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Saturday, 22 September 2012

Terrain Generation, Shadows and Lighting


We worked on terrain generation and decided to scrap biome areas, 'biomes' still exist in some form but as a percentages which are converted into parameters to the terrain generator. For example, an area is considered grassland if the temperature and rainfall are both average. Grasslands and deserts tend to be relatively flat, so the those biomes have a high flatness value, which is a parameter that is given to the terrain generator. Later these and more parameters can be given to the plant life generator. This means biomes are not randomly assigned and do not have hard transition lines and even though an area could be grassland, different parts could still have different types of plants depending on the temperature or rainfall.

Next was the lighting. The system is similar to Minecraft but there are a few differences including how its rendered. The lighting system uses 3D textures so that the light values are separate from the geometry and it also allows other entities to use the texture for the entities own lighting.

The lighting still has a few bugs and also needs some optimisation. Some more tweaking will be done and later on torches and dynamic lights.



Sunday, 16 September 2012

Let there be a shard

We have a shard! Note that it is nowhere near complete. The terrain will be smoothed, lighting will be adjusted, sky invented, plants grown, caves sculpted, etc, etc. But it is still very exciting, the first tangible evidence of a game in progress.