Elysian Shadows

To give a little more background, I started following Adventures in Game Development when I first started working on this project during my senior year. I tend to listen to music or watch videos while working and it also gave me motivation to continue working on my project.

I decided to pick up my project that I never got around finishing in high school. It's coded in C++ and uses SDL + OpenGL.

Basically I'm trying to simulate a world as it was far back in time with farmers, small settlements turn into larger villages, packs of animals actually moving throughout the world and having all this have an impact on the world around you as well as a simulated, ever-changing world.

Here is a small dev video of my first water system implementation:



That's all for now, going to try to get some more videos up of other things I've implemented and working on.

Just felt like sharing it to perhaps get some feedback and increase my motivation a little bit.

I'd love to get some feedback and thoughts on my project and concepts.

Laters! -- Joxno

[EDIT]
A small update showing off the current game status and my horrible 5-7am voice.

Just a quick update.

A minor video of me explaining a little bit about my concept on my map generation.

hey welcome
another game dev project to follow :0

k1net1k wrote:hey welcome
another game dev project to follow :0

Cheers!

Also I made a minor update video about my water system and I also show off what I meant about not having to generate my own rivers in my previous video.

I love it, btw if you haven't tried or seen it yet look up the game haven and hearth, its a sandbox game like yours (excepts more mmo like) may give you some ideas.

ZachO wrote:I love it, btw if you haven't tried or seen it yet look up the game haven and hearth, its a sandbox game like yours (excepts more mmo like) may give you some ideas.

Cheers!

And I do not think I have before, I tried googling but I'm unsure if I found it or not.

Here are two images to tickle you guys' fancy!

Where does the map start and where does it end?! Argh!


Oooh starts and ends as well as ends and starts at the same place! Map Wrap Around Successful!


Btw, this is a generated map but keep in mind that this is NOT the system I talked about in my Map Generation Concept Video, I just did a quick rand() loop through the terrain.

Laters!

This is a great project! When I first saw it I was pretty skeptical, as implementing a whole sandbox world is not easy in the least, but I've had a look through your videos and you seem to be making some great progress!

Really cool man! I like this project a lot... *subbed* (to the thread and your youtube)

I'm definitely going to be keeping up on this one! Anything with a procedural terrain generator get's an instant win in my book...

Looks nice, most of projects like this one I've seen haven't been completed. I hope you're gonna complete it, it looks like a funny game.

Cheers everyone!

I've been sick for the past week and haven't been able to get a lot of work done sadly, but now I'm back and well again!

I'm glad that so many people seem to have enjoyed my work so far and it's a definite motivation booster which will help me to continue to push this project forward!

Creating a sandbox world is definitely hard at first glance, its complexity is great. But I tend to look at it through a whole different perspective.
To be brief: Complexity out of Simplicity.
Even the most complex of complex worlds are all made up of small simple systems that when combined becomes this massive complex world. By using this perspective I try to design small subsystems that'll all be working simultaneously to create this large, dynamic, breathing, rich world.

Here is a small update on what I have planned so far for my map system as well as a few performance edits I've had to make because of increase in map size (256x256 to 1024x1024). All tests are done on the new map size because that's where I noticed the decline in performance.

Enjoy!


If you want more frequent and smaller updates I tend to twitter when I code @Joxno

Laters!
-- Joxno

Really nice update!
I like where you are going with this :D

Cheers!

Here's a little something I've been working on today besides from fixing and making some minor code changes.

I've basically finished the "Hill Points" generation inside my Map Generation algorithm, it generates 10,000 to 20,000 hill points.

Take my money! :D seriously this is cool stuff.

I have a few questions:
A.Will height be fully represented in the game? (eg lighter areas are higher up etc.)?
B. Will the character scale against high/low terrain?
C. If so are you using the character as a polygon?

SPR_Phantom wrote:I have a few questions:
A.Will height be fully represented in the game? (eg lighter areas are higher up etc.)?
B. Will the character scale against high/low terrain?
C. If so are you using the character as a polygon?

To answer all your questions in a simple way, so far I do not have an artist, nor am I a good one, so as far as the graphics goes, I'm not too sure, but the lighter/darker areas depending upon altitude is probably going to be in some way or another.

I've had a tiny break but now I'm back, Revision 3 of my Water System is finally complete and here is a little picture to show you how well my water system actually handles water tiles this time around. In Revision 2 of my water system it could only handle about 2,000 to 3,000 water tiles until it started lagging.



I'd say that's a pretty large improvement, all that's left are a few minor tweaks and I shall not be needing to touch the water system again for quite a while. Which also means that I can move onto something more fun than redesigning and restructuring a system for the third time around.

Cheers!
-- Joxno