Township - Development Thread

[Son of the King]

Working on getting a user interface implemented .

[Jubal]

Woop! 

[Son of the King]

So, the user interface never got implemented (QML and Qt4-style QGLWidgets don't play nicely). Getting a job meant my free time for this got swallowed somewhat, not to mention my motivation to program when I got home having been programming all day. However, recently my motivation for this has been coming back. I currently plan to re-do the display using more up to date Qt stuff so that the user interface work is nice and simple, then finish the other stuff I said I would somewhere and finally release something for people to play around with!

[DeepComet5581]

Wow. Exilian might just become a base for Indie game development!

Anything further to share about Township?

[Jubal]

Yeah, I'm hoping to see if we can attract a couple more devs in the next few months   

[Son of the King]

I played my original python version of this today, and fixed a couple of the awful bugs that were causing it to crash after a few seconds .

I also remembered how unfinished the second python version is, and the C++ version that I managed to break at some point...

[Son of the King]

I got bored of writing code for yamlui and wrote a thing to generate a map using OpenSimplex noise to create both coherent landmass and easily allow the same map to be reproduced from a seed. The result is vaguely similar to the screenshots of the unfinished second python version, but with larger landmasses and less "randomness" similar to the screenshots of the C++ version.

The neat thing here though is I implemented a system such that the map is generated and rendered in 16x16 chunks, which avoids the issue the unfinished second python version of Township had wherein if the map was larger than about 150x150 tiles the framerate became very poor. I "just" need to come up with a way to load/generate chunks on the fly and there is no reason to limit map size anymore.

[Jubal]

It'd be nice to see another working version of Township sometime

[Son of the King]

I agree wholeheartedly. I was talking to Lady Grey about it a couple of weeks ago and decided I had to give it another, better, go. That's what caused me to start actually implementing yamlui after a similar but less strong bout of motivation struck last year and gave me that idea (sadly that inspiration ran out after trying to write an example ui definition).

Spoiler

That's what I've got so far with this map generator, trees could use some work to render them less uniformly, and stop them being cut off by chunks below and to the right. This map is 256x256 tiles, but it can be infinite if I just figure out a neat way to generate chunks on the fly. That 181 is the fps I'm getting, which compared with about 30 fps on the old unfinished python version with a 200x200 map is quite an improvement...

I'm also still not happy with the rocks, maybe I'll switch back to tiles that are 32x32 pixels instead of 16x16.

[Jubal]

Hm, in visual terms I feel like the rocks could look OK, but probably need a bit more graphical variation and possibly tweaking to look a bit more "smooth" on average rather than the "clutch of eggs" look they have now. What you've currently got looks a bit like the design of a whole outcrop rather than part thereof, I guess, which fits with what you were saying about 32x32 tiles.

[Son of the King]

I decided to make them less bright, and more smooth. I think they look much better now!

Spoiler

Adding that graphical variation is the only improvement I've made so far sadly, but I do now have a clear picture in my head of how the infinite map will be implemented, I just have to get time to do it.

[Jubal]

Looking forward to seeing it when you do get the time

[Son of the King]

Another year, another bit of working on Township.

I finally got the time and motivation to implement infinite map generation a couple of months ago whilst flying to the US. That is all I did until recently when I've decided to try and make another attempt at sustained work on this. I've been taking an approach of setting myself a small number of easily achievable things to do each day, and doing just them, in an attempt to avoid getting too burnt out or bored of it. It seems to be going OK so far, since my main problem is wishing I had more time to dedicate to it...

[Glaurung]

Good to hear from you - I hope it continues to go well.

[Jubal]

^ Likewise. I don't think any of my old versions work any more, but I'd be interested to see a new one if it ever emerges