I'd have the kid in the center, with shepherd towers (with a shepherd's crook featuring prominently), and the shepherds firing sheep-themed projectiles at the incoming nightmares.
Right, that's because you are not actually scaling anything or drawing "new things" you are essentially just resizing the window while keeping the resolution the same.
Yeah, and in DrawTileBiome() I'm calling SpriteBatch.Draw() with a destination rectangle that has negative values for areas beyond the top and left of the visible screen, but which seem to be ignored.
I've always drawn maps with tiles. Something you might want to think about is only drawing the tiles that are currently on the screen. Or go a step further and split your map up into chunks and only load the chunks that are around your player. The second is a lot of work but the results are much better.
I'd try to look for profiling tools, and try a simple version of them both. Its important to measure for yourself, your setup and bottlenecks might be different.
Not sure how monogame handles rendering, but if you're rendering on the CPU, it's very likely that you will get a performance impact by rendering a lot of individual tiles.
I am using the CPU, but I could totally pre-render the larger tiles by building them on the fly with the smaller images using a separate thread, as you're describing.
The most powerful tool when dealing with a situation like yours is perspective. Go out and stare at the stars tonight and recognize where this project fits into the universe.
I'm opening them in Blender, positioning the camera to get an isometric projection, lighting them to get consistent shadowing, and rendering them as PNG files.
I was just going to ignore this post, but then the FULL CAPS reached out to me and I said to myself, "Self, I NEED more CAPS in my life and the people who type in them."
Usually if they need to update the game very often, having a launcher that is a bit more stable can help. The launcher starts up more quickly. People can leave it running while doing other things and it won't run your graphics card heavily.
I definitely agree that lots of people in this sub appear to have anointed themselves as game dev business consultants. And that's fine for when people ask about the business aspects of game dev.
Once you modify a chunk.. the chunk gets saved out to disk as a stream of bytes.. probably 1 byte per block type. Most of the blocks in a column are repeating, so that can be runlength encoded. Instead of storing 100 "stone block" types for a single column of stone.. you can just store stone,100. This runlength encoding drastically shrinks the amount of space it takes to store a chunk and is faster to load and fast to decompress.
Do you find that you're able to work on and achieve your original dreams/vision as a founder and CEO? Or are you more constrained by what's commercially practical instead of simply chasing after what's fun?
Depends a bit on how big the team, which better fit with the game scope, lol.
Perfect - thanks for sharing!
We are a team of 6-9, and i am the game designer, working with a small team on a company with many teams.
Fantastic answer! Thanks so much for sharing!
I'd have the kid in the center, with shepherd towers (with a shepherd's crook featuring prominently), and the shepherds firing sheep-themed projectiles at the incoming nightmares.
Right, that's because you are not actually scaling anything or drawing "new things" you are essentially just resizing the window while keeping the resolution the same.
Yeah, and in DrawTileBiome() I'm calling SpriteBatch.Draw() with a destination rectangle that has negative values for areas beyond the top and left of the visible screen, but which seem to be ignored.
Also, if you just want a Camera that works and want to move onto something else, I would recommend
Awesome, I'll give it a try. Thanks!
Foliage, rocks and other natural things that can be used in any genre/time period.
Came to say this. Take my upvote. :)
I've always drawn maps with tiles. Something you might want to think about is only drawing the tiles that are currently on the screen. Or go a step further and split your map up into chunks and only load the chunks that are around your player. The second is a lot of work but the results are much better.
Yep.
I'd try to look for profiling tools, and try a simple version of them both. Its important to measure for yourself, your setup and bottlenecks might be different.
Good call! I haven't done much with profiling in my current setup...this is probably a good time to make that happen!
Not sure how monogame handles rendering, but if you're rendering on the CPU, it's very likely that you will get a performance impact by rendering a lot of individual tiles.
I am using the CPU, but I could totally pre-render the larger tiles by building them on the fly with the smaller images using a separate thread, as you're describing.
Looks like it's leg day.
The most powerful tool when dealing with a situation like yours is perspective. Go out and stare at the stars tonight and recognize where this project fits into the universe.
The game Myst Online is a successor to, and even uses the IP of, the original Myst.
I've found
What process are you following to convert 3D models to 2D isometric?
I'm opening them in Blender, positioning the camera to get an isometric projection, lighting them to get consistent shadowing, and rendering them as PNG files.
In Cycles, you can see that there aren't any shadows, this could be because the World shader is all white, so I disconnected that
Thank you, phree_radical! You saved my sanity!
At the end of this year, if you were to look back, what would need to have happened for you to consider 2023 a success?
I think they misspelled "phognoring"....
I was just going to ignore this post, but then the FULL CAPS reached out to me and I said to myself, "Self, I NEED more CAPS in my life and the people who type in them."
Not a lawyer, but as a serial founder and CEO of small tech firms, I have written, updated, and redlined contracts more times than I can count.
I think of the launcher as answering a bunch of questions for you, as a developer, before even getting to the splash screen:
Magically fantastic answer, mrwizard420 - thank you!
Usually if they need to update the game very often, having a launcher that is a bit more stable can help. The launcher starts up more quickly. People can leave it running while doing other things and it won't run your graphics card heavily.
Great answer - the updating feature of most launchers is probably a great reason.
So happy for those guys, and a great breakdown!
Your code better run fast on that non-existent console...
I definitely agree that lots of people in this sub appear to have anointed themselves as game dev business consultants. And that's fine for when people ask about the business aspects of game dev.
Tag?
Once you modify a chunk.. the chunk gets saved out to disk as a stream of bytes.. probably 1 byte per block type. Most of the blocks in a column are repeating, so that can be runlength encoded. Instead of storing 100 "stone block" types for a single column of stone.. you can just store stone,100. This runlength encoding drastically shrinks the amount of space it takes to store a chunk and is faster to load and fast to decompress.
"runlength encoded"
Chunking my 2D map is high up on my todo list as well, so I'd like to hear any expertise on this as well.
Don't forget sai. Raphael would be disappointed.
Self taught dev -> Jr. dev -> Sr. dev -> Engineering Management -> Tech Founder & CEO
Do you find that you're able to work on and achieve your original dreams/vision as a founder and CEO? Or are you more constrained by what's commercially practical instead of simply chasing after what's fun?