The genius has re-surfaced! Welcome back!  I like what you're doing here with the dynamic approach. 

I miss seeing your posts! Keep us updated!

Sweet!  Love how this looks.  Miss the updates too, keep em comin!

Cool! an export option to OBJ format will be nice man!

Thanks guys 

@DexterZ101, Yes, the player won't have to create their own stuff they can also just select pre-made assets from a drop down list and drop them in.  That's another reason why I want to finish this part before I begin working on the actual game-game because I will need a tool to build all the predefined assets that are available to the player.

Awesome tools bro... can't wait to try it out when done ^_^y

Progress is coming along a little slower than the pace I've been used to.  But progress has been coming along none the less.  In the past I'd try to crack out a whole feature in a weekend or two but lately I've been tackling it piecemeal.  Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays.

On Chrome,
Every time google updates chrome I become a little nervous.  Sometimes things go badly, but lately Chrome has been ramping up performance and I can see be improvements.  So that's exciting.

On Dynamic Assets.
I'm happier with the way the user goes about interacting with the tool I've created.  It has it's limitations and creating more complex structures can be a challenge.  However, the more complex structures are possible.  I've only been focusing on what I've termed 'foundations'.  Basically they are surfaces that Simulin can walk on top of.

Next will come:
- stairs linking foundation surfaces 
- walls and pillars on top of the foundations 
- being able to place windows and doors on walls
- capping the thing off with a roof. 

The first part, foundations, are the most complicated because they directly effect the surfaces Simulin can travel on.  I expect the other parts of the asset creation to be a bit faster development time wise.

My goal is to be able to create four iconic structures from the past, they are

The Pyramids

 
Mayan temple

Parthenon


And the one I want most...

Here a picture of what is possible so far.

as you can see the Parthenon has a ways to go yet.

One last thing...
Simulin scientists have recently discovered the first ever witnessed glacier.  They are pretty certain that the fabric of their universe wasn't suppose to cause such an effect.  They are over-joyed.  

Dude! I love the glacier!!  That looks great!  Really completes the look of the mountains.  Construction is coming along nicely for sure, yeah, the Parthenon does need some help though..  ahhahaha   Happy holidays to you as well!

the juice is good...

4 minutes ago, Awoken said:

the juice is good...

Hell yeah it is!   That looks awesome!

Quick update:

Progress is coming along.  Almost every night after work I've been dedicated to weeding out errors in the functions.  I'm still working on foundation blocks.  Since these blocks can be arranged in an infinite number of ways it's always a trial an error putting blocks together in various orders and staking them every-which way.  Hasn't taken me long to find an error pop up.  In fact just today I was pretty confident I had weeded out all the major ones and was ready to report on that status, but alas I found an error that crashes the server out-right.  It doesn't even freeze anymore it just stops.  So I guess there is at least ONE more I'll have to flesh out.  

here are some pictures showing the blocks, and then the resulting collision geometry that is generated.  Nodes and Node Loops have successfully been incorporated as well. 

I have the ends of the collision geometry slightly overlap one another so that a ray doesn't slide through the crack.

So once I get ride of this ( newest ) error I can begin devoting my attention to tying it in with path-finding.
Then come stairs, archway tunnels through blocks, walls & pillars, doors, windows and then roofs.  Oh and also a model-asset placer.  This way you can add models to the game world such as statues, monuments or special pillars like an obelisk.

I'm pretty confident getting the code to work for these foundation blocks will be the most convoluted part to this whole process.  I'm expecting the rest to be much speedier.  fingers crossed.  

Thanks for keeping up to date     

[ edit: 24/01/19, server crashing error fixed .  On to path-finding ]

Sweet!!  Keep up the good work!

A very exciting moment for the development of this project.
Early example of Simulin movement around dynamic Assets:

Sure.. there are errors and I've got some work to do tomorrow, but tonight was well spent. 
Celebrations galore!!!

[ edit: 

Very awesome, Congrats!!  Why are the "simple" things so complicated sometimes? haha    Nice job!

9 hours ago, Septopus said:

Why are the "simple" things so complicated sometimes?

right?!  I think the worst of it is behind me now.  I'm sure it's all down-hill from here on out.  phew.

Ohh!! and a MAZE!!  NICE!! 

Stairs...

Though they can't walk up them yet.  

I've made the stair function so that it can support different styles of stairs.  This is a one version.  Another version will have no wall strings. 

[ edit: 12/02/19

The four structures as of today... Oooooo 

I made the ?pyramid? last.  I kinda screwed up and made it a tent.  haha

Had a terrific evening of programming tonight.  I took the previous week off work and off programming, I think that help ignite the desire.

Slowly weaving the different level collision geometry together via stairs.  Many new bugs to solve, should keep me busy for a couple nights. 

The picture below show's the structure

And the next picture shows the resulting collision geometry.  I've included Arrow helpers so that I can see the order of the nodes.

Already I noticed one section of collision wall missing.

After I get these bugs dealt with I will focus on integrating the path-finding.  Looking forward to it big time.

This will be my last post within this particular blog topic.

Thanks for staying up to date and I'll have a new blog topic in due time.

Awesome progress man! I want the export to OBJ  : - D

Thank you very much Dexter

I had yet another fantastic night of programming.  Ironed out all the hiccups and am one evening away from having all the little Simulin walking on structures .  If I didn't have to work tomorrow morning I'd keep going.  I've learned some secrets to motivation that help me, I'll be sure to share in my next blog.

Here we are, some more screen shots from tonight's progress.

In the picture above you see all sorts of layers with steps going from one to the next.  When I debug I turn off all shadows and minimise all detail, including trees.  This makes for faster generation times.  Once the Simulin properly interact with the structures I'll be sure to up the detail for presentation.

In the screen shot above there are the ramps which the Simulin will travel up from level to level.  Along with all the nodes and their node loops displayed as arrows.

I'm very happy with the progress right now.  Past month has been exciting.  

Awesome man!!  Nice progress!

Great work!  I almost miss these updates as I keep looking for new blog posts.  

Yesterday I decided to finish the job and get the simulin walking up structures.  I had a inkling of the direction I was to take.  I figured it wouldn't take me to long to do and I had secretly hoped that the strength of my path-finding algorithm and linear-path algorithm would more than compensate.  My half stitched Frankenstein code was just that, a beastly creation that took 10 hrs to get working and it didn't even produce the results I wanted.  Once I weaved it together with my path-finding code the simulin seemed to move in all sorts of funky directions defying all sorts of rules.  So yesterday is a complete right off.  

But I had two other ideas for how to tackle this.  I could either create a modified invisible terrain that mimics the contours and levels of the structures or I could simply project the nodes onto the dynamic-structures base plane, this is an extremely simple solution and will allow me to fully utilise existing functions.  I'll create ramp-collision walls that will tell the path-writer of any altitude offsets.  This way all path-finding will take place on the same level and it will be an illusion that allows it to seem as thought the simulin are walking up and down the steps. 

It was a long day at work though and I'm not going to finish it tonight.  So hopefully within the next couple nights.  Too bad I didn't spend all day yesterday using this approach instead.

Here I have my video showing Simulin successfully interacting with a dynamic structure  

Now if you've been paying attention you'll notice that my simulin does a little inspection of the upper level.  That's right, an "inspection".

Actually, quick blurb about that.  Since I want this game to be this that and the other thing I realised I best simplify stuff a lot. A note about simulin attributes, experience and levelling them up.  There are going to be 5 levels of ability for each attribute that a simulin can achieve, and or obtain.  Only 5.  One of them is going to be intuitive direction or something called similar.  Right now there is a function in my path-finding algorithm that if i choose to run recursively until the input equals the output, the simulin will indeed walk the shortest path and not inspect.  But since not running the function recursively saves on computing time I figure i'll make it an individual attribute for each simulin.  If they have an intuitive gift for direction ( level 5 ) they will always know where to go and the best route to take.  If maybe only level 3 then the function maybe only runs two or three times.

Back to dynamic structures.  It's been a race over the past week to hurry up and get to this point and I've made a lot of loose ends that need tying up and general function cleaning up and to do that's going to take me some time.  So until everything is fully integrated and running without a hitch I won't have anything else to post.  Hopefully by the end of the month I'll have a new blog.

Cheers!