Development blog
This is our development blog! We have been maintaining this blog with updates for over 1000 days now, starting June 10th, 2013. Here you can read about the work that goes into making a game as complex as Brutal Nature:
September 22nd update
Fixed up Rainforge to output files to the directory its run from. If you are wondering, Rainforge is the name of the program that generates the map for Worldcrafter. Did more work on the context sensative action system. Fixed bug where you could drop 0 of something. Delayed loading of AmmoBoxBackground.dds and Grapple_line.dds until server join so it can be modified by server. Fixed smelter packet bug.
Disabled all terrain damage when an ammo subtypes terrain damage bonus is -1.
September 21st update
Applied mipmap bias to GUI textures to sharpen them up a little. Added better color support for fonts. Fixed rendering of outlined fonts by rendering them in a two pass method. Improved shadow on outlined fonts. Lots of code cleanup.
Now Worldcrafter has context sensitive action support. Campfires now have scripted context sensitive actions, when you aim your cursor at a camp fire, it will display “Extinguish campfire” or “Light campfire” depending on its current state.
September 20th update
Today I researched other games UI's and worked on adding multiple font support to Worldcrafter so I can add outlined font support and support for different font sizes.
September 19th update
Worked on cleaning up the user interface of interacting with objects.
Menus for every little action is annoying and breaks the flow of the game so I am going to work more on context sensitive actions.
September 18th update
Worked on how to give objects unique effects and such depending on state.
Decided while I could and likely will support arbitrary additional script vars for the time being a single integer state variable added to object updates would be best as most objects will have at least some state information required for basic rendering.
September 17th update
Spent today working on the particle engine and object script support. Particle effects and lights now follow there owner objects at a configurable offset.
Looked for a torch model and couldn't find anything, so for now it will just be campfires and flashlights for light.
September 16th update
Working on a system for objects to spawn particle effects and lights depending on the object state. Wrote some more particle effect code for continuous particle effects.
September 15th update
Did lots of play testing today to locate bugs and areas to be improved. Added 'Anisotropic Filtering' setting to Worldcrafter.cfg
September 14th update
Finally fixed a major bug in my lighting that I have been battling with for the past 2 days. Major progress today. Objects are being correctly lit and the scene can handle hundreds of lights with little FPS impact.
September 13th update
Again working on lighting. Slowly getting there. Now have objects getting lit by lighting.
September 12th update
Still more work on lighting. Fixed a few minor bugs I discovered with the DX debug layer.
September 11th update
More work on lighting and exploring what method would work for instanced models.
September 10th update
Still working away on the lighting. Hit a small snag when I realized my current approach to instanced mesh lighting was not going to work.
Going to do some more research on instanced mesh shading.
September 9th update
More work on the lighting system. Got spot and point lights working with the terrain now. Digging is a lot funner now that you can see what you are doing.
September 8th update
Added a message for when you try and place a material but have completely run out of it. Fixed bug where your party members where not showing up after reconnecting.
Started work on a new lighting system.
September 7th update
Spent today implementing spot lights to support a flashlight for the player. Also spent awhile unifying the standard voxel and boarder (multiple texture) voxel shader into one file. Fixed some minor bugs in the specular lighting while I was at it.
Ambient light level now roughly depends on how deep below ground you are.
September 6th update
Updated 'How to play' page with new controls. Did some more work on the website in general and researched light mapping a little more.
September 5th update
Added particle effects for mining and terrain placement.
Added sprint key (Tab), Drains much more endurance then running normally does(3.5 times), but lets you run nearly twice as fast until your endurance gets low, then you run about 1.5 times as fast as normal. As food is used up to regenerate endurance, sprinting will result in you needing to eat food more often.
Changed the client/server to look up the domain announce.worldcrafter.org instead of using a fixed IP. Fixed bug in texture loading code that was causing textures to be reloaded instead of reused. Fixed bug where shooting the terrain as it was initially loading would prevent that area from loading.
Packed up another version of Worldcrafter for release!
Released: 0.28
|
0.28 is now released:
|
|
September 4th update
Did a little more work on player-terrain collision. Changed voxel to vertex mesh job distribution for threads to be more efficient. Added sound for mining and terrain placement.
Did some more research on PR. So much to learn. Building Buzz for Indie Games and the many pages it references was very informative.