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Remember the ruins from last post? Well they're in the game now!

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Remember the ruins from last post? Well they're in the game now!


So just a quick post to show you the ancient ruins in action!

Keep in mind while watching this video, however, that no level designer touched this. All of what you see was put together by the game engine, and the world is INFINITE, so there are INFINITE other sites like this. Some larger, some smaller, some more destroyed, some more intact.

Still very early days. No lighting, no normal mapping, no shadows, not even necessarily finished models, but the outside world is now being filled with ancient ruins for the player to explore. Sometimes you might find some abandoned loot in there, other times you'll get to venture into the catacombs beneath them and explore them like a dungeon! Either way, they're looking totally sweet even at this early stage, and are really exciting to come across.


Also, have a listen to the AMAZING music being produced by our lead composer, Nicolas Lee! Check him out at Nicolasleemusic.com

And, as usual, don't forget to join us on the social networks!

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Expack
Expack

Nice little video, but I would've liked to have seen more examples of the procedurally-generated ruins and, assuming they've been implemented, the catacombs some of them contain. (Perhaps some short-yet-informative narration would have also helped.) I think this would've made more of an impression than just showing one procedurally-generated ruin. The reason I say this is while this is obviously cool to you - and rightfully so, given how all of this is procedural - but the average person, who probably isn't nearly as knowledgeable as you in these things, is probably thinking "What is this and how does it make your game cool?" during and after the video.

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CumQuaT Author
CumQuaT

We only really do these blogs to keep a running catalogue of our progress, so we're leaving it up to other people to keep up. If they've been reading the blogs then they'll know what it is and why it makes the game cool.
That being said, this isn't the only video we're going to show that features the temples, as they are in a very early stage.
The other big problem is that as this game is procedurally generated, I have no idea where the temples are to show them to you! I was lucky enough to have this particular one fairly close to the spawn point, but as for the others, I have no idea where they could be found. Once I have the minimap working in the overworld I'll be able to find them more easily!
We'd also love to show you the catacombs underneath them, however the models aren't ready yet. The operate very similar to the dungeons but with different game assets, different monsters and different layout. Just stay tuned to the blog and you'll get to see things as they're done! We promise to keep you up to date!

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CumQuaT Author
CumQuaT

Also, all these mini posts about the outdoors are a leadup to a fully featured, fully narrated walkthrough of the completed outdoor environments. Once they're polished (like the dungeons) there will be much more complete videos. But for now, we're just putting in little featurette things to give you an idea of where it's going :)

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NicolasLee
NicolasLee

Remember also that a lot of indiedb.com readers are developers / modders themselves, thus this is interesting and pertinent info. And a lot of us are just excited to see another glimpse of the overworld!

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CumQuaT Author
CumQuaT

And there will be many more!

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norolim
norolim

Nice to see the surface again. I'm just wondering though. It's the 2nd time I've read in one of your posts, that the game world is going to be INFINITE. If that really is the plan, than all that information will have to be stored somehow. Aren't you afraid, that the size of the file/files is going to grow beyond control, after some time? Besides, an RPG world that never ends...I know...on paper it sounds like a great idea. But for me at least, an infinite world is not very believable. It lacks a frame of reference, both literally and memetaphorically. I would definitely like to know, that if I travel in one direction long enough, I will eventually end-up in the place I started from. Mind you, I'm just throwing ideas at you...not critisizing at all, because creating na infinite world is a excellent idea from some perspectives and a grat feat. But wouldn't you prefer to make the world extremely big instead, like a "small planet" big?

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CumQuaT Author
CumQuaT

Actually, only a relatively small amount of data will need to be stored. The game is procedurally generated, which means that the world immediately around the player is generated from a formula which has the player's coordinates put in one end and the world information passed out of the other end. So there's not an infinite amount of data required. If you'd like more info on how it works, have a read up on it (there's heaps of info won the web) as it's a pretty cool (yet difficult to create) system

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norolim
norolim

I more or less know how it works, but I'm not sure about one thing. You stated yourself that the world that is being generated "on the fly" will "remain" there and the player will be able to return to that same spot. My understanding is that, for this to be possible, every time a portion of the world is generated around the player, the information about the result of this process will have to be stored somewhere. And this data will then be used to recreate the environment when the player returns to the same exact spot. And this is the kind of data I was writing about, that will grow and grow. Tell me, if I'm horribly wrong here. Just don't punish ;)

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CumQuaT Author
CumQuaT

Hahaha no punishment, it's just a difficult concept to explain. Sorry if I sound harsh as I just work up hahaha

Since the world is being generated on the fly, only the part that is being generated on the fly ever needs to be stored. Because of this, to be able to re-create the part of the world you're in, you only need to have three things: Your X co-ordinate, your Y co-ordinate and your Z co-ordinate (a fourth factor, Time, is also used to some degree to make the world change a little over time). From that, the engine creates the world, so nothing needs to actually be "stored". If the player changes something in the world at a certain location, information about that is stored, but after a certain amount of time (in game) is passed, that part of the world is re-set again (with new monsters and loot). Because of this storage method, the most data that will ever need to be stored is around 250mb :) I hope this helps explain it. The short version is that it's already working, and there are no memory issues, so it's kind of a case of "you'll believe it when you see it" :D

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