debating what i wanna do with grass in my engine. atm i have a block shader, and a model shader. i feel like i could efficiently implement shell textured grass by making a shell texturing shader, but i also don't want to balloon the number of different shaders i need to render all my terrain

i could just use the model shader, but it becomes a pain in the ass to implement shell textured terrain then

i could try and combine it with the block shader but they both do really different things

hmm if i want to add bits to the shell texturing so it doesn't look bad viewed side-on i kinda have to go the model route

though i figured out i can get away with only 6 variations to get all the edge transitions that could be doable if a bit annoying

i'm overthinking the grass thing so i've made the textures required to make the shells for a 16-tile transition and i'll just generate the model for each of those 16 and implement them in the engine and move on so i don't wind up blocked by choice paralysis

if i want i can always just change it later

hell yeah, grassy voxels

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here it is compared to my style guide image. how did i do, chat?

i probably wanna pull the grass away from the edge a bit more because it obscures the outlines, but i'm pretty happy with this overall

At the moment the wild grass is actually a block on top of the dirt (like carpets in minecraft) but I'm thinking maybe I should change it so that the grass is part of the dirt block that sticks out above it as it were. That way things can occupy the same block as the grass without deleting it, like shrubs, flowers, or other non-opaque blocks

here's another close up i really enjoyed of the terrain in my block game

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i've got columns of chunks working, but they're not really connected at the moment so i gotta fix that next

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chunks connect properly now! with bonus shot of the sprawling cave systems beneath the surface

i made a staged chunk generation system where chunks can request their neighbors be generated but only up to a certain stage, which keeps the generation from going infinitely in all directions, because the requested stage must always be lower than the chunk's current stage of generation

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you can see through the sides of chunks now because the chunks (correctly!) note that their underground sides faces are obscured. it's just that they're obscured by chunks you can't see because they haven't fully been generated yet

who's got two thumbs and infinitely spawning terrain? this girl

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holy shit this is already spawning some sick caves, look at the awesome ravine i found at the end of this clip!

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decided to add some simple caverns so it's not noodle caves all the way down

babe wake up, new block type just dropped

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@eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place dang that is a snazzy rock texture

@Cyborus @eniko eh it looks a little … cobbled together

can i just say its interesting what happens to a block game aesthetic when you're not afraid of following oldschool pixel art techniques like minecraft seems to be