Holy Bloated XML Batman!
February 21, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
This weekend, I started to plan out on how to save the world data in chunks for my upcoming ProjectCube game. Just for fun and the simple fact it was easy to do, I tried saving a copy of the data using XNA’s IntermediateSerializer. I knew it would be more bloated than something I could come up with myself, but wanted to see just how big it would be. After getting a test project setup and pouplated, I let it chunk thru the generating and saving of the level data for a region. A region in ProjectCubed consists of an array of 32×32 chunks, each chunk being 16x128x16 cubes. If you do the math, that is a grand total of over 33 million cubes (if every spot on the region is a cube.)
After it ran and saved the file, I just laughed and thought “Yea, I’m not using this.” The file it saved was a whopping 780ish MB. Just for that small region, which ProjectCubed will be comprised of more than just 1 single region. After widdling away, and coming up with a nice and compact format, I took that 780MB file and got it down to a whopping 32MB. This is much more managable.
So in conclusion, IntermediatSerializer is great for something quick and small, not for a huge datastructure.
High Resolution Texture Test
February 18, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
I replaced some of the textures for the cubes with a higher resolution one. Before was using a 16×16 texture for the cube faces, and now I have had my artist friend whip me some 64×64 textures, and I must say, it looks awesome! Up next will be spliting the world in a loadable format and load a set number of regions depending where the user is at. For now though, let your eyes enjoy this sweet, sweet eye candy.
Updated Website, Hello Disqus, and Ramblings
February 8, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
Got around and updated the site to the latest and greatest version of Graffiti along with replacing the comments with Disqus. I have to say, I really like Disqus so far, and was pretty simple to add to the website. All original comments are not lost, they just won’t appear anymore (there weren’t many, so it’s not hurting much). I do beleive I will be integrating said commenting system on my other sites in the near future.
Nothing really new on the project front just yet, been busy getting other stuff square away before I hit the ground running. I am going to at least try to get a nice demo or partially done first “chapter” of the story for the project wrapped up and submit it to DreamBuildPlay this year.
For those you think I have abbandoned my Platformer series of articles, don’t fret. I am planning on converting them over to XNA 4.0, and release the last few along with them within a few weeks after the updated versions. The plan for that is “as soon as I get to it” or probably towards the end of February or early/mid March.
Until next time…
New Project In The Works
February 7, 2011 by UberMonkey · 1 Comment
The other day I started to dabble with 3D aspect of XNA. Ran thru placing a model on the screen, and making a few simple shaders. Things were progressing very nicely, and thought, you know what? I have a pretty slick idea using very simple 3D tech. So I whipped up a new project, and started to work on a simple Voxel engine. This is no ordinary voxel engine that is used back in the day. This is very similar technique that MineCraft uses. This project I am envisioning is not like Minecraft, just using similar terrain system. I will provide more details on this little project, but for now it is just called “Project Cubed”.
On that note, enjoy a sweet, sweet vid.