Returning
For the last for years I've been lurking in the forums waiting patiently for the release of Ultra. I thought I'd be a good time to start up my blogs again about The Seventh World. The game that has been in the works for over a decade! I started this game in the Leadwerks 2 days. It started off as a very simple game but as I'm sure you're all aware, simple ideas can quickly grow into monsters of an undertaking if you let them!
A few years ago, as I started fleshing out gameplay I was running into performance issues. Three things were happening;
- Leadwerks wasn't the best at handling large amounts of objects on screen and culling them efficiently.
- I had vast amounts of code to draw the inventory system which relied heavily on the drawing commands, which again dropped the FPS.
- I added a second camera into Leadwerks for the placement of items onto a character model which dropped the FPS further like a stone.
Ultra was in the works at the time and I was faced with a decision. Reduce the scope of my game, move to a different engine or wait for Ultra. I dabbled in other engines but Leadwerks and Ultra can not be replaced for me. I prefer the SDK approach to game making over an editor. Even though you can code C++ in many other engines, they just felt too clunky for my liking. So I waited.
Now, with Ultra on the visible horizon and the fact that I know it will handle the scope of my game with ease, I've been spending the last few months preparing assets and my code library's for Ultra. Things are going super well and I have started work on plugins for the game that I plan to release when they are done. So far I have started;
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Shader Editor
- Edit shaders in game and instantly see changes
- 80% complete
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Voxel Terrain
- Realtime editable terrain
- 20% complete
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Procedural Foliage Volume
- Place multiple volumes that can spawn on any mesh, not just terrain
- 20% complete
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Dynamic Atmosphere
- Day night cycle + volumetric clouds
- 10% complete
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Gravity Manager
- Multiple gravity sources
- 90% complete
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Sound Manager
- Takes into account the speed of sound and adds a delay to playing sounds that are far away
- 90% complete
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Console manager
- 90% complete
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Procedural Roads & Paths
- Set two points on a map and a road or path will be made between them, adapting to the terrain. E.g. If there's a mountain the road will go around
- 10% complete
Most of the code is done for these plugins, I just need Ultra to port it over too and get it working. I'll be making these plugins as I develop my game and when they're in a stable enough state thy will be released with the shader editor being the first.
Very excited to get my hands on Ultra!
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