My version of yours

[dcmrobin]

Hi! I discovered your Minecraft clone a long time ago and downloaded it. I've been working on my version ever since, and was wondering if you could check it out! https://github.com/dcmrobin/UnityMinecraft

[Fehniix]

Hello! It looks awesome! Currently re-installing Unity to check it out. 😄
I have taken a quick peak through the code and it seems very well written and documented (apologies for the Perlin noise generator being completely uncommented! 🤣 Quite definitely rushed through that one), well done!

[dcmrobin]

Thanks so much! I was wondering if you could help me implement the Greedy Meshing algorithm to make the world chunks load faster.

[Fehniix]

Update! I've managed to play it, and it's amazing, well done!
One thing of note, to refine the game slightly, is not using a reflective material on dropped items (great job on making them actually visible from a profile!) and increase gravitational acceleration. Other than that, it looks and feels amazing. :)

I'm not particularly familiar with the Greedy Meshing algorithm but I could definitely give it a shot as soon as I'll have sorted out some IRL stuff, yeah!

I'll also add your fork the my repo's README!

[dcmrobin]

Yay! Thanks so much!

[dcmrobin]

Hey, @Fehniix Do you have any idea as to how to implement block behaviors? What I mean by that is sort of like water flowing (I tried to add water but all I got was just blocks of blue (solid) stuff that didn't flow and you could mine it.) or grass spreading (After an interval of time, dirt becomes grass when there's air above it) and that sort of stuff.

[Fehniix]

@dcmrobin of course! I'd be happy to help. :)
In Minecraft water flowing follows very specific spreading rules, which you can take a look here: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Water#Spreading
My suggestion is to first implement a block that is able to spread, as a PoC, in a 3x3 area:

Grass	Grass	Grass
Grass	Water	Grass
Air	Air	Air

becomes:

Grass	Grass	Grass
Grass	Water	Grass
Water	Water	Water

And then recalculate the height depending on the distance from the water source block!

As per grass spreading, I would do exactly what Minecraft does as well: implement a random tick update per chunk. Each chunk object gets its own timer that chooses a block within it randomly, which would run every 3/20th of a second (every 3rd tick basically). If the randomly chosen block is a dirt block that's in a 3x5x3 range from a grass block, it becomes a grass block itself.

[dcmrobin]

@dcmrobin of course! I'd be happy to help. :) In Minecraft water flowing follows very specific spreading rules, which you can take a look here: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Water#Spreading My suggestion is to first implement a block that is able to spread, as a PoC, in a 3x3 area:

Grass Grass Grass
Grass Water Grass
Air Air Air
becomes:

Grass Grass Grass
Grass Water Grass
Water Water Water
And then recalculate the height depending on the distance from the water source block!

As per grass spreading, I would do exactly what Minecraft does as well: implement a random tick update per chunk. Each chunk object gets its own timer that chooses a block within it randomly, which would run every 3/20th of a second (every 3rd tick basically). If the randomly chosen block is a dirt block that's in a 3x5x3 range from a grass block, it becomes a grass block itself.

@Fehniix Yep! That's basically what I've been trying to implement: if any of the spaces (apart from above) around a water block is air, replace the air block with a water block. That part would be easy... But the problem is how to do the actual checking, and how I would physically change the block. The way I'm thinking of how to do it would be to do this: if BaseBlock[blockPosX + 1, blockPosY, blockPosZ] is equal to air, then change the air block that is at the position blockPosX + 1 to water. This would need to be updated all the time. (By the way, this is super cool collaborating with (or just being helped by) the author of the base minecraft clone that I used! Thank you so much for your help!)

[Fehniix]

@dcmrobin Heyo! Sorry for the late reply, lots going on IRL at the moment.

[...] then change the air block that is at the position blockPosX + 1 to water. This would need to be updated all the time.

Agreed, but a pretty major problem would arise at this point: whenever the water source block spreads to neighbouring air blocks, we would want to render that change... and thus redraw the entire chunk. That could be very inefficient.

I'm thinking a good way around this is to physically decouple the two things from each other, such that:

1. The water source block, when placed, actually triggers a chunk update which redraws the entire chunk,
2. The "ghost" neighbouring water blocks are not persisted within the chunk object but are rendered separately.

This might be a minor optimization to the problem above, since the water spreading would not trigger a chunk update. Whenever a block is placed where a "ghost water block" currently exists, we would go through the spreading rules and only update "ghost water blocks" that need to be effectively updated.

[dcmrobin]

@Fehniix that's a great idea! And quite possible although I'm not sure where in the code I would do this check.

[Fehniix]

@dcmrobin I see! Let's break it down and build it back up.

The first objective would probably be being able for a block of water to exist in a specific point in space, and should probably create an implementation for it that inherits from BaseBlock.
Chunks & terrain are generated and rendered inside the TerrainGenerator.cs, and we could leverage, in particular, the ChunkGenerationCompleted method to kick the "spreading mechanics" for all water blocks encountered along the way.

A neat way could be to keep an array of water block references encountered whilst rendering the chunk and then call a method on each block to kick off the spreading algorithm and second rendering pipeline (maybe create a whole different camera layer for it too!). It might be not too pleasant to the eye for water to be rendered before chunks in my opinion!

[dcmrobin]

@Fehniix ahh right

[dcmrobin]

@Fehniix One other thing, do you know how I would make a save/load system for different worlds just like Minecraft does? I have a feeling it has something to do with storing an array or list of all the chunks that have been loaded in a file, along with all the player stats: inventory, position, etc. The player stats would be the easy bit, but the list of chunks would be another thing. Also, you made it so that all the loaded chunks would be stored in a dictionary, so that when the player went back to that chunk, that chunk would just be pulled out of the dictionary and all would be well. That's great, and it works... but when you build something on the chunk and then walk away from it so that it gets unloaded, then walk back to it so that it loads again, the thing you built isn't there. I think the way to solve this is to update the chunk that's being stored in the dictionary each time a block is placed. Does that sound like the way to do it?

[Fehniix]

@dcmrobin Hello and Merry Christmas! 😄

As per different worlds, yeah! A seed system could surely be implemented to be able to generate terrain predictably (which would be fed as the initial value for the Perlin noise generator).

The seed would also make it so that all that is needed for the save file, terrain-wise, is exclusively what changed: we could keep track of just the blocks that the user has placed and mined.

As per the second point, yeah! That is most definitely a bug; and your solution should absolutely work, yes!

[dcmrobin]

@Fehniix Merry Christmas! Ah yes! The seed would most definitely do it! So basically, the save file would have the seed in it, and also a list of blocks and their positions in the world! That sounds great. And as for updating the dictionary, the way I think I'm gonna do it is by finding where the chunks get assigned to the dictionary in the code and making it so that it does that again, every time a block is placed!

(Just to say, if I ask a question, I'm absolutely fine if you don't answer for a month or more 😁)

[Fehniix]

@dcmrobin and happy New Year in a couple hours! 😝

I agree on everything, yes, awesome! Were you to have any difficulty with the implementation, let me know and I'll open a PR! 😄