Still working to make the full metal production chain into the game.
First I have to extend the Material System a bit further, as I want to be able to base some material onto another material - that way I can make a material for "ore" which will be based on the "sandstone" material but with an overlay. This basically already works but is purely based on the "construction material" - and this wont fit to ore - as the same material is spawned when a block is mined. So this way or another, a new adaption is needed.
When this is finished, I have to care for a nice distribution on maps based on some noise combination. Initially I wanted ore to spawn on all types of stones, but this makes things a bit too complicated and may only bloat the needed material slots, as every stone type would need a material for every ore type , that's not feasible.
Sure I could do it in shader, but that would bloat the data I have to push to the shader per block and there is already too much data in there.
Another idea would be that a block can "contain" an item, like ore or jewels or whatever .. problem with that is mainly, that I would need different mechanics for positioning those items, as they would look different "inside a block" than they would when just being stacked on the floor.
So it's more a bit like try & error still and it's a bit open where I may end up .. goal should be to be as flexible as possible for future additions or user content.
btw. I know that you'd like to have some more images in here as a more descriptive element, but looking at the current view counts, very few people are actually interested anyway - so if that numbers go up I may make this devlogs popping a bit more, but until then it's just a sidekick I do to write my thoughts down
First I have to extend the Material System a bit further, as I want to be able to base some material onto another material - that way I can make a material for "ore" which will be based on the "sandstone" material but with an overlay. This basically already works but is purely based on the "construction material" - and this wont fit to ore - as the same material is spawned when a block is mined. So this way or another, a new adaption is needed.
When this is finished, I have to care for a nice distribution on maps based on some noise combination. Initially I wanted ore to spawn on all types of stones, but this makes things a bit too complicated and may only bloat the needed material slots, as every stone type would need a material for every ore type , that's not feasible.
Sure I could do it in shader, but that would bloat the data I have to push to the shader per block and there is already too much data in there.
Another idea would be that a block can "contain" an item, like ore or jewels or whatever .. problem with that is mainly, that I would need different mechanics for positioning those items, as they would look different "inside a block" than they would when just being stacked on the floor.
So it's more a bit like try & error still and it's a bit open where I may end up .. goal should be to be as flexible as possible for future additions or user content.
btw. I know that you'd like to have some more images in here as a more descriptive element, but looking at the current view counts, very few people are actually interested anyway - so if that numbers go up I may make this devlogs popping a bit more, but until then it's just a sidekick I do to write my thoughts down