Homebrew Minecraft DS - Homebrew Idea

[Foxi4]

Well, when you got 4 megs of RAM you gotta cut corners. If the "chunks of data" will be small, say, 1(horizontal row)x10(columns)x10(layers) positions like I suggested, the "loading time" would be insignificant and rather "quick".

But at the end of the day, it's Smealum's engine. He knows best what to do with the source.

It's not like it's loading "graphics", it only loads the dimensions in which the engine has to spawn pre-prepared squares. Cloning them will be much faster than rendering them in real-time.

EDIT: I just found a flaw in my idea. The binary would have to be stored in FAT, Nitro doesn't allow writing, lol. Silly me.

 

[BassAceGold]

Well, when you got 4 megs of RAM you gotta cut corners. If the "chunks of data" will be small, say, 10x10x10 positions like I suggested, the "loading time" would be insignificant and rather "quick".

But at the end of the day, it's Smealum's engine. He knows best what to do with the source.

It's not like it's loading "graphics", it only loads the dimensions in which the engine has to spawn pre-prepared squares. Cloning them will be much faster than rendering them in real-time.

EDIT: I just found a flaw in my idea. The binary would have to be stored in FAT, Nitro doesn't allow writing, lol. Silly me.

FAT access on the DS is already fairly slow, combined with the rendering method Smealum is using, calculating collision for all blocks in range, and then moving large chunks of data around would get pretty choppy. A 10 x 10 x 10 chunk of land is very small would not make the game enjoyable at all.

 

[Foxi4]

That's not exactly what I meant Bass. Imagine standing on that 10x10x10 piece of land, it basically fills the screen. Now, move one square forward, 1 row behind you disappeared while 1 in the direction you are going loads up. That's sort of the idea if you'd want a dynamic map.

Choppy, yes, but it's the DS we're talking about. Slow CPU + low RAM + Flashcart which slows down the transfer. A static map is probably a "better" idea, but still i'm just underlining a possibility.

 

[BassAceGold]

That's not exactly what I meant Bass. Imagine standing on that 10x10x10 piece of land, it basically fills the screen. Now, move one square forward, 1 row behind you disappeared while 1 in the direction you are going loads up. That's sort of the idea if you'd want a dynamic map.

Choppy, yes, but it's the DS we're talking about. Slow CPU + low RAM + Flashcart which slows down the transfer. A static map is probably a "better" idea, but still i'm just underlining a possibility.

I understand what you're trying to say, but it wouldn't work out too well. Reading from FAT every frame you take a step to fill up your map buffer would kill performance, and 10 x 10 x 10 view distance may or may not be enough for an enjoyable experience.

A static map would have the same issue, you'd still be limited to the space of the left over ram which may be very small depending on future changes to the binary.

 

[Foxi4]

Guess we'll have to see what Smealum comes up with. As I said, a good brainstorm is always helpful.

I'm anxious to see what "grows" from those 3D MineCraft seeds, the project looks really interesting and actually achieves "more than I expected to be possible given the limited hardware".

 

[Walthor]

I love this homebrew idea and can't wait for it to try on my 3ds with scds2

i would even show it to my classmates who love playing minecraft on there laptops during classes.

Keep up the good work. definitely gonna follow this topic

 

[DarkMelon]

Ahh smealum that's sweet. I do hope you finish.

 

[link491]

Just wanted to let you people know that I've been working on a little "port" (more of an adaptation really) of minecraft for the past few days. It's not much as of yet but it's coming along nicely. I'll be keeping you posted if you're interested.

Anyway, this is what I've got so far :
-snip-[/img]

.nds or it never happened. The DS doesn't have nearly enough RAM space for this.

http://smealum.net/mcds/mcDS_030711.nds
Bear in mind this is a very early demo, it's very glitchy, it WILL crash. It wasn't meant to be released publicly, but I don't really mind as long as you understand this isn't anywhere near the final version.

(the demo uses nitroFS, so either run it on emu, hbmenu or make sure your cart supports it)

QUOTE(Foxi4 @ Jul 3 2011, 11:47 PM)

EDIT: Ah, it's that 3D engine that's getting alot of attention on the DS lately, isn't it? Wouldn't the blocks be non-editable if you use that, though?

Not sure what you mean, I wrote the engine for this from scratch and I'm still working on it. Anyway the map is fully editable, in this demo you can remove blocks by pressing L and add some by pressing R. (and change the selected block type using Y/B... just be sure not to use 0; also, the cube selection algorithm is very picky right now, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work very well)

wow! i didnt think it was possible! it does as you said have glitches (press the x button for noclip

) but it is playable! i like the controls a lot and the game engine runs nicely! once you polish up the game engine a bit, add looking up and down and add crafting, it'll be great! keep up the good work mate!

(does anyone else think this post sounds like im an impatient 8 year old?)

 

[DarkMelon]

Just wanted to let you people know that I've been working on a little "port" (more of an adaptation really) of minecraft for the past few days. It's not much as of yet but it's coming along nicely. I'll be keeping you posted if you're interested.

Anyway, this is what I've got so far :
-snip-[/img]

.nds or it never happened. The DS doesn't have nearly enough RAM space for this.

http://smealum.net/mcds/mcDS_030711.nds
Bear in mind this is a very early demo, it's very glitchy, it WILL crash. It wasn't meant to be released publicly, but I don't really mind as long as you understand this isn't anywhere near the final version.

(the demo uses nitroFS, so either run it on emu, hbmenu or make sure your cart supports it)

QUOTE(Foxi4 @ Jul 3 2011, 11:47 PM)

EDIT: Ah, it's that 3D engine that's getting alot of attention on the DS lately, isn't it? Wouldn't the blocks be non-editable if you use that, though?

Not sure what you mean, I wrote the engine for this from scratch and I'm still working on it. Anyway the map is fully editable, in this demo you can remove blocks by pressing L and add some by pressing R. (and change the selected block type using Y/B... just be sure not to use 0; also, the cube selection algorithm is very picky right now, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work very well)

wow! i didnt think it was possible! it does as you said have glitches (press the x button for noclip

) but it is playable! i like the controls a lot and the game engine runs nicely! once you polish up the game engine a bit, add looking up and down and add crafting, it'll be great! keep up the good work mate!

(does anyone else think this post sounds like im an impatient 8 year old?)

Crafting really isn't needed. It's just an extra step for the programmer. Classic Minecraft would be fine.

 

[smealum]

Thanks for the support everyone.

I don't have much of anything new to show but I've been hard at work for the past few days, mostly working on map streaming. And just today I finally managed to get it to run smoothly.

That's just reading I'm talking about at the moment, I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle writing as it can be up to ten times slower than reading... But I'll figure something out.

What that means is right now I have maps 16 times the size of the one in the previous demo working, and I could probably go for even bigger maps.

ALSO, for now I'm focusing on getting Classic up and running but I do think a basic version of survival is possible, including mobs and stuff like that. I'm not going to say much more since I'm actually not quite sure as of yet since I haven't tested anything, but in theory it could be feasible I think.

 

[DarkMelon]

Thanks for the support everyone.

I don't have much of anything new to show but I've been hard at work for the past few days, mostly working on map streaming. And just today I finally managed to get it to run smoothly.

That's just reading I'm talking about at the moment, I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle writing as it can be up to ten times slower than reading... But I'll figure something out.

What that means is right now I have maps 16 times the size of the one in the previous demo working, and I could probably go for even bigger maps.

ALSO, for now I'm focusing on getting Classic up and running but I do think a basic version of survival is possible, including mobs and stuff like that. I'm not going to say much more since I'm actually not quite sure as of yet since I haven't tested anything, but in theory it could be feasible I think.

You are a homebrew god.

Thank goodness for people like you. Showing people what seems impossible to everyone else.

 

[Net_Bastard]

Maybe you could make an SCDS2-enhanced version? Wouldn't a DS Minecraft could really benefit from the DS2's extra CPU power? Or would that be impossible because of the current state of the SDK?

 

[DarkMelon]

@smealum I would also love it if you incorporated something to have the ability to switch to something other than the R and L shoulders because a lot of peoples' don't work well. Mine are barely functional so it would be cool if you will have a double touch to add and destroy instead or something like that in later versions. Maybe 'Select' to switch between add or delete. 'Start' for later versions would pull up the menu for as someone else said crafting and saving and loading maps. And L and R aren't very comfortable buttons to use in a game like this. my index fingers don't feel comfortable and i don't like using my thumb on the touch screen. How about jumping with L? That would be a little more comfortable aswell since I would be able to use a stylus on the bottom screen to look around and maybe add the small menu on the bottom screen. Just some suggestions for better comfort. But make it how you will, it should turn out great either way with talent like yours.

 

[smealum]

Maybe you could make an SCDS2-enhanced version? Wouldn't a DS Minecraft could really benefit from the DS2's extra CPU power? Or would that be impossible because of the current state of the SDK?
Unfortunately, from what I understand, using the DS2's CPU or ram forces me to use it for everything, including rendering. That would mean I'd have to write some sort of software renderer which I doubt would ever be anywhere near as efficient as using the DS's actual 3D core. (although in theory, if it was *really* well coded it could allow greater view distances, but I really wouldn't know since I've never done anything like it)
Anyway, I don't have a DSTwo so I guess problem solved.

What could help however would be one of those 3-in-one slot-2 cards as they include extra ram and I could probably use that.
I could also make a DSi-specific version, which would greatly improve performances as I'd have twice the CPU power and 4 times the ram iirc.
But again, I don't have a DSi (or a slot 2 ram expansion pack), so I probably won't be able to do any of those things.

QUOTE(DarkMelon @ Jul 8 2011, 04:18 AM) @smealum I would also love it if you incorporated something to have the ability to switch to something other than the R and L shoulders because a lot of peoples' don't work well. Mine are barely functional so it would be cool if you will have a double touch to add and destroy instead or something like that in later versions. Maybe 'Select' to switch between add or delete. 'Start' for later versions would pull up the menu for as someone else said crafting and saving and loading maps. And L and R aren't very comfortable buttons to use in a game like this. my index fingers don't feel comfortable and i don't like using my thumb on the touch screen. How about jumping with L? That would be a little more comfortable aswell since I would be able to use a stylus on the bottom screen to look around and maybe add the small menu on the bottom screen. Just some suggestions for better comfort. But make it how you will, it should turn out great either way with talent like yours.

Yeah, current controls are temporary; even when shoulder buttons are working correctly, using both R and L while also using the touchscreen and D-PAD just really isn't very comfortable. I'll have to think of a few different control schemes that I can implement, but right now this really isn't my priority, I think getting the actual engine running is more important.

 

[machomuu]

Maybe you could make an SCDS2-enhanced version? Wouldn't a DS Minecraft could really benefit from the DS2's extra CPU power? Or would that be impossible because of the current state of the SDK?

The SDK has been released.

 

[Foxi4]

What the DS Minecraft really needs is more RAM, not processing power.

 

[smealum]

What the DS Minecraft really needs it more RAM, not processing power.

Actually, that's not entirely correct. Storing a 128*128 map in RAM at all times is something the DS is perfectly capable of handling and it's more than enough once you get map streaming going. The last problem I'm facing with map streaming is actually writing chunks of modified data back to the map file in real time, and while extra ram could help in that, what I'd really need is extra processing power as then writing data would be a somewhat trivial operation.

Now it's true that having tons more ram would completely eliminate the need for map streaming, but that just isn't realistic for a system like the DS.

 

[Mbmax]

What the DS Minecraft really needs it more RAM, not processing power.

Actually, that's not entirely correct. Storing a 128*128 map in RAM at all times is something the DS is perfectly capable of handling and it's more than enough once you get map streaming going. The last problem I'm facing with map streaming is actually writing chunks of modified data back to the map file in real time, and while extra ram could help in that, what I'd really need is extra processing power as then writing data would be a somewhat trivial operation.

Now it's true that having tons more ram would completely eliminate the need for map streaming, but that just isn't realistic for a system like the DS.

Maybe not for a system like the DSi.

edit : or a DS + gba expansion memory (ez 3in1, m3 gba expansion, DS browser expansion ...)

 

[Net_Bastard]

Maybe you could make an SCDS2-enhanced version? Wouldn't a DS Minecraft could really benefit from the DS2's extra CPU power? Or would that be impossible because of the current state of the SDK?

The SDK has been released.

That's not what I meant. I know that it has been released, but I also heard that it was very buggy.


Anyway, this homebrew is awesome. Can't wait to see where it'll go.

 

[Sir_Voe]

That's a nice demo, Smealum. My computer is too weak to run Minecraft, so this DS version has me very intrigued.