The Inner Space of Voxelmancy

Discussion in 'Update Notes and Developer Discussion' started by Smokejumper, Jul 2, 2014.

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  1. Vanilia Trailblazer

    Nice succinct explanation.


    Saw this error though on the Inlay Technique section -

    Step 2: Take any other area of any design and paste it once below your object from Step 1, and then once again below it.


    Anyway, bookmarked so I can easily point fellow players/testers to it.


    shrim likes this.
  2. Smokejumper Developer


    You can say "material" and "texture" interchangeably if you want. We usually refer to "resources" when we mean the stuff you dig out of the ground. "Materials" are something that applies to voxels. (And we use "material" because it actually has more properties than just a "texture" would have.)

    You'll have to trust me on the borrowing stuff. Yeah, it's happening.
    Teryn likes this.
  3. Smokejumper Developer


    Fixed! Thanks!
    Teryn likes this.
  4. Betula Lumosa Trailblazer


    What is the case where it behaves observably differently than what I described?
  5. Taelaa Trailblazer


    See me in game after the patch, I'll show you a cool use of putty to view this very thing. :)

    Edit: I just noticed your sneaky use of (painted). I think that means you know what I was going to show you already so I'll just crawl back into this glass of bourbon and shoosh. ;)
    Teryn, Bomdiggety and Kelvani like this.
  6. Fyrel Founder

    Kelvani was using the new terminology to describe what has been called a putty voxel (healed earth(painted)) :)
    Teryn, Kelvani and Taelaa like this.
  7. Taelaa Trailblazer

    Great explanation, thanks so much for putting this together Dave. I would argue that this should be in the new player tutorial building section. This will save new players so much frustration when dealing with warping voxel shapes!
    Teryn, Senkai, Autumn Magic and 2 others like this.
  8. Aerial Active Member

    All of this was perfectly clear for me before reading this except I called them a bit incorrectly. So not sure if this will be any help to people who struggle with it. Now since you're talking about this so thoroughly, can you PLEASE work on official voxel reactors where we could move each voxel point manually instead of PASTING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. sorry :/ It's just frustrating that creative people are still blocked by tool limitations even though voxels are indeed very flexible. Using voxel boards is a workaround that gets very tedious.
    DanteYoda, Ohnix and WellTravelled like this.
  9. Fredelas Well-Known Member


    Would it be accurate to say that voxels that were placed from a Player Studio template (perhaps a third important type of voxel?) are "more dominant" than subsequently added, pasted, or placed voxels? (Including additional subsequently placed Player Studio voxels?)

    When using the line tool or various sloped brushes (not the sphere or cube) to directly modify voxels via Add, Delete, or Heal, I have noticed that this dominance does not seem to behave exactly the same as pasting the same voxels would behave. Instead, there appears to be some sort of compromise going on that tries to preserve the intersections of the existing shapes.

    Edit: I'm also concerned that calling the objects we see "shapes" may be confused with the brush models available to players in the Shapes Palette. (Unless you plan to start calling those "brushes", which is just fine by me.)
  10. Rengerel Trailblazer

    Was the top SE corner of the cube space picked solely for optimization? It's pretty unintuitive for most people that you have to work towards one corner for things to behave as you think they should.
    Bomdiggety likes this.
  11. Smokejumper Developer



    That has a lot to do with the "precedence" stuff where we determine which voxel rules the school on a shape. It's way more grognard and impenetrable than I wanted to attack in this doc. Perhaps another day.

    To be honest, that sort of knowledge is not necessary for 99.9% of builders. And for those that do care...well...you are already telling each other.
    Talimar and Teryn like this.
  12. Smokejumper Developer


    The current answer is "no". It's not on the near-term list and at first blush, it's too complicated for the vast majority of users. We are *considering* adding something like this into the game later on and making it an advanced (have to do a bunch of stuff to earn it) ability...but it's not planned right now.

    Why? Because the VAST majority of players do not need this precise level of detail. As we get time, we'll pick at it and try to find an intuitive way to handle it, but no...we are not doing this in the near future.

    We are not making an art program. It has to be a game first. We can add complexity later, after we add more of the game elements.
  13. Idrona Trailblazer

    Thanks for the brain ache. :D

    Nice read, and to have most of the basics explained well in one place.
    Karrane and Bomdiggety like this.
  14. Fredelas Well-Known Member


    I just think players might have a little more concern about how voxels they've actually paid real money for will behave, especially in regards to other voxels they've paid real money for.

    Customer Service will at some point need to explain why the "Victorian Bedroom" template a player purchases ends up warping the "Victorian Candlestand" template they purchase and subsequently place on top of it, when they've previously been told that Player Studio voxels will never change shape.
    Talimar, Arita and Bomdiggety like this.
  15. Kelvani Founder

    Taelaa I am always open to see new and twisted ways you whip those roaming vectors into submission =D
  16. Cleopatra Trailblazer

    I was wondering how the math behind microvoxels worked, and this totally answered my question. :) Very cool.

    Also, I agree with Smokejumper about this being a game, not an art program. Maya and Blender are already available for people who like Maya and Blender. Landmark's system is perfect for people who want to play a building GAME. If you want to do professional grade 3d modeling then a game is probably the wrong kind of software to be utilizing.

    Maya and Blender are uber complicated and very difficult to understand for amateurs.

    Landmark is intuitive and fun for amateurs.
    Grumbles, Teryn and Karrane like this.
  17. Bomdiggety Trailblazer

    I climbed through the swirling mist to the top of the temple stairs, and cautiously approached the ancient dusty book on the raised altar.

    I slowly translated the faded text of the forum post from the mystical S.OKEJ.M.ER.

    And I understood.

    I had become one of them.
    Wildflower, Aldente, Grumbles and 2 others like this.
  18. Bomdiggety Trailblazer


    I totally agree. Even if a brand new player doesn't understand most of this post, there is no harm in including all this advanced information from the beginning. Those not interested will skip it, some may read parts and remember something from it and come back later.

    Knowledge is power.
  19. Zeuljii Trailblazer


    Agreed. Is the selection tool going to measure in some other unit from now on? I suspect that is the origin of the ambiguity. "voxel" has become a unit of length, area and volume as well, the volume being confused with the structure.

    And a builder, right? People do care about that, and how that's assigned and propagated. I care, and I'm not registered to player studio (yet). If I share something with someone, I have to use "their" voxels, or they have to clean it before they can sell it. Others just want to be listed as contributors to a community build.


    The end goal is to achieve a shape. I'd rather have better shaping tools. For example, spirals (ramps) and elliptical spirals (boats), or the ability to stretch and squish brushes/shapes similar to the way you position them with tweak mode. Earning such abilities sounds like fun.
    kodimynatt23, Karrane and Andesine like this.
  20. Tattle Trailblazer

    Nicely laid out and written .Well done.
    kodimynatt23 and Smokejumper like this.
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