My Summer Project

[NightrainSrt4]

Monoprice drawing tablet is tracked to come in on Monday. I can't wait.

In the meantime, a few things. . .

The dynamic UI centering is in. It will now center the UI at the top center of the screen, no matter the screen size. I got the base code working with the existing UI. Now I just have to get the new UI coded in.

I also fixed a few lighting bugs I noticed when I was scanning through my code. There are still a few things I have to change with it though, as it only checks for solids X blocks away either horizontal, or vertical (For each distance it checks, it only checks 9 blocks at most). You get dark spots when the cross around it is solid, but air blocks approach on an angle. Adding a few more checks won't increase the runtime by any noticeable amount, and should help stop these anomalies.

[NightrainSrt4]

Going to be filing a complaint. The UPS guy never pushes the buzzer. He walks up to the apartment complex, fills out the sheets, sticks them on the door, and walks away. He can't be bothered to knock, buzz in, anything. This is the 5th time it's happened.

The last time I waited for the truck to show up and went down and watched everything he did before confronting him politely about it. He apologized, and went on and on about being being sorry, but even then I could tell he wasn't sincere and should have filed the complaint then. I understand the pressures delivery men can go through, but this guy is just a twat. Bleh.

[NightrainSrt4]

Had some free time today so I got a few things implemented.

One of the big requests from people I had spoken with was to make the game entirely resolution independent, and to not hard code resolutions into the game. People seem to be frustrated with how games just give a set list of resolutions, and don't look to the future where resolutions not on the list could become common.

So, in light of that I've added full resolution support. I haven't created a list of resolutions for the game to draw upon. Instead I query the graphics device and get a list of resolutions the GPU / Monitor combo can support. I then toss out any with a vertical resolution less than 600 as that is the chosen base for the UI.

I don't have three screens to test anymore, but this should work perfectly for those who use Eyefinity or Surround. Combine this with the UI centering I've already done, and it should make for a decent experience no matter what resolution is chosen, even a six screen 30" setup.

Along with that, an option is in the menu to switch between fullscreen and windowed. A config file is generated, which can be user modified as well, which is drawn upon on at each load, and saved and applied after each applied change in the menu.

[NightrainSrt4]

Torches now correctly texture based on their location relative to surrounding solids. Mining or placing blocks cause the torch texture to change if necessary. A torch with no blocks to plant itself on will break and a torch item will spawn.

Little revamp to the menu system. I can assign each menu entry its own color. This is good for changes in contrast. Existing worlds now identify themselves on the world choice and world delete menu's by date and time last saved.

I wanted to take full screen screenshots, so I was building a simple screenshot system, but I broke the rendering. Luckily I had created a backup of everything to right before I started on that, so tomorrow I will revert to just after the changes above, but before the attempt at the screenshot system and will try again with fresh eyes.

[TheMainMan]

What an ingenious way to address resolution issues! That sounds like it should give a great deal of customization and take care of us with odd setups/MULTIPLE MONITORS!!!!! It's nice to see something solved in an elegant fashion. Sounds like things are coming along nicely, good luck with the screenshot functionality.

[NightrainSrt4]

Thanks. I feel I've got a decent solution to the resolution problem. The only thing I'm concerned about is when in the main menu's. Everything will center properly, but I've got some sliding currently happening that slides some items off the viewport, which may not entirely slide them off the screen on super huge resolutions. I haven't done the math to check if this is actually happening yet, and don't have a set to test on. Will make note of this now for future reference.

The screenshot system isn't entirely necessary. I was just running the game in full screen and wanted to grab some shots to post here. Regular print screen will just return a blank white screen unless windowed, so I was trying to get a nice solution working in game. XNA treats renderstates as 2D textures, but I only used those for some of the lighting as the default works just fine for everything else. But, the default is the backbuffer, and you aren't given any direct way to grab from that. So then I tried to rewrite all my draw code to draw to renderstates instead of the backbuffer directly, and then at the end draw all the renderstates to one renderstate, and then draw that to the backbuffer, and in my haste broke something. So, today I'll revert to just before that and rethink the problem / solution.

[NightrainSrt4]

Taken from the in game screenshot @ 1680x1050 and uploaded as 800x600. I have to assign a different button than the printscreen button, as that doesn't always work, but when I use a different key it works perfect every time. The screen flashes for a frame after hitting the key for a screenshot. I think this is because I had to grab directly from the backbuffer.

When you hit the key and release it, I make note that you want a screenshot, and after the next draw call I grab everything from the backbuffer and write it as a jpg. This is slower than the approach I was using before, which is why I tried the other way first. I think that is why the screen flashes for that split second, as the backbuffer grab and write to file took too long, so the game skips a draw call to keep the logic / update code at 60fps. I might try doing the backbuffer grab one frame, and the file write another frame to see if this helps, but I think most of the time is being taken up by grabbing the backbuffer's data pixel by pixel, so splitting the work between frames might be moot.

[NightrainSrt4]

Worked at getting the UI in today. Looks much better than before. I've currently bound all the UI items to open off one key, but I've programmed it so I can easily change each element to its own key, on top of forcing it to show at the necessary times.

All Screenshots taken in game with the games screenshot function.
Taken at the lowest possible resolution: 800x600

And the UI working at 1680x1050.

Everything works as expected. Click on a tab and it switches to that tab. The game remembers what item tab within a particular crafting tab you were last on, so if you go back to that crafting tab it brings up the last viewed page, at least for that play session.

The colors on the status bars are placeholder colors. I have to find a set that works with everything else, and has enough contrast to show the text. The quantity numbers aren't the final set or location either. Currently just a passover from what I had before. There will be an option in the menu to show the status' as text as shown, as percent, or not at all. I know some people hate seeing the numbers or percent and just want to see the bar, and just the bar.

[AmEv]

TBCS exclusive coupons/gift codes????


Keep up the AWESOME work!

[NightrainSrt4]

There is still a ton of work to be done.

Just a small list:

*Rewrite weapon animation
*Weapon collision detection (have it in pseudocode)
*Projectiles
*Rewrite lighting to work on non-DX10 graphics cards
*Add the other 9 regions
*Enemy AI routines
*Add and bugtest dungeons
*Simulate/Settle liquids for x frames before the game loads.
*Break world saving / loading into chunks. Only save modified chunks.
*Finish weapon / armor random stat.
*Figure out a way to have other liquid types without having to run an expensive simulation for each and every liquid. (Think I have this, just have to try it).
*Create and add region non-block set pieces.
*Add tree tops. Make trees fall without having to chop every block.
*Door blocks.
*More blocks. (Limited by what I've made for art, not code).
*Just more content in general. Easy to add to game once I get art made

I'm mostly limited by what I have for art right now. That is pretty much the limiting factor. My fiancee ran around exploring the world for nearly an hour last night. The state of the game as it sits would be similar to Minecraft's Indev mode if I had to compare.

If I could get some more blocks made and placed in each region, and some basic crafting in, then those who like to adventure and just look and see stuff could probably run around the world for hours searching for materials and building stuff. When I get it to this point, I will give you guys a very early alpha to play around in and bug hunt.