Thursday, January 16, 2014

Dragon Hut

We just had a new iteration over the smoothing tool. Now it really acts like sand-paper. It can dissolve an entire object if you apply it long enough. If you apply it just the right amount, it even outs surfaces to the point you like.


This is me sculpting in this video. I did not start with a detailed plan, just a vague idea of what I wanted to do. I knew it would be some kind of bony hut structure.



A few months ago while doing a stone golem I realized the sculpting toolset still needed some work. This new version of the smooth tool already makes a huge difference. I can feel now I am more limited by my imagination and skills than by the tools I'm using. This is a good thing.

27 comments:

  1. Your tools give your creations a natural imperfect feel, one that is severely lacking in the digital world. Our world isn't perfect, so why should our digital worlds be perfect? I can see how building/detailing in your engine will lend to a far greater emotional attachment for builders.

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  2. I have an impression that if you had a stretch tool (or a more versatile version of the previously presented connect tool) it would take you half of the time.

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    1. Yes, still need to figure out a way to have input for something like that in first person.

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    2. What if you modify the connect tool so instead of connecting two squares it works this way:
      1) the longer you click and hold on a place the larger area it marks as the beginning area
      2) click and hold on the ending area in the same manner
      3a) move mouse up/down to make the connection bend from the straight line
      3b) move mouse left/right to make the connection rotate
      4) click to finish (or maybe click and hold to add thickness?)

      Like this: http://i.imgur.com/AbpY6h5.jpg

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  3. The music in video is gorgeous. Many people seem to underestimate soundtrack for the game, but when the VoxelFarm will be out, it will be this relaxing and somewhat immersive music that will give it its soul.

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  4. Do you have a soft extrude feature? Something similar to the eraser, but with the ability to project surfaces outward normal to their surface.

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    1. Exactly what I was thinking. Basically something that's almost the opposite of the smoothing tool that would fatten up rather than slim down.

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  5. Is it me, or is the lighting slightly odd? When you look in different directions (atleast later in the video) the light intensity changes...

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    1. Yes, the specular reflection for the snow is messed up

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  6. Very cool. Are all of these videos running as a client to your previously mentioned server cluster? This type of terrain editing might be very frustrating if there is a certain amount of latency. You've mentioned that your tech couldn't run by itself on a standard machine, does that include all aspects of it or just the procedural generation stuff?

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    1. This is all running in the player's machine, in real time and at interactive rates. No server is required. This video was captured in a machine with an Intel i5 CPU and an ATI 4770 GPU.

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  7. On another topic: How's the water stuff going? A while back you said you'd have another post about that =P. Not trying to pressure you, just curious what happened to that =P.

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  8. is there any plan for a smooth tool that conserves mass?

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    1. Not at the moment. Why do you consider mass conservation important for a tool?

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    2. Mass conservation is often important in survival mode because it's always about resource management and without mass conservation building isn't a part of the game, so to say.

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    3. For accurate resource management the tool only needs to know how much material was removed (similar to removing a square block).

      Mass conservation would be to preserve the volume/mass of the object while its surface is modified. A tool with mass conservation would not remove any material from the scene.

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    4. when smoothing a pillar and wanting to maintain the radius.

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    5. Mass conservation can also be used in small physics experiments to see how different shapes of the same mass react in the physics engine =P.

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  9. Have you thought of adding a line/tube or spline tool - could be much easier than adding a set of dots.

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    1. I have considered it. The trick is how to make it work in a first person.

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    2. Many tools would be made simpler if you followed the landmark control style where you can freely move a control volume that remains in a position in regard to the camera.

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    3. Yes, you are correct about that. The Landmark team is exploring this avenue, so we kind of have that covered. I want to explore the other end, a system that has as few gizmos as possible.

      Adding dots feels good btw. It does not have to be dots, they could be smart oriented cilinders, railing, etc. You get to control the direction on each dot by just moving. If you had to edit a spline gizmo that takes the same path it would be rather complicated.



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    4. Yeah, I can imagine the issues, I regularly design with splines in 3d space, and they are always a pain. The best way for me to tackle them is to set up base planes to dimension off of. For your engine however, another alternative is to insert nodes, and then have various tools/brushes fill in the spline between the nodes. In this way, you could rapidly create roads/rails/etc that are either procedurally placed or hand placed.

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  10. This looks like a great tool for designing objects for 3D printing! Not for printing components with precise specifications, mind you, but certainly for artistic printing projects!

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