Dear Devs and Comunity modders.
I always hoped that the standard world Generation is going to be updated in ways that the RPG part of Stonehearth involves interacting with the world more than it does now. (Ruins, Caves, more quests). Well, ok Landmarks will probably fill that a bit. But actually, the streams that @Allie did made me think positiv, I expected to see a huge update and that one day a standard world would actually look like a fantasy world with lakes, rivers, caves, ruins and several atmospheric Things attached to that. Well, her concepts of the stonehearth world was very interesting. First question: What happens with all that work, will we see that in the endgame? Will we see an update in the world Generation?
Secondly, and maybe more realistic meanwhile. I find the standard terrain Color Generation a bit boring. It is mostly one color only. (e.g. green) Is it possible to change that to terrain more like in other games. For example, instead of only green, it can include several Colors, or little inks of stony and flowerish parts which do not neccesarly need to be collectable. Pictures from “Goblins of elderstone” and “Towncraft” @BrunoSupremo what would you think about that?
Your first request is actually a lot more realistic than your second because it’s really just a request for more content, not new systems. Since this is a voxel-based game, and textures are done by voxel, you’d probably have to revamp the whole rendering system or add some sort of terrain-sensitive effects or a whole bunch of separate texture entities to sit on top of terrain in order to simulate ground texture variety like your examples. There’s a slight possibility that the way snowfall is done could be adapted for something, but I’m pretty sure that’s a flat effect being applied and not really a texture.
Now, that said, it’s probably possible to add a bunch more colors for stone/clay/grass, and then it might be possible, if not during world generation then during a hacked in “world loading for the first time” stage, to procedurally go through the world and adjust terrain colors per voxel in some patterned/semi-noisy way. Either way, seems like a pretty big task, but certainly people like Bruno would know more about the possibilities/practicalities.
There are many ways to accomplish this from a technical standpoint, either by generating geometry or modifying the shaders. E.g. It’s very easy to use a texture instead of a flat color for the snow cover stuff. Making it look good, on the other hand, is a lot harder.
Sorry, I actually prefer the flat colors.
That is actually the main reason I found this game. I used to play the similar “Timber & Stone”. Until the developer all of the sudden implemented textures. The visual got so cluttered, so polluted, noisy… I couldn’t stand it. That was actually the last update of that game, and forced me to find a replacement.
I agree that textures like in timber & stone tend to get messy (though they could of course be made better and more subtle than that) but maybe something like the small square patches in this image by @Pandemic could work.
When I was messing with shaders a while ago I tried adding calculated, random noise as texture, just to get a hint of what a noisy Stonehearth would look like. Don’t remember exactly where I did it but it was definitely the wrong place to add it because it made everything noisy. @max99x Would I have to change the world generator to give grass blocks their own material and shader if I want to add a procedural texture to them, or do you know of an easier way?
Hei @max99x thanks for your Response.
What about the art concepts that @Allie showed us in several streams. (Spooky Forests, lots of stuff with lighting) or basically the concept of the world as for example a book with pages? Will this make it into the endgame?
Since this is a voxel-based game, and textures are done by voxel, you’d probably have to revamp the whole rendering system or add some sort of terrain-sensitive effects or a whole bunch of separate texture entities to sit on top of terrain in order to simulate ground texture variety like your examples. There’s a slight possibility that the way snowfall is done could be adapted for something, but I’m pretty sure that’s a flat effect being applied and not really a texture.
