[Game] Australopithecus [Tech Demo]

[Sokomine]

Flat, unimpressive land isn't bad. It invites players to build something. While I do love the impressive nature the Eden (and also Dreambuilder) game construct, it is sometimes too much. It's a shame to destroy all that beautiful nature :-) So, yes, something less exciting can be very helpful at times :-)

[BobbyBonsaimind]

I tried this game last night, it was stunning, although barren the vast terrain and ramps were an amazing experience, i like the mix of cubes and ramps, only ramps would not be as impressive.

Thank you, that is exactly the feeling I'd like to create.

I found mountains up to y = 512. I find the ramps very suitable for the character of Minetest, but also a profound new experience.

The highest mountain I have seen so far topped out at ~700 or so, the deepest underwater trench was ~-800, so there should be a lot of vertical space to explore. Additionally I actually plan to put the vertical space that Minetest offers to good use in both directions. Anyway I agree that the mixed ramps/full-blocks look quite well when thought. There are a few edge-cases to be worked out, but nothing too serious.

Flat, unimpressive land isn't bad. It invites players to build something. While I do love the impressive nature the Eden (and also Dreambuilder) game construct, it is sometimes too much. It's a shame to destroy all that beautiful nature :-) So, yes, something less exciting can be very helpful at times :-)

Thanks for that feedback. I do plan to have very thick vegetation and a lot of features to look at. Maybe I should keep half the map "free" of thick vegetation and only place scarce vegetation there...fuel for thought.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

Everyone who did look around in a world using the latest HEAD, you might want to redo your tour. I just pushed quite a few changes that fix various issues, especially that the transformations did not work (transformations are "making holes into the terrain", it is basically a 3D noise applied against the 2D heightmap terrain, which removes parts). Though, now there is nearly too much for my taste, I'll have to improve the parameters for it so that it gets a little more seldom.

Anyway, because it turned out that I like making maps (and it also helps me find various issues), here is another one of a tropical part of another world.



You can clearly see the transformations that have been applied, especially in the right halve. Here is also an annotated version, with the names of the modules (if someone wants to poke around the mapgen).



Here are three screenshots that show the transformations in action:





And the glamor shot:

[BobbyBonsaimind]

Good news, I have received my Cubietruck today and already managed to set it up successfully with Debian/Cubian, so I'm quite confident that I get the server up and running on Thursday (don't quote me on that, though).

I also have to say that setting up a Cubietruck is a major pain...the information needed is all over the interwebs and there does not seem to be single good tutorial on it (and then there are the obscure issues, like a too long USB cable would hinder it when booting...and it started screeching when I attached my SSD, stuff like that). I'll write a tutorial with my findings later on.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

The server is open for business! Information about it can be found in the first post.

It is currently quite busy generating the map, expect lag!

[HulkSmashRocks]

Hey the idea you have is awesome, keep it up! The mapgen reminds me a lot of Wurm Online and the ramps are amazing, something that should be/have been in MC universe LOOONG time ago. The crafting grid is interesting too, 5x5 gives room for a lot. I'm digging through your source code and trying to understand more about it as well as C++ in general. I logged into the server and will probably check in there and see how things are going. The cave systems are amazing. Not having to jump to go up a slope and also having slanted caves and stuff down there makes it feel sooo much more immersive somehow, and way more interesting to explore.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

I've updated the server to the latest HEAD of Australopithecus, the changes include mostly changes behind the scene (to make the mods easier re-usable). But the two biggest changes are the addition of the sneak-cam mod (the camera position of players is now lowered if they sneak) and the player-model mod. Yes, there are now actual player models included...uh, we are all naked Jesus now...

[MineYoshi]

the mapgen is good but to me is similar the map to a low poly model!

[Delaroyas]

I went and did a quick walk on your server.

The terrains are beautiful! Loved the beach and the caves.

I noticed that when the terrain slope is diagonal, the outside corner slopes seem to sick out and make a sharp edges. In these cases a simple tetrahedron corner may be better suited to simulate smooth terrain.

I'm not sure if it's intentional, but I tried to place slopes on your server but the placements on the walls or ceiling does not act as the stairs mod do... They are always oriented as if they were placed on the floor.

I like to see you are working on the animation of the character, the default animations seems a bit lifeless to me.

I'll try to look into the code to see

[BobbyBonsaimind]

The terrains are beautiful! Loved the beach and the caves.

Thank you very much...wait, there's a beach near spawn? Guess I should take a longer walk around then.

I noticed that when the terrain slope is diagonal, the outside corner slopes seem to sick out and make a sharp edges. In these cases a simple tetrahedron corner may be better suited to simulate smooth terrain.

I can't quite follow what you mean, but I fixed the "odd placement" of corner ramps which lead to odd looking formations.

I'm not sure if it's intentional, but I tried to place slopes on your server but the placements on the walls or ceiling does not act as the stairs mod do... They are always oriented as if they were placed on the floor.

That was on my TODO list for a long time...it finally landed a few days ago, so it will be in the next update to the server.

I like to see you are working on the animation of the character, the default animations seems a bit lifeless to me.

I'm always open for ideas, the player-model mod is what you want for that. "Graphics" and everything related to it is my weak spot, that's why I'm so happy that the Summerfields pack does exist with so many textures.

[Delaroyas]

The terrains are beautiful! Loved the beach and the caves.

Thank you very much...wait, there's a beach near spawn? Guess I should take a longer walk around then.

I noticed that when the terrain slope is diagonal, the outside corner slopes seem to sick out and make a sharp edges. In these cases a simple tetrahedron corner may be better suited to simulate smooth terrain.

I can't quite follow what you mean, but I fixed the "odd placement" of corner ramps which lead to odd looking formations.

In the following image I circled the "diagonal terrain slope" which leads to corner making sharp edges:

[BobbyBonsaimind]

Oh, that. Yeah, a tetrahedron might look better there actually, though, I like these corners.

After I've seen it in your mod I wanted to add it anyway, maybe I'll make this a configuration what corners are used, and if there should be ramps at all. Thanks for the feedback.

[Delaroyas]

Oh, that. Yeah, a tetrahedron might look better there actually, though, I like these corners.

After I've seen it in your mod I wanted to add it anyway, maybe I'll make this a configuration what corners are used, and if there should be ramps at all. Thanks for the feedback.

Just note that in my mod the corner slopes are oriented differently, the downhill side is on the front right (yours is on the front left).

[afflatus]

I like those slopes.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

Thank you very much for this idea. This looks quite well, though there are a few glitches I need to sort out, but otherwise I like it.

[Delaroyas]

Nice,
Now it is the blocks behind the tetrahedron causing problems, this is why I made the other inside corners. they fit perfectly with the tetrahedron.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

Yes, exactly. I've already added both models to worldgen-utils. I guess the next step will be to rewrite RampPlacer into a more generic tool, so that it can also be used to fix this. I already have an idea on how to do that and it is pretty much the next thing on my list to be done.

[paramat]

I think that looks a lot worse, too rounded and lacking in MT's cubic character, i like previous the aligned sharp edges.

[Delaroyas]

I think that looks a lot worse, too rounded and lacking in MT's cubic character, i like previous the aligned sharp edges.

I know that most of the people that are currently playing these "block placing games" are fond of the blocky look of the game. They went past the initial "Why would I play such a low-res game?" and saw the potential of playing a game with so much freedom. Most fell in love with these blocks.

That said, I personally always felt the game could look more natural with less visible "blocks" on the surface.
But that's one of the best thing about Minetest, we can all mod this game as we wish.

Continue your great work on Australopithecus, BobbyBonsaimind.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

@paramat Without any hard feelings, intention to insult or something like that, you might be looking at the wrong subgame if you think like that. I *will* break such conventions in Australopithecus, that is by design, because I believe that such elements *can* make a great game if used correctly. Therefor I appreciate all the freedom the (awesome) engine gives me in this regard and allows me to implement my ideas of a subgame...which so far can only be considered a technical demo.

@Delaroyas I actually finished my rewrite of the RampPlacer tool, which is now called MaskBasedPlacer. It turned out to be a beast which could have been made by Frankenstein himself, and it still lacks documentation. You can find the usage in Australopithecus at the end of the crust/bake.lua file.

For everyone else, this is how the ramps are now looking in Australopithecus.







Regarding an update to the server, I still have a few additional changes in the pipeline that I want to do before updating the server, which might be in January as it currently looks like. The good news is, that after that update my main work *must* focus on vegetation, because at that point there is no dodging that anymore.

My main idea for vegetation is still to have very thick vegetation where appropriate, jungles for example should be hard to traverse under all circumstances with high trees. rnd_trees actually gave me the idea to write my own tree spawner, because these trees are quite close to what I want. Though, that is just a rough idea in the back of my head.

[kaadmy]

Wow, that looks neat :D
How do physics work for the slopes? Multiple collision boxes in a slope pattern? Then, you could walk around without all the jumping.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

Exactly that.

[paramat]

Actually these recent screenshots look good, i think the first desert screenshot of the rounded hill just looked wrong to me for some reason. Excellent work.

[BobbyBonsaimind]

I'm posting an update because of, at least for some, an important change: Australopithecus is now licensed under LGPL v2.1, no longer under BSD. Note that this does only apply to the "core" of the game, all the mods that have a repository of their own will stay under a BSD license.

In other news, I've nearly written 15,000 lines of Lua code so far, with another 3,000 lines of comments and documentation! Most of these lines reside in easily re-usable mods in their own repositories, too.

Now back to the game itself, because I haven't done a map in a while, here is a new one:



In the north you see a mountain range which has been parted by the flatlands. These mountains are raising a whooping 400 nodes into the sky, and I had trouble taking a picture of them because parts of the map would constantly unload.



What really took me by surprise were the formation that formed in the south-west corner. Here you are also seeing the new ramps in action (which still yield some artifacts, but nothing too bad and nothing I couldn't live with).







That bright green opening is not a glitch, it really is an opening of roughly 2x1 nodes.

Otherwise there isn't much to say I guess, the list of things to do before I would like to push an update to the test server has grown thin so this seems really to happen in January...and after that vegetation has to happen...somehow...and still no clue about it.

[paramat]

Stunning screenshots, i like the contrasts of the differing terrains.
Any chance of a c++ version in future? (as a possible core mapgen) in lua this is very slow and generation would cause unbearable lag on a server.