Weekly Dev Update: 2017 July 21st, 28th, August 4th - Slope Chisel, Square Chisel, and maybe Bevel Chisel and more!

#42

In the case of teal / green, we have to make choices on what shape to use for a given configuration of corners, and we choose the one which ‘works best’ in most circumstances, especcially in the case of green. Also noting we don’t want to add any new ‘normals’ to the physics geometry, eg in the case of the green with just two opposing tiny corners (near top left of green), I highlighted with lines an alternative shape for that corner configuration which would require ‘new’ normals to achieve. In your image case, the top one (our saddle) I originally did use the right configuration instead, which arguably works better sometmes… but in natural terrain looked horrible as it produced lts of weird rotated square dimples instead of nice diagonal trenches.

We can’t then also have every possible variation of a shape missing those same corners (it’s how the shapes are defined, and it’s how the worldbuilder/lodgen makes use of them, and how chiselling works to get to them), especcialy for green which already requires the full 8bit of shape-metadata we can store in the chunk data to even define the existing set.

The image isn’t missing any for teal though? All the possible corner configurations are there, the ‘low-corner’ (very top) and ‘half-pyramid’ (bottom left of teal) are the end-points where cutting off any more corners would produce just a flat polygon with no depth, and all the others are represented (if you include all rotations/mirrorings which we have)

(Correction: there is indeed 2 more viable teals. Nooooo, I hate implementing teals, missing: take the saddle, and remove one or both of the bottom left/rights)

#43

I feel your pain haha. I’m developing a “voxel editor” and I’m at the point I not sure if I covered all vertex/meshes configurations.

For configurations in the picture plus those you mentioned, I think, there’s no more besides this one:

If you want to spend some more time with the teal chinsel :stuck_out_tongue: , you can add the one, on the picture bellow, for configurations with 4 vertices which form any face of the cube. (It would use already known vectors as normals)

#44

urgh, yes that one too (pyramid with under back vertex removed).

“maybe” that last one, but doesn’t feel like it matches very well with the rest as none of the others use the “half” vertex positions.

The pain with the teal ones, is we support the texture blending for the teal shapes, and texture blending is “very” complicated in terms of the data input to get it to work correctly in all situations, whereas we decided to just not try to support it for crafted/bevelled which makes those ones very fast to add (All of the crafted/bevelled basicly took 2 days to add not including any refactoring work to aid the process / refactoring of the other systems involved, but just purely in terms of defining the shapes), whereas each teal shape can easily take 3 hours to add including getting the texture blending right.

#45

first off ever heard of a resource pack? and also lack of direction? the main objective is to beat the ender dragon and the wither

#46

Ok, you got me, I have never implemented texture blending. (Are you talking about blending between voxels, right?)

Btw, thanks for sharing this kind of information, I love to know things work and why. Helps to understand the engine and it’s bounds ^^

#47

I hope one of the chisel updates allows for multiple chisel types to apply to the same block (like for instance, using a slope chisel on a wall to create a steep sloped block). I am hoping to incorporate Gothic architecture into a settlement on Nasharil, but the 45 degree slopes don’t seem like they’d be quite steep enough for the roofs. Maybe it’s already covered in a way I am unaware of but the bottom line is I would like to see more drastic slopes for all directions. :slight_smile:

#48

That is 99.99% not going to happen, at least not for 1.0. It would require a momentous amount of work to have steeper/shallow slope shapes and be a performance hit on the way the physics in the game works too. Being able to “mix” chisel types like one corner being “bevelled off” and one corner “cubed off” would also absolutely explode the amount of shapes that would be possible, and that someone (me likely) would have to go and define and make work. there are already now with square/bevel/slope chiselling 660’ish shapes, being able to mix the chiselling would make it millions.

#49

“When a player deletes a Character what do you expect should happen to their beacons in the game?”

I think there should be a decay of objects around the beacon. Like an old ruin with parts of whatever they created falling out and slowly decaying. After a time it would vanish into the sand, dirt or snow.

However, I think someone should be able to claim the lost beacons for some sort of price, work or effort. Maybe an auction type reclamation, once a reclaim is in place the highest bidder wins control after a period of time. And then can rebuild or claim the existing structures.

#50

Please consider that displaying login name in the world is a possible security risk. There is no reason for other players to know my login name at all, especially in a way that lets them immediately know if I have anything valuable.

#51

Would it make more sense to just have the chisel and squarepunch (my attempt at naming the square chisel), and for slopes and bevels to be operated by the chisel? Both the squarepunch and chisel could have a charge up action by holding the button down in order to increase the area affected by them. The charged squarepunch could take two blocks (similar to the idea pitched about the square chisel) and the charged chisel could apply the current regular chisel effect (but it could also be achieved through chiseling the same vertex twice).

#52

Oldie but Goodie thread to post this question on.

Are there any more shapes coming to boundless after 1.0?

I was thinking of a slope half of the angles from the ones we have now.
for longer drops that are not so extreme. Would make beautiful slides, and roads and ramps.

#53

I’d refer you to Luca’s last post.
That would bring the variations of blocks into the millions. They are already at over 600 as it is.
Pretty sure its not going to happen…

#54

HalfSlope_Blocks_01
HalfSlope_Blocks_01.png2174x1162 35.8 KB

Something like this @Zina;
That would be nice :+1:

Chiselling
#55

I don’t think so. @lucadeltodecso mentioned several times that what we already have is giving crazy number of permutation which all need to be handled, so, adding more shapes would again make even more complexity to handle. I guess I should let Luca talk since my explanation is from what I remember not coming from knowledge :smiley: Don’t want to add some false info.