Enter the editor…

Some of the areas of the game are story-driven, and as such they should look unique… I could build algorithms to generate specific areas (as I did with the temple), but after some thought, I arrived to the concluding that’s counter-productive… building an algorithm that builds something interesting is time-consuming and it’s only worth it if you reuse it a lot, which isn’t the case in unique set-pieces in the game!

For the Skydancer, I already had a way to build “custom maps”, but for integrated set pieces (i.e. stuff we encounter on the planets), I really didn’t have a good way to build this. So I decided to build a small editor for voxel areas, which can be superimposed to the existing voxel representation… Work has been progressing nicely on this:

About 4 hours of work have gotten me into a voxel editor that works, including simple brush support… Still missing a ton of stuff (grow the map, load and save, insert the built content into the planet, maybe undos)… Also want to add colors (diffuse and emissive), but this adds a certain amount of complexity to the merge of planet voxels, since those are specified in terms of simpler material concepts (ground, wall, lava, water…), and not exactly textures. But that’s a problem I will have to deal with already, since I already have that issue with the UV scales.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to finish this editor!

Now listening to: “An Elixir for Existence” by “Sirenia”

Link of the Day: More E3 goodies, this time a preview to “Helldivers” from the developers of the silly fun game “Magicka” (Arrowhead Studios): http://www.polygon.com/e3-2014/2014/6/13/5807004/helldivers-gameplay-video-and-preview-e3-2014. Looks very cool and unique!