Minecraft clone, improved graphics and GUI.

[Tommyx50]

So once you manage to get it to only render visible blocks, will you attempt to add a multiplayer function? Or would that be too complicated? And will the maps be the full size of Minecraft ones? I guess adding sprites for when you delete something will be easy (when you destroy something in Minecraft, "shards" appear), and also a toggle-able button to disable the thing that shows what block you are looking at, and thus disable building, for when you want to make good videos, etc. And if you ever do add multiplayer, make sure that you have settable restrictions by "admins", or whatever your game will call them. Things like disabling no-clip, only allowing certain blocks depending on a players abilities (so you get everything as admin, or the such) turning god-mode off/on (people could be killed by a lava or fire material, and by creatures if you add them), and the such. But all of that would be A LOT of work, especially the multiplayer.

But I want free, better, Minecraft. And then you can improve it to the stage of the new Minecraft!

[Matte]

A number of things you can do:

Separate rendering for different view distances... close up: accurate, far away: low resolution, very far away: approximate with points.

This might be a good idea to reduce the lag of visible blocks. I'll check what options XNA gives me for rendering quality.

Above mentioned solution to mark cubes that cannot be seen from the outside, however, noclipping through will be weird (noclipping makes optimizations harder). Especially if you only render visible surfaces, as most sides of the cubes will be hidden.

Yeah, I will need to figure out how to do rendering when noclipping. I'm currently thinking of just not rendering the blocks the camera is inside, and treat them like air, so every adjacent block is rendered.

It's important to realize that you need to batch rendering (vertex buffers) if you really want to it to be quick. Perhaps some kind of grid system where each cell is already cached in a vertex buffer.

I do believe Minecraft uses occlusion queries to approximate which blocks that cannot be seen for the next frame, exactly how I don't know, probably testing by way of some quad-tree structure. Approximating occlusion is important for larger worlds, either create/approximate occluding surfaces when the world is modified or find some other way, or use the afforemented solution.

I'm definitely going to need something like that, for the game to be playable with many blocks, yeah. XNA has a VertexBuffer class, so I'll look into using that.

Etc, etc, it depends a lot on how you intend for players to traverse the world, etc. Whether they will mostly walk on blocks, fly around... if the world will be based in caves, open areas, etc.

Currently, what I have in mind is somewhat like when generating a map with minecraft classic, just without the caves. I want the player to be able to choose between generating different natural looking worlds in addition to a flat gm_flatgrass like construction map.

[Matte]

Not if you cache the blocks that need to be drawn, and run the check for each adjacent block when you add/remove a block.

Still to slow. Tried it and it took 20 seconds to loop through an array of 1000x50x1000 (Too big map?) blocks and check each adjacent block. I might not be doing it as optimized as possible though.
Here's a link the the code I'm currently using: C# | static public void W - Anonymous - vB9FSn91 - Pastebin.com

[McLovin]

I was playing with XNA a while back but was never able to dynamically load content, how did you get it to load textures from a texture file without having to add them to the project? Or am I missing something?

[Matte]

I was playing with XNA a while back but was never able to dynamically load content, how did you get it to load textures from a texture file without having to add them to the project? Or am I missing something?

It loads every texture file in a folder by first creating a DirectoryInfo variable of the directory, then loop through the FileInfo array property of that variable, and load all the texture files with that info.

[Warlock]

can it create a block from the side of another so you could create an bridge type shape without blocks under it?

[-HP-]

can it create a block from the side of another so you could create an bridge type shape without blocks under it?

Did you see the video? (yes, it can)

[Azrael]

I'd very much like a series of building tools -- for example, many custom servers let you fill in a cuboid of the current block you have equipped by saying "/cuboid", then placing (or deleting) two blocks to define the opposite corners. A more intuitive way of doing this, and other common commands (spheres, block replacement, etc.), would be excellent -- especially if they were scriptable!

[Matte]

I'd very much like a series of building tools -- for example, many custom servers let you fill in a cuboid of the current block you have equipped by saying "/cuboid", then placing (or deleting) two blocks to define the opposite corners. A more intuitive way of doing this, and other common commands (spheres, block replacement, etc.), would be excellent -- especially if they were scriptable!

That is a good idea. Borders in functionality to my idea of a stacker.

[zoombahh]

looks epic
from your video it already seemed very playable but reading the thread I guess not so much.
you already said you want to add more sandbox features. would that also include triggers of some sort? (torches that can go out and let a cave collapse in case of flood). I dont know too much about minecraft itself but a scripting langugae (as mentioned earlier) would be cool. maybe support for gamemodes at some later point (either seperate like gmod or specified in the map, like in starcraft ro warcraft 3) such as fort wars, capture the flag, deathrun. Scripting/custom blocks/triggers etc. could be cool, but of course im going a bit far ahead here.
I find it quite amusing that for minecrafts popularity (and cost) you put soemthign potentially better together as a project in your free time, oh happy day