Hello friends. I spent this past weekend experimenting with training a neural network to generate 2D tile maps - or more specifically Zelda Oracle of Seasons maps - and wrote a blog post on the process and results. https://t.co/kmCU4Y6Zuk #MachineLearning

For clarity, this was made on the engine from ~February of this year. Sometimes I get in the mood to build every so often though, and until the new stuff is ready, this is the version I play.

Voxel billiards, anyone? Cubes roll surprisingly well. #gamedev

What's the "perfect" voxel engine? What's the best voxel format? How do you design for multiple systems? How can voxel rendering be done in a modular fashion? I talk about how I recently answered these questions in my latest blog post: https://t.co/QrrQktifH2 #gamedev #voxels

I have started a blog. The first post talks about some of the design choices I made for the new codebase, which at this point is finally complete and I'm very excited to begin integrating the old voxel systems with it.

As always, thanks everyone for your support. Sorry to those disappointed by these decisions, but I truly believe them to be the correct ones. I'll be back to showcasing some cozy voxel scenes with new features that previously weren't even possible in no time. :)

Here is a shallow outline of how everything ties together. It's based around a game design that to this day is still unannounced, but it will allow for easy modding and I hope to share it soon. The engine will be ripe for sharing/licensing but don't have more info on that yet.

Because there were so many experimental designs in the project up to this point, I've been building a new codebase designed around these realigned goals. It focuses using C/C++ for the heavy lifting and C#/.NET 5.0 for nearly all the content and front-end.

There were other factors that went into this decision too, ultimately boiling down to the gameplay possibilities and end-user experience being much better this way. Trying to maintain two separate art styles is also overly ambitious, and tiny voxels can always be revisited later.

After going through the insane amount of feedback I received over the past few weeks, I've decided to shelf the micro-voxel goal. Instead, the optimizations gained from those experiments will be put forth towards the "pixel art" style that so many people said they preferred.

Sorry all, I forgot to post the link to the extended YouTube version with some technical information:

What started a year and a half ago as just some Vulkan #voxel ray tracing experiment has evolved into something far beyond my wildest of dreams. The sky's the limit from here, and I intend to take it beyond, so stay tuned. #gamedev

Here's a still screenshot from a different angle since Twitter's video compression is so lossy. A full-feature video will go on YouTube when it's ready :)

Our voxel world comes to life in all its chaotic procgen glory with path traced global illumination finally making a triumphant return. #voxels #gamedev

Some gravity-defying vegetation in a procgen test today that looked cool enough to share. The actual worlds won't look exactly like this, but this does give a pretty solid clue as to what you can expect. #voxels

Unrealistically strong god rays + unrealistic collection of trees = cozy scene. Now we just need some unrealistic color vibrancy and we'll be all set. #voxels #screenshotsaturday

Rendering is now 10x faster on average, which allowed me to double (8x volumetric) the flower detail and implement proper ray traced soft shadows, AO and specular highlights. The core design is almost complete, so a full tour should be soon (tm). #voxels #screenshotsaturday

Threw together some quick GI, scene composition and world gen with many tool and engine features finally completed. I'm feeling very optimistic for where this is heading. #voxels

Gentle breeze animations and leaf palettes are now working for these new higher res #voxel tree (and vegetation) models. Proper lighting, a dynamic and detailed proc world, and a massive view distance are coming soon. #gamedev

I've been working on a 3rd revision to my engine, which shrinks the #voxels and gives an 8x (512 cubic) detail increase, among a dozen other improvements in world gen and view distance. The scene composition and lighting isn't quite there yet, but here's a preview of the updates.