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[BleakProspects]

Volcanoes are a bit nicer now:



I also slightly refactored the biome system so its no longer continuous and instead is just read from the world map. This allows me to make "special biomes." For instance, the volcano is a special biome which tells the chunk generator to put stone instead of grass.

[Joshua]

Very cool stuff. I really like how the generated data is presented.

Unfortunately, I'm seeing some performance issues when I move the slice up/down. I've turned down the graphics as much as I can, and it still chugs.

[Quarry]

It could be because the CPU recreating all the chunk buffers

[BleakProspects]

Chunk rebuilding is super-slow at the moment. Whenever I go up and down levels, I just shove all of the chunks onto a rebuilding queue that is sorted by distance from the camera. Then, all of the chunks are rebuilt with the new slice height. It does chug, but it doesn't lower framerate (for me) at all since my chunk rebuilding happens in a different thread.

I should come up with a smarter way of going up and down slices. Perhaps I can cache some of the information about slices. Perhaps I can just slice off the geometry in the GPU vertex shader before sending off the chunks to be rebuilt.

[Cunnah]

Couldn't you build each chunk to have vertical sections (say 10 or 20 slices high) have the required ones be calculated up front and then load the sections above and below calculated in as a Co-routine or some such?

Then when the player goes up in theory the section is already waiting to be loaded. If they go up too quick then you would still have some load time but for general play it shouldn't be noticeable. Perhaps even save altered chunks for quick fort navigation?

Perhaps I am talking out of my rear end ... lol.

Looks great btw!

[BleakProspects]

My concern is that it would waste a lot of memory to cache all that data. I can probably be smarter about not *throwing away* data that's already been calculated though. For instance I can just recalculate things which used to be completely invisible before, but now have exposed faces.

[Cunnah]

It does depend on what limits you have and how much it actually takes. As I am learning its a fine line between memory storage and load times. I switched to a predefined area model for my game. It has helped with controlling content but means a lot more has to be calculated during world gen. The only other thing I can think of is to cut down the number of chunks that you need to change. I assume you have a check to see if going up or down would affect a chunks appearance?

Whatever you are doing it looks great and I'm sure you will think of a better solution than what I can think of.

[BleakProspects]

Wow! Kickstarter already accepted our project! We could launch at any time now! We're going to use this weekend to polish a few things up.

[gimymblert]

congratz

[Cunnah]

Well done! I don't see you having problems reaching its target. If it doesn't the world is a very sad place.

[BleakProspects]

We’ve finally got all our paperwork in order and our Kickstarter is ready to be launched! Here’s some info on how it will happen:

Start Date: Wednesday, July 24th at 7:30 PM US Eastern Standard
End Date: Friday, August 23rd at 7:30 PM US Eastern Standard
Goal: $20,000
Check this page for more updates!

[Keops]

Congratulations!

Here's one for glory (and profits!)! 

[gimymblert]

it's happening!

[BleakProspects]

Got this wonderful comment today on our old trailer:

esto lo copio minecraft es identico like si es identico al minecraft

[Pineapple]

Hey Bleak, don't sweat it. Minecraft's gone too long without any serious competition. Mojang is slacking.

[gimymblert]

Hey Bleak, don't sweat it. Dwarf fortress's gone too long without any serious competition.

FIXED

[BleakProspects]

Been really really busy getting the final bits in place for the kickstarter. I also uploaded a new version of the protoype which made chunk slicing way faster. More news coming tomorrow morning.

[BleakProspects]

Our Kickstarter is coming tomorrow! Here's a preview link

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1078333633/2042698520?token=f5370d58

I also pushed two new versions of the prototype:

1.012 drastically improves the speed of going up and down slices
1.013 replaces all unrecognized characters with '?' before drawing them.

The way I improved the speed was as follows:
1. There was a subtle bug causing all chunks to update lighting while going up or down levels. That was extremely slow.
2. Also, for every chunk that was getting changed, all the trees + dwarves would get polled to update their lighting status. That was slow.
3. The GPU is now responsible for cutting away fragments which fall above the current viewing slice. This makes slicing up and down for "entities" (dwarves, trees, grass, etc.) instantaneous, and gives the illusion that its going faster for chunks.
4. Chunks not needing an update when a slice is changed (for instance, because all the voxels in them are too low) are not rebuilt. This makes things way faster when you're just slicing off the top of a mountain.

[JobLeonard]

If the dwarves are ruthless capitalists, does that make the goblins commies? Do the molemen have a social welfare state?

[BleakProspects]

They live in a Rousseuian natural state. They are noble savages.