This possible with LE 2.3

[wayneg]

I was wondering if LE2.3 would work to create the kinda game shown here:

http://www.minecraft.net/

 

How might this be done with LE2.3 or would a specific engine be necessary?

 

Your thoughts?

 

Thanks

[Josh]

What about this game are your specifically trying to recreate?

[Rick]

Seems like it should be. That's a ton of blocks though. I'm not sure how the FPS would be with all those blocks. You can try it with CreateCube()

[wayneg]

Wondering how one might handle the 3d cubic terrain for best performance.

 

Perhaps something as simple as create cube, and LE would cull the unseen ones.

[Josh]

There would be no reason to cull the hidden cubes, since calculating whether they were visible or not would take more time than just drawing them.

[Canardia]

Unless you use octrees for searching which cubes are visible, then it's faster than drawing them.

[DaDonik]

You can't make such a game in LE...no way you can get that crappy graphics

[Rick]

Test it out wayneg. Start an app and start putting tons of cubes around to see the fps hit.

 

You can't make such a game in LE...no way you can get that crappy graphics

 

Even though I agree the graphics are horrible, the gameplay is interesting and many times that's all you need. Sometimes the gameplay is so interesting that you forget about the bad graphics. It's like watching a movie that they shot in black and white. If it's really good, you end up forgetting (and caring) that it's not in color.

[L B]

I'm just wondering, would creating a cube model be faster than using CreateCube()? This way the model would get instanced and repeated, you could just change its material for texturing.

[Josh]

I thought the graphics were just "stylized" to look that way.

[Canardia]

I think there are many reasons why the graphics are like that:

1) Easy to create content by programmers anyone

2) Easy to make things dynamic and destroyable (since everything is a cube)

3) Having fun with the pseudo tile/8-bit cubic feeling, it's more neutral than specific shapes when the assets are very low poly

4) Cubic graphics can take advantage of voxel advantages too (since they are cubes too), you can make everything 3D and solid (not just surface polygons which are hollow inside)

 

I like the graphics of minecraft, it gives a nice abstract feeling which satisfies the programmer's mind, since everything is uniformly organized, and you can make many many new cubes which represent some other stuff, like rocks, gold, snow, ice, etc....

 

We are basically talking about a balance between what the player accepts and how easy it is for the programmers to create things. And I think in minecraft this ratio is very good. If you compare it to a conventional polygon game, the artists have to do a lot of work to get things accepted by the players, since there comes the "trying too hard to fake an AAA game, while your resources don't allow it" effect in effect.

[wayneg]

It's the style. That choice of style offers interesting 3d tunneling. The you tube videos show really interesting game play, multi-player, and a persistent world the players can change. The guy is going to make bank on it. It's selling like hot cakes!

 

It would be interesting to explore the possibilities, perhaps some different geometric shapes would improve the look for some people, but for me it is what it is, and game play, crafting, some simple monsters.. reminds me wolfenstein and we see where it took us.

 

Obviously just drawing cubes and letting LE do the rest comes to mind first, but are there any clever opportunities using shaders that I might consider.

[wayneg]

I feel like i've satisfied some primitive instinct after tunneling into the ground and lighting the torches.

[Canardia]

Yeah, the real 3D environment makes playing very fun.

[Rick]

I'm just wondering, would creating a cube model be faster than using CreateCube()? This way the model would get instanced and repeated, you could just change its material for texturing.

 

It would save memory probably, but even instanced models need to be drawn at each position so you would be drawing the same amount of triangles.

[Canardia]

LoadModel("cube.gmf");

repeat...

 

and

 

cube=CreateCube();

cube2=CopyEnitity(cube);

repeat CopyEntity()...

 

are identical.

 

Which means, you should always instance models when they are identical, it brings a huge speed boost.

[Pancakes]

I thought the graphics were just "stylized" to look that way.

 

yeah I actually like the style it is a 3d pixalated look, kind of like http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSfu5BL0WD_q7_qAzIh6Brb3sVd6VZEmvSJYurBh5QO013oFSA&t=1&usg=__RvzTVBnpQ2br3z1l6Z2Xanekj94=

 

and i'm still seeing leadwerks' culling as one of it's biggest weaknesses, not that I'm having any performance issues whatsoever, but I'm just wondering how much better teh performance might be with some better occlusion culling

[L B]

LoadModel("cube.gmf");

repeat...

 

and

 

cube=CreateCube();

cube2=CopyEnitity(cube);

repeat CopyEntity()...

 

are identical.

 

Which means, you should always instance models when they are identical, it brings a huge speed boost.

Agreed, but isn't this slower: (That's what I meant)

cube = CreateCube();
cube2 = CreateCube();
repeat...

[Rick]

Which means, you should always instance models when they are identical, it brings a huge speed boost.

 

I have to wonder why would you get a speed boost from that? If anything it just takes up less memory. You still have to draw all those triangles on screen at different positions.

[knocks]

This game is so addictive, i am having so much fun with this.

[Aily]

Yeah, funy game. It is possible absolutley.

[Canardia]

Agreed, but isn't this slower: (That's what I meant)

cube = CreateCube();
cube2 = CreateCube();
repeat...

Yes, that's a lot slower.

[Raul]

Statistics

1093 players online, in 825 servers.

981778 registered users, of which 289470 (29.48%) have bought the game.

 

289470 * 10 euro = WoW

[DaDonik]

I did not mean to insult the graphics of the game. But as a matter of fact the game will look much better in LE with just the same artwork. Dynamic lighting, shaders and stuff...you know what i mean

[Canardia]

A profit of 3 million Euro for that game is a major failure. I think it was not meant to make much money at all, but it did.

Others who invest a lot of money and want to make games which make profit fail also, as they get much less profit.

What did we learn from it? Maybe that you can't predict or control the popularity of a game, so just make a game which is fun to play and forget about everything else