First Problems

Hey folks,

Just wanted to drop a quick update on what's been happening behind the scenes with our game development.

So, I've been knee-deep in testing tile coordinates to make sure everything's running smoothly, and guess what? They weren't. The coordinates in the editor matrix weren't aligning with the world coordinates. Turns out, the painting order in the editor needed a tweak. Once I fixed that, everything clicked into place.

Next up, I created four shapes to visualize collision sub-grids. They fit perfectly in their designated spaces, but there was a snag: they could overlap without collision detection. That's where the "Placing Rules" class comes in. It'll enforce rules like the "Empty Rule," ensuring blocks only go where they should.

Then came block deletion, a quick fix since it similar block placement.

Voxel models

Now, onto the fun part—incorporating actual blocks into the game! MagicalVoxel has been a godsend for creating 3D models with voxels. Exporting them as OBJ files, though, revealed messy meshes.

Enter Voxcleaner, a Blender addon that tidies up meshes beautifully.

However, tweaking UVs manually became necessary for consistent texturing. By marking seams and unwrapping, I could ensure uniform UVs, optimizing material usage.

Flat World Settings

With basic block mechanics in place, I took inspiration from Minecraft's flat map generator for reference.

Slow Saving Data

Initially, saving the map took ages—5 to 8 minutes! Unacceptable. Chunking the map into smaller saves like Minecraft did the trick, though.

However, serialization issues were lurking. Each chunk file was a whopping 4000MB! Switching to JSON cut that down to 900KB per chunk—much better.

Now, saving and loading are speedy. But with a small map, I might need future tweaks. If it ain't broke, right?

One last thing—I added a "dirty" flag to mark chunks with changes for efficient saving.

That's all for now. Got another project cooking, but I'll be back soon with more updates. Happy coding, everyone!