[2022] Any plans for a more flexible voxel-based building system?

Originally posted by Midas: The "limitation that only one block "object" can be placed in one block "space"" is literally how a voxel system works. It's a three-dimensional grid where each cell can have one thing in it.

This. This 'inflexible' system is literally how voxels work. Minecraft is subject to the same limitations; Every game that utilizes voxels for it's world space is.

Imagine an electronic picture, and all it's pixels- Now imagine making each pixel 3d, and you have what we know as voxels.

Each voxel is, fundamentally, one pixel. Try parking your car in an occupied space- It doesn't work. You're asking to put a pixel inside a pixel. It just doesn't work that way.

You could increase the resolution- Get more pixels in the same space; But you'd still have individual pixels that can't intersect. But, the higher the resolution, the more taxing it becomes on the system.

You could create highly specialized shapes that incorporate several desirable features; But at the end of the day, it's..still just one 'pixel', one voxel; not two in the same space. And like increasing the resolution, the more you do this, the heavier the load on the system becomes- So just making every conceivable combination available isn't really an option.

Could do some other things too; But at the end of the day you're still looking at 1 voxel = 1 object. One space, One thing to fill the space. If the space is filled....it's filled.

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜: One improvement they could do, which IMO wouldn't be THAT costly, is to NOT allow some blocks to be placed on each other IF that means you'll have the infamous floating blocks.

That would also need to take into account block rotation of course. So, for example, a plate block placed with the face on the bottom or side, would be ok. But the same plate placed face up, would crumble to the ground.

I agree, JOST, that would definitely be a good upgrade and probably would not be too hard to implement.

I've seen it with the little white purses. I destroyed what was under them but the voxel block is still considered to be "attached" to something, usually a wall, so the purse in that block appears to float instead of falling to the ground like it should.

Yeah, that drives me nuts. I think it’s a bug.

Unless I’m forgetting something, a purse should only stick to an adjacent wall (instead of falling when you undermine it) if it has structural integrity numbers. Logically, a purse and other blocks like it should have no structural integrity, so that they can only stay up while there’s a block underneath them.

You could theoretically have cases where e.g. a backpack is hung on a nail on the wall. But it’s worth having a world where that conveniently never happens, for the sake of bags not floating in the air.

I would love to see blocks that can only support other blocks on certain sides, so for instance a plate shape can only support weight on one side. I would guess the performance impact would be something like 6x the structural integrity calculations, though (each of the six sides of the voxel can or can’t hold weight, depending on shape and rotation).

Originally posted by Roxxapo:

Originally posted by Shurenai: This. This 'inflexible' system is literally how voxels work. Minecraft is subject to the same limitations; Every game that utilizes voxels for it's world space is.

Imagine an electronic picture, and all it's pixels- Now imagine making each pixel 3d, and you have what we know as voxels.

Each voxel is, fundamentally, one pixel. Try parking your car in an occupied space- It doesn't work. You're asking to put a pixel inside a pixel. It just doesn't work that way.

You could increase the resolution- Get more pixels in the same space; But you'd still have individual pixels that can't intersect. But, the higher the resolution, the more taxing it becomes on the system.

You could create highly specialized shapes that incorporate several desirable features; But at the end of the day, it's..still just one 'pixel', one voxel; not two in the same space. And like increasing the resolution, the more you do this, the heavier the load on the system becomes- So just making every conceivable combination available isn't really an option.

Could do some other things too; But at the end of the day you're still looking at 1 voxel = 1 object. One space, One thing to fill the space. If the space is filled....it's filled.

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to make an entity that acts as a pressure plate? What would be the performance impact if you had a bunch of entities with fixed points that essentially acted as blocks?

There are already pressure plates in the game (they’re blocks), so it’s not clear to me what you have in mind.