Posts by zfoxfire

  • Identifying openings at any depth

    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.

  • no update

    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...

  • Upcoming: Dungeons and Plugin API

    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.

  • no update

    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.

  • No Mans Sky

    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.

  • Some music criticism

    My only criticism is that the the first one sounds "themed". The title music of Rising World, for example, sounds like theme music whereas the in-game music is more atmospheric. I do like the second BGM you posted but I feel that if something like this was heard in exploring certain areas whether it be ruins or villages that it would give it too much of a Metroidvania feel. Just my two cents.

  • No Mans Sky

    What intrigues me is that each procedural generated worlds is quite literally a planet and not a flat world like in Minecraft or Rising World.


    And yes, the Steam reviews seem brutal right now. I see lots of complaints about the game not running or running poorly. A friend of mine bought it and says while the performance is a bit rough right now, the game itself is rock solid. I might pick it up on a sale in the future because the last time I paid almost $60 for a game was when you still had to buy them in stores.

  • Game won't run

    Quote from Calcifer

    I just gotta say, I'm a little blown away by the responsiveness in here after dealing with Steam Support. Thank you.

    Rising World has one of the best player communities I've ever seen and Red51, the main developer, keeps a good eye out for needed technical support. I've gotten accustomed to it and tend to forget that this is not normal :\

  • Upcoming: Dungeons and Plugin API

    This is quite true. I don't believe I've been this excited about a game in years. I haven't been in such an amazing community in nearly 15 years. Red's involvement in the community also makes this game especially special. The wait time between updates is more bearable that way.


    Ok, Fantasy Rising World North Pole time!


    1. Mr. Claus -- Red51 even though he probalby spends most of his time slaving away in the workshop with the rest
    2. Mrs. Claus
    3. Krampus, punisher of Internet trolls
    4. Workshop elves
    5. Eight Reindeer
    6. Rudolpf

  • Some music criticism

    Thanks Arctic. I've enjoyed dark ambient music for a very long time. It can be haunting, terrifying, yet strangely comforting at times. Waveshapr's idea that I know of is mainly to be microtonal. To my understanding, microtonal is anything using more than the standard 12 notes in a keyboard octave.


    But I know almost nothing about music theory. I just know what sounds pleasing to me ^^

  • Suggestions in the long run


    Some enhancements to the construction system such as "scaleable blocks" as he put it are planned. I think Red is onboard with the idea of converting blocks into construction objects. Whenever that gets implemented then we should be able to scale and freely rotate any block which should open the door for lots of new options. Building large round cylinders and stacking half blocks should be possible then. I'm personally looking forward to building pre-fab objects such as fences out of tiny blocks. I realize you can do this somewhat using planks and beams but it would make angled edges much easier to do.

  • Yeasty World

    When cooking comes out, there should be a Rising World bakery called "Yeasty World" because yeast... makes.... bread .... rise!!!


    :thumbsup:8o:P^^;)


    :thumbdown: yeah... bad. Joke. Too bad there is no facepalm emoticon that I can see.

  • Some music criticism

    So in all seriousness, that dungeon music piece that Waveshapr posted as a goof actually sounded quite effective and could be useful as some kind of transitionary piece betwen diferent areas of a dungeon or traveling through some kind of twisty passageway, or optical illusion.


    I found an interesting compilation that might serve as inspiration for dungeon music. This reminds me of some of the dark stuff I'd hear on Bluemars at times but this compilation is really dark and all dark, not just spacey with some darkness. I love this kind of music!



    My favorite tracks so far:


    00:00 Desiderii marginis - The Sleep of reason produces monsters
    Haunting and deeply complex. This will keep you on edge.


    10:38 Sjelos - Excavation
    Haunting but has an adventurous and accomplishing feel as if you are reaching milestones within your exploration of the dungeon.


    13:55 Sjellos - Life Left
    This one sounds like something heard after defeating some great adversary and its body decomposes. Also very accomplishing in sound. Perhaps after some great evil is defeated, organic life returns to the dungeon. Waters turn clear and shafts of light peek through withering away overgrowth.


    37:02 Cryobiosis - Corroded
    This sounds like the situation is beginning to escalate. You've explored deeper than you expected. The surroundings are less familiar. What ever hints of natural elements are now gone. No light from the overworld can reach this deep. The first half of this piece are very misleading, as if to lure you into a false sense of comfort.


    44:00 Neizvestija - Muslyumovo
    Very technological and future dystopian. Perhaps in the future there will be different types of dungons, ancient, and futuristic.


    52:03 Ugasanie - Permafrost
    Like above, for dungeon variations... Perhaps snowy biomes will have ice castles and dungeons consisting of labyrinths made of ice blocks.

  • Thoughts about money in RW...


    Hi SilverSatin,


    Perhaps I mis-understood you a few months ago in this comment linked below. I thought SkyNet was not available for distribution. Anyone can look at someone else's work and decide to make an imitation. That takes more work than merely "copying" and re-naming which is the impression I get from you right now as to the origin of VorNet. Please clarify. But again, I thought the source for SkyNet was unavailable to anyone.


    Important notice / Wichtige Information