behind it, if I want to make it better then I could optimize it, but it is all about discovering things, how thy work and how you can use it. Making an engine is something like working on an engine, but you're working on openGL or whatever, unless you want to be REAL hardcore about it and THAT would be HARD! Otherwise, is just about finding out how you can solve your problem with the tools you have.

I do have to take every aspect of what I'm developing because I need to make it viable to the user make his own content, btw I'm even considering on making an building editor, this last script is my best work up until now, maybe I'll make it... It would be really nice though, maybe with some help I can focus on this.

Yeah, I don't care that you want to make a game not an engine, that has no place in this argument, you stated that it is just as easy to make a game engine as it is to make a game using a ready engine... This is incorrect, In addition how would you know if you had only done one of those 2 things and not both.

I never said that, au contraire, I've said that it takes a long time to make an engine and I'm not making it because of that, you keep insisting on which is easier, is not about difficulty it is about pleasure and time, now I don't have the time to develop an engine, since as I've said I know it takes a lot of time to do it right, and my pleasure is making games, so what do I do?.You can figure that out for yourself, I'm sure of that, and I don't like to repeat myself and you're insisting me to do that over and over again so I'm not going to continue to talk some sense into you.

Ecc, I like the new version! You should try the short-stories.

Have you ever made a fully fledged game engine? No? Have I used one? Yes. Do I have more experience of both things? Yes.

Good for you! I want to make this game not an engine.

Why on earth are you continually trying to persuade me to use unity? I am never going to use the darn thing because it is too simple for my uses. I am not you, it is not difficult to understand this simple concept. I am also completely uninterested in FXAA.

I couldn't care less if you'll use unity or not, but saying that unity is too simple or things like that sounds diminishing and ignorantly put, so maaaaaybe you should learn a little more about game engines and how they don't make it easier but cut the development process to the point you actually are making a game, it is about time not about making it simpler.

I understand that I can do shaders in practically any decent engine out there but I don't want to use someone else's engine. Also I'm almost 100% sure that you cannot classify full scene multi sampling anti aliasing as a shader.

... Ok.... Do you prefer post-image effect?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/97023-FXAA-Fast-Approximate-Anti-Aliasing This is an FXAA done by users

Yeah but how does using the features of the engine teach me how to make an engine? It doesn't. Do I want shader AA? No I only care about Multi Sample AA. (and some of the new cool optimized fake aa technologies that work much better than fxaa). Also you can stop repeating yourself. I make it difficult for myself because I like a challenge.

The thing you've missed from what I've said, maybe I didn't made myself clear, is that you code those shaders, those AA shaders are yours, you still can use the standard which are good, but if you want say... a noir look on your game you'll have to make a shader for that and you can.

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/SL-Reference.html

Pretty much like you would for openGL or any other.

I was not saying that what you were doing was easy, I was saying it was easier. The reason I make my own engine is so that I can optimise it to what I need, In addition to this, I learn a lot from it. The difference between you and me is that you are a game makey type of person, Im an idiotic madman type of person. I love graphics, this is why I like to experiment with doing my own stuff so I can get a better understanding of how it all works. Who knows, anti-aliasing and shadow-mapping can always do with an improvement in performance and quality, by experimenting I might come up with a neat trick and make the TAAA (Tom anti-aliasing algorithm) and then get lots of money so I can spend it all on graphics cards.

I don't understand why you can't do that in unity... Really you can... first because AAA in unity is done by a fullscreen shader, pro-version only but you can still develop it for a non commercial game, and you can write your own shaders, shadow-mapping too but that is far more complex, plus you can do tessellation, procedural texturing you name it...

And as I've said "That doesn't mean it is simpler or easier, it means that I prefer to work on my game then it's engine"

Here's a question for ya, Leo. Will your game be PC only? or will it be Mac compatible?

PC, Mac and Linux

Unity speeds it up a lot. I am currently working on a game in which I'm making my own entire engine from scratch. It will use simple graphics but making your own graphics engine is difficult when it comes to optimising. Especially that I have literally barely ever done anything 3d.

Today I've contacted a gamedev group from my university, one of many, I've spent like 5 hours talking to them, they are developing their own 2D game engine for quite some time now( something around 4-5 years), I could try to develop a 3D game engine, but... why would I? Really... To make an engine that is both well done and that can make any game, because if I use unity I can learn how to make ANY game with it and not be hard coded on my specific game, is just a surreal expectation since I'll probably graduate before it even have the core functionality, so no I'm not making an engine for my game. That doesn't mean it is simpler or easier, it means that I prefer to work on my game then it's engine, fore instance some physics assets, like joints, I'll probably, at some point, have to adapt and make my own leaving aside the unity physics. Plus optimization is not only tied to rendering if you read some of my posts you'll notice that I do work a LOT with optimization.

This week I was busy with making some work done in my paper, not game-related, because I have to present it in two congress here in Brazil. Even with that set back I managed to work on windows, doors are still a hard thing to develop, but I'll talk about that next update, maybe mid-week to compensate...

complain to spanser, i will as well since i dislike it as well

also, there are people who can play above songs (of course not the full orchestra, but they exist too) but i've seen several vids of 1 guy just playing the important gist of the song, solo, on piano

Now I don't enter on the IRC quite as much, the last time I did spAnser was AFK so I just complained to the winds...

Yeah sure, there are people who can play a simpler version with just the theme or a little more, but it wasn't made for that

I don't know where to complain about this but I can't see the profile pics anymore, they're so tiny now, even on the profile itself, so freakin tiny... I know I can copy-paste the link of the pic to see it but that is just too annoying.

Anyway back to the subject, most of the Touhou soundtrack is just speed-up computer made melodies, no one could actually play it, so there is not much of a sense on saying they are over-complicated.

Leo, you are the fastest game dev that I had ever seen. You just need to look some indev games in internet and they're developed a lot slower than your game

Not really, no. I'm not fast, I code something like 300 lines per day while good coders do 4000 lines per day, plus their code is a lot more solid than mine. Some indiedevs don't use game engines and have to do it all by themselves which is a lot tougher. The big leaps I take is when I find and implement an open source library because otherwise I would have to do some nasty linear algebra magic, like the boolean geometry, I found clipper and implemented it in my game, otherwise I would be stuck with it for 2 more weeks.

The fastest developer I know is Miguel Cepero from http://procworld.blogspot.com.br/ and his work is lightyears ahead of mine, sure its been in development for 3+ years but each update is almost a new game and somethings are just implementations of algorithms he found on the internet.