[Upcoming] Vox v0.19 Thread - Vox

For v0.19 I am going to spend some time working on a few major features and improvements that might take a bit longer than normal. So I dont expect to have a fast incremental build out very soon with lots of smaller features and bug fixes.

One big thing I am going to be working on is the rendering quality. I plan to fix all the lighting bugs, improve the shaders and also implement fully dynamic lighting!

This should vastly improve the look of Vox from v0.19 onwards.

I have been following the development of this game for a while now and as i see it has made it into a commercial product but i would like to ask for a few things (even if they are large features that could take a really long time to actually implement).

• I use a laptop with 2gb of RAM and Windows 7, and as i had my recording software out to record and upload to YouTube, the game became very very slow. Now im not talking like 20 FPS, i mean around 2/3 FPS and was unplayable. When not using recording software this increased to about 10/15 FPS maybe? What im asking for is some large performance optimisations allowing it to work on low-end software/hardware.
• As well as the bug above, i have read through the other posts in the bug reports, and after about 20 minutes of play, all the buttons went black as previously reported along with the sky, AND my player. This caused me to stop playing the game. Sorry if this has already been fixed, im still currently playing v0.16 pre-alpha.
• Also, during the limited play time i was able to realise the world is quite small, so could it be possible to expand the world size?
• These are all major features that i dont see being implemented anytime soon, but here they are anyway: Water Physics (fully)
• Fences
• Doors
• Stairs
• Farming
• Different biomes (eg, snowy, desert, forest)
• Crafting
• Villages or cities created in different seeds
• Kind of like pistons in MineCraft, but different, eg, moving parts but not the same
• I like the idea of a tekkit based game mode, but just a idea, not trying to copy
• Multiplayer enabled?
• More intelligent AI
• Texture packs?

EDIT: Just seen i can download the new v0.18 Pre-Alpha.. Will test and report on the problems i faced.
EDIT 2: REVIEW ON FIXES/CHANGES IN v0.18 PRE-ALPHA!!!

• Still black buttons in v0.18 Pre-Alpha, but for about 1-2 seconds when you select an option, they become in colour.
• Unfortunately the sky is also still black and makes it near impossible to see
• More bugs include, Bees dont fly, they just jerk about in mid-air, stop jerking, move forward a bit, then go a bit weird again
• Graphics not rendering properly... maybe part of the engine code?
• However, not all is bad, less lag, start-up is significantly faster and intro scene is smooth whereas before it was terribly slow and jerky
• Save Games not converted to new version? I couldnt see this but maybe it hasnt been added as i was only using a demo version.
• I liked the new addition of the mouse sensitivity as mine is always too high
• I also appreciated the full screen option along with changing resolution which both worked well and didnt break

EDIT 3: I downloaded all Vox versions to see when this black button started occuring, and it is actually in fact only happening at v0.17 - v0.18 pre-alpha. Whatever you did to the code, this is where it happened.

Edited by: cj5008

Awesome!! Thank you so much for this massively detailed post. I will be using all the information and details you provided to make bug fixes and improvements that you listed. Cheers again

Im glad to help with the progress of Vox, and if you need any low-end hardware testing, im your man

EDIT:

In my previous post i also listed things such as 'fence' and i know you can already make you own fence, but maybe you could have some sort of default templates in game?
And as well as this, maybe you could have another option to share templates. So lets say, if i made a really good chair, i could select the blocks that are in the chair and save as a custom template which i could then post online? or on a feature in game? This way, the less able designers would have a way to make their worlds look better...

Also, im not sure if i saw this before the black button problem, but seeds would be appreciated

Edited by: cj5008

You can already do this in the game already (kinda, but it might be a bit tricky)

When you save an item in the editor, the name that you specify create a file called Vox/media/export/[NAME].vox in the Vox folder.
If you open up your Vox directory to this location you can see the files you have created and share them with other people.

Also when you have the editor open if you type the name of other objects into the name field and press the 'reload' button, this will load the .vox file for that name... so for example load up your editor and enter 'fence1' into the name box and press 'reload'... you might be surprised. ;) (There is already a fence in the game)

AlwaysGeeky wrote: You can already do this in the game already (kinda, but it might be a bit tricky)

When you save an item in the editor, the name that you specify create a file called Vox/media/export/[NAME].vox in the Vox folder.
If you open up your Vox directory to this location you can see the files you have created and share them with other people.

Also when you have the editor open if you type the name of other objects into the name field and press the 'reload' button, this will load the .vox file for that name... so for example load up your editor and enter 'fence1' into the name box and press 'reload'... you might be surprised. ;) (There is already a fence in the game)

Ah, thank you! Maybe an easier, more accessable way to share your creations for the less able people on the web?
But apart from that, i guess youve done all that i asked!!!

I have one more question, what is the general direction your taking Vox in? Is it more with the features i have suggested above, or is it more of a unique experience?

Edited by: cj5008

No problem. You are right I need to improve the usability a lot. At the moment I have the functionality but it isn't obvious to players how teh loading/saving and sharing works. Dont worry I will improve these over time and the final version will be very intuitive in how the editing and sharing works.

Long term I plan to take Vox in the direction of an adventure, RPG voxel game. I have already started to implement lots of new gameplay features such as better monsters, improved combat, looting, item collection, mining, etc... so I am going to continue to make these systems better and code more gameplay features

AlwaysGeeky wrote: No problem. You are right I need to improve the usability a lot. At the moment I have the functionality but it isn't obvious to players how teh loading/saving and sharing works. Dont worry I will improve these over time and the final version will be very intuitive in how the editing and sharing works.

Long term I plan to take Vox in the direction of an adventure, RPG voxel game. I have already started to implement lots of new gameplay features such as better monsters, improved combat, looting, item collection, mining, etc... so I am going to continue to make these systems better and code more gameplay features

Thanks for answering, and i would just like to say, your a great person to be developing a game, and you actually care what people say, and like to take input from your customers, so thank you!

Also, is it possible to have an estimate on how far along you are with v0.19 pre-alpha?

Cheers very much!!

Well I am pretty much finished with the new features I want to add, so I am just tidying stuff up and fixing things ready for the update release. I estimate a few days at most (maybe sooner since I will probably work all weekend long).

I usually like to have a new version released at least once a week, since I think this is fair to the current supporters and players. I myself know how frustrating it is to wait a long time for updates, and even worse is a developer who doesn't ever respond/talk to their fans or release news regularly.

ah, thats a good time interval

What programming language are you using to create this game?

Hi cj5008,

Version 0.19 is released now and hopefully this should fix a lot of the problems that you were having with the previous version.

Hope that helps and thanks for your review of Vox, Cheers!

AlwaysGeeky wrote: Hi cj5008,

Version 0.19 is released now and hopefully this should fix a lot of the problems that you were having with the previous version.

Hope that helps and thanks for your review of Vox, Cheers!

Thanks for the update soooo fast

you know what i would like a Giant arena were you can fight every mob and even your own made mobs and even bosses with 24 other people THAT WOULD BE AWESOME