Devtober Day #19

Welcome back to Day #19 of Devtober, in which progress is slow and things are very scuffed.

Today, I worked on the pattern system again, this time working with actually saving current smithing grids as patterns we can reuse later. This doubles both as a dev tool as well as a player tool since I can use it to create the base set of patterns, while players can use it to create custom patterns beyond the base set. 

For now, the biggest roadblock so far has been more in figuring out how exactly I want the grid sizes to be. Ideally, I would like to have grids in 3D so players could have, for example, thicker blades or detailing that a 2D voxel grid wouldn't be able to provide. The challenge, then, lies in figuring out how to place the grid so that it's always resting on the surface instead of floating when one of the layers has been cleared. 

Until I figure out a good solution to that problem, however, 2D it shall stay. At the very least, the subvoxel system should alleviate some of those concerns with detailing.

Tomorrow, I plan to actually start figuring out how to save resources as files so I can both save and load patterns. Then, I can start working on getting the actual pattern matching system working, which will allow the smithing process to actually be "completed" once the pattern is fully finished. 

The end goal is to get all of this done before the end of Devtober so I can have an actual playable demo of all the mechanics I've implemented throughout the month, so that should be something to look forward to!

Anyway, that's about it for now. 'Till tomorrow,

- Ian, Lunarium Works