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Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => TI-Nspire => Topic started by: Chockosta on February 28, 2012, 02:43:10 pm

Title: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on February 28, 2012, 02:43:10 pm
Hello,

Since I like 3D, I wanted to try it with ndless.
After a couple experiments, I got spinning cubes... Yeah :P

At first, I wanted to try a minecraft-like game, but it's waaay too slow.
I'll try to do some optimizations, but I don't hope too much. Sorry.

The source is attached with a screenie.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Adriweb on February 28, 2012, 02:44:25 pm
That looks really nice ! :D

Trying on nspire_emu :P
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on February 29, 2012, 07:41:32 am
I just modified main.c, because I realised that I changed some values for testing purposes.
(I updated the first post)
If you downloaded it, you should do it again...
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jonius7 on February 29, 2012, 07:45:26 am
Wow, looks nice.
I haven't downloaded Ndless 3.1 yet (what was I doing?), I just have 2.1, so I'll try it now.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on February 29, 2012, 08:04:51 am
Oh, you might want the executable file...

The attached one should give you 100 cubes (like in the screenshot). You can turn them with the arrow keys.

WARNING : This has never been ran on a real calculator. I am not responsible if it causes any damages to your Nspire.
This executable only works with grayscale Nspires (It won't cause anything bad on a CX, but it will display random pixels...)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jonius7 on February 29, 2012, 08:16:45 am
Ah thanks. I was just about to say if I would have to compile it lol.
Now those cubes look very s**y...
EDIT: If you rotate it right you can get them to look like minecraft blocks perspectively, which is what you're aiming for, I guess.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on February 29, 2012, 08:20:01 am
Looks nice. Although this may be slow I'm pretty much convinced that something like minecraft should be possible on an nspire. ;)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: calc84maniac on February 29, 2012, 08:20:26 am
Wouldn't a call to lcd_ingray() be enough for Nspire CX compatibility?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on February 29, 2012, 08:36:11 am
@calc84maniac :
Sure, I will do that if I manage to create a game.
This program is just a proof of concept.


I just made some tests...
It starts to be too slow if I draw more than 500 cubes.
A minecraft might be possible if I managed to determine which cubes have to be drawn and which ones are hidden.
But I really don't know how to do that.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jim Bauwens on February 29, 2012, 12:50:38 pm
Nice work :D
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 29, 2012, 03:12:30 pm
Looks nice. How fast does it run approximately? It's hard to tell on a grayscale calc because the LCD is so blurry. X.x

EDIT: Seems to run at good speed considering the large amount of cubes displayed. I guess maybe with too much stuff it might be a bit too slow but a bunch of games like Star Fox would most likely be doable.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jonius7 on February 29, 2012, 11:54:50 pm
The cubes do rotate a bit slowly, but that could be speeded up somehow I guess.
Potentially good enough for great games to be ported.
Minecraft could work, but only in a partial form, because it even freezes on my computer (with the Minecraft logo changing to a Java logo), sometime regularly.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jim Bauwens on March 02, 2012, 05:26:36 am
You can't call rewriting a program really porting.
And normally if you do this you can optimize it how you want.

One of the problems of Minecraft is that it's written in Java, and Java is full of problems itself (no offense Java programmers).
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jonius7 on March 02, 2012, 05:35:57 am
Minecraft being written in Java cannot escape the fact that it cannot be independent of it. And therefore sometimes, the minecraft logo in the taskbar disappears and gets replaced with a Java icon (when it is frustratingly not responding), which IMHO, seems to 'cheapen' or make it look less polished as a game. But it's not like it's a big game release from a big company either.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 02, 2012, 06:21:23 am
A minecraft might be possible if I managed to determine which cubes have to be drawn and which ones are hidden.
But I really don't know how to do that.
I guess (I said "I guess", not "I know") it would be like raycasting. You must determine which cubes are hidden by others (not to draw) and which cubes are too far (not to draw) with imaginary rays you project everywhere, then you draw the remaining cubes, only the ones the character can see.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: alberthrocks on March 02, 2012, 07:34:17 pm
I guess (I said "I guess", not "I know") it would be like raycasting. You must determine which cubes are hidden by others (not to draw) and which cubes are too far (not to draw) with imaginary rays you project everywhere, then you draw the remaining cubes, only the ones the character can see.
I was just about to say that :D
The algorithms for doing such a thing are complex, but if implemented properly - that is, you strike a balance between "raytracing" and actually rendering the landscape - you can achieve a nice speed on the Nspire, possibly enough to add alpha and physical effects! :)

I would suggest reading about scanline rendering - it's supposedly a faster method of rendering 3D objects. You only sacrifice quality, which isn't an issue here if you are planning to implement Minecraft :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 03, 2012, 08:51:45 am
But... The Nspire screen is huge.
When I wondered about raycasting, I realised that the screen contains 320*240=76800 pixels.
Thats definitely too much.

Scanline rendering seems interesting, I'm going to search informations about it.
(But it's hard because I can't find French articles about it and I don't understand English well enough :( )
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 04, 2012, 01:47:42 pm
I think I'll give up with this project, since TI blocked ndless :(
It would be useless to spend time for this if nobody will use it...
Sorry.

Why can't TI understand that it won't annoy them to allow 3rd party native code ?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Lionel Debroux on March 04, 2012, 01:49:34 pm
And another one down, congratulations TI...
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 04, 2012, 01:49:37 pm
I think I'll give up with this project, since TI blocked ndless :(
It would be useless to spend time for this if nobody will use it...
Sorry.

Why can't TI understand that it won't annoy them to allow 3rd party native code ?
D:
I can't force you to continue but I think that continuing would be a good idea. It would show TI that developpment using Ndless 3.1 has always been about games, and not cheating.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 04, 2012, 01:58:23 pm
It seems that TI can't understand anything from the community.
Two months later, new Nspires will come with OS 3.2. A few months later, nobody will have OS 3.1.
I guess that TI won.

And now, I just don't know what to do. I don't want to quit calculator programming, but I hate TI's actions.
Unfortunately, no calculator is as good as the Nspire. So I'm really confused.

Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Lionel Debroux on March 04, 2012, 02:00:28 pm
I'd say that you should take a short break, in order to refresh your mind, and then, keep working and learning on the projects you like ;)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: lkj on March 04, 2012, 02:02:17 pm
Some people like me won't update to 3.2 until a new ndless comes out, but unfortunately most people have to or like the new lua too much for not using it :(
TI's strategy to give us a better lua so that most people don't want native code anymore seems to succeed.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 04, 2012, 02:02:28 pm
It seems that TI can't understand anything from the community.
Two months later, new Nspires will come with OS 3.2. A few months later, nobody will have OS 3.1.
I guess that TI won.
First of all, all of those who have Ndless 3.1 will keep the OS 3.1 (except one or two people), even years after (except if the second point becomes reality).
Secondly, OS 3.2 blocks Ndless 3.1 but maybe Ndless 3.2 would come, and your work would not be useless.
Thirdly, TI didn't win since there is no war ;) (or I missed something).

And now, I just don't know what to do. I don't want to quit calculator programming, but I hate TI's actions.
Unfortunately, no calculator is as good as the Nspire. So I'm really confused.
I have a stupid answer: Join the Ndless team ? :P

edit: Why do people keep ninja'ing me D:

TI's strategy to give us a better lua so that most people don't want native code anymore seems to succeed.
They need to work a lot to make an interpreted language run Doom and various emulators.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 04, 2012, 02:04:16 pm
I think you're right.
I should stop calculator programming for two or three weeks, maybe more...

I will still be around here, though.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: GB on March 04, 2012, 02:26:33 pm
It seems that TI can't understand anything from the community.
Two months later, new Nspires will come with OS 3.2. A few months later, nobody will have OS 3.1.
I guess that TI won.

And now, I just don't know what to do. I don't want to quit calculator programming, but I hate TI's actions.
Unfortunately, no calculator is as good as the Nspire. So I'm really confused.



Don't forget about the Casio Prizm! Casio has no plans on locking down their calculators.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 04, 2012, 02:39:29 pm
Well, it seems quite inferior to the Nspire...

- No CAS
- Slower
- No ABC keybord (I hate the alpha key)
- No way to program fast programs on-calc
- No mouse
- You have to find each function in the catalog/in a menu
- A huge font

Some people may prefer it, but I don't think I would.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: ExtendeD on March 05, 2012, 07:53:41 am
I think I'll give up with this project, since TI blocked ndless :(
It would be useless to spend time for this if nobody will use it...
Sorry.

Why can't TI understand that it won't annoy them to allow 3rd party native code ?

Chockosta, please think twice before making such a decision:

 * TI blocking Ndless is not new. Even Ndless v1.1 relied on half a dozen flaws that were all fixed in the next release. Adriweb's exchange with Melendy doesn't tell us much except that they are keeping their initial strategy. Nothing surprising.
 * There have been an update of Ndless for nearly every OS version released by TI. I see no reason why there wouldn't be one for v3.2.
 * I'm really sorry for the delay of Ndless v3.1 release, caused by different reasons (personal issues, wrong initial design choices and CX compatibility). Updating Ndless is a community effort, the more people behind it the faster the releases are updated. Ndless is Open Source for this reason. Don't hesitate to share suggestions or patches if you have any ideas.

The maintenance of Ndless and its SDK directly depends on how it is used by developers. I'll personaly stop any work if Ndless isn't used anymore. So please don't make the community collapse from within and keep up the good work!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 05, 2012, 01:47:41 pm
@Hayleia :
Oh, I'm really sorry, I didn't see your post !
Quote
I have a stupid answer: Join the Ndless team ?
I would like to help them, but this is totally out of my programming capacities. I'm just a little programmer who makes games with a SDK. Moreover, I don't think I have enough free time.

@ExtendeD :
I understand your point.
But it's quite frustrating to create programs for the Nspire, while TI does everything to block it. I know it has always been like that, but it's sad to realise it.
Moreover, it seems that TI secures more and more their OSes, so I think that ndless 3.2 won't be here before a while, despite your amazing work.


Anyway, I thought a lot about this last night, and it would be stupid to stop calculator programming.
I might not stop this project, but it is paused for sure (for at least one week).
I still feel discouraged, but I do want to help the community, and it seems that giving up isn't the right thing to do.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Nick on March 05, 2012, 03:15:24 pm
Anyway, I thought a lot about this last night, and it would be stupid to stop calculator programming.
I might not stop this project, but it is paused for sure (for at least one week).
I still feel discouraged, but I do want to help the community, and it seems that giving up isn't the right thing to do.

That's the way you should speak, i like that :)
well, sometimes it's best to just quit for a short term, since being programming all the time isn't that fun too (after a while)

good luck, and i hope everything will come all right (which will i think)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: njaddison on March 05, 2012, 03:28:06 pm
Chocksta! Don't stop programming! How can TI block ndless if we don't let them? We need a new nspire link software, a way to send files to our nspire without the fear of secretly being upgraded. Also, if your nspire's storage is full, then an os will not fit on it. Please! We need this!

TI thinks that we use ndless to cheat, but lets show them what ndless can do! I'm planning on buying an nspire cx when I get in Geometry in the 8th grade, but when I read the news, I totally changed my mind! Let's spread the news to everyone who uses an nspire.

Let's come back and take the win!

Let's just say we make up 25% of nspire users, and we are the ndless users also. If we all tell at least one person we know who uses an nspire to install ndless and don't upgrade to os 3.2, then that will bring the percent of nspire users that use ndless up to if not 50%, than 35%! Let's send letters of complaint to TI!

If TI allows ndless, then more people will buy the nspire! Someone in my class bought an nspire just because ndless 3.1 came out!

We need to take action!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: lkj on March 05, 2012, 03:28:50 pm
Moreover, it seems that TI secures more and more their OSes, so I think that ndless 3.2 won't be here before a while, despite your amazing work.

I don't think they'll ever make a secure OS, as long as ExtendeD is motivated and has time there will be Ndless :)

Quote
Anyway, I thought a lot about this last night, and it would be stupid to stop calculator programming.
I might not stop this project, but it is paused for sure (for at least one week).
I still feel discouraged, but I do want to help the community, and it seems that giving up isn't the right thing to do.
I like your project, and if programming isn't fun for you at the moment, just make a pause and program again when it's fun again :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Levak on March 05, 2012, 05:36:37 pm
We need a new nspire link software, a way to send files to our nspire without the fear of secretly being upgraded. Also, if your nspire's storage is full, then an os will not fit on it. Please! We need this!


TiLP spotted.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Lionel Debroux on March 06, 2012, 02:30:35 am
Indeed, TILP doesn't have that kind of egregious misfeature.


FWIW, there's a bit of potential in making new GPL'ed Nspire linking code, this time in C++ (using std:: facilities to replace Glib where applicable, and be neutral to whatever UI tookits people would want to use on top of the library), borrowing information from the libti* + tilp code base (which is the best available source of information). Without support for TI-Z80 and TI-68k (for which any evolution from TI's side is now over), and the associated cables, file types, character conversions, etc., the code base would be massively streamlined.
But I think that for instance, the pattern of using structs containing function pointers should be kept.


EDIT nearly two weeks later: last week-end, I spent several hours experimenting with stripping TI-Z80 and TI-68k support out of TILP. As I had predicted, the libti* + tilp code base was massively shrunk, even without spending time thoroughly purging the code base (lots of low-hanging fruit remain: dozens of references to various TI-Z80 and TI-68k models remain, as do hundreds of lines in the error handling code, and other code which does no longer matter in a code base which doesn't support the older models anymore): from ~78K lines in .c and .h files (libti* + tilp CLI/GUI, I merged everything together in a single folder), the code base shrank to ~35K lines.
Of course, the binary resulting from the build of the stripped code base can communicate with my Nspire CX CAS :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jonius7 on March 06, 2012, 06:39:11 am
Hey don't give up Chockosta! This is an ambitious project and it may take quite a while before you make significant progress on this. I would regard this as a large project that you can complete in steps while you complete some other smaller projects. So go and program something else and then come back and work on this one step at a time. Then we shall see if we can show TI how to "defy the impossible".
Also I have been trying to learn Lua but it's been slow progress, if any.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 20, 2012, 03:33:21 pm
I just decided to resume this project.
(BTW, I also resumed GravityGuy development and nSpaint)

I don't think that it will be really fun to use, but it's a nice challenge for me. I hope that it will be playable...
Anyway, I kinda optimized the display.
I can now draw a lot of cubes with a decent speed. (~1000 cubes in 0.2 sec)

But I really need to use the timers to slow down sometimes... When there's almost nothing to draw, the camera moves incredibly fast.
Does anyone know where I could find some documentation ?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Levak on March 20, 2012, 04:10:54 pm
Test ALL the addresses :D
http://hackspire.unsads.com/wiki/index.php/Memory-mapped_I/O_ports

Timer 1, Timer 2, and RTC.
The choice is up to you.
Beware on the emulator, it seems that the RTC can't be modified since it is based on the system (windows) time.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 21, 2012, 02:06:49 am
Test ALL the addresses :D
http://hackspire.unsads.com/wiki/index.php/Memory-mapped_I/O_ports

Timer 1, Timer 2, and RTC.
The choice is up to you.
Beware on the emulator, it seems that the RTC can't be modified since it is based on the system (windows) time.
What is RTC ? If that means Real Time Clock does that mean there is a clock on the Nspires that I never noticed ?

I just decided to resume this project.
(BTW, I also resumed GravityGuy development and nSpaint)

I don't think that it will be really fun to use, but it's a nice challenge for me. I hope that it will be playable...
Anyway, I kinda optimized the display.
I can now draw a lot of cubes with a decent speed. (~1000 cubes in 0.2 sec)

But I really need to use the timers to slow down sometimes... When there's almost nothing to draw, the camera moves incredibly fast.
Does anyone know where I could find some documentation ?
Glad to see you didn't quit everything because of TI :)
(Also, 1000 cubes in 0.2 sec is incredibly fast O.O)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: olivermadsen on March 21, 2012, 04:08:57 am
If you get minecraft to work on the CX, you win.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 21, 2012, 07:57:49 am
Test ALL the addresses :D
http://hackspire.unsads.com/wiki/index.php/Memory-mapped_I/O_ports

Timer 1, Timer 2, and RTC.
The choice is up to you.
Beware on the emulator, it seems that the RTC can't be modified since it is based on the system (windows) time.
Thanks !

What is RTC ? If that means Real Time Clock does that mean there is a clock on the Nspires that I never noticed ?
Yes...
A while ago, with ndless 2, I made a little program to use it, but I never finished it.

If you get minecraft to work on the CX, you win.
I hope I will :)
But don't think it will really look like the PC game : much slower, no textures, no nice physics...
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 24, 2012, 08:26:48 am
It's time for a really little demo version !
You can walk on a ridiculously tiny island with a little house.
This is more a proof of concept than anything else.

If you want to try it, open the attached archive and use nCraft.tns.
WARNING : it has never been tested on a real calculator. And I don't have CX support yet.
You can go forward with a, backward with z and you can turn the camera with the arrows.
The collision detection is very simple and doesn't really work.

For the ones who want to see it but don't want to download it, there is an attached screenshot.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Nick on March 24, 2012, 09:29:08 am
wow, nice ö i tried it on my cx Cas and saw on the upper 1/4th of the screen that house, with the front wall green, the left wall blue and the floor pastel green :)

i couldn't move, but as you said it wasn't supported yet i had to try it out xp

but seeing the screenshot it really shows a lot of its potential, since you can create a complete 3D world..
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 24, 2012, 09:33:34 am
Already ? O.O
And you wanted to quit programming, lol. We would have lost a great programmer :)

I have a CX CAS too, so I won't be able to test it, but it seems pretty good already, keep up the good work :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: lkj on March 24, 2012, 12:10:05 pm
I tested it on my non-cx cas, and movement and camera rotation worked and it didn't crash ;)
But it was a bit confusing that the screen was empty until I pressed a key.
Keep up the good work :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Jonius7 on March 27, 2012, 01:50:56 am
OMG, I better try this asap. Good job for making it look so genuine!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 27, 2012, 03:21:14 am
Looks nice Chockosta. I wonder if with minimal textures (such as Minecraft but with a twice smaller resolution) it would run fast enough? Seeing Doom running fast I'm thinking of yes, but this might be very hard to optimize that hard.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: shmibs on March 27, 2012, 04:13:26 am
he probably could, although drawing textures on a bunch of small boxes is more difficult than on a few, larger walls, i think. if not, though, then they can always just be different colours.
oh, and this DOES look fantastic =D
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 27, 2012, 04:21:29 am
An idea I have is to draw every 3 or 4 vertical line too, if that can help processing. Don't do it horizontally, though, as this seems more noticeable.

Also even though I'm talking about textures right now, don't try implementing them now, focus on your 3D engine as it is now. :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 27, 2012, 09:33:47 am
I thought about textures, but I'm afraid it won't be possible.
I'll try, anyway.

Oh, and here is a nice screenie that show I can draw lots of cubes without speed loss
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 27, 2012, 01:07:52 pm
By the way, if not any cube is transparent, why not, instead of drawing cubes, just draw the faces the player see ?
Maybe this method would make you rewrite all from the beginning (so don't do it if you don't need to) but maybe the game would become faster, I don't know.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 27, 2012, 02:08:29 pm
I already do it.
The Nspire is fast, but 3D drawing without hardware acceleration takes a lot of resources.
Since there is a lot of cubes to draw, it wouldn't be playable without optimization.

I use several ways to speed up the drawing :
- Only draw cubes if there is an "air" block near them
- Don't draw them if they're not on the screen
- Draw only 3 faces per cube (there are always less than 4 faces that can be seen)

Then I just sort the cubes that will be drawn with their distance from the player (optimized heap sort), no need to use a depth buffer.
So I can manage to have a decent framerate.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 27, 2012, 02:28:26 pm
I thought about textures, but I'm afraid it won't be possible.
I'll try, anyway.

Oh, and here is a nice screenie that show I can draw lots of cubes without speed loss

Actually that kind of floor could possibily be used as textures in some maps, right? But yeah for other walls I don't think textures are really that necessary anyway. Just have different color or gray tones for each, so they're easily distinguishable. Also another idea if there's a large map would be to not draw stuff that is too far from player view, like Nintendo 64 games, for example.

Does the engine supports 2D sprites like items in Doom?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on March 27, 2012, 02:40:06 pm
Actually that kind of floor could possibily be used as textures in some maps, right? But yeah for other walls I don't think textures are really that necessary anyway. Just have different color or gray tones for each, so they're easily distinguishable.
Well, I think I will first try to create something playable with a color for each cube.
Then, I will consider rewriting it to use textures.

Also another idea if there's a large map would be to not draw stuff that is too far from player view, like Nintendo 64 games, for example.
Obviously, I have to do this. I think I will display a chunk of 20*20*20 cubes. (That may seem not so much, but it's 8,000 cubes...)

Does the engine supports 2D sprites like items in Doom?
Not for now, but I plan to add this.

I am thinking about the world size... I never tried to store huge pieces of data in the RAM, I hope it will be possible...
Because a 100*100*40 world would take 400,000 bytes to store  :-\
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Hayleia on March 27, 2012, 03:39:22 pm
I am thinking about the world size... I never tried to store huge pieces of data in the RAM, I hope it will be possible...
Because a 100*100*40 world would take 400,000 bytes to store  :-\
You could use tangrs' method (http://ourl.ca/15656/293476) to decompress compressed data at the same time the game is running so you don't need to have all the world at the same place (however, I don't know how to compress a 3D world).
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 17, 2012, 03:33:53 pm
Since I finished my lua projects (Gravity guy and nSpaint), I can focus on nCraft...
I got a simple world generator (I will improve it later) It looks like this :
(http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/25/11/26/ncraft10.png)

And do you think that I should make iron/coal/gold/diamond more rare? For now it looks like this :
(http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/25/11/26/screen27.png)
(I did not display the stone)
Iron is grey, gold is lighter, diamond is the lightest shade of grey and the black floor is bedrock.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on April 17, 2012, 04:16:55 pm
nCraft= 3D Minecraft? 8O
I do think the diamond and gold should be fewer though.
Looks great!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 17, 2012, 04:33:13 pm
This looks awesome Chockosta! how big will be maps? Glad you're still working on this. :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: cyanophycean314 on April 17, 2012, 05:38:27 pm
Very nice!  :o Good luck!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: apcalc on April 17, 2012, 06:35:12 pm
Nice pics and great work! :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 17, 2012, 06:58:10 pm
Since I finished my lua projects (Gravity guy and nSpaint), I can focus on nCraft...
I got a simple world generator (I will improve it later) It looks like this :
(http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/25/11/26/ncraft10.png)

And do you think that I should make iron/coal/gold/diamond more rare? For now it looks like this :
(http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/25/11/26/screen27.png)
(I did not display the stone)
Iron is grey, gold is lighter, diamond is the lightest shade of grey and the black floor is bedrock.
I dont see pictures?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on April 17, 2012, 09:03:37 pm
No way.... If this gets good, this could be INSANE!!!!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 17, 2012, 09:06:51 pm
EPIC!
I want download
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 17, 2012, 09:07:43 pm
Since I finished my lua projects (Gravity guy and nSpaint), I can focus on nCraft...
I got a simple world generator (I will improve it later) It looks like this :
(http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/25/11/26/ncraft10.png)

And do you think that I should make iron/coal/gold/diamond more rare? For now it looks like this :
(http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/11/25/11/26/screen27.png)
(I did not display the stone)
Iron is grey, gold is lighter, diamond is the lightest shade of grey and the black floor is bedrock.
I dont see pictures?
Seems like servimg is down right now.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: shmibs on April 17, 2012, 10:14:10 pm
/me can't wait to see what new stuff is in these screenshots.

by the way, the formal term for displaying only visible polygons is occlusion culling, which might be helpful in finding relevant articles. also, a method you could use is pre-determining what polygons are visible from certain sectors in a map and storing that in along with the map data, rather than trying to calculate it in real time. that wouldn't be much help for dynamic terrain, though...

edit: this is probably just going to be me ranting, and not be of any actual use, but i had an idea while walking home just now that would be perfect for a 'closed rooms and corridors' shooter like doom. instead of storing the map data in a giant 3d grid, it could be stored in sectors, each sector with its own map of polygons that are to be drawn while the player is within it. por ejemplo:
if you had a 2d map for a raycaster, instead of using the conventional method, it could be broken up into sectors, like so:
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/sectors.png)

and then each sector would be stored separately and consist of all the blocks that are potentially visible from within its X,Y region of the total map. here are sectors 1-3:
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/sector1.png)  (http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/sector2.png)   (http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/sector3.png)

as you can see, some sectors can be a lot larger than others. however, it would be easy to minimise such areas when designing the maps by making sectors room-sized, and things like that. additionally, all the white space would make compression pretty easy =)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 17, 2012, 10:58:58 pm
From what I remember, one screenshot showed plain gray cubes that seemed to be able to rotate and it also appeared to support polygon sorting, as in superposed cubes. :D
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 17, 2012, 11:37:52 pm
I really want demo
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 17, 2012, 11:50:11 pm
@Shmibs would that work well for a Minecraft-type game where the overworld changes constantly?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: shmibs on April 17, 2012, 11:52:27 pm
you'd have to have some way of dynamically updating all the separate sectors, that contain a certain block, so not realistically, no. like i said:
Quote from: shmibs
this is probably just going to be me ranting, and not be of any actual use
:P
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 17, 2012, 11:55:41 pm
Ok I see then.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 18, 2012, 06:11:36 am
Wow... That's a lot of posts !
Thanks for the support :)

This looks awesome Chockosta! how big will be maps? Glad you're still working on this. :)
The total map is 100*100*40 (400,000 cubes !)
I display a chunk of 24*24*24 around the player. (with scrolling)

[nice ideas]
Your idea seems nice, but I think it's more adapted to a raycasting 3D engine... Because with nCraft, the sectors could get way too big.
Moreover, DJ is right, it would be hard to update sectors.

EPIC!
I want download
I have to get CX support, and then, I will put a download. (Even if it would be pretty useless without the possibility to add/remove blocks)


Oh, and sorry for using servimg, I should find another image hosting website.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Levak on April 18, 2012, 07:08:08 am
Quote
Oh, and sorry for using servimg, I should find another image hosting website.
imgur.com
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 18, 2012, 08:28:38 pm


EPIC!
I want download
I have to get CX support, and then, I will put a download. (Even if it would be pretty useless without the possibility to add/remove blocks)
.
still I like the generator
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 28, 2012, 10:21:26 am
Hello everybody !

I have problems with color support, and I would need your help...
I have to change my buffer from uint8_t* to void*.

But in a function to change a pixel, I have to cast a void* value to an uint8_t if the screen is in 4 bpp mode.
So I tried :
Code: [Select]
function setPixel(void *buffer,int x,int y,int color)
{
    //...
    uint8_t px=*((uint8_t *)buffer[pos])     //pos is an int
    //...
}
But gcc does not like that... What should I do instead?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 28, 2012, 01:53:50 pm
You should probably ask your question in the C or Ndless section later too if you don't get any reply here, since more people who can help might see it in an help section.  :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: alberthrocks on April 28, 2012, 04:55:26 pm
Great work so far! :D I'm not too sure about that C question... maybe one of the C experts could help.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: lkj on April 28, 2012, 07:15:53 pm
Hello everybody !

I have problems with color support, and I would need your help...
I have to change my buffer from uint8_t* to void*.

But in a function to change a pixel, I have to cast a void* value to an uint8_t if the screen is in 4 bpp mode.
So I tried :
Code: [Select]
function setPixel(void *buffer,int x,int y,int color)
{
    //...
    uint8_t px=*((uint8_t *)buffer[pos])     //pos is an int
    //...
}
But gcc does not like that... What should I do instead?

A function doesn't have a "function" in front of its name, although I'm not sure you wrote it in your code like that.

For the cast, try this:
Code: [Select]
uint8_t px=(((uint8_t *)buffer)[pos]);
If you write a * in front of it and a [] at the end, you're dereferencing the pointer twice, the * is wrong here.
I'm not sure if you need the parentheses around "(uint8_t*)buffer", but they certainly don't do any harm.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 29, 2012, 05:01:30 am
Oh yeah, small confusion with  Lua :)
(Obviously, I did not write that in my code)

But this doesn't work either...
GCC says :
buffer.c:19:35: warning : dereferencing ‘void *’ pointer [enabled by default]
buffer.c:19:5: error : invalid use of void expression

EDIT : Anyway, I found another way to do this (I just copied the setPixel function in particles, the ndless sample)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: lkj on April 29, 2012, 07:26:03 am
I tested it with an older x86 gcc and it worked...
But I'm glad you found another solution :)
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 29, 2012, 08:23:33 am
So, CX compatibility should be okay, but for random reasons it keep crashing when I open it with the emulator...
I really do not understand.

The CX emulator works fine, I can run other programs that I compiled.
But it doesn't seem that the error comes from the code, since it runs perfectly on non-CX emulator.
I have no clue...
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Levak on April 29, 2012, 11:07:56 am
So, CX compatibility should be okay, but for random reasons it keep crashing when I open it with the emulator...
I really do not understand.

The CX emulator works fine, I can run other programs that I compiled.
But it doesn't seem that the error comes from the code, since it runs perfectly on non-CX emulator.
I have no clue...

When it crashes, does it say something, like bad write word at 0x..... or it just Resets ?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 29, 2012, 11:14:41 am
When I enter "c" in the bebugger, I get :
"Warning at PC=114DA7EC: Bad read_word: 900d000c"...
Maybe a malloc failed ?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Levak on April 29, 2012, 11:21:32 am
No, this is normal. On emulator I haven't been able to edit (write) neither timer 1, timer 2 nor RTC.
It appears that, for the RTC, it is synchronized with the real time of the computer and you can't edit it. I don't know for the timer 1 and timer 2, maybe the same story.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: calc84maniac on April 29, 2012, 11:42:42 am
The timers work, but they are a different module on the Nspire CX than on the original Nspire. The list of registers is here (http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.ddi0271d/Babdajbi.html), and as you can see, Base+0x0C is a write-only register.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2012, 02:11:44 pm
Does it work perfectly on calc, though? Sometimes emulators do not emulate stuff 100% accurately.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: calc84maniac on April 29, 2012, 02:36:18 pm
It wouldn't work oncalc either because it has been programmed using only the classic Nspire timers. The CX timers have to be programmed differently.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 29, 2012, 02:38:47 pm
I never tested any of my ndless programs on calc...
Actually, I don't have ndless on my calc. (Or else I would be too tempted to play in class :) )

So I hope that it will work like in nspire_emu...
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on April 30, 2012, 01:32:17 pm
Thanks for your link, calc84maniac, but I still have problems.
According to this, the timer value address should be 0x900D0004, right ?

But the value at 0x900D0004 is 0 and doesn't change...
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on May 01, 2012, 01:08:42 pm
(Sorry for the triple post...)

By the way, even if I can't use the timers, the color display works great.
Here is some eye-candy...
(In the first picture, you can see iron, gold and diamond, and in the second one, there is pretty much every block I added :) )
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on May 01, 2012, 05:42:13 pm
Ohohoho, the triple post is fine when you need to make us see THESE BEAUTIFUL PICTURES! :D
Try to not triple in such a short time though :P
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: annoyingcalc on May 03, 2012, 06:56:50 pm
(Sorry for the triple post...)

By the way, even if I can't use the timers, the color display works great.
Here is some eye-candy...
(In the first picture, you can see iron, gold and diamond, and in the second one, there is pretty much every block I added :) )
WOW! I cant wait for more updates
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on May 03, 2012, 10:03:49 pm
Are you still on the step where you make all the textures or have you developed a character?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on May 04, 2012, 04:49:36 pm
Are you still on the step where you make all the textures or have you developed a character?
Well, for now I'm trying to allow the player to add/remove blocks.
I haven't designed a character yet...

(And, obviously, I have to find a way to use timers on the CX...)


[offtopic] Wow, +100 respect ! :) [/offtopic]
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 04, 2012, 06:07:57 pm
I like the screenshot with colors. Glad to see CX support finally arriving. As for timers you might have to look on Nspire-Lua or the Lua sub-forum. If there's nothing there, then you could maybe create a topic there though. Good luck!
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: annoyingcalc on May 12, 2012, 12:22:58 pm
any updates?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on May 13, 2012, 04:54:21 am
I'm sorry, but there is no updates.
I've a lot of work currently, because of final exams, and a math contest.

I just fixed a memory leak that I found.
I hope I will make progresses soon.
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on August 16, 2012, 09:44:05 pm
Any possible updates?
Title: Re: Some 3D with Ndless...
Post by: Chockosta on September 20, 2012, 02:02:59 pm
As I said here (http://ourl.ca/17054), I'm back !
So this project is officially resumed.

I did a few graphical changes, so now the grass looks like a "chess board" (I don't really find words to explain, you should look at the attached screenshot).
Should I keep it like this ? I think it looks better...

I also implemented gravity.
So you now can walk on a my map, fall and climb...

I will now focus on speed and optimization, because it is a bit slow (it is faster on an emulator than on a calculator)
But if you want, you can try it here (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=12768.0;attach=13674) ! Turn the camera with the arrows, go forward with A and backward with Z (I know, A and Z are not convenient, I will probably change for 8 and 2)
The game works on both CX and grayscale models.
Warning : this have never been tested on a real calculator, it might crash...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on September 20, 2012, 02:32:24 pm
Looks nice, Chockosta. Also I believ that the word you were looking for was "checkered". :P
Good luck with this.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: aeTIos on September 20, 2012, 02:37:19 pm
I guess he was looking for the word checkerboard. Looks awesome, gotta try this out :D (when stable lol)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Keoni29 on September 20, 2012, 03:23:55 pm
Any chance of textures?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 20, 2012, 03:27:51 pm
I'm afraid not :/
I am not able to get a decent speed with textures, sorry.
You'll have to differentiate blocks with their colour.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ben_g on September 20, 2012, 04:11:56 pm
I tried it on ti's document player, but it said the format was unsupported. Does anyone know a working player?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: lkj on September 20, 2012, 04:15:31 pm
This uses ndless, so you have to try it on an emulator (nspire_emu or kArmTI), since the online players are only for Lua.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ben_g on September 20, 2012, 04:24:55 pm
Are there any emulators that don't need a rom (or can generate one, like wabbitemu)?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: lkj on September 20, 2012, 05:44:13 pm
No, because for the cx boot1 is needed but cannot be distributed (or created). But you don't need a rom for emulating a b/w nspire.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on September 20, 2012, 06:03:23 pm
It runs without problems on a real CX :)
An idea..since the map isn't drawn pretty far forward might it be possible to have a mini-map that's a slice of the current height's layer or something?
Also yeah, the A and Z are a bit out of the way :P

Edit: random thought- is the map drawn all the way around the player or just in front if it?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: SpiroH on September 20, 2012, 06:12:36 pm
Are there any emulators that don't need a rom (or can generate one, like wabbitemu)?
Well, sometimes some wikis have useful info. Have you visited this one? http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=a4554c1b800ff1ff857e72d0dd28ab04&topic=12378.0 . Give it a go. It's worth the time spent. :P

Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 20, 2012, 06:21:36 pm
Will this project be revived D:
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 20, 2012, 06:40:05 pm
It has been!! how did I miss this yesterday! I just said to a friend in school that someone was working on it then stopped and hopefully would start again THIS IS AWESOME

EDIT: I see you are focusing on optimization.

After that will you add the ability to be able to place +destroy blocks (maybe jumping too)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: blfngl on September 20, 2012, 09:09:08 pm
Woah, when did this appear! Congrats and great job! :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 20, 2012, 10:04:37 pm
Glad to see this revived and with CX support :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 20, 2012, 10:43:14 pm
Glad to see this revived and with CX support :)
This would totally win my vote for POTY, after the gbc gba emulators from calc84! (But that was the last POTY, this could be the next winner :D)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 21, 2012, 03:13:21 am
Although competition with the GBA emu (gpSP) might be fierce :P. Still a huge feat to get featured though :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 21, 2012, 07:09:23 am
Woah, thanks for the support !

An idea..since the map isn't drawn pretty far forward might it be possible to have a mini-map that's a slice of the current height's layer or something?
Yes, that is totally possible. When I will be done with basic stuff (adding and removing blocks, inventory), I will add this
(of course, you will be able to deactivate it if it annoys you)
Quote
Edit: random thought- is the map drawn all the way around the player or just in front if it?
The cubes behind the player aren't sorted nor drawn. I might optimize this part a bit more, though.

After that will you add the ability to be able to place +destroy blocks (maybe jumping too)
Adding and removing blocks is off course the next item on my todo list :)
But it requires 3D raycasting, and I don't know much about that... I'll do research this week-end...

This would totally win my vote for POTY, after the gbc gba emulators from calc84! (But that was the last POTY, this could be the next winner :D)
I don't think this will win the POTY, gpSP is really better :)
But thank you for your support !

I hope I will make a lot of progress this week-end...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 21, 2012, 09:40:38 am
Would a scrolling background image slow the game down too much? It would be nice to have a background with clouds that moves around when you rotate the camera.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 21, 2012, 11:23:24 am
I just tried it on my CX, it works perfectly and is great already :D

Would a scrolling background image slow the game down too much? It would be nice to have a background with clouds that moves around when you rotate the camera.
Yeah, I agree that the white background feels a bit empty. If adding a background is too slow, maybe just coloring it in blue would fill the blank pretty well already ? :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 21, 2012, 11:49:35 am
Would a scrolling background image slow the game down too much? It would be nice to have a background with clouds that moves around when you rotate the camera.
I will try to add this, this yould be prettier indeed.
For now, I just filled it with blue, like Hayleia said.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 21, 2012, 01:47:14 pm
I tried it more in depth now, fell down and noticed that there are resources underground O.O

Also, while I was at it, I thought about something that would improve it in my opnion (and of course, it is only my opninion). I think that the controls would be a lot better if the touchpad didn't need any click, like in mViewer's browser. I mean using the touchpad like a touchpad without pressing it, not like buttons :)
The only problem I see with my idea is that it wouldn't work on non CX models, but maybe you could implement both control schemes so each calc has at least one working control scheme ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 21, 2012, 04:03:44 pm
This is a nice idea...
I'll take a look at mViewer's code, and try this.

(But for now, I am busy with raycasting...)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ben_g on September 21, 2012, 04:32:18 pm
After that will you add the ability to be able to place +destroy blocks (maybe jumping too)
Adding and removing blocks is off course the next item on my todo list :)
But it requires 3D raycasting, and I don't know much about that... I'll do research this week-end...
You should look into how raycasting is done for drawing maps in a raycaster (only the ray cast, not the drawing), then try to add the third dimension. This will be the easyest way, and it's fully possible because of the block-based world. Raycasting as used in 3D computer games often uses more complex calculations and search for polygons, which would also make it harder to use.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 21, 2012, 04:57:08 pm
I tried it more in depth now, fell down and noticed that there are resources underground O.O

Also, while I was at it, I thought about something that would improve it in my opnion (and of course, it is only my opninion). I think that the controls would be a lot better if the touchpad didn't need any click, like in mViewer's browser. I mean using the touchpad like a touchpad without pressing it, not like buttons :)
I had that in mind as well.  I haven't tried it yet, but I'm not sure I'm thinking of the same thing as Hayleia. Do you mean the touchpad for the looking like a computer mouse (as in just touch the pad and it moves like a mouse like in nDoom)? That's what I would do. Implement the touchpad as a mouse to look around and maybe something like the number keys for moving.  The touchpad is awkward for moving, whether you click it, or like in nDoom where you could move slightly awkwardly with it.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on September 21, 2012, 06:10:28 pm
One thing that's worth keeping in mind is since it works on grayscale models, clickpad support should be kept. Idk how ndless goes about it, but maybe if using the touchpad breaks on the clickpad it can be an option? Personally I'm not too fond of how touchy ndoom is :P but to each their own.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 21, 2012, 06:55:51 pm
Adding and removing blocks is off course the next item on my todo list :)
But it requires 3D raycasting, and I don't know much about that... I'll do research this week-end...
Yay!

Yeah, I agree that the white background feels a bit empty. If adding a background is too slow, maybe just coloring it in blue would fill the blank pretty well already ? :)
Later maybe you could implement a choice of color? or texture packs :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AaroneusTheGreat on September 21, 2012, 10:06:58 pm
After that will you add the ability to be able to place +destroy blocks (maybe jumping too)
Adding and removing blocks is off course the next item on my todo list :)
But it requires 3D raycasting, and I don't know much about that... I'll do research this week-end...
You should look into how raycasting is done for drawing maps in a raycaster (only the ray cast, not the drawing), then try to add the third dimension. This will be the easyest way, and it's fully possible because of the block-based world. Raycasting as used in 3D computer games often uses more complex calculations and search for polygons, which would also make it harder to use.

Raycasting is actually a polygon-less system. It usually treats the world as blocks and then renders the blocks based on a vertical slice scheme instead of polygons. It was a way to avoid the 3 dimensional calculations and stick with 2d calculations. It cut the processing by orders of magnitude. Look up the original raycasting scheme used in Wolfenstein for an example, and a more complex version is used in Doom called a BSD tree Raycasting engine.

Someone described one earlier, BSD tree engines use a sector system to cut down the calculations. The sector system in addition to raycasting's nature takes care of all the backface culling for you, due to the math, and it also culls the blocks that are out of your range of vision.

There's really nothing stopping you from using a BSD tree engine instead of a full 3d engine in this type of game, because everything is made of right angles anyways  (orthagonal i think?) and raycasting is best suited for blocks that have only right angles.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: calc84maniac on September 21, 2012, 10:29:41 pm
I don't think BSD trees are supposed to work well in games with dynamic maps (i.e. blocks can be created or destroyed).

Edit: Hmm, technically couldn't this entire thing be implemented as a voxel engine with really large voxels? :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AaroneusTheGreat on September 21, 2012, 10:50:38 pm
You're right, traditionally they aren't designed for it, but using the sector system to your advantage, you may be able to get away with it. Now a standard orthagonal raycaster is very well suited for dynamic maps, if you can use the other raycasting techniques with it, and avoid the bsd tree entirely, you may be able to use a raycaster to do it all. Take a look at the raycaster that was used in the port of Doom for nSpire (not the source port, the full rebuild) and you'll see what i mean.

The Voxel idea sounds like the best one yet. it would really be well suited for this style of game. I suspected for a while that the original used a mix of voxel rendering and polygons, but i don't know for sure, it looks suspiciously like that.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 22, 2012, 01:13:16 am
I tried it more in depth now, fell down and noticed that there are resources underground O.O

Also, while I was at it, I thought about something that would improve it in my opnion (and of course, it is only my opninion). I think that the controls would be a lot better if the touchpad didn't need any click, like in mViewer's browser. I mean using the touchpad like a touchpad without pressing it, not like buttons :)
I had that in mind as well.  I haven't tried it yet, but I'm not sure I'm thinking of the same thing as Hayleia. Do you mean the touchpad for the looking like a computer mouse (as in just touch the pad and it moves like a mouse like in nDoom)? That's what I would do. Implement the touchpad as a mouse to look around and maybe something like the number keys for moving.  The touchpad is awkward for moving, whether you click it, or like in nDoom where you could move slightly awkwardly with it.
Yes, I mean just the touchpad for looking and there would be keys to move ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 22, 2012, 02:23:24 am
I don't mind if there are no textures. I think that if you use the checkerboard effect and make sure there are tiles of different colors and that they're similar to Minecraft, it should be OK. A background will definitively help, though.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: turiqwalrus on September 22, 2012, 04:40:08 am
the problem would likely be differentiating stuff like pumpkins/orange wool or snow/black wool.

Also, are you planning on adding gravity-affected blocks like sand?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ElementCoder on September 22, 2012, 04:57:04 am
the problem would likely be differentiating stuff like pumpkins/orange wool or snow/black wool.
snow and black wool? :P

That on a sidenote, I hope you will complete this project. It sounds awesome.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 22, 2012, 05:44:54 am
You should look into how raycasting is done for drawing maps in a raycaster (only the ray cast, not the drawing), then try to add the third dimension. This will be the easyest way, and it's fully possible because of the block-based world. Raycasting as used in 3D computer games often uses more complex calculations and search for polygons, which would also make it harder to use.
Yes, that's what I have in mind. Cube-based worlds are well adapted to raycasting.

You're right, traditionally they aren't designed for it, but using the sector system to your advantage, you may be able to get away with it. Now a standard orthagonal raycaster is very well suited for dynamic maps, if you can use the other raycasting techniques with it, and avoid the bsd tree entirely, you may be able to use a raycaster to do it all. Take a look at the raycaster that was used in the port of Doom for nSpire (not the source port, the full rebuild) and you'll see what i mean.

The Voxel idea sounds like the best one yet. it would really be well suited for this style of game. I suspected for a while that the original used a mix of voxel rendering and polygons, but i don't know for sure, it looks suspiciously like that.
I know that raycasting could be useul for my game, but I'm not sure that it would be faster than my current "3D engine".
All I do is selecting cubes around the player which are visible, sort them (with an optimized heap sort) and display them (without any depth buffer).
The main part of the speed loss comes from cube drawing, and I think I optimized this part quite well...

Moreover, you have to be able to look up and down, which all the raycasting engines that I know don't support.
So I think that I will keep my 3D engine for now (which isn't far from a voxel engine).

Later maybe you could implement a choice of color? or texture packs :P
Well, I'll think about that later, it is not my priority :)

One thing that's worth keeping in mind is since it works on grayscale models, clickpad support should be kept. Idk how ndless goes about it, but maybe if using the touchpad breaks on the clickpad it can be an option? Personally I'm not too fond of how touchy ndoom is :P but to each their own.
Maybe you're right.
So what should I do ? Use a detection based on touching or clicking ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 22, 2012, 07:15:48 am
One thing that's worth keeping in mind is since it works on grayscale models, clickpad support should be kept. Idk how ndless goes about it, but maybe if using the touchpad breaks on the clickpad it can be an option? Personally I'm not too fond of how touchy ndoom is :P but to each their own.
Maybe you're right.
So what should I do ? Use a detection based on touching or clicking ?
Can't you do both so it runs on every calc ? Like "If touched or clicked" (in pseudo code) ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: lkj on September 22, 2012, 07:29:47 am
One thing that's worth keeping in mind is since it works on grayscale models, clickpad support should be kept. Idk how ndless goes about it, but maybe if using the touchpad breaks on the clickpad it can be an option? Personally I'm not too fond of how touchy ndoom is :P but to each their own.
Maybe you're right.
So what should I do ? Use a detection based on touching or clicking ?
You could detect if it's a touchpad or a clickpad, and use touching if possible.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 22, 2012, 07:43:38 am
Ok, thanks.
I asked this question, because some people seem to prefer clicking... (like Darl181)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 22, 2012, 10:38:39 am
Ok, thanks.
I asked this question, because some people seem to prefer clicking... (like Darl181)
No, I think Darl's problem with nDoom is that you control the whole player's movement with the touchpad. In your game, the touchpad only controls the camera so it should not become annoying :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 22, 2012, 11:58:43 am
This is offtopic but what time zone are you in Chockosta?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on September 22, 2012, 12:02:03 pm
Presumably CEST (France).
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 22, 2012, 12:17:31 pm
Yes, indeed... Why ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 22, 2012, 01:48:48 pm
I think he was asking since he probably noticed you visited the forum unusually early and he happens to love Minecraft. :P

Also for touchpad control just the camera would be nice I guess, because when you control movement with it (such as in nDoom), it looks like your calc becomes sentient or something O.O
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 22, 2012, 06:17:55 pm
Ok, thanks.
I asked this question, because some people seem to prefer clicking... (like Darl181)
No, I think Darl's problem with nDoom is that you control the whole player's movement with the touchpad. In your game, the touchpad only controls the camera so it should not become annoying :)
That's what I had in mind too. Be able to run your finger across the touchpad and make the character turn. Then the numbers like 4,5,6, and 8 are to move around. This would also allow for easier strafing, unlike in nDoom where there was a separate button to do so.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AaroneusTheGreat on September 22, 2012, 07:10:05 pm
Moreover, you have to be able to look up and down, which all the raycasting engines that I know don't support.
So I think that I will keep my 3D engine for now (which isn't far from a voxel engine).

There are techniques in raycasting that allow for looking up and down and even changing the pitch/roll too. They are fairly complex but they still have major advantages over traditional 3D rendering. Especially when it comes to speed, and the ability to alter the map realtime, due to the nature of the map data. You can treat the map as a giant rectangular prizm to make things easier.

I really need to find that tutorial that covers all of these things, it might be helpful to you in the future with this project, you can use some of the techniques for other things in the game possibly.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 24, 2012, 02:23:56 pm
AaroneusTheGreat :
Indeed, I would be really interested if you found such a tutorial :)


On a more general note, I made some progress !
You can now remove blocks (with tab). Adding blocks require a bit more work, but I should come with a new version tomorrow.
I also chose 8 and 2 to move, I added a cursor, and I filled the background in blue.
Here is an attached screenie to show you ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 24, 2012, 02:35:56 pm
Moreover, you have to be able to look up and down, which all the raycasting engines that I know don't support.
So I think that I will keep my 3D engine for now (which isn't far from a voxel engine).

There are techniques in raycasting that allow for looking up and down and even changing the pitch/roll too. They are fairly complex but they still have major advantages over traditional 3D rendering. Especially when it comes to speed, and the ability to alter the map realtime, due to the nature of the map data. You can treat the map as a giant rectangular prizm to make things easier.

I really need to find that tutorial that covers all of these things, it might be helpful to you in the future with this project, you can use some of the techniques for other things in the game possibly.
Do they have the same issues as in Duke Nukem 3D though? When you looked up/down in that game, vertical perspective didn't work, so the top of buildings looked taller than the bottom. In fact, when looking up, all that happened was that the camera moved up like if the scene was just a 2D picture.

Also nice chockosta. Any possibility to have the checkerboard work vertically as well, not just horizontally?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 24, 2012, 02:39:07 pm
Also nice chockosta. Any possibility to have the checkerboard work vertically as well, not just horizontally?
Yeah, I will add a vertical checkboard too.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 24, 2012, 04:43:34 pm
On a more general note, I made some progress !
You can now remove blocks (with tab). Adding blocks require a bit more work, but I should come with a new version tomorrow.
I also chose 8 and 2 to move, I added a cursor, and I filled the background in blue.
Is it okay to also add in 4 and 6 to strafe? And I'm not sure, but I think that 5 would be better for backwards movement, since it is more like a keyboard of a computer, and you dont have to reach as far for the button. It's just right underneath (just slide your thumb down :D)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 24, 2012, 08:51:16 pm
:D I NEED DOWNLOAD!

and when you destroy a block do you get it in your inventory?

and trees should be added too
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 24, 2012, 08:58:09 pm
:D I NEED DOWNLOAD!

and when you destroy a block do you get it in your inventory?

and trees should be added too
woah woah woah! slow down! progress for such an epic project isn't that fast! Patience, my young padawan.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 24, 2012, 09:06:31 pm
/me smacks AzNg0d1030 then apologizes

EDIT why was I downrated?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: apcalc on September 24, 2012, 09:07:09 pm
Very nice!  :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 25, 2012, 12:47:41 am
:D I NEED DOWNLOAD!

and when you destroy a block do you get it in your inventory?

and trees should be added too
woah woah woah! slow down! progress for such an epic project isn't that fast! Patience, my young padawan.

Annoyingcalc is parser padwan? O.O
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 25, 2012, 11:39:01 am
Is it okay to also add in 4 and 6 to strafe? And I'm not sure, but I think that 5 would be better for backwards movement, since it is more like a keyboard of a computer, and you dont have to reach as far for the button. It's just right underneath (just slide your thumb down :D)
Yes, those are nice ideas. I'll add them as soon as possible.

:D I NEED DOWNLOAD!

and when you destroy a block do you get it in your inventory?
Well, since I didn't create the inventory yet, you don't get the blocks that you destroy :p
But when I'll have a working inventory, this will require like 2 or 3 lines of code.

and trees should be added too
Indeed, this should not be complicated. But I'll work on the world generator later. (and I'll add biomes too !)

Thanks everybody for your support !
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 25, 2012, 11:43:48 am
:D I NEED DOWNLOAD!
:D SAME FOR ME! :P

Is it okay to also add in 4 and 6 to strafe? And I'm not sure, but I think that 5 would be better for backwards movement, since it is more like a keyboard of a computer, and you dont have to reach as far for the button. It's just right underneath (just slide your thumb down :D)
Yes, those are nice ideas. I'll add them as soon as possible.
About 5 as down key, if you don't want to choose between people who want 2 as down key and those who want 5, just put both ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 25, 2012, 01:15:20 pm
Progresses for today :
-Added straffing with 4 and 6
-Added 5 to go backward
-Implemented the checkboard effect to all the map, not only the grass layer (this part was MUCH harder than I thought, took me more than an hour)

So I'm sorry, I can't add the possibility to place blocks today, so no download :P
Maybe tomorrow :)
Here is a screenie to wait...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Eiyeron on September 25, 2012, 01:29:40 pm
Now I'll have to decide wich of FFTA or nCraft will I play...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 25, 2012, 06:01:46 pm
Looks very great. Aside from the lack of textures, hopefully the colors will help making the difference between each blocks. :)

Also Eiyeron what is FFTA?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Sorunome on September 25, 2012, 07:26:30 pm
It looks great so far! Keep up the good job :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 25, 2012, 07:39:59 pm
:O wow!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 25, 2012, 09:21:57 pm
damn I cant wait!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AaroneusTheGreat on September 25, 2012, 10:15:02 pm
That's so amazing. Chocksta, i really don't see how this couldn't make POTY. Honestly. Wow.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on September 26, 2012, 05:13:10 am
@DJ_O Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 26, 2012, 09:25:37 am
Played a bit with my raycasting function and I am now able to add cubes !
I am proud to show you the very first dirt house in the history of nCraft :P (see attached screenie)

Unfortunately, this helped me dicovering a graphical glitch : sometimes, a cube doesn't seem to be sorted properly.
Not very annoying, but I still have to repair this.
I hope I will fix it soon...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 26, 2012, 11:54:44 am
Played a bit with my raycasting function and I am now able to add cubes !
I am proud to show you the very first dirt house in the history of nCraft :P (see attached screenie)

Unfortunately, this helped me dicovering a graphical glitch : sometimes, a cube doesn't seem to be sorted properly.
Not very annoying, but I still have to repair this.
I hope I will fix it soon...

That is awesome, I can't wait!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Keoni29 on September 26, 2012, 12:41:39 pm
Cows? Pigs? Creepers? TNT?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 26, 2012, 02:02:10 pm
Cows? Pigs? Creepers? TNT?

I suppose if he ever does this then it will be doom style(2d models in a 3d game). This would boost speed.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 26, 2012, 05:10:34 pm
Played a bit with my raycasting function and I am now able to add cubes !
I am proud to show you the very first dirt house in the history of nCraft :P
Unfortunately, this helped me dicovering a graphical glitch : sometimes, a cube doesn't seem to be sorted properly.
Not very annoying, but I still have to repair this.
I hope I will fix it soon...
Any idea when you plan for the next download to come out?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 26, 2012, 08:58:02 pm
Played a bit with my raycasting function and I am now able to add cubes !
I am proud to show you the very first dirt house in the history of nCraft :P (see attached screenie)

Unfortunately, this helped me dicovering a graphical glitch : sometimes, a cube doesn't seem to be sorted properly.
Not very annoying, but I still have to repair this.
I hope I will fix it soon...
im tired of no download D: can you release this even with the bug?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: blfngl on September 26, 2012, 09:29:18 pm
^indeed! Patience isn't what most of us have ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 26, 2012, 10:37:10 pm
Annoyingcalc, I can see you are fairly obsessed... With your avatar and all.... LOL XD
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 27, 2012, 01:10:32 am
im tired of no download D: can you release this even with the bug?
^indeed! Patience isn't what most of us have ;)
I agree with them, the bug is only a displaying bug, not an irrevocable crash so a demo of this with the bug would already be awesome.

Also, I thought about something that may be a faster way to draw the cubes but I am not sure if that will work so I first need to know some things:
-can you draw arbitrary sizes of sprites with Ndless C ?
-can those sprites support transparency ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on September 27, 2012, 02:27:34 am
I have a question of my own, how exactly are you 'sorting' the cubes to draw?  Are you actually putting their distances in a list and sorting them?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 27, 2012, 10:23:33 am
Annoyingcalc, I can see you are fairly obsessed... With your avatar and all.... LOL XD
Yep and so are pretty much all my friends
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ElementCoder on September 27, 2012, 10:52:40 am
We don't care about the graphical glitch :), this is one really awesome program :D ! You sir have my full support on this :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 27, 2012, 11:39:15 am
I have a question of my own, how exactly are you 'sorting' the cubes to draw?  Are you actually putting their distances in a list and sorting them?
Yes indeed. I pretty much optimized the sorting algorithm, but if you know a better way, I would like to know it

Also, I thought about something that may be a faster way to draw the cubes but I am not sure if that will work so I first need to know some things:
-can you draw arbitrary sizes of sprites with Ndless C ?
-can those sprites support transparency ?
I don't think that ndless does that, but it's quite easy to code.
Why ?

im tired of no download D: can you release this even with the bug?
^indeed! Patience isn't what most of us have ;)
I agree with them, the bug is only a displaying bug, not an irrevocable crash so a demo of this with the bug would already be awesome.
Ok, ok, here is the current version :) (I also can post the source code, if you want)
It won't crash, but there are 2 known "bugs" :
-Sometimes a cube isn't sorted correctly so its display looks weird
-When you are too close to a cube, it isn't displayed

And you will notice quickly that the render distance is really short :/
I will add an option to render the full world to see your creations.

Controls :
-8 to go forward
-5 or 2 to go backward
-6 and 4 to strafe
-Arrows to turn the camera
-Tab to remove a block
-Ctrl to add a block
-+ and - to select a block (the type is shown in a little triangle in the top right corner)
-Esc to quit
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 27, 2012, 12:55:17 pm
Also, I thought about something that may be a faster way to draw the cubes but I am not sure if that will work so I first need to know some things:
-can you draw arbitrary sizes of sprites with Ndless C ?
-can those sprites support transparency ?
I don't think that ndless does that, but it's quite easy to code.
Why ?

Well I thought about a 3d drawing method that could speed up the game, but I am not really sure.
Basically, it is based on the isometric 3d idea.

In isometric 3d, all the cubes are the same, so you only need to draw one in 3d, then use the image of this cube as a masked sprite to draw all the other ones.

In non isometric 3d, one cube is not enough since not all the cubes are seen from the same angle, but one cube per line is enough. If you have n aligned cubes you draw one of them using your current 3d engine, then use the image of this cube as a masked sprite to draw the other ones, using some sprite scaling.

So basically, if you have n lines of m cubes each, you don't need to draw n*m cubes in 3d but only n cubes and n*m sprites.

Do you get what I mean (or is my English really bad :P) ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: hoffa on September 27, 2012, 01:05:57 pm
Isometric 3D would look extremely weird and is not at all suitable for first person games.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: lkj on September 27, 2012, 01:06:50 pm
Wow, this is comming along quite nicely!
I'm glad you've come back :)

Ok, ok, here is the current version :) (I also can post the source code, if you want)
The source code would be interesting ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on September 27, 2012, 01:08:32 pm
Isometric 3D would look extremely weird and is not at all suitable for first person games.
Yes, but read my post again, there is the adaptation of the method for non-isometric 3d ("real" 3d).
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: calc84maniac on September 27, 2012, 01:19:51 pm
Sprite scaling is more costly than just drawing a cube.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 27, 2012, 01:27:47 pm
Also, I thought about something that may be a faster way to draw the cubes but I am not sure if that will work so I first need to know some things:
-can you draw arbitrary sizes of sprites with Ndless C ?
-can those sprites support transparency ?
I don't think that ndless does that, but it's quite easy to code.
Why ?

Well I thought about a 3d drawing method that could speed up the game, but I am not really sure.
Basically, it is based on the isometric 3d idea.

In isometric 3d, all the cubes are the same, so you only need to draw one in 3d, then use the image of this cube as a masked sprite to draw all the other ones.

In non isometric 3d, one cube is not enough since not all the cubes are seen from the same angle, but one cube per line is enough. If you have n aligned cubes you draw one of them using your current 3d engine, then use the image of this cube as a masked sprite to draw the other ones, using some sprite scaling.

So basically, if you have n lines of m cubes each, you don't need to draw n*m cubes in 3d but only n cubes and n*m sprites.

Do you get what I mean (or is my English really bad :P) ?
No, this wouldn't work (if I got it correctly)
Here is a screenie to explain why :
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/ScreenShot159.png)
Your method would be to store a the cube A's projection then scale it and paste it on all the cubes in the blue row, right ?
This would only work if the red lines were parallel, since an homothety keeps the angles, but they aren't...
Moreover, calc84maniac is right, scaling is very costly


The source code would be interesting ;)
Here you are :)
Sorry, my comments are too rare...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: hoffa on September 27, 2012, 01:29:52 pm
Oh, true, my bad. Well, even if in theory everything did scale well and there would be no visual issues, I think it would complexify the code quite a bunch as the maths behind your technique might be difficult (mixing 2D and 3D maths is not easy) and I'm not sure if it's guaranteed it will handle all situations perfectly without some dirty hacks. Furthermore, I don't know if the eventual speed gain is enough to compensate for the pain of implementing the technique. But I might be wrong, if it is a (variation) of a proven rendering technique why not. However I believe there are simpler and faster alternatives (I'm not sure what those alternatives are, but looking at the Yeti3D demo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5_cnZabhig) on GBA makes me think they exist).
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on September 27, 2012, 01:34:39 pm
Here are a couple ideas that could help with the speeding up of the way you sort things:

First off, it is important to note that whenever the camera is within a voxel, the voxels that are rendered are sorted relative to the distance they are to that voxel.  Consequently no matter what voxel the camera is in, the order of the rendered voxels is always the same relative to the center camera voxel.  What this means is that you can presort a large number of voxel positions into an array based on how far they are from a center voxel, and simply use those positions relative to the camera to render.

This works, but it can take up a large amount of memory.  If that is a problem, there is another solution that I discovered when working on my Castle Storm game, which uses a similar rendering method.  The way it would work is by drawing the voxels (still relative to the camera position) in shells, and it is painfully difficult to explain, so if you are interested, I can whip up some sort of gif or example and we can talk from there.

Now, this would speed up the sorting of cubes, but it would not actually speed up the drawing, which is probably another main bottleneck.  First off, since you are only rendering cubes, you can always discard the faces that are facing away from you.  This is a rendering trick you can use on convex objects, that any faces that are facing away from you cannot actually be seen.  Additionally, you can use a simply dot product to detect whether or not a face is facing away from you, so it is super speedy and results in half of your faces being discarded!  Another method would be to look at the cubes surrounding a cube to be rendered.  When you go to render a cube, you can look at neighboring cubes to see if they are solid, if not, you do not have to render the connecting face!  This should result in significant speedups hopefully, since using these methods would drastically cut down on the number of polygons you need to render in any given frame.  
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 27, 2012, 02:02:30 pm
The update is cool but the controls are awkward, 7 should break blocks and 9 should place blocks.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 27, 2012, 02:32:42 pm
Thanks for the help !

First off, it is important to note that whenever the camera is within a voxel, the voxels that are rendered are sorted relative to the distance they are to that voxel.  Consequently no matter what voxel the camera is in, the order of the rendered voxels is always the same relative to the center camera voxel.  What this means is that you can presort a large number of voxel positions into an array based on how far they are from a center voxel, and simply use those positions relative to the camera to render.
Seems interesting. Could you give an exemple ? Because of my poor English skills, I'm not sure that I've got it very well...

This works, but it can take up a large amount of memory.  If that is a problem, there is another solution that I discovered when working on my Castle Storm game, which uses a similar rendering method.  The way it would work is by drawing the voxels (still relative to the camera position) in shells, and it is painfully difficult to explain, so if you are interested, I can whip up some sort of gif or example and we can talk from there
Memory isn't a big problem on the TI-Nspire. i can achieve full world renders, which means that I use an array containing more than 30,000 floats...

Now, this would speed up the sorting of cubes, but it would not actually speed up the drawing, which is probably another main bottleneck.  First off, since you are only rendering cubes, you can always discard the faces that are facing away from you.  This is a rendering trick you can use on convex objects, that any faces that are facing away from you cannot actually be seen.  Additionally, you can use a simply dot product to detect whether or not a face is facing away from you, so it is super speedy and results in half of your faces being discarded!
I already do that :)

Another method would be to look at the cubes surrounding a cube to be rendered.  When you go to render a cube, you can look at neighboring cubes to see if they are solid, if not, you do not have to render the connecting face!  This should result in significant speedups hopefully, since using these methods would drastically cut down on the number of polygons you need to render in any given frame. 
This could improve my drawing function indeed, since I draw every cube that "touches" an empty block...




By the way, I added a function to render full world with F.
You now can see your creations properly :)
Full renders take about 5 secs to generate...
But as I said, I use more than 30,000 floats, so I'm afraid that it might crash grayscale Nspires, which don't have so much RAM. (it doesn't crash the grayscale emulator, though)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 27, 2012, 02:38:47 pm
Cool, I made a creation but the problem is that I can't save it. I think this should be the next feature.

edit: this is also the first French victory in 100 years. JK France is great.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on September 27, 2012, 02:55:24 pm
Seems interesting. Could you give an exemple ? Because of my poor English skills, I'm not sure that I've got it very well...

Mmm it's a bit hard to explain, but think of it this way.  Every single frame you are sorting the blocks according to distance, and every single frame you arrive at the exact same order.  Every single frame you always render the farthest blocks first, followed by closer blocks, and finally centering on the camera.  Instead of re-sorting the blocks every frame, you could just generate a sorted list when the game starts, that way you never have to sort again.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: calc84maniac on September 27, 2012, 03:11:51 pm
Seems interesting. Could you give an exemple ? Because of my poor English skills, I'm not sure that I've got it very well...

Mmm it's a bit hard to explain, but think of it this way.  Every single frame you are sorting the blocks according to distance, and every single frame you arrive at the exact same order.  Every single frame you always render the farthest blocks first, followed by closer blocks, and finally centering on the camera.  Instead of re-sorting the blocks every frame, you could just generate a sorted list when the game starts, that way you never have to sort again.
I can't really see how well that would work when you rotate the camera though.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 27, 2012, 03:24:06 pm
Yes, same for me...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on September 27, 2012, 03:33:57 pm
Seems interesting. Could you give an exemple ? Because of my poor English skills, I'm not sure that I've got it very well...

Mmm it's a bit hard to explain, but think of it this way.  Every single frame you are sorting the blocks according to distance, and every single frame you arrive at the exact same order.  Every single frame you always render the farthest blocks first, followed by closer blocks, and finally centering on the camera.  Instead of re-sorting the blocks every frame, you could just generate a sorted list when the game starts, that way you never have to sort again.
I can't really see how well that would work when you rotate the camera though.

Well I suppose you would have to be considering all blocks around you equally, and then throw them out if they are outside of the camera view.  Since the sorting of blocks should be independent of camera angle anyway.

Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: calc84maniac on September 27, 2012, 04:35:25 pm
Seems interesting. Could you give an exemple ? Because of my poor English skills, I'm not sure that I've got it very well...

Mmm it's a bit hard to explain, but think of it this way.  Every single frame you are sorting the blocks according to distance, and every single frame you arrive at the exact same order.  Every single frame you always render the farthest blocks first, followed by closer blocks, and finally centering on the camera.  Instead of re-sorting the blocks every frame, you could just generate a sorted list when the game starts, that way you never have to sort again.
I can't really see how well that would work when you rotate the camera though.

Well I suppose you would have to be considering all blocks around you equally, and then throw them out if they are outside of the camera view.  Since the sorting of blocks should be independent of camera angle anyway.


Uh no, it's not, that's my point. Just think about turning 90 degrees to the right for example, your list of sorted blocks will then go from left to right rather than from far to near.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on September 27, 2012, 04:42:10 pm
Unless the camera is also moving as it is rotating, the distance from each block to the camera should not be changing.  Since we sort blocks based on how far they are from the camera, and since the distances are not changing, shouldn't the sorted order also not change?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: calc84maniac on September 27, 2012, 04:45:15 pm
Well, we don't sort by real distance from the camera though, we sort by the distance from the camera to the plane parallel to the screen that contains the block. And also the camera will definitely be moving in any sort of game situation.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on September 27, 2012, 04:48:48 pm
I'm not saying that the camera will not be moving, I am saying that as long as the camera is inside of a single cube, the cubes being drawn will be sorted in the same order regardless of the angle or the location of the camera inside the cube.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 27, 2012, 06:09:15 pm
Oh wow this is amazing! Can't wait for the touchpad implementation
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Adriweb on September 27, 2012, 06:56:46 pm
Just tested.

F*cking great, continue the awesome work.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on September 27, 2012, 07:13:23 pm
This is great.
Also seconded on the saving. Even if it's just a savestate or something, it'd be worth it :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 27, 2012, 08:39:39 pm
Thanks for the help !

First off, it is important to note that whenever the camera is within a voxel, the voxels that are rendered are sorted relative to the distance they are to that voxel.  Consequently no matter what voxel the camera is in, the order of the rendered voxels is always the same relative to the center camera voxel.  What this means is that you can presort a large number of voxel positions into an array based on how far they are from a center voxel, and simply use those positions relative to the camera to render.
Seems interesting. Could you give an exemple ? Because of my poor English skills, I'm not sure that I've got it very well...

This works, but it can take up a large amount of memory.  If that is a problem, there is another solution that I discovered when working on my Castle Storm game, which uses a similar rendering method.  The way it would work is by drawing the voxels (still relative to the camera position) in shells, and it is painfully difficult to explain, so if you are interested, I can whip up some sort of gif or example and we can talk from there
Memory isn't a big problem on the TI-Nspire. i can achieve full world renders, which means that I use an array containing more than 30,000 floats...

Now, this would speed up the sorting of cubes, but it would not actually speed up the drawing, which is probably another main bottleneck.  First off, since you are only rendering cubes, you can always discard the faces that are facing away from you.  This is a rendering trick you can use on convex objects, that any faces that are facing away from you cannot actually be seen.  Additionally, you can use a simply dot product to detect whether or not a face is facing away from you, so it is super speedy and results in half of your faces being discarded!
I already do that :)

Another method would be to look at the cubes surrounding a cube to be rendered.  When you go to render a cube, you can look at neighboring cubes to see if they are solid, if not, you do not have to render the connecting face!  This should result in significant speedups hopefully, since using these methods would drastically cut down on the number of polygons you need to render in any given frame. 
This could improve my drawing function indeed, since I draw every cube that "touches" an empty block...




By the way, I added a function to render full world with F.
You now can see your creations properly :)
Full renders take about 5 secs to generate...
But as I said, I use more than 30,000 floats, so I'm afraid that it might crash grayscale Nspires, which don't have so much RAM. (it doesn't crash the grayscale emulator, though)
hm I get a crash when I press F sadly
ti-nspire CX OS 3.1.0
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Nathan Jahreis on September 27, 2012, 09:29:22 pm
hm I get a crash when I press F sadly
ti-nspire CX OS 3.1.0

I also got a crash after pressing "f" but only once, after the reboot I could press "f" at will.  However the newly drawn background would disappear after moving.

TOTALLY AWESOME ANYWAY!!!!!!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 27, 2012, 09:30:30 pm
Same, I think thats the way its supposed to be due to lag issues
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on September 27, 2012, 10:15:13 pm
I didn't have any problems with pressing F until I read these posts and tried it again
only then did it crash
:P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 27, 2012, 10:32:46 pm
XD
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: blfngl on September 27, 2012, 11:15:08 pm
Is there a jump key?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 27, 2012, 11:27:28 pm
No
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 28, 2012, 11:46:10 am
hm I get a crash when I press F sadly
ti-nspire CX OS 3.1.0
Yes, if there is no much free RAM, it crashes.
That's because the algorithm that I used is totally stupid... I render all the blocks in once. I am working to use a chunk-based render, that should divide the used RAM by 25 :) .

Is there a jump key?
No, but that's planned. By the way, which keys should I use ? Because Augs said that the current ones are inconvenient...

This is great.
Also seconded on the saving. Even if it's just a savestate or something, it'd be worth it :D
Saving is indeed the next big step.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: calc84maniac on September 28, 2012, 12:24:23 pm
Is there a reason you use double instead of float? If you don't really need the extra precision, you can go with float and use half the space (and probably less processing time too)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 28, 2012, 12:29:30 pm
Is there a reason you use double instead of float? If you don't really need the extra precision, you can go with float and use half the space (and probably less processing time too)
Yes, I changed to floats yesterday, like 30 minutes after posting my code :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 28, 2012, 12:49:59 pm
Quote
Because Augs said that the current ones are inconvenient...

Yes you should use 7 to break blocks and 9 to place blocks. Or have a way of changing the controls. I would also like to thank you for this gift!

Edit: sorry if my previous post did not make sense. I was holding shift when I pressed 7.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: blfngl on September 28, 2012, 05:19:02 pm
5 could be the jump button, and you could change 2 to the only backwards key.
Also, is an inventory being planned?

Fun fact: Holding down 8 and 5 lets you sneak :ninja:
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 28, 2012, 06:24:14 pm
Quote
Also, is an inventory being planned?

Like this?(I made this in 1 minute)

(http://i.imgur.com/E0vfg.png)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 28, 2012, 06:40:40 pm
Darn, those screenshots with landscapes and built stuff (such as in Annoyingcalc's avatar) makes me want to get the game even more. This is definitively the closest thing to Minecraft on calcs so far.

Also that item menu above would be nice, although maybe twice smaller, since the calc screen is kinda small. That way it won't take too much space.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 28, 2012, 07:26:06 pm
The program is great but the problem with it is that controls are awkward and that you can't save.

Edit: I know these will be fixed and hope they will be.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 29, 2012, 01:00:48 am
Yeah I noticed the controls are kinda weird. However I must say that they're very great by TI-Nspire standard. It's next to impossible to have decent "dual joystick" or "mouse+keyboard" controls on a device with no external mouse and one single d-pad that is located in the middle.

On a side note I just found diamond... O.O
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 29, 2012, 06:23:58 am
Personally I would use the keyboard on the bottom but I know some people here have fat fingers.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on September 29, 2012, 07:00:44 am
Even people with long, thin fingers can hate the touchpad keyboard's alphabetic keys ;)
It's much less convenient than the keyboard of TI-Z80 and TI-68k calculators.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 29, 2012, 08:12:50 am
Fun fact: They have to be ABC keyboards because if they had QWERTY ones they would be considered computers and not be allowed in exams.

Source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_200
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Nathan Jahreis on September 29, 2012, 09:25:59 am
Ok for movement (if the touch pad is implemented) how about gliding over the touch pad moves the camera in that direction, and clicking in that direction moves the player.  So pretty much the ndoom controls for navigation :P.  But for blocks, scratchpad and doc lay blocks, tab and menu to remove blocks, ctrl and del for jump.  Or just have a menu when the program starts up that has options so the user can change the controls.  That's my two cents.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 29, 2012, 10:02:01 am
Yes but only do the menu thing when saving is implemented other wise you would have to set them every time.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 29, 2012, 10:14:25 am
Darn, those screenshots with landscapes and built stuff (such as in Annoyingcalc's avatar)
:D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Deep Toaster on September 29, 2012, 11:21:05 am
Holy crap, I didn't realize how far this had come until I saw DJ_O's video of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzYM9xWXm1k).

Amazing work, Chockosta. Can't wait to try it out! The speed's not that bad either for a game on this scale.

(Sorry if people have already said what I'm saying—been busy lately and haven't been keeping up with the forums much.)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 29, 2012, 01:17:37 pm
Quote
Also, is an inventory being planned?

Like this?(I made this in 1 minute)

(http://i.imgur.com/E0vfg.png)
Yes, maybe :)
But it will be smaller, due to the size of the Nspire screen

Thanks for the epic video, DJ !
Seems like you've already build more things than me :P I didn't spend much time playing yet...

Sorry, but I don't have time to work on it this week-end, because of my math club :/
But I will try to add saving for wednesday...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 29, 2012, 01:31:05 pm
Quote
Sorry, but I don't have time to work on it this week-end, because of my math club

You don't know how funny some people would find this. Not that I do it is just that it is the epitome of a nerd.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on September 29, 2012, 05:28:11 pm
Ok for movement (if the touch pad is implemented) how about gliding over the touch pad moves the camera in that direction, and clicking in that direction moves the player.  So pretty much the ndoom controls for navigation :P.  But for blocks, scratchpad and doc lay blocks, tab and menu to remove blocks, ctrl and del for jump.  Or just have a menu when the program starts up that has options so the user can change the controls.  That's my two cents.
Lol these were mentioned wayyyy ahead of ya :D Everybody's got the same general idea for movement. (Though the ndoom part would only be good for looking around, not for moving, or else strafing would be weird. So basically, gliding your finger moves the camera, but not the player)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 29, 2012, 05:42:46 pm
A good control scheme would make it so you don't have to move your hand; just your fingers. So having menu or scratch pad to pace/remove blocks would mean you would need to move your hand from the touch pad and to the buttons however having my control system would not require you to move your hands.

For the reference here is my control system:
Quote
Yes you should use 7 to break blocks and 9 to place blocks.

But because we can't all agree I think when saving is implemented we should just have a menu.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 29, 2012, 06:42:41 pm
You know, last night I spent hours playing that game. If you add saving to any file so people can share maps, just in its current status the game might be so addicting that it will be like a fully finished calc game hit.

Two bug reports, however:

-I noticed that from time to time, the touchpad stops responding. I have to release it then press it again so the camera rotates again.
-Also, unlike other Nspire games, I noticed that to actually move the camera around, the fingers have to be exactly on the touchpad arrows, not 1mm below nor above. You have to be very accurate, else no camera move happen. Would it be possible to make it like nDoom, gbc4nspire and stuff, so that even if your fingers are too low or too high, the touchpad still responds? That could also allow diagonal camera movement, which are currently impossible it seems.

Feature suggestion:

-Lower resolution mode, where the game 3D can be changed from 320x240 to 160x120 and 80x60. Would that help increasing speed? If so, then you could add the next feature too.
-Longer viewing range. Currently blocks about 8 steps away from you disappear. It would be nice if we could choose a deeper field of view. That way if you build large stuff, you can still view them all at once when farther away.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on September 29, 2012, 06:47:56 pm
Afaict the main thing that might go a bit weird with the suggested control scheme is having the program tell whether the finger touching the pad is meant to move the camera, or if the person's clicking it. Not sure how this would be solved, other than adding a delay before the camera starts moving or something..

Random idea I had for this: maybe have the touchpad move the player around variably, and while a certain button is pressed use the touchpad to move the camera around.
And hopefully have an option to use clicking instead of touching for either/both :P


Tho tbh the current controls work pretty much fine for me :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Nathan Jahreis on September 29, 2012, 07:27:56 pm
Lol these were mentioned wayyyy ahead of ya :D Everybody's got the same general idea for movement. (Though the ndoom part would only be good for looking around, not for moving, or else strafing would be weird. So basically, gliding your finger moves the camera, but not the player)

my bad on the redundant stuff I said  :-X , but to clear things up, gliding your finger over the touchpad would move the camera, but clicking and gliding would move the player.  I also would not like the strafing.

A good control scheme would make it so you don't have to move your hand; just your fingers. So having menu or scratch pad to place/remove blocks would mean you would need to move your hand from the touch pad and to the buttons however having my control system would not require you to move your hands.

I was thinking if you hold the calc with two hands, one thumb could be on the touchpad and the other on the closest side controls. (exp. right thumb on tchpd and left thumb on scratchpad-tab-ctrl).  But if you play it with the calc setting on like a table (or if you only have one hand, no offence) than my said controls would be very inconvenient. 
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 30, 2012, 02:05:30 pm
I finally found 1 hour or 2 to code :)

I obviously didn't have time to add saving, but I changed two things :
-Now the full render should not crash anything : it uses 25 times less RAM. I also added a progress bar.
-I finally fixed the sorting bug !

The new version is attached...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 30, 2012, 02:23:45 pm
Cool,I have a question. Will there be a menu at the start so that we can all have our way with the controls?(Do this after making saving so that we can also save the controls)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on September 30, 2012, 02:38:27 pm
Yes, I will try it. (This should not be very hard :) )
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on September 30, 2012, 03:06:05 pm
Loic your are gentleman, would you care to join the gentleman's club?

Edit: I found a minor bug, if you fall off the edge of the world you can simply run back up. I am not sure if this is new to the update.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 30, 2012, 05:31:06 pm
Actually being able to go beyond the edge of the world is a bug as well. It would be nice if it was fixed lol.

By the way what do you mean by full render Chockosta? Is there a special key that can enable higher res or quality? Maybe it would be a good idea to include the controls with every release in a post so we don't have to search all 16 pages of the topic to find them. :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on September 30, 2012, 11:36:02 pm
You can press f to see the full world
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 01, 2012, 01:14:08 am
ok thanks.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 01, 2012, 11:46:56 am
Question: Will there ever be crafting, I know it is a long way away but will it ever come?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 01, 2012, 01:51:45 pm
Actually being able to go beyond the edge of the world is a bug as well. It would be nice if it was fixed lol.
This is now fixed :)
I also fixed another minor bug (I don't think that anybody noticed it anyway)
And finally, I added a basic menu.
(no release, these are minor changes...)

Maybe it would be a good idea to include the controls with every release in a post so we don't have to search all 16 pages of the topic to find them. :P
Yes, I will do this, sorry  :) .

Question: Will there ever be crafting, I know it is a long way away but will it ever come?
Obviously ;)
Minecraft without crafting is not Minecraft. But as you said,, it is a long way away...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 01, 2012, 02:00:01 pm
Awesome, I can't wait for crafting! But for now I think save worlds will do.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 01, 2012, 02:16:58 pm
You know, last night I spent hours playing that game. If you add saving to any file so people can share maps, just in its current status the game might be so addicting that it will be like a fully finished calc game hit.

Two bug reports, however:

-I noticed that from time to time, the touchpad stops responding. I have to release it then press it again so the camera rotates again.
-Also, unlike other Nspire games, I noticed that to actually move the camera around, the fingers have to be exactly on the touchpad arrows, not 1mm below nor above. You have to be very accurate, else no camera move happen. Would it be possible to make it like nDoom, gbc4nspire and stuff, so that even if your fingers are too low or too high, the touchpad still responds? That could also allow diagonal camera movement, which are currently impossible it seems.

Feature suggestion:

-Lower resolution mode, where the game 3D can be changed from 320x240 to 160x120 and 80x60. Would that help increasing speed? If so, then you could add the next feature too.
-Longer viewing range. Currently blocks about 8 steps away from you disappear. It would be nice if we could choose a deeper field of view. That way if you build large stuff, you can still view them all at once when farther away.
Oh sorry, didn't see that post.
About the bugs, I can't tell much. For now, I only used basic ndless functions isKeyPressed() for the arrows...
I guess that I'll have to work on this too (oh god, my todo list starts to be huge !)

About your features suggestions :
-Lower resolution would hardly increase the speed. This is not raycasting-based 3D, so the number of pixels does not really matter.
-The viewing range has been choosen short because of speed reasons :( But you can see the full world with the "F" key. The render takes about 3 seconds to generate.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 01, 2012, 05:17:46 pm
Would it be possible to simply re-use the nDoom engine or something similar? It runs consistently around 20-30 FPS even with long field of view depth and textures on walls. Or is it impossible due to how your world can be modified non stop such as adding blocks/destroying them? Maybe there is a way to increase the speed. Not that it's super important for now but maybe worth to check in the future?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 01, 2012, 05:25:15 pm
Yeah Ndoom runs fine with textures. I find it mind blowing that an old PC game can go onto a calculator.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 02, 2012, 12:06:22 pm
That would be totally impossible.

The doom engine is a pseudo-3D engine. It only accepts walls perpendicular to the floor.
Moreover, it's impossible to look up or down. It's not real 3D (closer to raycasting than to real 3D, I think)
Also, it is much easier to display textures on a few large walls than on lots of small walls.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 02, 2012, 12:14:34 pm
Well OK. I was also curious about mobs.

A. Will they ever exist?
B. I think they should be 2d like doom mobs.
C. Sorry for asking so many questions, I am just really interested in this project.
 
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 02, 2012, 02:20:28 pm
Well OK. I was also curious about mobs.

A. Will they ever exist?
B. I think they should be 2d like doom mobs.
C. Sorry for asking so many questions, I am just really interested in this project.
 
A. Yes, I hope so.
B. They will probably be 2D sprites indeed
C. Don't worry, it keeps me motivated :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 02, 2012, 02:57:23 pm
Oh right, I forgot that in Doom you can't look up/down x.x

Question: When you display cubes, do you draw each side even when they're hidden?

By the way I tried the new version and somehow it looks even better. Probably due to fixing the sorting bug. :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 02, 2012, 03:05:48 pm
Question: When you display cubes, do you draw each side even when they're hidden?
No, I dont :)
I don't draw cubes behind the player
I draw only 3 faces per cube
I don't draw cubes that does not "touch" air
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 02, 2012, 03:15:37 pm
Ok good to hear. :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 03, 2012, 12:35:55 pm
(omg, the latest version was downloaded 258 times *.*)

Also, I thought about something. Would it be possible to increase the viewing range in some way by drawing near cubes using 3d (what you are currently doing) and drawing the remaining cubes (the ones that are far) with ugly rectangles or so ?
This way, you don't use 3d for every cube (so speed is saved) and we still somehow see a bit further ? :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: xacto on October 03, 2012, 09:20:00 pm
I just downloaded this yesterday and it is AWESOME! Is there anyway you could add a save function so people can continue where they last left off?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 05, 2012, 03:15:26 pm
A few suggestions:

-A red block
-Make diamond rarer
-trees

And any prediction on saving?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 06, 2012, 01:29:58 am
Actually that would be a good idea to draw farther stuff as 2D rectangles (just scaled down). It's not like anything that small would have this much of an impact on graphics quality anyway.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 06, 2012, 05:40:03 am
As I said to Hayleia on TI-Planet, the main speed loss isn't caused by cube drawing.
Off course rectangles would be faster, but I'm not sure that it worth the quality loss.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Wayne on October 06, 2012, 06:54:20 am
That's awesome :thumbsup:
Keep it up!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 06, 2012, 01:11:53 pm
New version !
You now can save your progress :)

I also added a main menu. It has 3 items :
- New world (creates a new world. Beware : if there is already one world, it will be replaced !)
- Load world (Loads the saved world)
- Settings (Does nothing for now)

The world is saved each time you quit the game. The save file is quite heavy (800 KB) but its size could be reduced by more than half with a good compression.
(Thanks to Levak for his help !)
Do not rename or move the save file : it has to be in the same folder as the executable, and it has to be called nCraft.save.tns.
(You can use several save files by renaming them, by the way)

Spoiler For controls:
- Arrows : turn the camera
- 8 : go forward
- 5 or 2 : go backward
- 4 and 6 : strafe
- tab : remove a block
- ctrl : add a block
- + and - : choose the selected block
- F : render the full world
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 06, 2012, 01:17:22 pm
Awesome work. But I can select anything on the menu.

Edit: I found out I had to press enter. I feel like an idiot.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 06, 2012, 01:31:58 pm
New version !
You now can save your progress :)
Hehe, this is why I didn't disconnect. When I saw Levak answered you, I thought "the update is for tonight" :P
Awesome work as always, downloading right now (yay ! I can finally build my house without fearing to lose it :w00t:)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on October 06, 2012, 01:43:32 pm
/me hugs Chockosta BEST NSPIRE PROJECT EVER!

you should make it like minecraft alpha, with the backgrounds having dirt blocks and have an option for 10 worlds
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on October 06, 2012, 02:16:40 pm
As I said to Hayleia on TI-Planet, the main speed loss isn't caused by cube drawing.
Off course rectangles would be faster, but I'm not sure that it worth the quality loss.
So then the main speed loss is coming from sorting them?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Spenceboy98 on October 06, 2012, 02:28:29 pm
If only this was for the prizm(but lets not get offtopic)....

This looks great! It makes me want to buy an nSpire, but I probably won't.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 06, 2012, 02:44:38 pm
Check out this castle I just built!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 06, 2012, 03:36:49 pm
The world is saved each time you quit the game. The save file is quite heavy (800 KB) but its size could be reduced by more than half with a good compression.
The problem I see with compression is that loading and saving will take more time. Anyway, 800 KB is not heavy at all by the way. I see you don't play The Urbz (more than 20 MB) ;)

Also, I had some suggestions:
-change the order of the menu options: put "load" first and "new" in second, because we only need to choose "new" once and then, we always choose "load" ;)
-for now, quitting always save, but a way to quit without saving would be great too :) (other than a reboot)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 06, 2012, 05:22:43 pm
To avoid saving wrong stuff on your world, I guess you could maybe duplicate it before running the game and rename your backup copy in case.

Also I'm gonna try the update when I have some time. :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 07, 2012, 02:29:12 am
Quote
To avoid saving wrong stuff on your world, I guess you could maybe duplicate it before running the game and rename your backup copy in case.
+1, a number of computer programs implement that good safety measure, though it temporarily requires a bit more storage space.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 07, 2012, 07:14:57 am
A few suggestions:

-A red block
-Make diamond rarer
-Yes, a red block could be useful for creations... (Redstone ? TNT ? Red wool ?)
-I'm not sure that rarer diamonds would be a good idea : the world isn't as huge as the original minecraft, so the number of diamonds is quite limited.

/me hugs Chockosta BEST NSPIRE PROJECT EVER!

you should make it like minecraft alpha, with the backgrounds having dirt blocks and have an option for 10 worlds
Thanks for the support :D
A "dirt" background would indeed look nice.
And yes, I should add a file browser to allow to have several world (well you can now, but you have to rename them before launching the game)

As I said to Hayleia on TI-Planet, the main speed loss isn't caused by cube drawing.
Off course rectangles would be faster, but I'm not sure that it worth the quality loss.
So then the main speed loss is coming from sorting them?
That's pretty hard to say.
The speed loss is almost equally reparted in three parts :
-Calculations for which block is visible. (That's the part that I could, and should optimize MUCH more)
-Depth sorting a lot of blocks (This part is well optimized)
-Drawing them (There could be more optimization here too...)

Also, I had some suggestions:
-change the order of the menu options: put "load" first and "new" in second, because we only need to choose "new" once and then, we always choose "load" ;)
-for now, quitting always save, but a way to quit without saving would be great too :) (other than a reboot)
-The first one is a good idea indeed
-Would a shortcut like shift+esc to quit without saving be okay ?

To avoid saving wrong stuff on your world, I guess you could maybe duplicate it before running the game and rename your backup copy in case.
You mean like Axe Parser backups ?
It would take twice as much memory, and it would add a loading time before starting to play...
This could be a good idea too, but isn't Hayleia idea sufficient ? (An option to quit without saving)

Check out this castle I just built!
Wow, awesome castle !
There are a few screenshots of it in the attachment, because this thread starts to lack screenies :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 07, 2012, 08:09:09 am
Wow Augs, Nice building here :thumbsup:

/me hugs Chockosta BEST NSPIRE PROJECT EVER!

you should make it like minecraft alpha, with the backgrounds having dirt blocks and have an option for 10 worlds
Thanks for the support :D
A "dirt" background would indeed look nice.
What is a "dirt background" ? ???

Also, I had some suggestions:
-change the order of the menu options: put "load" first and "new" in second, because we only need to choose "new" once and then, we always choose "load" ;)
-for now, quitting always save, but a way to quit without saving would be great too :) (other than a reboot)
-The first one is a good idea indeed
-Would a shortcut like shift+esc to quit without saving be okay ?
Yes, shift+esc for example.
Or you can do "esc" to save and quit, and "del" to quit without saving.
Or "lib" to save, and "esc" to quit so we can save, quit without saving and quit after saving.
As you wish :)

To avoid saving wrong stuff on your world, I guess you could maybe duplicate it before running the game and rename your backup copy in case.
You mean like Axe Parser backups ?
It would take twice as much memory, and it would add a loading time before starting to play...
This could be a good idea too, but isn't Hayleia idea sufficient ? (An option to quit without saving)
Well, if you add my idea and the support for several savegames, the backup idea would not be very useful ;)
Moreover, I think that DJ_O was not talking about a feature to add to the game but more giving advice to users. At least, this is how I understood him.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ElementCoder on October 07, 2012, 08:28:21 am
/me hugs Chockosta BEST NSPIRE PROJECT EVER!

you should make it like minecraft alpha, with the backgrounds having dirt blocks and have an option for 10 worlds
Thanks for the support :D
A "dirt" background would indeed look nice.
What is a "dirt background" ? ???
He means the background of the minecraft menu in the days of alpha/beta:
(http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/11/Minecraft-Diary-Empty-Worlds.jpg)

That save support is awesome  :thumbsup: Downloading right now. Finally I can save and show you my builds :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: turiqwalrus on October 07, 2012, 09:01:01 am
A dirt background is the older minecraft menu BG. it was basically a tiled dirt texture.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 07, 2012, 12:03:46 pm
Ah ok, I didn't understand he was talking about a background in the menu. I thought he was talking about an ingame background :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: lkj on October 07, 2012, 12:22:22 pm
I finally found the time to test it, and it's very impressive :)
But on my grayscale calc I couldn't really see much, could you make it a bit darker? (for grayscale only)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 07, 2012, 03:19:14 pm
By duplicate save files I meant that the until a quit without saving option is available, the user could just manually rename the save file before running the game, via the Nspire document menu.

Also those screenshots are nice. As for optimizing, you could also post in the C section of the forums in case some C or 3D programmers who never check projects might take a look there. Just make sure to include source code of what you think that might be slow. I know Calc84maniac and tr1p1ea worked with 3D before, although not in C. Runer112 did too, but only with raycasting if I remember.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on October 07, 2012, 04:49:12 pm
You should do a benchmark to see how many rectangles you can draw per second, then we can actually see which parts of the program are slowing down the overall performance.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on October 08, 2012, 06:42:15 am
Chocosta, this looks good. I should ask(force) Jim if I could try it. :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on October 08, 2012, 11:45:14 am
I've been messing around for this a bit, and overall it's a pretty nice job.
I keep finding myself wishing the view can turn around faster, tho..also I keep running into the bug where cubes aren't drawn if you're right up next to them :/ I guess using the touchpad for camera movement would be a fix for that.
I also keep wanting the camera control movement to be more fine for long-distance work :P Again with the touchpad I guess.


Anyway some more screenie stuff for the thread ;D
(yay skyfish)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 08, 2012, 11:51:46 am
Hey, you stole my idea with those stairs :P
I was trying to build an underground house ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 08, 2012, 12:03:04 pm
Wow, awesome creations, Darl181 !!
I haven't played a lot underground, but I built a few things :

(http://i.imgur.com/JFKVJ.png)   (http://i.imgur.com/JqPSr.png)   (http://i.imgur.com/trnsb.png)

(see more in this thread (http://ourl.ca/17098))

Oh, and yeah, I understood that a better use of the touchpad is very important...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: hellninjas on October 09, 2012, 10:55:50 pm
Any chance you can lower the FOV? It's a little hard to look around underground. Other than that, i'd say it's awesome ^_^
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 09, 2012, 11:01:08 pm
Darl that was absolutely epic! O.O At first I looked at the top structures then when i saw everything you built underground I was astonished.

Chockosta do you plan to post a sav file of those maps?

Also it would be nice if we couldn't get that far inside walls, so view doesn't get strange when too close from walls.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 12, 2012, 11:44:21 am
The graphics of this game remind me of this

http://i.imgur.com/yQ4U1.jpg
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 12, 2012, 12:20:36 pm
The graphics of this game remind me of this

http://i.imgur.com/yQ4U1.jpg
Lol, CubeField :P
This was ported to Nspire in Lua and to z80 in Axe.
And it is faster on the z80 O.O (and it could be even faster with Full mode *.*)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 12, 2012, 12:39:39 pm
Any chance you can lower the FOV? It's a little hard to look around underground. Other than that, i'd say it's awesome ^_^
Doesn't you mean increasing the fovy ? A lower fovy reduces the field of view...
About increasing the fovy, I'm not sure. High fovys make me really uncomfortable.

Chockosta do you plan to post a sav file of those maps?
Well, it contains developpement features and couldn't be opened with the public release.
But I'm creating a huge castle now, and should post the save file soon.

Also it would be nice if we couldn't get that far inside walls, so view doesn't get strange when too close from walls.
Yes, I hate this too. But the problem is not whith going far inside walls, it is abount displaying faces whith vertices which are behind the player.
But I didn't find a good solution (without awful speed loss)

The graphics of this game remind me of this

http://i.imgur.com/yQ4U1.jpg
Lol, CubeField :P
This was ported to Nspire in Lua and to z80 in Axe.
And it is faster on the z80 O.O (and it could be even faster with Full mode *.*)
Well, try to reach 9000 points in the Lua version, and you'll change your mind about which one is faster :P



As you may have noticed, developpement has slowed down a bit. During a week or two, I was coding around three hours a day, and it was really tiring. Currently, I play minecraft (the real one) and spend less hours on the computer, so updates will be less frequent.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 12, 2012, 12:51:29 pm
Lol, CubeField :P
This was ported to Nspire in Lua and to z80 in Axe.
And it is faster on the z80 O.O (and it could be even faster with Full mode *.*)
Well, try to reach 9000 points in the Lua version, and you'll change your mind about which one is faster :P
Try to reach 20 points in the z80 version with Full mode and you'll change your mind too :P
But yeah, that is the problem with your CubeField. We have to play at a very slow speed for a long time before fun starts :(

As you may have noticed, developpement has slowed down a bit. During a week or two, I was coding around three hours a day, and it was really tiring. Currently, I play minecraft (the real one) and spend less hours on the computer, so updates will be less frequent.
Don't worry, there is already a lot to do with this version we already have, so no need for frequent updates ;)
Just don't give up :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 12, 2012, 01:32:38 pm
@Chockosta maybe you should make Cubefield so the speed gets faster faster. :P

Also you should play a bit more Minecraft to get familiar with the mechanics and stuff, so it makes it easier to develop nCraft's crafting features and mobs. Just as long as you don't get addicted to the point of stopping nCraft entirely lol I guess :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on October 12, 2012, 08:36:45 pm
I changed some of the code to add more textures and items, and added a further view distance
However, this made the program lag more
http://youtu.be/H858JBR6SJc
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 13, 2012, 02:14:30 am
You probably want to provide the source code of said changes, so that everyone can benefit ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: leafy on October 13, 2012, 03:38:12 am
It's pretty obviously fake. nCraft doesn't support soft shadows, let alone all the other "features" in that video.

EDIT: It's even in the video description :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Adriweb on October 13, 2012, 07:36:47 am
You can see Windows' window borders etc. ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on October 13, 2012, 11:13:00 am
Oh, sorry if I actually fooled anyone. I was actually using the Nspire Movie Player. I thought it might have been funny to make a video like this.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 13, 2012, 11:22:14 am
I don't think you fooled many people around here ;)
My note (post #280) was a weak form of humor ^^
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 13, 2012, 11:36:17 am
I believed it during a millisecond...
But I quickly understood the prank.

Nice job, it would be awesome !
But I'm pretty sure the Nspire couldn't stand so much textured polygons without 3D hardware acceleration.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on October 13, 2012, 11:46:35 am
Yeah, I did some quick Google searches, and I think the cx is good on memory and cpu, but its about 960 MB shy of the required ram
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 13, 2012, 11:58:29 am
The CX is indeed the most powerful calculator on the market, but in absolute terms, its hardware characteristics suck (yet it costs a lot to consumers) :)
They were already sub-par when the calculator was designed in 2010; they were worse when the CX entered the marketplace in 2011, and it's worsening every day.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 13, 2012, 12:25:49 pm
Well, unfortunately, calculators aren't meant for games...
TI doesn't see any use of hardware acceleration on a Nspire.

The power of the Nspire is sufficient for almost any calculation or algorithm that could be used in school (even with the awfully slow Basic)
The only big problem with that is the ridiculous price, which would be correct for a ~1GHz processor, I think.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 13, 2012, 01:25:57 pm
With newer technology, they could provide the same computing power for significantly lower power consumption - or more likely (since newer processor generations have higher clock rates by default) more computing power for the same power consumption

But even for a 1 GHz processor, $150 would remain ludicrously high, considering that there would be no video acceleration, no audio acceleration, no networking, etc. ;)
$150 gets you a quad-core (1.4 GHz) ARM dev board with 1 GB of RAM, and goodies (keyboard, mouse).
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 13, 2012, 03:02:52 pm
Wow I was shocked at first when I saw the vid in your profile O.O but I felt something was fishy so I went to check. What made me believe it slightly was how slow the framerate was, though. :P For a fake video I was expecting some sort of Sony Vegas edit with a Minecraft video on top of the calc screen that is not even aligned properly, no screen reflects and 30 FPS like that Halo vid I saw once. However the slow framerate and how nPlayer, if it wasn't for the windows borders, would have made it even more believable. ;D


$150 gets you a quad-core (1.4 GHz) ARM dev board with 1 GB of RAM, and goodies (keyboard, mouse).
In USA. In Canada for $150 you most likely won't even get a dual core processor. :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on October 13, 2012, 03:30:05 pm
I guess free software and a slow computer are good then.
I used some software I downloaded off of the internet to take a video minecraft of my computer. That video already had a slow frame rate. Then when I used xacto’s automatic converter, and put it on my calculator, it was even slower. But the film was real. I did have an image of minecraft on my calculator. You can believe that because you can see the reflection of the camera.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 13, 2012, 09:34:49 pm
Well even on a fast computer you can just slow down parts of the vids or lower the framerate with softwares to make it look slow. I guess what spoils it is the Microsoft Windows title bar in the video :P (assuming you wouldn't use a Windows-alike theme on your Nspire)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 14, 2012, 04:53:53 am
This is an irelavent question but how did he get a clock on his nspire?(in the fake video)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 14, 2012, 05:14:22 am
nClock ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on October 14, 2012, 08:17:35 am
Yes, nClock
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Wayne on October 14, 2012, 11:42:51 am
I think the control is a bit laggy on the kArmTi emu, because sometimes it places blocks in the background.

[OT]nClock is great, but I think if it shows the seconds it'll take much battery.[/OT]
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on October 14, 2012, 01:07:24 pm
I changed some of the code to add more textures and items, and added a further view distance
However, this made the program lag more
http://youtu.be/H858JBR6SJc
XD you could fool someone (like I did ,I love  tricking friends)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Levak on October 14, 2012, 05:31:53 pm
[OT]nClock is great, but I think if it shows the seconds it'll take much battery.[/OT]
The interruption of the syscall (call it refresh) is always the same and was there before nClock. The only thing that can waste battery are divisions (that are optimized here) and pixel manipulations.
It is a fact that nClock put a little bit in trouble the battery life, but I could not figure out what can be optimized.
[/OT]
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 14, 2012, 06:16:29 pm
Well as long as nClock doesn't take more battery than nCraft or nDoom, I guess it should be ok. :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 17, 2012, 04:53:26 pm
By the way do you plan to add trees (perhaps with a darker green block) to map generation? I assume that falling sand blocks and water would be impossible, though, since that requires a ridiculous amount of physics and you would have to update thousands of blocks location/multiplications (128x128x32 I think, right?) every few frame...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: leafy on October 17, 2012, 05:14:30 pm
Since it's all procedurally generated, couldn't you just update one block every frame? Sure it might end up being biased, but it could allow for a wide variety of things with acceptable speeds.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Builderboy on October 17, 2012, 05:20:26 pm
Additionally you could just keep a list of "active" blocks.  Minecraft does something similar and doesn't update all of its blocks every frame.  Either way, earlier I suggested running some tests to see what was causing the most slowdown in the engine, was this ever determined?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 17, 2012, 05:21:38 pm
Wouldn't that take a long while to update the water, though? If, for example you dig a big hole in the roof of a cavern and there's water above it, but every frame the game checks one map block for possible falling water, out of 3000 blocks, then the water would fall down one block every 10 minutes or so ???. The game runs at variable framerate by the way. When your view is facing a map corner or a direction with no block, it gets faster then in other occasions where a lot of blocks are showing up it runs at about 6 FPS (or about 15 if you have Nover installed)

That said it could do what Builder said, but that's still about 100+ blocks, right?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Nathan Jahreis on October 17, 2012, 07:21:01 pm
Today I was running nCraft and it froze up, rebooted my calc, and I had to reinstall the OS. Just thought you ought to know.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 17, 2012, 07:27:42 pm
What Ndless version (with the number after the "r") were you using? Also were you using Nover?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Nathan Jahreis on October 17, 2012, 08:25:38 pm
I dont know what version it was because when i reinstalled the os it cleared everything :-\ yea i was running nover.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 17, 2012, 08:34:30 pm
In my case I was running an older version of Nover at first and when I set my calc to 242 MHz or something it ran OK except when I launched nCraft I had to re-install the OS. With the new version of Nover I can run the game at 246 MHz fine, though. Of course the MHz depends of the calc, because some people can't go above 220 and others can go up to 270.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Nathan Jahreis on October 17, 2012, 08:46:30 pm
In my case I was running an older version of Nover at first and when I set my calc to 242 MHz or something it ran OK except when I launched nCraft I had to re-install the OS. With the new version of Nover I can run the game at 246 MHz fine, though. Of course the MHz depends of the calc, because some people can't go above 220 and others can go up to 270.

yea i only had the cpu set for 220 mhz and the ahb at 74
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Lionel Debroux on October 18, 2012, 01:34:00 am
Quote
yea i only had the cpu set for 220 mhz and the ahb at 74
That's your problem: don't increase the AHB frequency. The warning at anything above 66 MHz is there for a reason - memory easily gets corrupted at higher frequencies :)
If you don't have said warning, then you're using an outdated version of Nover, and you should upgrade :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: JosJuice on October 18, 2012, 11:20:10 am
Wouldn't that take a long while to update the water, though? If, for example you dig a big hole in the roof of a cavern and there's water above it, but every frame the game checks one map block for possible falling water, out of 3000 blocks, then the water would fall down one block every 10 minutes or so ???.
Every time a block is changed in Minecraft (for example placing or breaking one), it causes what's called a block update in blocks that are next to it (the closest 6 blocks, I think. Or is it 26?) These nearby blocks are then checked for updates, like water moving or a redstone device receiving a signal. If that block changes, it also causes a block update, which can lead to a chain of them in some cases. For example, removing the block under a pile of sand would cause a block update in the bottommost sand block, making it fall. That block would then cause a block update in the block above it, causing another block update, and so on.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on October 18, 2012, 12:54:01 pm
By the way do you plan to add trees (perhaps with a darker green block) to map generation?
Yes :)

I assume that falling sand blocks and water would be impossible, though, since that requires a ridiculous amount of physics and you would have to update thousands of blocks location/multiplications (128x128x32 I think, right?) every few frame...
I think it would be possible, like BuilderBoy and Leafy said, I don't have to check every block, just "active" blocks.


But for now, I'm still fighting with an old "bug" : I ddon't know how to display triangles when some vertices are behing the player. (that's why when you're close to a cube, it is not displayed)
If someone has good ideas, I show you how I compute vertices : 
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/0-scema.png)
(all the vertices are rotated, so the camera is always directed to the x-axe)
The ? represents the y-coordinate of the vertex on the screen (from the center).
It is calculated with (10/x)*y
But this doesn't work anymore with negative values...


Today I was running nCraft and it froze up, rebooted my calc, and I had to reinstall the OS. Just thought you ought to know.
Oh, sorry :/
That's not really because of nCraft, but because of your overclock. As Lionel said, AHB frequency has to be under 70 MHz (and to be safe, it should even be under 66 MHz)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on October 18, 2012, 01:45:29 pm
So I was playing nCraft, and since the start I felt there was something wrong but I could not put my finger on it. But now I can put my finger on it! The blocks are to big and the game seems to "zoomed in". Maybe it is just me but do any of you guys feel the same way?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on October 18, 2012, 07:05:19 pm
Hey, would this be possible to put this on the nspire?
http://www.moddb.com/mods/minecraft-doom
Its minecraft doom, and while it isn’t minecraft (you can’t mine, build, ect.), it sure beats the other maps and skins in doom.
I downloaded it, and it has no wad file, so I couldn’t send it to nDoom
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on October 18, 2012, 09:40:07 pm
So I was playing nCraft, and since the start I felt there was something wrong but I could not put my finger on it. But now I can put my finger on it! The blocks are to big and the game seems to "zoomed in". Maybe it is just me but do any of you guys feel the same way?
I guess that's mostly since the screen is small and if there were more blocks, like mentioned before, it would take longer to render and would cause speed issues.
Could be wrong :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on October 19, 2012, 12:55:03 am
Hey, would this be possible to put this on the nspire?
http://www.moddb.com/mods/minecraft-doom
Its minecraft doom, and while it isn’t minecraft (you can’t mine, build, ect.), it sure beats the other maps and skins in doom.
I downloaded it, and it has no wad file, so I couldn’t send it to nDoom
Possible or not, this should be posted in the nDoom topic, not here ;)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 19, 2012, 07:31:46 pm
I ddon't know how to display triangles when some vertices are behing the player.

There are triangles in nCraft? O.O
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Levak on October 20, 2012, 05:11:16 am
I ddon't know how to display triangles when some vertices are behing the player.

There are triangles in nCraft? O.O

In 3D, the simplest primitive to render is a triangle. A square is composed of two triangles.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 20, 2012, 05:13:02 am
Oh ok I thought he meant there were triangle-shaped blocks and he had troubles drawing them.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: njaddison on October 20, 2012, 12:58:47 pm
@chocksta:
What will you call the engine that you made this game in? And can you upload a header file that has everything defined?
Also, would hardware emulation work on the nspire?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 21, 2012, 12:00:53 pm
So I was playing nCraft, and since the start I felt there was something wrong but I could not put my finger on it. But now I can put my finger on it! The blocks are to big and the game seems to "zoomed in". Maybe it is just me but do any of you guys feel the same way?
Yeah I noticed that the view seemed quite overly zoomed in ???. Is it due to speed issues or something? In first persoon view games, normally with a 2 blocks high wall, you still see above and below the blocks even when standing right in front of them.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: blfngl on November 09, 2012, 09:48:26 am
Kinda reminded me of this:
&feature=plcp
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on November 12, 2012, 08:04:42 pm
Are there still going to be updates for this? I've noticed that it has been inactive lately D:
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on November 13, 2012, 11:35:26 am
Yes, sorry, I'm a bit inactive lately.
That's because I got quite a lot of things to do (school, math...)
Moreover, it seems that I can't develop the same program during a long period... I don't feel courageous enough when I go on my computer, and I end up spending my time watching random things on the internet :P

But I will probably get back to this within a few weeks (I hope so).
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on November 17, 2012, 03:12:09 pm
But I will probably get back to this within a few weeks (I hope so).

Please do
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Jonius7 on November 20, 2012, 07:38:35 pm
Moreover, it seems that I can't develop the same program during a long period... I don't feel courageous enough when I go on my computer, and I end up spending my time watching random things on the internet :P

Procrastination, that's the thing.
But you've already done so well Chockosta.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Streetwalrus on November 21, 2012, 01:48:34 am
I don't feel courageous enough when I go on my computer, and I end up spending my time watching random things on the internet :P
Same for me. :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on December 14, 2012, 02:10:49 pm
We haven't had an update for weeks. I am not complaining, I am just wondering. Are you working on something else? Or is there some huge update coming up?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on December 14, 2012, 07:39:12 pm
We haven't had an update for weeks. I am not complaining, I am just wondering. Are you working on something else? Or is there some huge update coming up?
Same here D:
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Levak on December 15, 2012, 05:13:49 am
Just saying : Do you guys know that school work (at least in France) can be really time consumming ?
If Chockosta hasn't updated its game for months it's likeky because he has a lot of stuff at school.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ElementCoder on December 15, 2012, 05:30:14 am
I think that's not only France :) Lots of my projects are on hold due to school too.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on December 15, 2012, 10:45:07 am
I'm really sorry...

Indeed, school is quite time-consuming (I'm in highschool final year), and moreover my math club requires some work too.
But the main reason that made me stop this project is that the result isn't really fun to play.

I didn't expect much more speed, but I still am quite disappointed.
Currently, I'm working on a Touhou-like shooter in lua, but I will finish it quite soon and I'll most likely go back to nCraft.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on December 15, 2012, 02:01:03 pm
I find it very fun to play, I am sure that a lot of people found this fun since it got 287 downloads on the last update alone. But I understand that programming projects can be boring at times.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: annoyingcalc on December 15, 2012, 07:31:00 pm
This is an outrage!
nCraft is very fun to play, if you have the time keep on pushing who else agrees with me?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: XiiDraco on December 15, 2012, 07:31:49 pm
This is an outrage!
nCraft is very fun to play, if you have the time keep on pushing who else agrees with me?
I do!
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on December 15, 2012, 09:20:10 pm
This is an outrage!
nCraft is very fun to play, if you have the time keep on pushing who else agrees with me?
I do!
If we didn't, why would we be asking for more? :D
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: cooliojazz on December 15, 2012, 09:51:27 pm
That sounds just a bit demanding you guys, but...  Don't be discouraged because you think it's not fun, other people obviously do, and you'll eventually get to the point where you think it is too :)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 15, 2012, 10:06:29 pm
Just saying : Do you guys know that school work (at least in France) can be really time consumming ?
If Chockosta hasn't updated its game for months it's likeky because he has a lot of stuff at school.
Well it depends of people, since Hayleia seems quite active working on stuff. I think stuff like Chockosta or sometimes even people dropping out of calc stuff can have some influence too.

Besides, if you sleep 8 hours every night, then go to school for 7 hours (including lunch), study/do homework for 4 hours and take 3 hours to eat other meals+do chores, then that leaves you 2 hours to work on calc projects at least 4 times a week (weekends and friday evening being work and/or hanging out with friends. :P

In my case I found the game rather fun to play despite not having every Minecraft feature. Just make sure to use Nover and it runs at a quite decent and playable speed. The only real short term improvement I would suggest that could make gameplay signifiantly better is having collision detection so you can't get as close to walls (that way you can still see anything when turning around).

Also if you are concerned about speed, you could maybe make the code open-source or something so other people can help too. There are people around here who are crazily good optimizers who might know some tricks you didn't think about, which could allow you to make your game run even faster.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on January 20, 2013, 01:53:39 pm
I think he did release the source code.

Also, I made a small poem.

Ncraft you are very blocky
Chockosta has the right to be cocky
Everybody wants more
It doesn't have to be a chore
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Rhombicuboctahedron on January 20, 2013, 06:38:33 pm
Maybe he has programmers ‘block’
If he does, I hope he told it Chockosta la vista
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Darl181 on January 20, 2013, 09:52:51 pm
Inb4 this becomes another Project M-esque thread :P

Frankly I wouldn't mind seeing this continued either, but let's keep in mind that he'll get to it when he gets to it. On his own schedule ;)
Currently, I'm working on a Touhou-like shooter in lua, but I will finish it quite soon and I'll most likely go back to nCraft.
http://ourl.ca/17836
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 20, 2013, 11:01:05 pm
From what I remember he lost interest because he couldn't find any way to make the game run faster and was very disappointed at the speed so far. Working with 3D is very challenging so that can be understood. I don't remember if the source is published but if it's the case then someone could maybe help, though.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Spenceboy98 on January 21, 2013, 12:56:59 am
From what I remember he lost interest because he couldn't find any way to make the game run faster and was very disappointed at the speed so far. Working with 3D is very challenging so that can be understood. I don't remember if the source is published but if it's the case then someone could maybe help, though.

The source is with the latest download.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: ElementCoder on January 21, 2013, 03:45:31 am
If he does, I hope he told it Chockosta la vista
That is one epic line :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Chockosta on January 21, 2013, 01:04:10 pm
If he does, I hope he told it Chockosta la vista
That is one epic line :P
Yeah, awesome :D

But, as always, I'm sorry for not being able to bring you updates.
For now, I don't spend my free time coding, but playing...
As always, when someone bumps this thread, I feel very motivated and go back to my code, but that motivation quickly disappears and I feel very bad for making you wait like that.
And I don't even have an excuse...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on January 21, 2013, 01:14:00 pm
Same here, I have an animal crossing thread but and every time it gets bumped, I do a small update then leave it for a month. Don't feel bad.

1) Make a plight for people to help

2) Leave optimization, it runs fine with Nover. Start on something fun, like crafting or generating the world. Fun things are motivating because you like what you are making.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Hayleia on January 21, 2013, 01:26:01 pm
Just saying : Do you guys know that school work (at least in France) can be really time consumming ?
If Chockosta hasn't updated its game for months it's likeky because he has a lot of stuff at school.
Well it depends of people, since Hayleia seems quite active working on stuff. I think stuff like Chockosta or sometimes even people dropping out of calc stuff can have some influence too.
Erm, what ? I just read that sentence and don't very agree with the fact I am active working on stuff :P
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: blue_bear_94 on January 21, 2013, 04:18:07 pm
2) Leave optimization, it runs fine with Nover. Start on something fun, like crafting or generating the world. Fun things are motivating because you like what you are making.

This isn't the Holy Grail of Calculators. If you add more stuff, then it will run even more slowly. By the way, optimization is a good programming exercise.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: epic7 on January 21, 2013, 04:20:35 pm
But to me it seems like any project as intensive as this would have to use Nover anyways.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on January 21, 2013, 05:16:41 pm
Quote
This isn't the Holy Grail of Calculators. If you add more stuff, then it will run even more slowly. By the way, optimization is a good programming exercise.

Slower.Sorry
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on January 21, 2013, 08:33:11 pm
): Is this project officially dead now?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: tr1p1ea on January 21, 2013, 11:20:57 pm
It depends on what you want to add really.

You can think about and implement some optimisations but all-in-all you dont want to get stuck on optimising only.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Augs on January 22, 2013, 11:08:21 am
): Is this project officially dead now?
No. Guys calm down.
Currently, I'm working on a Touhou-like shooter in lua, but I will finish it quite soon and I'll most likely go back to nCraft.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Matrefeytontias on June 11, 2013, 12:20:18 pm
Bump ...

Yeah, I read what Augs "just" posted (in term of space, not time), but still. Is this dead or not ?
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 11, 2013, 01:09:34 pm
Maybe not only this is dead, but Chockosta might have actually ditched calc programming entirely as well, since he hasn't been around much lately. I think a 3D minecraft might be too much for the Nspire anyway, because of the individual 3D blocks. A 3D game with standard, non-modifiable landscapes would probably work.

EDIT: Nvm he's into danmaku now, which is why he doesn't code.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on June 11, 2013, 02:22:14 pm
Maybe not only this is dead, but Chockosta might have actually ditched calc programming entirely as well, since he hasn't been around much lately. I think a 3D minecraft might be too much for the Nspire anyway, because of the individual 3D blocks. A 3D game with standard, non-modifiable landscapes would probably work.

EDIT: Nvm he's into danmaku now, which is why he doesn't code.
Well, he did compete in the ti-concours...
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 11, 2013, 03:00:34 pm
Ah ok that's good to hear. I didn't see anything new from him here in like 4 months D:
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: Spenceboy98 on June 11, 2013, 03:57:21 pm
I hope he'll get around to optimizing(code and speed), so it will be easier to port to Prizm. I tried porting to Prizm, but it seems that the mallocs are way too big for it. :( Maybe if he does optimize it, it will be easier(I've tried to make the arrays smaller, but there has been no results). I did try instead of mallocing just "world[CUBE_WORLD_X*CUBE_WORLD_Y*CUBE_WORLD_Z]" to see if that would work and it kinda did, but then it gave me a segfault at the part of the code that draws the cubes/triangles/individual-horizontal-lines. I don't know what the problem is(I did port the pre-alpha version of nCraft successfully but with some crashes).
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 11, 2013, 06:01:38 pm
Hmm a PRIZM version might be kinda slow lol. Just on the Nspire in some areas of the map, I get like 8-10 FPS at 242 MHz. If the game runs that slow on a 242 MHz overclocked TI-Nspire CX, imagine how slow it will be on a 94.3 MHz Casio PRIZM. It wouldn't hurt to try, though.
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: nspireguy on January 21, 2014, 02:48:44 pm
Is there any chance that this will be continued?  ???
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: The_King on January 21, 2014, 04:41:17 pm
if ngl is used it might but it is possibly dead
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: nspireguy on January 22, 2014, 05:17:23 pm
ok thx 4 the help
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 23, 2014, 02:40:54 am
Yeah it's definitively dead. Chockosta is either too busy or have moved on to other things, plus this version would need a rewrite or use nGL, since he used floats, while nGL would use fixed points or integers (which are much faster)
Title: Re: nCraft (3D minecraft-like game for the nspire)
Post by: nspireguy on January 23, 2014, 11:17:26 am
oh. that stinks. it sounded really awesome:(