Grass growth

It seems like grass would randomly be growing everywhere. Wouldn't it be better if it spread like in terraria? So first you search for dirt blocks with already grown grass and then search all the dirt blocks around it and add grass to those.

Would it be possible to read the map.png and find all the grass blocks here instead of searching (at the beginning of the game)?
Then each grass block can be added to a list or something which is checked every few seconds and if those blocks have no grass, they are removed from the list. If they do have grass then you search all surrounding dirt blocks. If there is a nearby dirt block that has nothing on top, then grass is grown on it, and that new grass block is also added to the list.

Or maybe this could be done client side and it can be one of the tick box things in settings so people can choose whether they want it on or not.

 

It shouldn't be client sided due to it possibly used as tactics (lying down in the grass).

 

A nice starting point from Geti. Quite simple.

Yeah, that might be a good idea. The map loader has to iterate through everything anyway. It would grow very fast though, unless you adjust the tick rate. It doesn't quite have the same consistent performance appeal of Geti's suggestion. It doesn't seem like a very costly operation either way though.

Most of the time, the dirt tiles below them is going to erode. If growing new grass is a good idea or not, I'm not sure. It is perhaps unlikely that map designers place grass strategically, or the opposite. It's simple enough though, just look for empty tiles with a dirt tile below. You might have to check for overlapping blobs too though (stuff like workbenches) because the grass gets in the way, visually.

I might incorporate something along these lines myself.

 

When you build a shop wood back walls are automatically made. If a fire arrow destroys those back walls and the shop still stands then it looks bad anyway, having grass under will just make it look like it's out side more.

 

I tried parts of your code, Geti, and it seems to work for the most part, but when the player cut the grass, nothing happens to it. Isn't the tile type changed, perhaps?

For those that are curious, I built up an array of offset coordinates in my own PNG loader, and added a Map script to iterate over it. Extracted code below.

Code:

//Enumeration used when storing special offsets when loading a map (extends enumeration in BasePNGLoader.as)
enum UndeadInvasionPNGLoaderOffset {
  UNDEADINVASION_POI = offsets_count + 1, //Point of interest (not used)
  UNDEADINVASION_GRASS_CANDIDATE,         //Sky tiles (for post-stage check for grass growth)
  UNDEADINVASION_OFFSETS_COUNT            //End reference
};

class UndeadInvasionPNGLoader : PNGLoader {

  //Keep an array of grass candidate tile offsets
  int[] mGrassCandidateOffsets;

  UndeadInvasionPNGLoader()    {

    super();
  
  }

  bool loadMap(CMap@ map, const string& in filename) override {

    bool result = false;
  
    //Call super class' version of this method
    result = PNGLoader::loadMap(map, filename);
  
    //Store grass candidate tile offsets
    map.set("grassCandidateOffsets", mGrassCandidateOffsets);

    //Finished, return result
    return result;
  
  }

  void handlePixel(SColor color_pixel, int offset) override {

    //Call super class' version of this method, to make sure we don't miss out on any default behaviour
    PNGLoader::handlePixel(color_pixel, offset);
  
    //Check if empty/sky
    if(color_pixel == sky || color_pixel == color_tile_grass) {
  
      offsets[UNDEADINVASION_GRASS_CANDIDATE].push_back(offset);                //Store offset reference
    
    }
  
    //Finished
    return;
  
  }

  void handleOffset(int type, int offset, int position, int count) override {

    //Call super class' version of this method, to make sure we don't miss out on any default behaviour
    PNGLoader::handleOffset(type, offset, position, count);
  
    //If grass candidate
    if(type == UNDEADINVASION_GRASS_CANDIDATE) {
  
      //Determine offset number for tile below
      int belowOffset = offset + map.tilemapwidth;
    
      //Determine offset number for the very last tile in the map
      int lastOffset = map.tilemapwidth * map.tilemapheight - 1;
    
      //Check if tile below is dirt/ground
      if(belowOffset <= lastOffset && map.getTile(belowOffset).type == CMap::tile_ground) {
    
        //Add this tile's offset
        mGrassCandidateOffsets.push_back(offset);
      
      }
    
    }
  
    //Finished
    return;
  
  }

}

Code:

void onInit(CMap@ this) {

  this.set_u32("nextGrassCandidateIndex", 0);

}

void onTick(CMap@ this) {

  //Retrieve all grass candidate offsets
  int[] grassCandidateOffsets;
  this.get("grassCandidateOffsets", grassCandidateOffsets);

  //Retrive next candidate index
  u32 nextGrassCandidateIndex = this.get_u32("nextGrassCandidateIndex");

  //Find next offset
  int nextOffset = grassCandidateOffsets[nextGrassCandidateIndex];

  //Find tile
  Tile tile = this.getTile(nextOffset);
  print("type:" + tile.type);
  //Check if grass type and not yet fully grown (Thank you, Geti)
  if(this.isTileGrass(tile.type) && tile.type != CMap::tile_grass) {

    //Get position
    Vec2f position = this.getTileWorldPosition(nextOffset);
 
    //Grow grass (grass tiles are in decreasing order)
    this.server_SetTile(position, tile.type - 1);
 
  }

  //Increment
  nextGrassCandidateIndex++;

  //Start over if end is reached
  if(nextGrassCandidateIndex > grassCandidateOffsets.length - 1) {
    nextGrassCandidateIndex = 0;
  }

  //Update index
  this.set_u32("nextGrassCandidateIndex", nextGrassCandidateIndex);

}

 

While isolating into a separate example mod, and running it, it did indeed work as expected, so I will have to look closer into why it's not working in my original project.

Anyway, the code is available here for those that are interested:
https://github.com/ANybakk/kag-grassgrowth