I have been prototyping new building tools for some time and I think i finally have something that works good. It is a kind of polygon/plane voxel fill tool. You select the corners of a polygon and then hit enter to fill all voxels behind the polygon surface. This make it possible to create surfaces at any angle. The hull of the ship in the image above is created with this tool.
I have also done some work to prepare for the first version of the tower defence game mode. This "game mode" is something that happens when you invite people into your buildings. The more people you get the more and nastier monsters will attack.
Best regards Jens
Blockscape bsng v12 (build 4253349) released!
Hi!
Not a very exciting but well needed update.
Full list of changes:
[x] Better scaling of inventory items 3d objects. [x] Fixed loose objects not always deleted when nothing to snap to. [x] New mesh optimization algorithms that fixes most of the holes in the terrain. [x] Fixed missing icon for organic materials tab. [x] Offloading of details in modified world chunks based on distance. [x] Saplings cube models are now smooth. [x] More tool sizes for windowx.
Best regards Jens
A public apology
Hi,
Developing this game has been a very complicated jorney. A long winding road with many road bumps and dead ends. Reaching dead ends forced me to go back to the drawing board and redesign large parts of the game form scratch. During these periods I was very bad at talking to the community. Much because I didn't know what to say. I am very sorry for that and I hope you can forgive me. After all the years of hard work the game finally has a solid base that I'm happy with. No more long periods of nothing. This is the project of my life and I will never stop working on it. The fact that I'm still here working hard and giving you updates despite all the negative reviews should be proof enough of that. Peace and love!
Best regards Jens
New trailer!
Finally a new trailer that matches the current look and feel of Blockscape. I hope you like it:
[previewyoutube="CwyOHGqJ6N0;full"]
Best regards Jens
More info about v12 - Building big
Hi!
I want you to build big things. Just look at the massive build by Pasta of Muppets in the image above. Look at the detail level in the window and in the giant chandelier. To support that Blockscape needs to be really smart about how to store things. There are lot of things that happens under the surface in realtime when you move around or edit the world: World map/tree is generated. Voxels are generated, compressed, and stored. Surface mesh is extracted, optimized/compressed and stored. Lighting is computed. Vertex buffers and textures are constructed/generated and uploaded to the GPU. And to speed this up further most of the stuff is executed in parallel on computers with more than 2 cores. The best optimization though is if you can avoid generatinging/extracting something in the first place and that is why I have spent more time refining some of the modules. Next update will include a functionality that offloads detail in user modified world chunks in a smarter way. It is like a LOD for user modified chunks on top of the already existing world LOD. It is all very complicated under the surface but for you it simply means less memory usage, faster rendering and faster load times so that you can build bigger. :)
Thank you for reading! Jens
V12 preview
Hi!
You can now opt in on the beta called "unstable" to get the absolute latest version. I plan to update this branch with smaller updates more often. But please understand that this branch will have even more bugs as I won't have the time to do any real testing. Also I may not have the time to write any release notes for this branch. I will make an exception for the first one:
New mesh optimization algorithms. This will fix most of the holes in the geometry. I worked real hard on this one. Please post a comment if you find any problems.
Better scaling and positioning of inventory items.
Have fun! Jens
Blockscape bsng v11 (build 4196886) released!
Hi!
Highlights:
Redesigned inventory.
Cleaner look. Updated fonts. Updated player model.
It is not perfect but a very big improvement. The next inventory update will have an inventory that scales with screen resolution. I have already made some preparations for this,
Full list of changes:
[x] Redesigned inventory [x] Added "hmm" sound when worker is analyzing shelf. [x] Cursor no longer makes water invisible [x] Optimizations [x] Removed tool slot texts [x] Removed material slot texts [x] Crafting recipe ingredient now show how much you have next to the required quantity. [x] Bigger inventory slot quantity text [x] Better inventory player model [x] Smooth materials tab icon is now back. [x] New font design for medium size text [x] Add sounds volume is now based on amount of blocks [x] Delete sounds volume is now based on amount of blocks [x] Belongs to info is now only shown if the state model is the closest object.
best regards Jens
Some words about next update (bsng v11)
Hi!
Redesigned inventory!
I have worked really hard to make the inventory cleaner and easier to work with. It is not perfect yet but a big improvement.
Highlights:
New font that you can actually read. Hand made (phew!) by me.
Large number abbreviation. 1000 will read 1k to save space.
New player model. A big improvement over the old one.
A more modern look. Frames are bad so I removed most of them.
You can now see how much you have next to the required quantity for a recipe ingredient in the crafting screen.
The upadate that will be out in a few days also includes a few fixes and optimizations.
best regards Jens
Blockscape bsng v10 (build 4167455) released!
Hi!
If you outrun the world-generator you will now see a turtle icon in the upper left corner (see image above). I get many question about why the game freezes from time to time and most often this is because the computer can't generate world chunks fast enough. I spend a lot of time working on optimizations and hopefully this icon will be rare even on lower end computers in the future.
All inventory items on the left side are now gray. This is done to make it more clear that they represent shapes and that the right side shows available materials for the selected shape.
Full list of changes:
[x] Add forest sounds. [x] All tools should be gray. [x] Remove block materials in desk state model [x] Remove block materials in desk chest state model [x] Remove block materials in crate state model [x] Add turtle icon to signal slow world generation.
Have fun! Jens
Blockscape bsng v9 (build 4164210) released!
Hi!
First I want to send out a big hug for all the positive reviews posted in tha last couple of days. It really warms my heart.
Highlights:
Key binding! Found under Options->Controls in the in-game menu. Also good to have for people playing the game for the first time.
All in-game options are now saved correctly.
Procedural clouds. More of a test so they will probably change. I would like them to move. Would look cool I think. Maybe we could have some that move and some that are fixed (so you can build with them). Let's see...
I also spent almost an entire day tracking down a nasty bug that would make the voxelization phase of world chunks go crazy. You could see it as big, usually 4 meter, offsets in the terrain.
Full list of changes:
[x] Procedural clouds.
[x] Key binding.
[x] Fixed save/load of in-game options.
[x] Fixed rendering errors when water quality is set to low.
[x] Fixed a nasty world chunk voxelization error.
