T w e n t y S i d e d

I’m afraid this one got away from me. I wanted to talk about code reuse. So I decided to talk about the atlas texture I’m using. But then I needed to explain what that is and why we need it. And then I got dragged into asides about how I use my atlas and some theory about how texture addressing works.  

So my two-paragraph aside is now an entire entry of information that’s not directly connected to the problem of generating 3D levels. I could send this mess back for another round of editing and restructuring, but then I’d have nothing to post this week and you would be sad.

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter. – Blaise Pascal

I don’t know if this entry will hold up, but I think we can all at least agree that Blaise Pascal is one of the coolest names ever. My anglo-centric take on his first name is that it ought to be pronounced “Blaze”. Blaze Pascal! That’s practically a superhero name.

Anyway, I’m now making this overlong post even longer by complaining about the length. Let’s just Get On With It before I make everything worse.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Bug Hunt #4: Atlas”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

A point of order: In the last entry I talked about deforming the walls to give them some interest. In my final example screenshot, I showed an image of hallways that bulged out in the middle. I didn’t make it totally clear how I planned to use this, and as a result some people were left with the impression that my plan was to have bare bulbous walls everywhere.

The bulbous walls were just a minimum-effort demonstration of the idea. My plan is to have the shape of the wall vary by room type. Maybe the corridors will be wide but short, like the ship in Alien. Maybe some walls will be very narrow and tall like in the first level of System Shock 2. Whatever.

There was also the concern that bare walls would get boring, and I should add greebles. I’m currently planning on using the “furniture” idea for this. Something like this image from System Shock 2:

If that doesn’t work out, then maybe I’ll back up and try something else. But let’s try this easy thing first.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Bug Hunt #3: The Doors”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

To recap: The goal of this project is to generate something like an immersive sim shooter level. This means designing a level, building the rooms, and “furnishing” those rooms. I don’t know what furniture we’re going to use and to a certain extent it doesn’t matter. We just need to prove that we could fill the rooms with whatever the game calls for, and the furniture needs to be placed in a way that makes sense.

The Star Trek Enterprise might have a Captain’s chair, beds, a warp core, and an ice cream machineOh, you’ve never seen the Trek Ice Cream machine? Watch the episode where someone uses the toilet. The ice cream is right next door to that., but we shouldn’t see them all next to each other. A fridge doesn’t make sense in the middle of the room and the captain’s chair doesn’t make sense in the corner. My program needs to be able make this logic work without resorting to premade room layouts.

In addition, we need lighting that works within some reasonable performance constraints. The world needs coherent collision detection so the player doesn’t fall out of the level or get stuck on invisible walls. It needs to be possible for an AI to navigate the space, even if we don’t add proper shooter combat mechanics or proper enemy AI.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Bug Hunt #2: Let’s Build Some Walls”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.