So just before sleep, decided to do a quick test to see how far I could push the new terrain system.
And well, very far.
The new system can handle a grid of 96 * 96 without any issue. That’s just under 10000 tiles. Of course, them using the same texture and all made it far easier. But still, that’s pretty badass.
Will run more benchmarks over the weekend, but this is very promising.
Hello folks!
The recent silence isn’t due to a lack of work being done!
Right now, I’m working on refactoring the terrain system to get rid of some old issues that could cause potential trouble in the future. And am making a better model of the mesh, so that the different aspects of it can be modified better, and the separation of concerns can better exist.
This will also make it easier to add more modifications to the water tiles in the near future, as well as better handling for decorations and other potential objects.
It’s better to do it now and lay a good groundwork, while it’s still early, than later on when it is much more annoying to change.
Plus I’ve been pretty happy with the feedback so far, so it was the perfect time to refactor thing.
That doesn’t mean there will be no new demo this weekend!
There will be. But the details are still under wraps! So stay tuned!
-Gus
Heyo!
Today’s update is more a question rather than a proper update.
I’ve been working on the water implementation to make it less… Crazy noisy. Right now it just takes the shape of the original land tile; you could end up with crazy heights in certain locations of a lake, which looked quite cool but also quite odd.
So I attempted to make the water more level so that there could be waterfalls and stuff.
However, it doesn’t look quite there yet… This is what I came up with:
The water is level in some areas, with a straight fall downwards. Which isn’t bad, but looks odd specially in places like the left side fall. Some of this could be fixed with some particles and effects, like my sketch below:
With some good particle work, I’m sure it could work but… Hmm… It feels too blocky. Since the terrain is less “voxel” and more “low-poly”, the procedural water mesh would need a lot of work to make it work consistently in this.
However, as I write this post, a potential solution came to me. I could simply make the water default to the base water level (or lower, if the terrain goes below base water level), and then add specialized waterworks tool, so that you could add some special decorations to the water; floating plants, waterfalls etc. This would indubitably be much easier to implement than getting a procedural thing that works well.
So I guess I’ll go with that!
Man explaining things really help you come up with solutions! Cheers folks!
-Gus
Hello folks!
I’ve just finished building and packaging the latest demo!
You can find it here!
The focus of this demo is on the new terrain features for drag and painting the terrain/decoration, as well as new flatten terrain functionality, and the water!
Any bugs you find, let me know! Any suggestions you have, let me know!
As always, you can find me easily on Boss Golf’s discord channel, right here!
Hope to hear from you guys soon!
-Gus
Hello folks!
For today’s update, we’ll talk about water!
I have implemented the feature to allow you to build rivers/lakes along your golf course! Woohoo!
Just have a couple of kinks to iron out ahead of tomorrow’s demo, but it will be fine. Here’s something I built with it:
Still have to decide how to work with the water level and whatnot. Should the tile be flattened first? Shoul the water descent to a specific level? Or is it fine to have it all undulating surrealistically? Not sure yet! That’s what tomorrow’s demo will be for!
Stay tuned for more!
-Gus
Hello folks!
We’ve set up a discord channel so that you can more easily talk with us and give us your feedback!
The invitation link is below:
Looking forward to talking with you guys as I develop the game!
-Gus
Heyo folks!
This quick update is about the flattening tool. In the previous incarnation, it was a bit confusing as to how it was actually doing the flattening. Some thought it was averaging, some thought it was going to the max/min of the quad.
In actuality, it was dependent on the vertex closest to your click. Which, looking back now, while functionally good, it wasn’t well represented by the controls.
So, I’ve changed it so that it will flatten the quad to the highest vertex. And I also made it compatible to dragging, as you can see below:
It is always based off of the highest vertex on the first selected quad. Works like a treat, though processing it can be a bit laggy in some cases. I’ll take a look at optimizing it later if we end up going with it.
The vertex and tile height controls will remain as is, as they offer a very good control with the way they are. I envision users using the flatten tool to make a larger area flat, and then using the vertex/tile tools to further refine the terrain as they wish.
Next up; water! Have some ideas about how to tackle rivers/ponds, and am going to begin working on it now. This weekend we’ll have an awesome demo with a lot of new stuff compared to the previous one! Once I can make terrain editing/course building fun, that’s already half the battle!
Thanks for reading!
Heyo folks!
One of the highly requested feedback from our terrain demo was the ability to place several tiles/decoration at once.
So, I did it. Delegated the selection handling to a separate class, so I can do more awesome things with the selection options, and it worked flawlessly right off the bat.
Here you can see me building my course with multiple tiles at once:
And then adding multiple trees in one go, and increasing their amount as well:
For the height, it will be tricky. Maybe for that, I’ll just make different size brushes and use them. I’ll give it a test tomorrow, and see how it goes.
This weekend there’ll be a new demo with the new terrain editing tools, money, and water.
Oh! One thing to note is that the game will allow you to build things even if you have no money. This is something I had to think about as there were really three possibilities for area placement:
-Cancel placement if you don’t have enough money
-Place as many as your money will allow
-Place everything, and put you in the red if need be
I decided to go with the third option, so that you will have to be careful about how you place your terrain, and make the decision to go into the red if you want. (Be careful to not drown in debt!)
That’s it for today’s update! Please do let us know if you have any comments or feedback!
-Gus
Hello folks!
Today’s update is a bit of a detour on the plans, but a damn good one.
I’m still working on getting the multiple decoration sizes (1×1, 3×3, 5×5) to make your life easier when adding lots of decorations at once. Having to rework the selection system a bit, which is ok! That’s how we do things in Japan; we rebuild it until it is good.
Anywho, I also went ahead and added an awesome low poly water shader to the environment, to make those links look even more epic. And the results are awesome! Check it out:
You can see the waves hitting and crashing on the cliff, looks so cool! Shader still needs some tweaking when it comes to reflections and whatnot. Ideally it should be more opaque.
But it’s a first pass, and it looks great. I’ll also experiment with water tiles using the same shader, so that you can build some great looking ponds and rivers through your courses, to make your golfers extra happy!
That’s it for today’s update, folks! Stay tuned for more!
Heyo folks!
Thanks to those of you who tested the terrain demo and gave us your feedback! It was very useful!
Some takeaways:
-The function of the flatten tool isn’t well communicated. It is currently flattening the tile by the vertex closest to the pointer. Need to think of a way to communicate it better.
-Bigger brushes for decorations, so that you can place trees in a bigger area. This is on the list for tomorrow.
-Ability to paint terrain/decorations so that you can just drag and move the mouse around covering an area. This is something I’m still considering, as I’m expecting the gameplay to change once I make tiles cost money.
Which is what I just did. Today’s update is focused on the All Ighty Ollar. I mean, the almighty dollar! From now on, the tiles will cost a specific amount of money (whose value will change a lot as the game gets further in development), making you consider more the kind of course you wanna build. No way to get the money back yet, as that will require actual little golfers paying to play your course! But that will come next month.
I also added a simple bulldozer tool, which basically reverts the tile back to grass, removing any decorations it may have had. Also works with holes.
Only decoration and tiles cost money; removing tiles and moving the terrain doesn’t cost anything.
Here’s a sample course I made:
As you can see up there, I ended up with $4,200 remaining after plotting that hole. Since I started at $21,000, this particular hole cost a whooping $16,900! Is that a lot? I don’t know! Price balancing will feature more on the demos from now on, and I’m happy to receive your feedback!
Thanks for reading!
Boss Golf 