Posts by zfoxfire

Quote from Miwarre

About testing the plug-in, of course this is not possible now, until a plugin-enabled version of the server will not be available (soon... :evil: ).

I just confirmed this.. I must have misinterpreted what Red51 meant when he was talking about dropping jars in the scripts or plugins folder. I read that I can when it meant that it might be. Oh well... I already tried my jar file in both folders and it should have printed the text to stdout which I assume is the console in Rising World. It would be nice to have a feature in-game (maybe by console command) to list all recognized and active plugins loaded.

Anyways looks like I have the basics down so I can atleast start writing a mod. Whenever the API is supported by the game then I "can" actually test in-game The way I read the comment about no server-side support was that I can still run a plugin that did not communicate with a server but would still work in the client.

Quote from Miwarre

If this is not set in stone yet

You receive the pun of the day award!

Quote from red51

Oh okay, yeah that may be confusing indeed. The game only renders the "transition" between solid and air blocks, that's why the world appears to be "hollow" Actually the hollow space still contains block data (solid rock).

Yes, Red. This is exactly what I was confused about but you clarified it earlier that "solid rock" has a terrain value in the chunk data. I was confused because of how I was seeing it in rendering. I assumed that the terrain data might have been storing the space underground but between caves as being open air. I have yet to spend time reading Chunk data to see what's there.

Quote from Miwarre

Thanks for reporting your findings, @zfoxfire. I personally use Eclipse under Linux, so most of it is not directly applicable for me, but it is always interesting to hear about other people experiences.

I am a bit surprised about the need to fix the imports with NetBeans, Eclipse manages them automatically, or suggests the proper import, as soon as you use the implements keyword.

About testing the plug-in, of course this is not possible now, until a plugin-enabled version of the server will not be available (soon... :evil: ).

I am also surprised that I had to specify individual classes of the jar in my import statement. In the past, I've just included the top-level jar and that was it. Maybe there is a NetBeans setting i am overlooking. Maybe I am in some kind of strict mode. But that's fine by me. I did discover the light bulb icon with suggestions and I guess the IDE managed to scan the rest of the jar and suggest what other classes to import. No biggie!

Testing should be possible in game right now. Atleast that is what I interpreted from Red51. Unless I am still confused on the language used.

Regarding the proper way to implement a plugin, I'd suggest drop-in zip file approach. On game-launch, the zip files in plugins are expanded to a corresponding folder if the matching folder name does not exist yet. Regardless, the game reads the actual plugin from a folder, not the zip. The Jar file will contain Manifest info containing authors info so I really see no reason to require a config file as LUA did. The Jar file just needs a class matching the Jar/folder name for the plugin to be recognized. Any additional files such as config files or databases which will be modified can be included in the zip or we can just assume the mod writer will create those files if they don't yet exist.

Quote from ArcaneDesmond

One thing I don't understand is the hacking of the game, most mods out there are made that way. ..... and in my opinion hacking is modding.

Hacking is one way to come up with a mod. If you have the time and are comfortable digging into the jar files for Rising World then you could come up with a hack solution to modify the existing trees. I've already looked at the tree class files myself and it doens't seem to hard but I have no desire to do so. I'm sure some of the more seasoned developers on this forum have already hacked the game to make their own unique mods. But that sort of approach is outside of the "proper" modding approach which is to use the API that Red51 has provided us. The API will already allow you to place custom 3d models in the world. However the API does not yet allow you to craft or spawn unofficial models. Inventory according to the API is only limited to official inventory items. When this API is approved then we will have an easy way to override official object models or add new ones (perhaps a user space for our own inventory id values is needed).

Finally got it to compile! So one thing missing from the examples that Red posted include was how to set up the import statements for Listener. Here's a more complete example of a simple listener event. I also learned that in Netbeans that its better to select "Java Class" as your project type, not "Java Application". The difference is an application has to have a class identified as the main class and must have a main method. However the "Java Class" is great if your writing a small plugin which is exactly what we are doing here! However, for testing purposes you can still include a main method (like below) but it doesn't have to do anything. This is still good if you want to test the application on its own. Not sure how we do that unless someone knows how to trigger events.

package rwMod;
import net.risingworld.api.Plugin;
import net.risingworld.api.events.Listener;
import net.risingworld.api.events.player.PlayerSpawnEvent;
public class mod extends Plugin implements Listener {
    @Override
    public void onEnable() {
        Plugin.registerEventListener(this);
    }
    @Override
    public void onDisable() {
    }
    public void onPlayerSpawn (PlayerSpawnEvent event) {
        System.out.println("Welcome to Zork, a game of high adventure! No computer should be without one.");
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
    }
}

To test the class on its own you can modify the main method like this to create an instance of itself. Of course this wont do much because this is event driven so the message will never display:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    mod newMod = new mod();
}

Finally you just build the jar. Make sure your package matches the package line in the source code. Simply right-click on the package and compile it. Then browse to where your project is saved on your drive and find the jar file under dist

http://imgur.com/a/1aKBW

To install the package, I'm still a bit confused about. Red51 said your probably just drop a jar into scripts or plugins. The process seems not entirely finalized so I'll just play with it more for now. My work computer can barely handle running Rising World even at absolute minimal draw distances.

So I'm a bit rusty in Java so please excuse the basic questions here:

Do I really need a main method for this? I'm not writing a standalone application so the only main method should be buried in the rising world application.
Even with a main method, it is not finding the main method. Configuring Netbeans was straight forward and the IDE is not throwing any errors so atleast there's that.

import net.risingworld.api.Plugin;




public class HelloWorld extends Plugin{


    @Override
    public void onEnable() {
        System.out.println("Welcome to Zork, a game of high adventure! No computer should be without one.");
    }


    @Override
    public void onDisable() {
    }
    public static void main () {


    }
}

I guess the next question is... how do i install a plugin once i compile? Do I have to create a individual folder under scripts containing a class or jar file and a configuration xml like the way LUA works? I don't think this was properly explained yesterday

When I first heard of this game and watched the trailer, I always wondered if dungeons entrances would look like this (@ 30seconds incase the link doesnt work):

Quote from ArcaneDesmond

In the game Minecraft there's a mod to tweak biomes it's called Biomes O' Plenty. There's a tree called a Sakura and I would like to add it to Rising World as a very tiny mod to help me get started on understanding on how to write mods or in this case we call them plug-ins. I would add the tree, saplings for it and it's own variants to the block bench. @red51 said this stuff would only be static. Even so it would be nice to add a new tree to the plains.

Hmmm... I know you can add custom models. I'm working on the same right now. However, I do not know if you can register a custom Inventory item (only in-game items are available without hacking) or modify crafting bench items. I'll study the API a bit more but it looks like the API already supports some functions for chat messaging so it might be possible to create a function linked to a chat window command (still not positive. i'll study more when I am home) . Meanwhile, Can you aquire some models of such a tree? there are lots of 3d modeling students out there sharing their work on the internet. shouldn't be too hard to come up with something.

captain,

I am struggling myself and i am just trying to import a model but i see now what my mistakes are and i am going to try again tomorrow. I havent written any uselful java in 4 years and I am quickly seeing how much I have forgotten. Im getting errors as well. If you wanna add me on steam then maybe we can learn together. My id is zork_foxfire

Arcane,

What exactly are you wanting to try? I'm working on getting an old 3d model imported. I want to tinker around with compass stuff next.

Personally I'd rather just wait for the "proper" implementation as I'd assume it would give us ways of error handling than simply dumping stderr to the console but hey, it's quick and easy and won't take long to implement. Now perhaps I am overthinking this but... regardless of implementation, if the command was to fail, would it be useful for the method to return whatever expected object and an exit code ? I handle exit codes at work all the time in my scripts (making use of both stdout and stderr). I am rusty on Java but it looks like there to pass multiple objects as an array using Pair or HashMap but I've never done such before so I leave the implementation details to your best judgement: http://stackoverflow.com/quest…lues-from-a-java-function

I think Miwware meant that as a temporary solution to give us console access quickly that it would be easy to implement something like Plugin.executeCommand even while it is possibly less secure.
In the long run, seems like player.executeCommand approach would be best. The call to the API should also trigger a check to see what permissions that user has.

Indeed that would be a hack which is why I highly doubt if we will be given the power to pass a console command through an api as an actual string. That could create a vulnerability if someone was to find a way to exploit the console itself. Rather, each command function will need to be available in the API with its own method.

Quote from red51

Actually as @Miwarre suspected, the terrainData array in the Chunk class contains all necessary information to get the terrain id from a certain position (air is always 0). You could also use the surface array in the ChunkLOD class, although it's difficult to find out this way if there is really a cave or not. Here is the question: What is a cave? Or how do you find out that there is a cave? What's the difference between a cave or a hole in the ground, or a ravine for example?

Ok, I see it now.
I imagine there is no difference between air on either side of the cave wall. I likely have to write a recursive function to read in all terrain info surrounding the player position until actual terrain (non 0) is encountered to generate the map of the cave. Unless there is an id for solid without a texture (behind the cave wall). As to the definition of a cave, I'd imagine from a programming perspective a cave would be anywhere your position is below the known surface level of that postion and chunk. so if you fall down a deep hole, you can still see the surface but the map would still render surface. However once below the surface value, then the program could switch to the recursive function to generate a cave map, assuming the id values behind the cave wall are actually air.... Just my thought.. Never actually attempted anything like this before.

So I'm mainly curious about ChunkLOD. This is exactly what I was looking for in order to possibly create a map mod. It provides all the info I need for a surface map, however I want to also make the mod for subterranian as well. I need to be able to retrieve the texture id at a given x,y,z position. I assume that a open cave would return a null value instead of a texture.

Actually this might be more of a problem cause technically if you F2 thorugh a cave ceiling and hit F2 again you can technically stand ontop of the cave ceiling where in reality you would be inside solid rock. So behind the cave wall is the same as inside the cave, from a data perspective. Any other methods or is this technically not possible right now? I guess the block only design of Minecraft makes it much much easier to map out the subterranean.

now THAT is beautiful! Such lovely lovely documentation. I guess I know what I will be doing tonight.

Oh God... No Mans Sky is a perfect example of what happens when the developers fail to meet the hype or deliver on time. PS4 fans are happy but they released something mediocre for the PC. I remember how shitty ARK ran on my PC when I bought it a year ago. I tried it again a month ago and I am actually getting a great framerate on high settings. FINALLY!! But Ark was an early access title from the beginning. NMS was suppsed to be finished and I hear there are still some extra PC version only features promised but not yet ready.... anyways the reviews on Steam are really horrible.

It looks like they decided to make it for console but did not spend enough time getting it ready for PC. I am reading reviews by people with high end machines barely getting 30 fps. I really don't even feel the graphics are that great. Judging from the videos I've seen, Rising World has nicer looking ground and grass textures. And this game is supposed to be $60??? I am going to keep an eye on it but it seems No Mans Sky should have beeen released as a short early accesss title for PC or atleast sold for less.

The past year and to the end of this one we have or will see some pretty massive updates... biomes, new sound system, static water that actually looks beautiful, dungeon generation, new customizable character models and human NPCs, rideable animals, boats, and trains...

Anytime you rip out a major component of software and replace it with something else, you essentially break the build and can spend days just getting the damn thing to run again. Then after it runs, you may look at it and decide it doesn't look that great so you spend more time tweaking it and improving it, leading you to possibly break it a few more times as you make your desired modifications. Then when it finally seems ok then you gotta polish it which is something Red51 takes a lot of care about which may be frustrating to some, myself included. Oh... then you want to avoid creating technical debt. Whenever you shortcut something you end up creating a problem to fix in the future as a tradeoff for a short term fix. Look at some of the limitations of blueprints due to the block system in Rising World. Any short-sighted decision (and I certainly mean no offence towards Red--the technical debt seems quite minimal in Rising World), can cause limitations in other systems you want to do in the future. To properly fix technical debt you have to go back to the core of the fault and redesign it. Then you have to make sure every other component depending on it works again. The point is that when designing a game as ambitious as Rising World you have to be really careful that whatever you do will not be something you regret designing later on.

In the end however each update has looked awesome and happened with a minimal number of bugs (although the floating ores was rather hillarious from what I've seen)! He could probably push many of these updates out quicker but they wouldn't be as polished. Perhaps there is a strategy of finishing each component upfront thus makes less work to do later.

And Windbourrne, please don't take my rants as a personal attack. I've seen you complain in the past about updates and I guess as a consumer that is your perogative. However, my experience and viewpoint is of a programmer. I manage a few hundred servers, pipelines for the applications that the real developers in my company write, and also write various scripts to automate and manage the work I do. That's simple in complexity than game design. One can easily switch to Unity and simply buy assets and plug them into your game (look how quickly StarsOne came about. Its all Unity asset store stuff) but Rising Worlds is hand crafted from the ground up (although I suspect that thete is a story about bald guy face came from somewhere--creepy thing) so I have a lot of respect for people who stand up and decide to make something more ambitious and versatile than Minecraft was ever expected to be, and to do that alone.

End of rant. I have much work to do myself...

probably less that a year till we are out of alpha. At minimum he needs to get all the promised features implemented: dungeons, cooking, electricity, and trains. Then we can see lots of feature enhancements in beta. Im glad Red is putting more time into the new API so the modders in this community can get to work. I thing dungeons are going to include other structures such as log cabins but not sure about something organized like a village. But that wont be too far off I imagine. The core of dungeons is structure generation which could take many forms including villages. I bet the village will be just a variation of structure like a temple, a shack, or an underground dungeon, or maybe even a castle! Each is just a bunch of parameters fed into the structure generator.

Quote from Winddbourne

In all seriousness an update would be nice . . . Dungeons was coming out "soon" on the 27'th of last month . . . and what "soon" means in this context is as clear as mud. lol

Does soon mean sometime that week (already passed)? Sometime that month (already passed). Within the next thirty days (the 27th of this month?). A few months from now? I have no clue.

That said I understand that things get held up. You think you'll have an update out "soon" and then you find a bug, or people start making suggestions and change all of your priorities as you try to improve the update. It happens. It's all right. I've got a ton of other games I'm playing. But it would be "nice" to know a bit more. Not required; bu definitely nice.

Yup it certainly would be nice but you have to realize there is only so much a three person team (with only one of them actually writing code). In the past Red51 has made some promises about dates and got burned when delays came up. I myself and many others here are in here for the long haul. It is what it is. Wanting something to be true will not make it happen. Perhaps when the game is in beta there will be less re-designing of old systems or implementing massive new core systems. Maybe in beta we can get closer approximations or fixed release cycles but not now. It helps me to remember that there is a human being writing all the code and he wants the same thing we do and while we are just sitting here waiting for a new update, he is stressing each day to get through the mound of work he knows needs to be done to get the next update ready. Coding is not easy and games are harder to write than other applications.

I am reading that the PC version is supposed to have extra features unavailable on the console version. Looks like they really jumped the gun. It probably would have been better to offer the game on Steam as early access and for less money. Glad the console launch happened without a hitch.