No news is.. Well, no news.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted anything here about MV3D. Things have definitely been going slowly recently in that regard, though they are picking up again now. I work on an MMO all day, so when I get home, I generally want to do something else for a while. However, now that I’m more settled in, I’ve been able to start putting in the time again after work and on weekends.
Mostly, I’ve been trying to put together some content editing tools since the in game editor isn’t really the place where you’ll want to put all your content together. It’s good for terrain sculpting and adding foliage and such, but I think I’d pull my hair out trying to use it to make a town. One of the major methods of building complex things in MV3D is the modular object system (demo’d in a few of the videos I think). I’m working on a tool so that complex modular object systems can be designed without having to write code. It’s coming along really well. At this point, I’m not sure it really fits in with MV3D, so I’ve been keeping it on the side.
My goal is to get content creation and some semblance of an art pipeline up to a point where I can create a passable looking game world. I’m not expecting anything too wonderful because I have no talent making 3D models (and am therefore limited to GPL or CC licensed ones that I can find), but I should be able to come up with something. Then after that, I’m going to start working on putting together a demo game.
At this point in the development of MV3D, I’ve often been unsure what the next most important thing for me to work on is. If I start putting a game together, I’ll be able to quickly see what areas need help and work on those. At least that’s the theory.
One thing I really want to fix up is the client performance. Last time I ran a load test, having 50-100 characters running around caused the client to become fairly unresponsive. Not surprising since I’m not doing a ton to mitigate that.
I’m sure some people are probably hoping I’ll talk about 38 Studios and Copernicus. About all I can say is “Yes, it’s awesome, and no, I can’t talk about it.” Ok, I can say more than that. We’re hiring! Check out the 38 Studios Jobs Page. It’s really a ton of fun working with such an incredible group of people.
Hopefully, with things picking up on MV3D again, I’ll be posting a bit more. I’ve also started an MV3D page on Facebook. Mostly, I’ll use that for random related things that don’t really warrant a whole blog post. I’ll probably also put pictures up there that I wouldn’t want to put on the main page.