Mekside

A slightly prettier minecraft with physics!

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

A slightly prettier minecraft with physics!

That's awesome! Is it free?

I thought that was a MC mod for a second there, ah well.

DO WANT! ALSO BUMP!

 Hi,

I realize cows and pigs and computers are not exactly what you had in mind for futurecraft, but would anyhow be interested in any feedback you might have on mekside

Actually I've just scratched the top of what is possible with the engine in the teaservideos I've put up on youtube, and in fact you will be able to build (star)ships as well, but the actual space-setting is probably too big a stretch..

Also, yes, this is C++ and not Java so a bit incompatible with the familiar MC mods unfortunately. On the other hand, probably a bit more powerful. Since the engine is designed to host fairly extreme physics simulation environments, I chose that path.

/exolon

A dev from an actual game noticed us! We're important now! We just need to be picked up by Valve.

ACH0225 wrote:

Valve.

Hush now, quiet now...

So is anyone going to answer the poor guy?

exolon1 wrote:

 Hi,

I realize cows and pigs and computers are not exactly what you had in mind for futurecraft, but would anyhow be interested in any feedback you might have on mekside

Actually I've just scratched the top of what is possible with the engine in the teaservideos I've put up on youtube, and in fact you will be able to build (star)ships as well, but the actual space-setting is probably too big a stretch..

Also, yes, this is C++ and not Java so a bit incompatible with the familiar MC mods unfortunately. On the other hand, probably a bit more powerful. Since the engine is designed to host fairly extreme physics simulation environments, I chose that path.

/exolon

Looking at your other videos, the first thing that comes to mind is that if animals are going to be an important part of the game, I would like to see more care put into the way they move and act.  Minecraft animals look like derp, so they can get away with doing derpy things, but if you are going for more realism, I would like to see the animals act more realistic as well.  For instance, if you have skeleton control, I'd get a kick out of watching the animals try to scale the blocky terrain rather than hop around.  I'd also like to see more interesting mob behavior, for instance herd animals moving together and reacting as a group.  Little things like that can go a long way to making the game more immersive.

I absolutely love the mechanical aspect, except for those ridiculous 1x1x1 tires.  All the motion is slick and way you interact with things looks really intuitive.  If you can spare the budget, though, I'd really like to see some basic shadow mapping.  I think that would make a huge difference.

Your lightmap shadowing is way too intense; it looks like the cave shadows are sucking the light out of the surrounding area.  Remember that Manhattan distance lighting is supposed to imitate global illumination, not direct light sources.  Other than that, the terrain is absolutely gorgeous.  Especially the textures.  Nice work on that. Can't wait to see what happens next.

Don't worry frost they live on a CUBE PLAAANEEEET ! I had to ...

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

Looking at your other videos, the first thing that comes to mind is that if animals are going to be an important part of the game, I would like to see more care put into the way they move and act.  Minecraft animals look like derp, so they can get away with doing derpy things, but if you are going for more realism, I would like to see the animals act more realistic as well.  For instance, if you have skeleton control, I'd get a kick out of watching the animals try to scale the blocky terrain rather than hop around.  I'd also like to see more interesting mob behavior, for instance herd animals moving together and reacting as a group.  Little things like that can go a long way to making the game more immersive.

I absolutely love the mechanical aspect, except for those ridiculous 1x1x1 tires.  All the motion is slick and way you interact with things looks really intuitive.  If you can spare the budget, though, I'd really like to see some basic shadow mapping.  I think that would make a huge difference.

Your lightmap shadowing is way too intense; it looks like the cave shadows are sucking the light out of the surrounding area.  Remember that Manhattan distance lighting is supposed to imitate global illumination, not direct light sources.  Other than that, the terrain is absolutely gorgeous.  Especially the textures.  Nice work on that.  Can't wait to see what happens next.

Thanks for the answer :)Yes definitely agree re the animals - they are not supposed to be an important part but they produce a sort of ambience to the environment as a whole. Maybe I'll add some "survival mode"-style mobs just to have some temporary gameplay though and then they become more central. So, some sort of IK and more advanced bonecontrol is possible in the physics-engine and definitely on the roadmap. As with the lighting/shading issues you bring up, they are all relevant but right now I try to focus a bit on the gameplay and will get back to the cosmetics after that. Esp. regarding the shadowmapping it probably does hurt performance somewhat as there is a lot of geometry in view often. I will have to make some experiments there..

Regarding the tires :)There is a lot to gain to try to keep almost all materials and items quantized to the voxel shapes at least visually (for obvious reasons the tires have to be round physically - yes I did try with physically square wheels, it was not a smooth ride and looked very funny .... . All materials that deviate cause headaches and special code everywhere, like fences, fenceposts, windows, rails, doors etc. The idea with the current tires is that they can exist as square voxels in the terrain and when unused but "inflate" into their physically round shape when used. They have to be larger than 1 voxel due to the problem of ground clearance in vehicles otherwise. So maybe I'll just add the "inflated" visual appearance when mounted on a dynamic object and they will get square again when detached.

Actually one interesting question is how to best implement railtracks/carts (if desired), probably to be consistent with the rest of the physical approach, they can't be 1 voxel wide as in the MC minecarts.. this I haven't thought about before. But just making a "hollow" voxel to ride in on a track automatically, seems a bit cheap compared to what is possible here.

Latest video with some speedboats and stuff (still no spacecraft unfortunately....)

https://youtu.be/gj9d60rk3jI

exolon1 wrote:

Latest video with some speedboats and stuff (still no spacecraft unfortunately....)

That looks pretty cool, although the lag(it may have been my crappy computer) when the tree got blown up was a bit worrying. If you can make it run halfway decently on mid-range machines, I'd probably be interested in buying it(assuming I'm less poor than I am now).

DaveMustaine wrote:

exolon1 wrote:

Latest video with some speedboats and stuff (still no spacecraft unfortunately....)

That looks pretty cool, although the lag(it may have been my crappy computer) when the tree got blown up was a bit worrying. If you can make it run halfway decently on mid-range machines, I'd probably be interested in buying it(assuming I'm less poor than I am now).

hi and thanks!

yes good observation! there is a problem but it depends on an issue in the "explosion" algorithm actually - it sometimes tries to turn buried terrain voxels into free voxels, which subsequently become badly stuck and that sucks away physics CPU cycles.. so you could argue it's a bug in the physics system too but not something that should happen in the game itself.

i'm developing it on my macbook air which is a 1.6 ghz core-i5 with an integrated Intel HD3000 and it runs OK there even with thousands of objects normally. but the fan runs a lot then

you can just download it and try it out, it's a free download. although the current release is not updated yet so check it out in a week or two for a much improved version.

exolon1 wrote:

DaveMustaine wrote:

exolon1 wrote:

Latest video with some speedboats and stuff (still no spacecraft unfortunately....)

That looks pretty cool, although the lag(it may have been my crappy computer) when the tree got blown up was a bit worrying. If you can make it run halfway decently on mid-range machines, I'd probably be interested in buying it(assuming I'm less poor than I am now).

hi and thanks!

yes good observation! there is a problem but it depends on an issue in the "explosion" algorithm actually - it sometimes tries to turn buried terrain voxels into free voxels, which subsequently become badly stuck and that sucks away physics CPU cycles.. so you could argue it's a bug in the physics system too but not something that should happen in the game itself.

i'm developing it on my macbook air which is a 1.6 ghz core-i5 with an integrated Intel HD3000 and it runs OK there even with thousands of objects normally. but the fan runs a lot then

you can just download it and try it out, it's a free download. although the current release is not updated yet so check it out in a week or two for a much improved version.

I'll make sure to check it out soon, then. Thanks!

exolon1 wrote:

DaveMustaine wrote:

exolon1 wrote:

Latest video with some speedboats and stuff (still no spacecraft unfortunately....)

That looks pretty cool, although the lag(it may have been my crappy computer) when the tree got blown up was a bit worrying. If you can make it run halfway decently on mid-range machines, I'd probably be interested in buying it(assuming I'm less poor than I am now).

hi and thanks!

yes good observation! there is a problem but it depends on an issue in the "explosion" algorithm actually - it sometimes tries to turn buried terrain voxels into free voxels, which subsequently become badly stuck and that sucks away physics CPU cycles.. so you could argue it's a bug in the physics system too but not something that should happen in the game itself.

i'm developing it on my macbook air which is a 1.6 ghz core-i5 with an integrated Intel HD3000 and it runs OK there even with thousands of objects normally. but the fan runs a lot then

you can just download it and try it out, it's a free download. although the current release is not updated yet so check it out in a week or two for a much improved version.

I don't know if you are aware of this, but the textures you're using look extremely similar to the LB Photo-realism Texture-pack for Minecraft.

I'd have to congratulate you on your work however, it's very realistic and smooth. I would have to suggest not trying to use HD textures on such giant blocks, it just looks silly. Low res is better for voxel-based games like these.