I dont know exactly what you said or did, but if you look on our forums you will see that there is a lot of discussion around c++ on gd.net. I am unsure what you are looking for though. You say you want to recruit people for your project, then why are you criticizing Unity? What does that have to do with anything?

If you want people for your project, why dont you tell us a bit more about it? What kind of people are you looking for? Artists? Designers? What?

Indirectly you still criticize Unity by pointing out inability to edit on mobile i would say. But no problem with that.

I am more curious about the fact your engine is a voxel engine. Did your 3 games and the planned 4th. require / utilize the limitations / options coming from voxels?

Nobody got mad(that I saw), we were just responding to blanket statements you were making that weren't really correct.  I think your engine looks fascinating even though I'm just a Unity "script kid".  Lol

You're actually quite right about Unity and this "is a religion" thing. But it's not only around here. Say something against Unity (no matter how solid and valid) and you've got all the fanboys over you. I've seen this many times so far. Just ignore them. By not using Unity you do yourself already a large favour. No need to apologize for anything there.

6 hours ago, JoeJ said:

Indirectly you still criticize Unity by pointing out inability to edit on mobile i would say. But no problem with that.

I am more curious about the fact your engine is a voxel engine. Did your 3 games and the planned 4th. require / utilize the limitations / options coming from voxels?

Yes there are limitations. Collision detection currently only works with 0/90/180/270 planes.

To me it seems a lot of people are using C++ here. I've used it since the 80s and I'm working on my own voxel engine in C++ (along with the game that will use it). I think you should be able to find people to help, but you are kind of giving off some negative vibes. Why ever worry about what other people are using? It doesn't affect you. Worry about your own stuff and be more positive, and you'll most likely have better results.

3 hours ago, Dimitri Lozovoy said:

Yes there are limitations. Collision detection currently only works with 0/90/180/270 planes.

Ok, sounds like a serious limitation. Probably you have no option for angled or thin walls too, so a serious limit on gfx fidelity.

The point i try to make here is: Assuming you want to make something like a horror adventure game and not something like Minecraft, then Unity seems to be the better choice (for example, just insert UE4, Godot, Cryengine, etc).

And this gives me some doubts about your ability to prioritize things properly. I'm sorry to say it that hard and personally, but it's what many others will think too i guess, and this makes it harder to find help on your project. Criticizing a fully featured and widely used mature engine is just a terrible start. Everybody thinks: "Ha, and so you think you can compete with your small engine against that? You must be crazy!" And worse: "Huh? Horror adventure in custom voxel engine? Why? We can make nicer models with triangles, and Unity tools allows us to be much more productive in shorter time, mobile or not. Plus we have better graphics and still higher performance in the end."

Notice that i'm a custom engine C++ guy too, but that's my conclusions. I think you need good reasons nowadays to use a custom engine. Either you just have the money and manpower, or you require some tech that Unity etc. does not provide (like voxels, or accurate physics, whatever...). So instead criticizing Unity, just never mentioning it and showing off your own advantages (like mobile editing) is what you should do. And if you have a game in mind, show why your custom engine is the proper choice for that.

5 hours ago, Dimitri Lozovoy said:

Yes there are limitations. Collision detection currently only works with 0/90/180/270 planes.

I don't really get why this should be the case. I mean I assume you generate triangles from you voxels like most voxel engines. In fact in my experience collision detection can be somewhat easier because your polygons are more compartmentalized, at least for any marching algorithm. Even with surface nets, or dual contouring it shouldn't be more difficult than with a pure mesh based engine. Or perhaps you are doing something way different?

There are actually a lot of people here who will criticize Unity, but there's a difference between valid criticism and just bashing.  A lot of the points in your previous post weren't accurate. Suggesting that all people who use Unity aren't "real developers" is just mean and unproductive.

If you want help with rolling your own tech you'll find a lot of experienced people with valuable advice here.  Bashing Unity isn't the way to find that help and support though.

Just talk about your project, ask your questions, look for help, whatever. If you want to talk about the shortcomings of Unity accurately, you'll find plenty of supportive conversation for that too.  Don't just bash it though: have an intelligent conversation, realize that some people using Unity are still good developers, and that sometimes Unity is the right answer, and criticize the genuine weaknesses rather than any use of the engine or its ecosystem.

18 minutes ago, fleabay said:

Most likely he is using AABB and hasn't implemented OBB. Not sure why one would need triangles for voxel collision detection.

I don't use either but that's for another time perhaps.

Unless you only have the more basic Minecraft style voxels, you are typically going to be generating triangles. For instance take marching cubes , surface nets, dual contouring, what have you. All generate meshes or at minimum disconnected triangles. A voxel can have one solid corner represented by a single triangle, or that triangle could mean the voxel is nearly full with one unfilled corner, and there are of course many combinations. Collision against voxel boundaries would be very crude, and would only really be at all practical if your voxel size was quite small, but then that would mean memory usage may be vastly increased (baring some really cool data-structure/algorithm that compensates). But it's not such a big deal anyway, as you can really use any basic mesh collision algorithm with voxel generated geometry, the same as you can a non voxel generated mesh. 

5 minutes ago, fleabay said:

His voxels are basic and I found it interesting that you were perplexed at the axis aligned constraints. I gave you a good probable answer and you try to complicate the issue by throwing in features that aren't even needed.

OK well I didn't get that impression from the picture at the top, but perhaps that's from something else.  In any case even with Minecraft style voxels you can still use a standard mesh collision algorithm.  It may not be the most efficient choice but if it got rid of a serious limitation I would call it well worth it. With any reasonably modern computer the performance loss woudn't really be significant.

14 hours ago, Gnollrunner said:

I don't really get why this should be the case. I mean I assume you generate triangles from you voxels like most voxel engines. In fact in my experience collision detection can be somewhat easier because your polygons are more compartmentalized, at least for any marching algorithm. Even with surface nets, or dual contouring it shouldn't be more difficult than with a pure mesh based engine. Or perhaps you are doing something way different?

My collision detection is extremely simplistic. Before moving an object, I check to see if new position will be inside a filled voxel. It wouldn't be a big deal (points can be rotated if voxels are rotated), if not for sliding. It took quite a few hours to get the player to slide among walls correctly, and that took some hacking that unfortunately restricted the collision planes. This will need to be reworked in the future, but for what I'm trying to do right now, it works just fine.

13 hours ago, Gnollrunner said:

OK well I didn't get that impression from the picture at the top, but perhaps that's from something else.  In any case even with Minecraft style voxels you can still use a standard mesh collision algorithm.  It may not be the most efficient choice but if it got rid of a serious limitation I would call it well worth it. With any reasonably modern computer the performance loss woudn't really be significant.

Issue is, I'm targeting mobile devices first, so it is important for the code to be extremely lean. I'll probably end up re-working this in the future, but right now it's not a big priority. I'm OK with all buildings being rectangular and not rotated.

17 hours ago, JoeJ said:

Notice that i'm a custom engine C++ guy too, but that's my conclusions. I think you need good reasons nowadays to use a custom engine. Either you just have the money and manpower, or you require some tech that Unity etc. does not provide (like voxels, or accurate physics, whatever...). So instead criticizing Unity, just never mentioning it and showing off your own advantages (like mobile editing) is what you should do. And if you have a game in mind, show why your custom engine is the proper choice for that.

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels. Maybe I am the only one in the world who cannot live without these things. I like how I can launch my editor spontaneously in the middle of the street, coffee shop, train, or whatever, and start editing a level within 5 seconds. I can spend 30 seconds making changes and then save. I just love it. If I couldn't do it and I was bound to a desktop or laptop, I couldn't get anything done. None of my games would have even been released yet.

And the fact that level editing is built right into my editor is also essential for me. I don't have to muck around with re-importing meshes over and over, I just make the level right in the editor.

I just feel that my workflow is much faster and streamlined than using a traditional desktop-only editor. Again, I may be the only one in the world who feels that way and that's fine. I'm not going to press.

On the other hand, what if I (or someone else) makes a mobile editor for Godot, as well as a voxel level editing plugin? Not sure how much effort this would be, but maybe that would be a compromise for my situation?

On 12/25/2018 at 4:50 PM, JoeJ said:

Indirectly you still criticize Unity by pointing out inability to edit on mobile i would say. But no problem with that.

I am more curious about the fact your engine is a voxel engine. Did your 3 games and the planned 4th. require / utilize the limitations / options coming from voxels?

It's primarily a voxel engine. The reason for this is I find that making buildings and other man-man objects out of voxels is just much more straightforward. You're obviously not restricted to voxels; the terrain obviously is not voxels, and neither are imported models or other shapes. I also plan on making the voxels flexible (so they can be bent). I had this feature a long time ago, but it was Android only and it was all java code, so I had to throw that away. That's coming back, though.

On 12/25/2018 at 6:01 PM, fleabay said:

I am writing a game engine in C++ using Lua also. I am impressed at what you have done with your engine. Gamedev.net and other websites can distract you when you need to be concentrating on becoming a better game programmer. This is especially true when you are generating dislikes for yourself and letting it take your focus off what needs to be done. Maybe you are self-sabotaging? Maybe the drama is better than the programming? Sorry to psychoanalyze.

You're exactly right. I was looking for attention because I was like "Oh my gosh, am I really going to spend the rest of my life programming all of this by myself? I need to be more socially active in the community and finding people to work with instead of programming so much." I honestly did not know that anyone would even read my stuff. Usually, when you post stuff online, nobody cares. So I definitely was trying to get a reaction. I didn't realize people would actually read. Thankfully, they did.

The original point was to get somebody, at least somebody, to take a look at my stuff. And I thought I could do it by being entertaining, I guess. But now I know that this is not necessary and people actually do care. Great.

Actually... get used to working alone. So many claim they want to help and a couple of weeks later they are gone without a trace. In the end coders are the team members sticking to a project the longest. Artists... not so much... unless they are on your payroll.

3 minutes ago, RPTD said:

Actually... get used to working alone. So many claim they want to help and a couple of weeks later they are gone without a trace. In the end coders are the team members sticking to a project the longest. Artists... not so much... unless they are on your payroll.

I figured there must be a way for us to share code so we all benefit each others' projects. For example, I need skeletal animation. I also need lighting. But I have pretty good voxels, and very fast sprites, and a JNI bridge, etc. Isn't there some way we can trade C++ code, make it all MIT, so we all win at the same time?

On 12/25/2018 at 5:36 PM, Septopus said:

Nobody got mad(that I saw), we were just responding to blanket statements you were making that weren't really correct.  I think your engine looks fascinating even though I'm just a Unity "script kid".  Lol

Thank you. Sorry about the script kid thing. I didn't know it was offensive. I just thought it was only slightly belittling.

On 12/25/2018 at 4:17 PM, GuyWithBeard said:

I dont know exactly what you said or did, but if you look on our forums you will see that there is a lot of discussion around c++ on gd.net. I am unsure what you are looking for though. You say you want to recruit people for your project, then why are you criticizing Unity? What does that have to do with anything?

If you want people for your project, why dont you tell us a bit more about it? What kind of people are you looking for? Artists? Designers? What?

I was criticizing Unity because I'm frustrated with how everyone seems to be using it, and nobody cares about on-mobile editing that I cannot live without, so I thought this is why I cannot find anyone to work with. I was trying to get people to my (the C++/Lua) side. I'm mainly looking for C++ developers to share code with (develop mutually beneficial features). At present, I need skeletal animation and lighting.

Lol, you're a funny dude.  Set yourself up a github or something like that, put your code out there, and show people what it can do.  If you're just looking for collaboration, say so, I'm sure somebody will take interest if it's as nice as you say it is.   You caught my attention a few posts back when you were talking about your super convenient mobile editing..  I can't tell now though because it looks like you've deleted everything..

1 hour ago, VoxycDev said:

I was criticizing Unity because I'm frustrated with how everyone seems to be using it, and nobody cares about on-mobile editing that I cannot live without, so I thought this is why I cannot find anyone to work with. I was trying to get people to my (the C++/Lua) side. I'm mainly looking for C++ developers to share code with (develop mutually beneficial features). At present, I need skeletal animation and lighting.

Unity has a large user base for a reason. Yes it has its faults like every other engine does, and unless you're using in house engines which take a lot of time and money (unless you're doing all the ground work yourself), then Unity is a great option, just like the other top tier engines. Criticizing the user base in the passive aggressive way as you've done in your blog post isn't a good way to get people on your side. Every community has very loyal followers that will become defensive when criticism hits regardless of the argument, it's perfectly normal and to be expected...

I'm personally not attached to one language, tool, or engine myself, but I used to be. I'm so diverse now due to my commercial work that I view everything as a tool I can use to complete the job, even though C++ will always be my #1. When you're in the game long enough you only hinder yourself by trying to reinvent the wheel over and over especially if your job is just to create and release a game. I come from engine and tool-kit programming, and it took me awhile to get over this... but I'm glad I did as I'm saving a lot of time and getting results a lot quicker.

I would suggest you stick to what is relevant to your project, and forget about what other people are doing, or what they use. If you require someone to be on the same page as you with "on-mobile editing", then list it as a requirement. Keep in mind that recruiting people for the long run is going to be enough of a challenge in itself, focus on how you're going to deal with that... You need to sell the idea to other people so they can build a sense of ownership in the project, and constantly maintain good team chemistry.

If you need to just get A, B, and C done, then I would suggest forking over the cash and hire help.

Best of luck with your project.

Now I have -7. It seems every time I post anything, my reputation is going down. I am afraid of posting now. Can I have a clear list of what I am supposed to post or not post on here?

Now I have -7. It seems every time I post anything, my reputation is going down. I am afraid of posting now. Can I have a clear list of what I am supposed to post or not post on here?

Now I have -7. It seems every time I post anything, my reputation is going down. I am afraid of posting now. Can I have a clear list of what I am supposed to post or not post on here?

Now I have -7. It seems every time I post anything, my reputation is going down. I am afraid of posting now. Can I have a clear list of what I am supposed to post or not post on here?

Now I have -7. It seems every time I post anything, my reputation is going down. I am afraid of posting now. Can I have a clear list of what I am supposed to post or not post on here?

6 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

6 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

6 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

7 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

9 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

10 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

I figured there must be a way for us to share code so we all benefit each others' projects. For example, I need skeletal animation. I also need lighting. But I have pretty good voxels, and very fast sprites, and a JNI bridge, etc. Isn't there some way we can trade C++ code, make it all MIT, so we all win at the same time?

That's what I do... it's called "L-GPL". A software license. GitHub for example to make the project available. This is what you can do. But don't expect many to give feedback. Most are (as you correctly said) "script kiddies" and don't know solid c++ coding as it is required for a game engine. But that's a normal thing in all software projects.

10 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

I'm no longer able to see new comments on here, or reply to them.

14 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... something like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...

19 hours ago, VoxycDev said:

Very good point about showing why my custom engine is the proper choice. I suppose, it is not. I just really like editing on mobile and the ease of building levels with voxels.

Blocky pig monsters attacking a house on the edge between two worlds... why not? (I hope i did read about the proper novel - sounds very interesting.)

I like your arguments about easy building of voxel levels.

But i think you need another one for the end user, e.g. pigs smashing holes into the walls and the player has to fix them with building new blocks... some things like that. And the voxel limitations should look like artistic choice and create some charm of course...