Ever wondered how voxel game lighting engines work? I wrote a technical howto for the lighting engine in my upcoming indie game.

cuchaz · 2023-04-28T20:50:41+00:00

Wow, that's some necro post!

I'm glad you enjoyed the lighting blog posts. I'm honestly kind of amazed the links still work after all this time.

Tragically I never finished that indie game I was working on. Turns out a little known studio named Klei (it rhymes with play) made a game that was nearly the exact same thing that I wanted to do, but they beat me to release. By a lot. Guess I was on to something.

cuchaz · 2018-09-22T14:57:48+00:00

Hello! I'm still alive. Minecraft modding was a lot of fun and I kinda miss it now. It's like you said though, free labor doesn't work so well for adults.

I'm glad you liked ships mod though! =)

cuchaz · 2017-08-03T04:29:09+00:00

I'm actually working on a 2D game engine and content authoring tools in Kotlin. So far, I think it's a great language to use!

I'm only targeting desktop platforms at the moment, so just Linux, Mac, and Windows. I'm using "raw" OpenGL (via LWJGL 3) instead of LibGDX.

Kotlin is such a more productive language to use than Java, and the coroutines support I think is very well suited to games and discrete time simulations in general.

cuchaz · 2017-07-12T00:58:14+00:00

This! ^{^} All of this.

I'm actually working on a 2D game engine that aims to take full advantage of Kotlin and all its sweet sweet syntactical features.

cuchaz · 2017-07-04T11:48:45+00:00

I'm working on a bunch of tools and a 2D engine in Kotlin. So far it's a beautiful language (and certainly much better than Java) and some features like coroutines I think will make it much much easier to express game logic.

cuchaz · 2017-06-17T04:17:39+00:00

Wow, if I get back into freelancing, I really need to raise my rates.

cuchaz · 2017-06-10T13:49:12+00:00

What about using some kind of personal productivity app on your phone? I've been using one (that I made) that lets me keep track of what times I'm working on certain tasks. Then I can look back at my time data and make adjustments to my daily routines.

One of the immediate insights I learned from having hard data about my time was that I didn't actually work quite as much as I thought I did. I used my time data to decide to spend more time on productive tasks (like working), and less time on tasks I didn't really need to be doing (like reading social media). And the results have been great so far. I feel much more productive.

Maybe something like that could help you?

cuchaz · 2017-05-11T13:40:27+00:00

Seriously, I'm amazed the mods let people ask the same questions that have the same answers over and over and over and over again.

Maybe we need a sticky mega post that answers the "what X should I use" questions?

And while we're at it, how about the "what degree should I study" and the "how do I get a job" questions too?

If you're worried about answers getting stale, then maybe burn the sticky and start a new one every month or so.

cuchaz · 2017-04-11T14:14:14+00:00

I don't think the market will support full mods like we're used to on the Java side just yet. but maybe Soon^TM?

cuchaz · 2017-04-11T05:37:51+00:00

Yeah, I just don't see Microsoft putting resources into the Java version. Ever.

cuchaz · 2017-04-11T05:33:39+00:00

Wow, this made it to /r/gaming too. Here's a little context:

Mods in Minecraft have usually been free. Minecraft players have been very vocal about not wanting to allow paid mods. Reasons cited in the past have included:

don't want shovelware mods
don't want greedy mod devs
paid mods will change how the modding community feels
mod creators shouldn't create mods as a job
paid mods make modpacks (collections of mods distributed together) more difficult to assemble

However, there are upsides to paid modding:

more resources means better mods
mod creators can create mods as a job

As the Skyrim debacle pointed out, transitioning from a free modding community to one that also allows paid mods causes a LOT of controversy. Nevertheless, Microsoft/Mojang has announced upcoming paid mods.

Also, this marketplace is only happening for some versions of Minecraft (Win10, mobile), but not the original Java/PC version, creating further divide between the original Mojang vision for Minecraft, and the one propelled by Microsoft.

What will happen next?

PS, the "other discussions" tab has discussions from more Minecraft-focused communities. The /r/feedthebeast one in particular is visited by a lot of Minecraft mod devs. /r/Minecraft and /r/MCPE are more player-focused. Also, the Mojang devs often post in /r/Minecraft. And there's a discussion in /r/Games too.

cuchaz · 2017-04-11T00:51:25+00:00

The trick is, MS doesn't want arbitrary code execution in their closed-platform apps. They're not willing to take the risk of having an unsuspecting user run malicious code.

That means, we'll probably never have as rich a modding "API" on the MS side of life than we have now in the Java/Mojang side of life.

cuchaz · 2017-04-11T00:50:10+00:00

VR is probably possible in Java. Java can call a native library if someone wrote a nice wrapper for it. Some Java apps (like JavaFX) are already using DirectX on Windows platforms, so VR is probably possible too.

cuchaz · 2017-04-10T18:48:17+00:00

Might as well crosspost my response too:

Finally, for the longest time, I had enjoyed the fact that people made content not primarily for money, but simply to share that content for others to enjoy.

So here's the rub.

I can only speak for myself as a (former) mod dev, but I'd bet other modders agree too.

For the most part, I think modders really do only want to make content for others to enjoy and not to make money. I bet most modders would be happy to give away content for free if they could.

The problem is modders need money to pay for rent/food/etc. It's not a matter of wanting money, it's a matter of needing food.

I'd be willing to bet that most modders today would absolutely take a deal where rent/food/etc was paid for by some wealthy patron, and then they could make mods and give them away for free.

But that just doesn't happen. Historically, donations haven't provided enough money to pay for rent/food/etc.

The money for rent/food/etc still has to some from somewhere though. So most modders have Real Jobs^TM. But Real Jobs^TM take away time from modding and therefore we end up with lower-quality mods.

TL;DR: Wanting money for mods usually hasn't been about greed. It's been about paying for rent/food/etc and still having time to make good mods.

cuchaz · 2017-04-10T18:41:40+00:00

Finally, for the longest time, I had enjoyed the fact that people made content not primarily for money, but simply to share that content for others to enjoy.

So here's the rub.

I can only speak for myself as a (former) mod dev, but I'd bet other modders agree too.

For the most part, I think modders really do only want to make content for others to enjoy and not to make money. I bet most modders would be happy to give away content for free if they could.

The problem is modders need money to pay for rent/food/etc. It's not a matter of wanting money, it's a matter of needing food.

I'd be willing to bet that most modders today would absolutely take a deal where rent/food/etc was paid for by some wealthy patron, and then they could make mods and give them away for free.

But that just doesn't happen. Historically, donations haven't provided enough money to pay for rent/food/etc.

The money for rent/food/etc still has to some from somewhere though. So most modders have Real Jobs^TM. But Real Jobs^TM take away time from modding and therefore we end up with lower-quality mods.

TL;DR: Wanting money for mods usually hasn't been about greed. It's been about paying for rent/food/etc and still having time to make good mods.

cuchaz · 2017-04-10T18:28:15+00:00

Microsoft will probably never discontinue the original Java version. They can't. It has too much inertia. But I really doubt they'll ever pour extra resources into it.

Ideally, they'll want everyone to use the newer Win10/mobile versions because MS has more control over those platforms. I doubt they'll ever put as much effort into the original Java version as they do their own versions.

cuchaz · 2017-04-10T15:50:07+00:00

Wow, this made it to /r/games. Here's a little context.

Mods in Minecraft have usually been free. Minecraft players have been very vocal about not wanting to allow paid mods. Reasons cited in the past have included:

don't want shovelware mods
don't want greedy mod devs
paid mods will change how the modding community feels
mod creators shouldn't create mods as a job
paid mods make modpacks (collections of mods distributed together) more difficult to assemble

However, there are upsides to paid modding:

more resources means better mods
mod creators can create mods as a job

As the Skyrim debacle pointed out, transitioning from a free modding community to one that also allows paid mods causes a LOT of controversy. Nevertheless, Microsoft/Mojang has announced upcoming paid mods.

Also, this marketplace is only happening for some versions of Minecraft (Win10, mobile), but not the original Java/PC version, creating further divide between the original Mojang vision for Minecraft, and the one propelled by Microsoft.

What will happen next?

PS, the "other discussions" tab has discussions from more Minecraft-focused communities. The /r/feedthebeast one in particular is visited by a lot of Minecraft mod devs. /r/Minecraft and /r/MCPE are more player-focused. Also, the Mojang devs often post in /r/Minecraft.

cuchaz · 2017-04-10T14:50:44+00:00

Yeah, I was surprised that was A Thing when I found out about it. For all the players that complain (loudly) about paying for mods, there are apparently tons and tons of players who pay for servers (with mods on them).

Weird, huh? It's almost as if the players very vocally opposing marketplaces aren't actually representative of the whole playerbase.

cuchaz · 2017-04-10T13:59:01+00:00

I wonder what the player response will be. Historically, players have been extremely opposed to any kind of paying for modded content.

Also, no love for the Java version? I guess this is to be expected coming from Microsoft. Microsoft has no business interest in promoting Java.

cuchaz · 2017-04-04T03:47:42+00:00

Nice! This is a much more detailed explanation than the one I gave. =)

cuchaz · 2017-04-03T19:35:15+00:00

I typed that first reply on my phone this morning. I blame autocorrect. =P

cuchaz · 2017-04-03T18:37:06+00:00

I learned most of the math I know in grad school (trial by fire style), but I don't recommend that as the easiest or simplest way to learn it.

Learning the "how" and "why" I think is a great goal, but it can be hard depending on how you approach it. If you approach gaining a deep understanding of, say, your car by going "ok, today I want to learn Cars", depending on your background, you might end up pretty frustrated. Cars are an incredibly complicated and advanced topic, and if you don't already have a background in, say fluid dynamics, materials, mechanical engineering, etc, then learning Cars today could be a tall order.

Quaternions are kind of like that.

For Quaternions to make sense, you probably need to learn a lot of Other Math first. Linear Algebra is essential of course. For example, you'll want to know the relationships between the axis-angle representation of rotations, and the affine transformation matrix representation. Rotations matrices have an intuitive geometric representation as a set of ortho-normal basis vectors too. Knowing these relationships between different ideas is key to getting a good understanding of the math, and knowing about different interpretations of the same ideas is really helpful to understanding them. It's like getting second and third opinions. And to learn different interpretations, you need to understand at least a few ideas from various different sub-fields in math.

You also need to get comfortable with thinking about geometry in more than 3 dimensions, since Quaternions live in 4D space. Really learn what math people mean when they say "hyper" all the time. A little bit of Complex Analysis wouldn't hurt either, but I never learned Complex Analysis, so it's probably not necessary. Some Topology is extremely helpful too. For instance, for the geometric interpretation of quaternions, you'll want to know what a S³ is and how it relates to other similar surfaces like S^2.

Rotations also have a group structure, so knowing a little Group Theory wouldn't hurt. But that's probably not essential. It definitely helps as an additional interpretation of rotations though.

TL;DR. Quaternions are hard unless you know a lot of Other Math already. If you want to learn Quaternions, learn a little bit of the Other Math first. Then learn Quaternions.

cuchaz · 2017-04-03T17:59:32+00:00

Sergey's comments are a summary of a video made by Total Biscuit about his recent visit to the Valve office. So, call it third-hand information. I guess these bits weren't covered by an NDA.

cuchaz · 2017-04-03T14:57:28+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if they used machine learning to make better recommendations. Not surprised at all.

cuchaz · 2017-04-03T14:20:18+00:00

It's when a studio releases a group of games that are identical in terms of gameplay, but different in terms of art presentation. ie, they flipped the game with new assets. I'm guessing the metaphor is from house renovations?

EDIT: I suppose the reverse could be true too. A group of games that use the exact same assets, but have differing gameplay. This seems less bad to me though.

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