AuthorTopic: Blackbox Voxel Tool  (Read 28655 times)

Offline wzl

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #20 on: April 29, 2016, 08:49:44 am
This is shaping up to be a really cool toolset. I like where you take it in terms of scalability and functionality!  :y:

I was thinking about a voxel world builder for some time. mostly in terms of usability and problems its supposed to solve.
Problems like fast and efficient world building for example.
What i'd personally like to see is a sort of voxel template library, sort of like a tileset, but probably more for arbitrary sized objects.
i.e. you build some geometry > select it > save to templates > maybe name it or save to a named library (walls, floors, what have you) > use tab(or else) to pick a template and place it down. This would work for both grid based world (similar to pixel tilesets) as well as non grid-bound(or not snapped to grid) stuff (random trees and rocks dont need to align to a grid but can be freely moved and assembled wherever).
For architecture building i'd like to see features like select>drag faces.
i.e. you select a cube>hover one of its faces>click and drag to copy it along the dragged path. This should also work for multiple selected cubes.

I'll give your tool another spin when i have some time   ;D
good stuff man

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #21 on: April 29, 2016, 12:15:31 pm
Thanks wzl, looking forward to what you can share.

Yeah, that kinda stuff is on the list. It's scary how much there is still to do, even though I've done so much. And everything becomes quite tricky at this scale and various resolutions. But a first take on multi-selection of cubes and colours is probably in one of the next updates.

What I like about this current version is its conceptual clarity, though. It has an almost aesthetic quality on the technical level. Everything from here on out is basically just a convolution. I'll be very careful about my steps, because the greatest priority of this project is nailing in on a specific kind of creative experience, and I need the basics of that to be spot on first.

Glad you could run it. I prolly over-did it on this version. It's kinda a shame, because it's actually much more flexible than that. The settings will likely open up some other version. I wanted to see some burning wheels on the tech, and a first sense of epicness on the scene already, before referenced tile copy comes in. What we have here right now, is a pool of 2.4 million cubes for unique material, tiles, sprites, what have you, on a sheet, for endless copy to screen, just like the mini-cams do. As it stands, in the worst case scenario, those cubes translate up to 28.8 million triangles, and all rendered up to 5 times on the screen. So altogether, we got a lot of through-put to manage, and I think it handles that well. My own computer is low budget, and it does fine.

Anyway, right now, for the lack of save, playing with it is certainly an exercise in futility, like the Tibetan monks do with their rice art. I'm just happy it got to a point it's not all fundamentally broken, and can serve as a prove of concept for study. I definitely would like to see some art tests though. And for that I would recommend precisely to be lazy, trying to make the mechanic work for you, to learn it inside out, especially with abstract art. So the challenge would be akin to speed art. What can you do in 15 minutes? And then I think, some simple revisionary Zelda- or Castlevania-like mockups should be doable. I would expect Pixelation is able to beat other such efforts in quality.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2016, 01:23:55 pm by RAV »

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #22 on: June 13, 2016, 02:19:00 pm
Download update version 0.1t

Upgraded window system: stage 2.
Virtualized windowing on gpu,
for better resource management
by cascaded Framebuffer system,
through rendering to texture.


Fixed screen tearing when moving through busy scenes.

Fixed occasional wild jumping window when moving it.

Fixed key c reacting only to release.


Reduced greatly the runtime cost of the mini cameras.
You can easily use them all even in complex scenes.
Takes less battery on Laptops, from idle to run.

Improved overall smoothness of operations
and behaviour in video capture.


Added controls for transparent graphical user interface.
alt + F9 to toggle backround of palette menu bar.
alt + F11 to toggle backround of cams menu bar.

Added controls for mass cam modification:
ctrl + tab to toggle grid for all mini cams.
ctrl + shift + tab to include main cam.
ctrl + b to reset all mini cams.
ctrl + shift + b to include main cam.


Added adaptive memory allocation.
Currently available vram is detected,
and max number of cubes set accordingly.
It ranges from 300 thousand to 6 million.

If the last version didn't work for you,
there is a good chance it does now.




-----------------------------------------------------------------------



There are a couple things I couldn't test, so if anyone here can, that would be great.

I need people with a beefy graphics card, with at least 4gb vram, ideally you'd have 8.

For Nvidea users, I need confirmation that you can reach the cube limit without crashing.
Just start plastering cubes until nothing goes, you know how to multiply shit quickly, right.

For AMD/ATI users, I need confirmation that the vram detection works to begin with.
If it doesn't, it will assume the minimum value, which should be noticeably less cubes than the last version.


« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 12:45:21 pm by RAV »

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #23 on: September 21, 2016, 08:49:35 am
Download update version 0.1u


Fixed scene not updating correctly on palette swap or shift-pick colour or shift-delete cubes.

Fixed copy marker disappearing on no selection, and changing colour on different selection.

Fixed scene corruption by faulty video ram allocation on high end machines.

Fixed GUI not properly adapting and scaling to various screen resolutions.

Fixed crashes in multiple instances of program and input interpolation.

Fixed selection symbol not updating properly in some situations.

Fixed manual rotation on tile with gaps losing selection focus.

Fixed delete cube sometimes behaving unreliable on edge case.

Fixed unintended shoot-through on paint copy tile with gaps.

Fixed screen tearing and stutter on powerful machines.

Fixed painting not working across sides of same cube.

Fixed failed vram detection on AMD cards in Windows.

Fixed paint copy tile drawing through empty space.

Fixed wrong colour when using uninitialized slots.

Fixed faulty start-up view on some host platforms.

Fixed crash of faulty system ram allocation.

Fixed crash in Line function.

Fixed some internal issues.


Added scroll bar indicator to colour palette list,
for better orientation and management.

Added indicator for detected graphics chip vendor, in lower left corner.
Green square is Nvidea, red for AMD, blue Intel, black undefined.

Added indicator for cube count, next to gfx detect indicator.
Every square in row means 50k cubes available in total from memory.
They flip between a dark and bright shade for better differentiation.
A white line going through them means how many cubes currently in use.

Added manual resizing of palette menu bar.
shift + F9: increase size of palette bar.
ctrl + F9: decrease size of palette bar.


Note:
The maximum number of cubes is 1.5 million now,
depending on available video ram, limited at 2gb max use.
This memory limit remains until the code moves from 32bit to 64bit.

Resolved website downtimes and faulty ssl certificate warnings when using .www,
both caused by server relocation of the webhost service provider.


« Last Edit: September 21, 2016, 08:51:47 am by RAV »

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #24 on: October 04, 2016, 10:24:01 am
Download update version 0.1v


Fixed continuous palette swaps in late game overloading command queue.

Fixed scene and input handling while unfocusing and refocusing window.

Fixed mouse pointer conflicts with window border or unfocused window.

Fixed wholesome copy palette not working when current slot inactive,
or when cycling from first to last or last to first palette.

Fixed crash when trying to use last colour of palette.


Changed Shift-Pick to Alt-Pick for assigning selected colour to current slot in palette.


Added forced copy marking with Shift-Pick.
Use this to copy a single cube or even partial cube selection.
(e.g. to copy a cube with different coloured sides at once),

Added Colour mixing.
Alt-Pick now mixes the selected cube colour into the current slot colour.
The colour is set literal/unmixed, if the current slot is inactive.
Alt-Ctrl-Pick mixes the selected cube colour into all Marked Slots (Enter).
(Note: holding key Alt now deactivates the tools Line, Add, Delete, Paint.)
Make extensive use of this new feature to build your palette on the fly.

Added horizontal scroll bar for palette swap to bottum of palette list.
Palette swap now only updates scene after you're fully done navigating.


Note:
In Ubuntu Linux, Alt-RightClick in a window is a default override shortcut
to open up a control menu. To deactivate this default behavior, use the free tool:
CompizConfig Settings Manager (get it from the App store), then go to the menu:
General -> General Options -> Key Bindings -> "Window Menu"<Alt>Button3,
and change it to a different key binding (simply disabling it may not be enough).

Offline NowvaB

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #25 on: October 08, 2016, 04:27:01 am
I made a space ship!
vrrrreeeeerrrmmm!! PEW! PEW!






I spent so much time learning how to use the program (Didn't read instructions) I didn't have time to make the ship cooler.
That, and I started to large.

Shame I can't save it. Guess I'll just let it sit on my desktop until winUpdate screws me over. :blind:

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #26 on: October 08, 2016, 08:47:27 am
Woah! a space ship! Nice! I never made a space ship. Thx, Nova. Wish I could jump in. Pew pew.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Since the program core is starting to stabilize, I will soon be able to spend more time on improving accessability, doing video tutorials, and the save to file function.

Please note that you are using an out-dated version. I forgot to update the first post of this thread. If you are still interested, use the current >> BVT_v01v <<.

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #27 on: October 10, 2016, 12:13:46 am
Test scene: Guild Halls.

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #28 on: October 10, 2016, 08:30:44 pm
Nice work man!
I'm looking forward to further development and release.
 :)
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline RAV

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Re: Blackbox Voxel Tool

Reply #29 on: October 10, 2016, 09:42:28 pm
Thanks, PPD. It's a pleasure to see you in action working your magic on stream.

There's still too much to do, but one day we'll throw down a pixel party.