Brix&Blox Sandbox - Developers

[img]http://i.imgur.com/rcCcSje.png[/img] In Brix&Blox Sandbox you use fictional toy building bricks to build structures and decorative and functional items of all kind. Design your model, configure it's settings, place it in the world, set up in- and outputs to add interaction to your models, then export the map and play it. Images: [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/main-menu][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/MainMenu.jpg[/img][/url] The main menu in it's current state. [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/the-designer][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/Designer.jpg[/img][/url] The designer in which you build your models. [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/function-settings-demonstration][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/FunctionSettings.jpg[/img][/url] This shows that it's possible to change the settings of the selected function of your model. [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/the-editor][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/Editor.jpg[/img][/url] In this editor you place the designs (your models) on the map. No need to build everything brick by brick. [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/in-and-outputs][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/Outputs.jpg[/img][/url] Here can you add interaction with the designs. Select an output like OnUse (which fires when the player aims at the design and presses the use key), select the target actor, which is a ceiling in this example, then select an input which defines what happens to the target actor when the output fires. For easier referencing, you can change the name of the placed designs. It works kind of like in the Hammer editor. Please ignore the buttons without images, I totally forgot about them when taking screenshots. [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/the-actual-game-mode][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/Game.jpg[/img][/url] This is what it looks like when you play the map you exported. All the designs will be packed with the map so you only need to share one file with other players. [url=http://www.indiedb.com/games/brixblox-sandbox/images/the-working-output][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/WorkingFunction.jpg[/img][/url] And if I press the use button while aiming at the wall, I toggle the selected ceiling design. [B]Right now the framework/the system for the whole game is about 97% done, I just need to fill it with content.[/B] The first versions will be free. Once it's polished enough I will think about commercial use of this project. Goals for the future: - Brick-built vehicles - Multiplayer (I have no experience with that right now) - Physics - World settings (like time of day, post processing, starting positions, ...) - Parenting (attaching designs in the editor to other designs (like a button to a door)) PS: The whole thing is made in UE4 with just blueprints and UMG.

Been following the progress on this. Looks really cool. As someone who spent WAY too long playing Roblox, this looks great.

Will there be a linux release?

Actually UE4 have support on linux

[QUOTE=DrDevil;46976847]Will there be a linux release?[/QUOTE] I suppose I can try packaging it for Linux. I just can't debug it by myself as I'm too dumb to use Linux. Today I spent 12 hours straight packaging/compiling the game about 50 times looking for the cause of a certain crash. I found out what's wrong but it shouldn't happen at all so I couldn't fix it. Just to let you know I'm dedicated to this project ...

[QUOTE=DasMatze;46983317]I suppose I can try packaging it for Linux. I just can't debug it by myself as I'm too dumb to use Linux. Today I spent 12 hours straight packaging/compiling the game about 50 times looking for the cause of a certain crash. I found out what's wrong but it shouldn't happen at all so I couldn't fix it. Just to let you know I'm dedicated to this project ...[/QUOTE] I can gladly test it for you.

[QUOTE=DrDevil;46983559]I can gladly test it for you.[/QUOTE] Thanks, I will gladly come back to that offer later on. Thankfully I could fix the crash mentioned above. I gave the user more control over the material of the bricks by adding an option for metallic effect as well as the roughness of the bricks which in combination can result in a chrome effect: [img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/MaterialSettings.jpg[/img][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/MaterialSettings2.jpg[/img][img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/39/38102/thumb_620x2000/MaterialSettings3.jpg[/img] It's also possible now to set and remove the brick outline strength in the options menu. Here you can see all the bricks that are imported now. There are a lot more to come! [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/39/38102/Bricks.jpg[/img] [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/39/38102/Plates.jpg[/img] [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/39/38102/Slopes.jpg[/img] [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/39/38102/Tiles.jpg[/img] It takes a while to import them as I have to import and set up each LOD by hand and I have to fill data tables in OpenOffice line by line.

Interesting project. Have you run any performance benchmarks to see how far you can push this? How many bricks do you can manage? Are you using any interesting optimizations?

I did some stress tests shortly after the last post. I'm a HUGE idiot for not doing it earlier as the engine is obviously not made for projects like this. After 3500 bricks (which is one and a half modular buildings in LEGO terms) I got less than 30 FPS. I have no idea what else I expected. I could fade them out early but then it would look like Silent Hill. Instanced static meshes wouldn't help either. You can try it out yourself here: [url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqgsigy7gul0d7f/Brix%26Blox%20Sandbox.rar?dl=1[/url] And I can't think of anything else to do with the system I made. I really hoped I was having a successful project this time but like everything else I touch, it failed. I'm sorry for opening this thread and gaining your attention.

[QUOTE=DasMatze;47033607]I did some stress tests shortly after the last post. I'm a HUGE idiot for not doing it earlier as the engine is obviously not made for projects like this. After 3500 bricks (which is one and a half modular buildings in LEGO terms) I got less than 30 FPS. I have no idea what else I expected. I could fade them out early but then it would look like Silent Hill. Instanced static meshes wouldn't help either. You can try it out yourself here: [url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqgsigy7gul0d7f/Brix%26Blox%20Sandbox.rar?dl=1[/url] And I can't think of anything else to do with the system I made. I really hoped I was having a successful project this time but like everything else I touch, it failed. I'm sorry for opening this thread and gaining your attention.[/QUOTE] Don't be so glum. You've got your prototype working, now it's time to optimize.

[QUOTE=DasMatze;47033607]I did some stress tests shortly after the last post. I'm a HUGE idiot for not doing it earlier as the engine is obviously not made for projects like this. After 3500 bricks (which is one and a half modular buildings in LEGO terms) I got less than 30 FPS. I have no idea what else I expected. I could fade them out early but then it would look like Silent Hill. Instanced static meshes wouldn't help either. You can try it out yourself here: [URL]https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqgsigy7gul0d7f/Brix%26Blox Sandbox.rar?dl=1[/URL] And I can't think of anything else to do with the system I made. I really hoped I was having a successful project this time but like everything else I touch, it failed. I'm sorry for opening this thread and gaining your attention.[/QUOTE] Take a look at Antichamber (also made in UE). What they did was automatically turn many small models into one big model, while still acting like individual model. There was a part of a level which showed this in action through a window or something allowing you to see everything in wireframe (stacking 3 blocks in a row made a 1x3 model, for example, but imagine that at any scale). Maybe you could translate this concept somehow into your project? Also don't render the blocks hidden between other blocks if you haven't done that. I too have tons of unfinished projects that I thought required the impossible but you've definately made it farther than I have so good luck with it.

Thanks guys for the ideas. But as the last line in the first post states, this is made with blueprints only which means I am no coder, sorry! @Octopod: As a non-coder I could only use instanced static meshes and I tried that. It's only possible for meshes of the same kind. And the only way this would work would be within a design, because each design needs to be dynamic (they can be moved and be attached to other designs). If I used it on a larger scale, not only you couldn't do anything with those designs, you also wouldn't get the huge advantage of the dynamic culling system (which is a huge advantage). Even if I had a system that deletes faces when they overlap, it wouldn't be much of an advantage as soon as the detailed bricks (rounded, arched or decoration elements) appear.

I'm sure 3.5k models is nothing for UE4. Is there any blueprints attached to those models? Epic recommends to use c++ for performance-heavy stuff so this might be the right time to learn it.

[QUOTE=Megalan;47076430]I'm sure 3.5k models is nothing for UE4. Is there any blueprints attached to those models?[/QUOTE] Sure, but the performance problem is solely because of the models. Even when I use the far LODs only (about 12 polygons per brick) it has a bad performance until I look away. If you want to test the performance of the engine yourself, try taking a very simple model, create a blueprint with a instanced static mesh component, add an integer variable, hook that variable up in the construction script to two for loops and let them add instances like on a grid. You will be surprised how fast the performance goes down. I'm currently playing The Lego Movie Game and I think UE4 couldn't pull of that many details like in that game or like the huge constructions in Blockland.

There is a certain way to spawn lots of the same model efficiently by using instancing or something like that.