• I started experimenting with new terrain tool shapes. Added Cylinder, capsule and truncated octahedron as a test. I like the cylinder:
  
  I thought the truncated octahedron would make a great tool for cliff/rock building but I'm not happy with the result. The smooth voxels in Blockscape makes it look more like some kind of clay:
  
  I want Blockscape to have better looking cliffs. What if I add a new "rock with cracks" material:
  
  What do you think?
  
• I see that people still have trouble understanding how tools and shapes works. A video would help but it is not a solution. The idea that you can hold a tool in the right hand and a shape in the left hand makes Blockscape very flexible but it is not what the user expects. In most games including Minecraft there is no difference between tools and shapes. More thinking is needed here.

Hi!

It's time for a new update again!

• Third person camera
  Hit [F5] to toggle camera mode. In third person camera mode the camera distance from player is controlled by the tool size:
  
  
  
  
• Symbols tool
  Add writings and symbols to any axis aligned surface. Symbols can be painted with the paint tool. Hit [R] with symbol tool active and with cursor over a symvol to rotate the symbol.
  Great for signs and paintings.
  
• Paintings
  I created a bunch of paintings for you to decorate your walls with. All paintings are made with new symbols tool.
  
  
• Improved eye-dropper tool
  Activate with the [ALT] key. The new eye-dropper tool will sample both the block type and the material under the cursor.
  
• Hotbar tools and materials are now saved
  You requested it and you got it :-)

• Third person camera
  
• Added animation group to body parts to control parts of animation
  
• Hotbar tools and materials are now saved
  
• Added user icon next to user made inventory tools.
  
• Added symbols block type.
  
• Added symbols tool
  
• Added symbols render logic
  
• Added symbols material table
  
• Added symbols vertex buffer type
  
• Added symbols rebuild logic
  
• Added symbols shader
  
• Default symbol color is now black
  
• Fixed small bug in transition decals
  
• Remove fire with fluid tool when fire is inside something works fine now
  
• Symbols are now excluded from hit testing (except when using paint tool)
  
• Symbols tool now only delete symbols
  
• Symbols now snap to block behind
  
• Added symbols tool icon
  
• Added symbols material icon
  
• Inventory materials now show correct material for rotated materials.
  
• Added eyedropper icon
  
• Crosshair is now an eyedropper icon when [ALT] is down
  
• Eyedropper tool now also try to select correct tool based on cube type.
  
• Added rotate symbol tool. Hit [R].
  
• [F5] now toggles camera mode
  
• Added complete set of letters for the symbol tool
  
• Player attack animation now shows the correct tool.
  
• Added a new player attack animation that looks ok with the third person camera.
  
• Paint is now saved from building plates.
  
• Added painting "Alps"
  
• Added painting "Fluffy Clouds"
  
• Added painting "Forest"
  
• Added painting "Hills"
  
• Added painting "Arthur"
  
• Added painting "Game Developer"
  
• Added painting "Platformer"
  
• Added painting "Pop"
  
• Added painting "Ship"
  
• Added painting "Composer"
  
• Added painting "Town"
  
• Added third person camera zoom based on tool size.
  
• Third person camera collision box is now a sphere.
  
• Added a painting to procedural houses for test.
  
• Added better hitboxes for small mobs like bugs.

Have fun!
/Jens

• I'm really happy with the new symbols tool. It took quite some time to draw all the symbols and to make them snap correctly to the surface behind. It will be interesting to see how you will use the tool.
  
• Spent a whole night creating paintings with the symbol tool. So much fun. It felt like I was back in time trying to do art on my C64. Paintings will decorate the walls in the procedural buildings. You can use the ones I made or you can create your own paintings. Here are some examples of what they can look like:
  
  
  I think they fit the game perfectly as symbols are the 2D versions of the Blockscape blocks.
  
• Did more work on the third person camera. You can now switch camera mode with [F5]. Based on some feedback on twitter and youtube I put the camera a little to the right of the player and I think it works great. I had to rewrite lots of code related to hit testing to make it work. I also added auto zoom based on tool size.
  
  
• Finally reworked the inventory materials preview code so that rotated materials show up correctly.
  
• Fixed some cases where paint was not loaded/saved correctly from building plates.
  
• Aiming for a release this weekend.

• I spent the last evenings working on the Symbols tool. I create the font set and symbols from scratch using Inkscape and export the result to a texture. It is time consuming but it is fun and it is easy to switch resolution later on if needed.
  Symbols should snap to the block behind so that they can be placed on half blocks and quarter blocks. Symbols should also inherit the normal map from the block behind so that they look painted onto the surface.
  Here is a screenshot from one of my symbols tests:
  
  
• I did some tests with autosaving. I'm thinking all saves should have a couple of autosaves and if an autosave is newer than the user save Blockscape will suggest to load that one instead.
  
• The bed contest produced some interesting designs. Picking a winner will be difficult as my design got the most likes :)
  
  
• Crafted models should show a warning sign if they are not protected from worms. It would be cool if you could see the actual path from worm spawn to the unprotected model. Could be useful when I add more tower defense elements to the game.

• Saving and loading hotbar items was more difficult than I though it would be.
  
• The third person camera is a very nice feature. Blockscape feels very different when you see the player model. It makes it much easier to understand the scale of things. There is a list of things to fix but I think it works good enough for a release.
  
• A symbol tool is something I really want to add to Blockscape. I did some work the other day. I'm thinking 256 possible symbols. Basically the ascii table + some extra symbols. Building paintings using symbols would be a cool feature. Symbols would use a new shader.
  
• I added a small icon in the corner of user made inventory items.

Hi!

As you all know the craftable bed in Blockscape is for workers. Here it is:



If you build one you will most likely have a hungry worker standing next to it within a minute.

Beds restore life and it feels kind of strange that the player have to sleep in a worker bed. That is why I'm going to add a player bed that is for the player only. Will you help me build one?

(The player bed will be called just "bed" and the existing bed wil be renamed to "guest bed" in future versions)

• The bed should be close to 8x4 blocks.
  
• Post a screenshot of your bed here.
  
• You have one week.
  
• The best entry will end up in the game.

Have fun!
/Jens

Hi!



I just noticed that the review score went up one percent! So happy to see that there is some light in the tunnel. If you like the game then please write a review and make sure to upvote existsting positive reviews. Right now the most helpful ones are very old and doesn't make much sense for new users.

• Save building plate content to inventory
  This makes it possible to create your own inventory items. You can even save content to different states to create your own mechanical items like doors. Check out this video where I create a simple double door:
  
  
  
  Items created this way are stores in a separate place (%userprofile%/AppData/Roaming/Blockscape/Tools) and will not be overwritten by future updates.
  
• Redesigned in-game menu
  I added a proper background to make it easier to read adn reworked the layout a bit.

• Fixed metal water reflections.
  
• Dynamics are now rendered correctly. See Towers.
  
• Monsters will now fade instead of popping up.
  
• Added save building plate content to inventory
  
• Added save building plate content state to inventory
  
• Save to inventory menu
  
• Fixed controls menu clips key mapping.
  
• Added background to in game menus
  
• Menu is now a bit less transparent
  
• Building plate functions now cares about building plate rotation.
  
• Renamed Building plate "Save" to "Save to file".
  
• RenamedBuilding plate "Load" to "Load from file".
  
• Fixed menu flickering.
  
• Fixed game crash when trying to create vehicle from empty building plate
  
• Fixed game crash when loading models bigger than building plate

Have fun!
/Jens

Hi!



If you opt in the unstable branch you can now test some experimental settings for lower end machines.

The recommended setting for low end machines is now as follows:

• View distance: Very low or Low
  
• Shaders: Low (Disables SSAO and other edge enhancements. Disables shadow filtering)
  
• Virtual resolution: Low (Renders the 3d view at a lower resolution. Hud and inventory is rendered at full resolution)
  
• World detail: Low
  
• Foliage quality: Low
  
• Water quality: Low
  
• Surface quality: High
  
• V-Sync: On (Should be on for any configuration)

• Blur shadows: Off
  
• Post processing: Off

// Autumn Grass 2 is now visible again.
// Fixed flickering shadows when Water quality is set to low (= world reflections off)
// Added lowrez mode
// Added simpleshaders chat command
// Added lowrez chat command
// Added drawreflectedterrain chat command
// Added simple shaders mode
// Added shaders quality setting
// Added virtual resolution quality setting

Have fun!
/Jens

It's finally out!



I have worked so hard on this release. It's still far from what I have in mind but at least we are one big step closer. I really hope you like it!

• Modular building parts and Adaptive modular building parts.
  With the tiny voxel size in Blockscape It can take a very long time just to build a simple house. Modular building parts works on collection of blocks to speed up the building process. You can now place entire floors and walls with a single click.
  
• Smoother voxels
  All terrain voxels are now smooth.
  
• Better visuals
  Lots of changes in color grading and post effects to give you a better looking Blockscape.
  
• New particle system
  Falling leaves, smoke and dust particles.
  
• Inventory sorting
  Blockscape has a huge number of tools, shapes and materials.
  
• Physics engine
  I have integrated the Bepu physics engine into the heart of Blockscape. Moet of the functionality is currently hidden but you will see some cool features added in the next updates.
  
• Vehicles
  This is an experimental feature. Using building plates you can now build vehicles and drive around the landscape.
  
• New faster rendering engine
  
• New Protector mob
  They are guarding shrines around the world. Not much fun yet but you can try to kill them in survival mode :)
  
• New water simulation and rendering
  Workd better and looks better. You can now go with the flow :)
  
• New fire simulation
  Fire now spreads correctly and burns wood into charcoal and foliage into nothing.
  
• Wheat farming
  You can now plant wheat seeds, water the soil, harvest the wheat and bake bread. If you know your Blockscape you can even make workers do all that for you.

// Added support for Modular Building Parts.
// Added many Modular Building Parts. More to come.
// It is now possible to paint all parts in a state model.
// Added new tool tab for mbp.
// Changed rayleigh scattering to make landscape more saturated.
// Fixed height of Roof Double MBP.
// MBP non solid blocks don't overwrite solid blocks anymore.
// MBP Corners now snap to floor
// Many changes to snapping logic to handle snapping size not equal to tool size
// Added level tool
// Added Raise terrain tool
// New gravel texture
// Gravel is now the default beach material with a 50% chance of being converted to sand in spring and summer biomes.
// Fixed some issues with the stone brick texture
// Fixed errors in the oak leaves texture
// Fixed errors in the birch leaves texture
// More size variation to grass and flowers
// Games will now always start with clear weather. After some time there will be a small chance of foggy wheater.
// MBP Corners now snaps to wall y pos
// Fixed MBP Roof double half snapping errors
// Other state model blocks are now protected when deleting a state model.
// Added some more detail to grass plant textures
// Added procedural second layer to grass. Leaves for autumn/dry grass, blue and white flowers for spring grass and yellow flowers for summer grass.
// Added reed (very high grass). Grows near water in summer biomes.
// Grass can now be generated down to water level in spring and summer biomes.
// Recativated some old block types (quarter sphere, quarter sphere small, slope 45 small)
// Fixed rare missing blocks on some modular building parts (like lower overhang cubes on roofs)
// Fixed cases where some plants was not generated on LOD 0 world chunks
// Added distant terrain normal mapping
// Fixed some errors in snow texture
// Fixed most (all?) of the holes in the terrain near water
// [LALT] + [LSHIFT] + [RMB] to split modular building parts into blocks.
// Tools inventory sorting. Use sort_name tag in tool xml.
// Materials inventory sorting. See materials.csv.
// Fixed normal interpolation and material transition at world chunk borders
// Generated buildings should use MBP floors
// Generated buildings should use MBP outer walls
// Generated buildings should use MBP inner walls
// Generated buildings should use MBP ceilings
// Add bounding size to block models
// Fixed "Slope c3 can't be placed upside down".
// Added new bounding tag to block models.
// Added bounding to walls for roof auto parts
// Added bounding to states
// Added adaptive modular building parts.
// Save State models bits.
// Physics support using Bepuphysics
// Added support for Vehicles.
// Create/modify vehicles using building plates.
// Inventory items should never scaled up if smaller than one block.
// New particle system.
// New color grading.
// Grass is now only generated on top layer.
// Added fire particles.
// Added smoke particles
// Fixed normal interpolation errors between max lod level chunks.
// Golem detonation does not generate fire anymore.
// Crater from detonations was too big.
// Fixed some materials are not affected by detonations.
// Fixed house floors are not affected by detonations.
// Fixed pitched hurt sound.
// Added particle emitters.
// Added protector mob.
// Fixed Protector hitbox.
// Fixed Flower particles starts from the wrong (root) place.
// Fixed Player attack on Protector.
// Fixed Detonations against Entities doesnt work properly because damage is calculated from entity center.
// Fixed inventory 3d objects rendering
// Added Load cube model to building plate.
// Protector eyes now light up when player is close
// Removed growth on cliffs underwater.
// Fixed Protector spawn pos.
// Fixed spawn offset for settlers.
// Fixed destruction particles from big things.
// Fixed Can't dig when holding certain tools.
// Added ferns to forests.
// Added shrine entrance.
// Improved snow texture.
// Removed scalar field voxel data in rooms.
// AMBP now check if add bits have changed before split.
// Holding mouse over a state model now shows a red box around it if in delete mode
// Fixed swimming. Now Only head is above water surface.
// Health is now regenerating correctly.
// Fixed fire doesn't spread to scalar field voxels.
// New water simulation.
// New water rendering.
// Flowing water will now push player.
// Fixed terrain not receiving light from point light sources.
// Fixed protector shadows.
// Fixed missing iventory fluid texts.
// Fixed fluid horizontal movement against blocks.
// Water now removes any fire that is one block away.
// Fire now turns wood into coal.
// Fire now turns plants into nothing.
// Added falling leaves particles from trees.
// Fixed fire simulation speed
// Fire now disapear when coal is burned out.
// Fixed invisible workers.
// Materials now give off smoke when burned out.
// Added smoke fluid.
// Player now take damage from fire.
// Removed water from basement to tunnel entrance.
// Fixed slow running simulation cases.
// Fixed Tree saplings complain about ground material.
// Fixed Only first level of tree tree growth works.
// Fixed wrong Plant seed inventory material names.
// Added wet soil material.
// Water now convert Soil into Wet soil
// Wheat now turn Wet soil into Soild when tasm state is activated.
// Wheat growth stages now convert wet soil into normal soil.
// Fixed mining of water in survival mode.
// Fixed strange garbage near borders in some of the modular building parts.
// Fixed digging with blocky tool on thin scalar field voxels.
// Better icon for water fluids.
// Fixed strange surface garbage near world chunk borders.
// Black small "ball" cursor now show intersection point for all cursor types.
// Wheat now drops wheat seeds.
// Grass now drop wheat (rare).
// Wheat are now state models.
// Fixed Workers rendering error.
// Fixed Worker hands colors doesn't match head color.
// Added new "Eternal Coal" material used by torches and other fire hostsut!
// Added bread.
// Fixed worms now working in some cases.
// Added small bottle with water recipe.
// Fixed Wrong item description for recipes in Crafting Screen.
// Eternal charcoal now only allow fire to burn inside the block.
// Fixed recipe for torch (Must not include eternal charcoal as ingredient).
// Added Salt from Enigmas recipe
// Added Baking bread recipes.
// MBlock tool should remove plants.
// Fixed dead Protectors are alive after game is reloaded.
// Bombs wont destroy protected buildings anymore.
// Throwing bombs now affects inventory.
// Fixed Guard attack damage.

Have fun!

Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/JensBlomquist
Follow Blockscape on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Blockscape-335553083150079

/Jens

Hi!

Time flies. I'm working really hard here to give you the next update and sometimes some things just takes a lot of time. Here is what to expect in the next update:

• Procedural building are now made of modular building parts.
  I decided to convert all the procedural buildings so that they are made of the new modular building parts. This will make it much easier to modify existing buildings and it will also give you an idea of how to use the modular building parts.
  
• Fixed all interpolation and material transition errors between world chunks.
  This was really hard to fix but the result is really good. I had to rework some of the more advanced parts of the engine to have all the information available near the borders. When I got it working it was way to slow so I had to figure out ways to optimize it which took me a lot of time.
  
• Many new modular building parts.
  
• You can now split modular building parts into blocks.

This will be the final preview before a proper v14 release.

best regards
Jens