Let's Make a Voxel Engine - 030 - Scenery & Object Editing

Creating a new voxel engine for game development.
Creation mode.
Export / import object files.
Scaling, rotation, translation.
Random value generation.
Scenery creation animation.
Testing out some scenery I previously created to make a scene.
Remove scenery.
(P.S. Spot the editing misclick fail around the 04:50 mark... I need to add an undo feature!)
Guide/Tutorial site: sites.google.c...
Twitter: / alwaysgeeky

[@JakeRonYT]

The little 'bumping' effect, scenery growing slightly smaller / larger right after creation, is what made this video for me. Props and please keep this up!

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Awww, thats so nice of your to say so, thanks!

[@AlwaysGeeky]

No worries dude, glad to provide a service to you and to help you with the understanding. I will let you know as soon as something is ready to release. and yes I will probably do an early release with perks for early adopters ;)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Cheers dude! That is the plan... put the tools for creation in the hands of the user/players. At the moment the stuff created is just what I have been making to test as I go along, but my main goal is to make creation and editing fun, fast, easy and intuitive.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

A pleasure dude! I am so very pleased that they are useful for you :)

[@purpleice2343]

The fact that creating your own models (does not matter that only your self made engine supports them) while playing the game, is what blows my mind, this could be good addition to modding or customizing your game (don't like the furnace the developer brought to you? build your own!) And I won't even start with possibilities of "custom blocks and models" for decorations. I just hope that I will reach the point where I can use your tutorial to create my own engine while I will at least know what I am doing.

[@micecdnwo]

I'm confused XD AlwaysGeeky did a great job. I was talking about minecraft continuing to advance through their updates. What I was talking about was even if players asked for it to happen, it wouldn't really be a part of the actual current game concept. If they had all the stuff this game had, then it'd get really really wierd for the players on servers and especially those with hacked clients using that destroy option XD I guess decorations wouldn't hurt though.

[@618Lonewolf]

I love the how flexible at creating stuff this looks, especially with all the little dev tools you've put as you've gone along. I guess destruction/creation sequences are all done by code? (as opposed to variants of a animation) Really liking how objects spring up on creation :P

[@zerOllMusiik]

oh my god this is simply amazing man.. holy hell this is astonishing.. you can create so much with something like this.. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Hey, thanks for your support and feedback. :) I have been programming for about 15 years, ever since I was at college and then university. I have been a professional games programmer for about 7 years now.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Glad you like, thanks :)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Yep, I've created voxel sprites and 'scenery objects' which are a type of voxel chunk, performance is still maintained because I use the same voxel optimizations on my 'mini-chunks' as I do on the main voxel world...

[@kag35ninety6]

How long have you been programming? I'm learning Java and I'm fascinated by this voxel terrain generation thing, and yours is completely amazing. Heres another subscriber!

[@merlinarthur1386]

Sweet, I like the one color blocks, not to modernized and not too simple. Plus water? Awesomeness. I like how it eventually dries up but stays put if placed in a closed environment. I wish I could subscribe on my iPod... Ehh, I'll figure it out.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Yep, I have plans for scripting and animation, you will be able to totally customize most parts of the game.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Yes, the plan is to release it.... but as for specifics I am far too far away from that stage to talk about it yet, but thanks for your interest :)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Yes, most animation is code driven at the moment... well there isnt really much 'animation' per-say... just scale interpolation and little tweaks that add to the fun and playfulness of creating and editing. :)

[@DubstepCoder]

Arrays actually work well for voxels, because indexing them is very fast. With octrees you have to iterate through the tree, which is slower. As long as you aren't memory limited arrays work well, 3d or 1d.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Hehe, dont worry the plan is totally to release this... I want to see what sort of stuff everyone can make using my game. There are a lot of creative people out there besides me :)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

You noticed huh...? haha, at the moment, that is the best undo method I have, works pretty well sometimes...

[@iiiears]

Your game has features mojang will be jealous of. They are well funded and with these videos posted you really should consider two income streams from one project. The race I think has probably started.

[@merlinarthur1386]

K, thnx for the info. I think the early perks is a good idea. Admittedly so, I did not watch this whole video (If I want something to be noticed I comment on their latest video (rest assured I did watch all of your other videos though)) but I did last night and it is awesome. Make your own creations and then make them scenery that is completely customizable from the degree of angle to the size? Awesome. I could make so many cool things with this. I highly doubt Minecraft will adopt this capab

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Hi, thanks for your enthusiasm and offer. At the moment I dont have anything to release and I am not able to send you anything to test... if you keep watching my updates you will find out as soon as everyone else when I am ready to release a version that people can download and play/try. Thanks :)

[@merlinarthur1386]

I'm not tryna rush you, I'm just really eager to use this voxel engine because it's exactly what I've been looking for. I have Minecraft but sometimes it's more in-depth than I want it to be. This is nice and boarderline simple :D (btw I can't edit comments on here so I just post new ones sry)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Cheers dude! I am trying to update my tutorials as much as possible, but I do have a full time games programming job plus I try to code as much on my voxel engine as possible, I just don't have the time I need to do everything I want :( But I am updating the articles when I can...

[@decamonos]

I've just got to say this looks fantastically amazing! I've got to ask, are there plans for animation, or scripting support for objects and scenery?

[@AlwaysGeeky]

No worries about the comments. Sorry but I really have no idea when I will be in a position to release this. I still have so much left to do, I cant give you a date. Also I plan to add many many more features that will make my game MORE advanced than Minecraft ;)

[@merlinarthur1386]

Omg this is amazing! This program would be awesome if you release it to the public! *hint hint* :D

[@anthonyortiz7924]

I know I'm late to the party, just now seeing your engine, you did some good work here! Love the water generation and the features you're demonstrating in this video, it has me scratching my head wondering how you're able to scale the voxel models and represent them in a voxel grid (or sparse voxel dag?) and yet allow for collision detection. Naively you would have an xyz grid with each cell containing a block type and your model fits within the standard 1x1x1 meter cube so it's all pretty easy peezy, you can just check the xyz cell to see if there's a block there or not, but here you have your model scaling up at such fine granularity, I'm guessing you have a separate list containing these custom sized objects per chunk and when it comes time to check for collisions you do the standard terrain check and then the models in the scene? I was recently thinking about this very problem of how to represent these models that can be scaled and rotated to fit and you seem to have done such a splendid job at it years ago.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Thank you!

[@InjexDnB]

Holy shit this is impressive. I've always wondered what kind of programming goes into engines like this, is it done with 3d arrays?

[@merlinarthur1386]

It's cool if you wanna be a 'lone wolf' though too. :D

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Well no, at the current moment, the scenery would not restrict or modify the water flow... the water would just pass straight through scenery objects.

[@DubstepCoder]

This is awesome! Ive also been using your voxel engine tutorials but they are incomplete >.< I am trying to figure out how my filesystem will work!

[@iiiears]

appearance is the brand identity? I agree with you but look again at your truly great interpretation, resizeable blocks and particularly at the in game editor. These significant differences between "rounded corners" and a very popular "iPod"

[@AlwaysGeeky]

hehe, interesting idea :)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. At the moment scenery objects are mostly static in the world. I am planning to add some kind of animation system to them too... but as of yet have no plans to allow them to interact with water... Maybe it is a good suggestion though, like certain objects could float or sink in the water depending on their size or properties... but I haven't thought about that yet. What would you suggest?

[@Tikvanaya]

Omg, I imagine tiny people running in this world, and you are the almighty god that shoots them with your powerfull blasts of purple lightning.

[@merlinarthur1386]

Mmk I will wait until a beta or alpha version of this game comes out. Until then I will be waiting like an eager beaver. Btw will this game cost when it's in full condition or will it be free? If it costs then maybe you can do what Minecraft did and give all future updates for free to the ones who got beta and the ones who didn't have to pay full price. That is, if there is a price. (P.S I figure out how to sub on mah iPod :D) Thank you for your timely responses as most people on

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Hi, thanks for subscribing and your support. You can find general information about making a voxel engine on my devblog (links in video description). As for tools, I use things like Visual Studio, GIMP, SFX tools, etc... lots of different tools really for different jobs, that's a too general question to give a definitive answer...

[@merlinarthur1386]

Awesome. It's cool about the date, perhaps could I help you by being your debugger? Like, play it, and test out for any bugs? I have a Mac leopard if that's a problem.

[@iiiears]

It's better customisation than minecraft, you can be sure if players see this and ask for it. in minecraft. The race between an established developer and a small one will have started.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Cheers!

[@iiiears]

Tell me why you chose this world size in the video and not an endless horizon.

[@decamonos]

I would truly love you if you released a free version.

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Thanks :)

[@AlwaysGeeky]

I am using Visual Studio... I made it all myself, the engine is custom made :)

[@SketchistGames]

When your engine is complete are you going to have it out for the public? If so will it be free if not how much money?

[@AlwaysGeeky]

No Offence taken :) But I should warn you, if you are having trouble with the basic cube rendering part of my tutorials then the tutorials are probably not really aimed at you. Anyone who wants to make a voxel engine should already have a basic understanding of 3d operations and simple tasks such as immediate mode and cube rendering and understand the code. If you need to learn more basic OpenGL and 3d rendering then you should probably look for other more basic tutorials. Cheers.

[@iiiears]

If i wasn't clear your version kicks A#$!

[@laylconway6525]

*infinityminer-y You need to simply render something else then blocks, look at the marching cubes algorithm like Planet Explorers does.

[@Cobbleblox]

What programming language are you using?

[@AlwaysGeeky]

Well you need an understanding of 3d maths and also graphics programming... Sorry my tutorials are not really aimed at beginners to programming.

[@merlinarthur1386]

Wtf it cut off the bottom half of mah comment. Or at least that's how it shows here. Anyway, the rest if that comment was: "Thank you for your timely responses as most people on KZbin do not take interest on responding promptly. -Merlin"

[@rill333]

Can you upload (publish) your custom voxel engine?

[@AlwaysGeeky]

C++.

[@MrSuper453]

is editor or game ??!??!?!?!?!?!?

[@merlinarthur1386]

Release date?

[@ecoivan69]

you work in c++?

[@micecdnwo]

I don't understand -.- Minecraft is and always will be known for it's basic block use and crafting. There's no need for further customization, they'll be making money faster than jagex will in the next 10 years. And besides, the only thing that is needed here is time, lots of time. I could make games 10X better than any ones in existence with millions of years to focus on them :D

[@TheMuriloextreme]

fala no seus video pf

[@merlinarthur1386]

.......?

[@Soundfonter]

No offence, but your tutorials don;t really go into depth of what things do, all you've said is 'We're gonna render a cube first; [dumps code] now, as you can see we've a cube.' It'd be better to explain what each function in the code does.

[@micecdnwo]

if---- You make this game and it's a success, it looks like it's aimed for ps3 :D like little big planet, but a voxel version of harvest moon XD Don't lease it to xbox, microsoft is the devil :\