How simulating the evolution of grass will not make your PC explode (evolution sim devlog 3-3)
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2024
- I'm working on evolution simulation game The Sapling, my solo indie game project. It's a game where you can basically do two types of things: on the one hand, there are a number of scenarios tasking you to design an ecosystem that meets specific requirements, on the other there is a sandbox where you can build your own plants and animals, turn on 'random mutations', and see how they evolve.
In this video I explain a major new feature: grass.
Questions: thesaplinggame.com/faq
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/99...
Itch: woseseltops.itch.io/thesapling
X: / thesaplinggame
Fan initiatives:
* Discord / discord
* Reddit / thesapling
0:00 intro
1:33 Equilinox approach
2:40 simulation
3:32 visualization
6:48 integrating with the game
11:26 outro 
Игры
I've never been this excited about grass before. It's going to make the world look so much more real
damm same
As a dutch person, being excited about grass is a very common occurence.
indeed in arizona, grass keeps people around me safe everyday.
@@theothertonydutch dutch people are real?
Grasslands are actually pretty diverse. Just look into a field and you’ll find a hundred species, (not to discount forests or anything).
Wow, the inclusion of grass in this update was unexpected.
I mean, grazing is a pretty important food source for a lot of creatures.
was also highly requested iirc
I mean, bugs?
Me when I go outside
the abominations that simulated evolution produces will finally touch grass!
hey why are you talking about me like that?
Ikr? It's very insensitive XD@@sebastianmurphy3990
@@sebastianmurphy3990you’re simulated?
@@TheYeetedMeat you’re not?
@@sebastianmurphy3990you are produced by simulated evolution?!
It would be nice to have an option to blend the grass colors together so the edges aren't that sharp
Yeah I love the introduction of grass but I'm not sure about the Minecraft approach, anyway incredible work
Yeah, maybe make half of the grass in bordering tiles be of one color & the other be of another color or some shit like that
Yeah that’s the only problem I can see now is the borders of the different grass is just a solid line.
@@fernandovazquez1118you can’t really call it a minecraft approach since minecraft actually blends biomes and smoothes out the colour differences of those biomes
@@quakxy_dukxthere is a setting to change how much it blends
“Touch grass” can’t, it burned the house down
i always wanted grass in this game but thought it was impossible can't wait to see how you did it
Now that we have grass, we need a hide system for animal. So that carnivore can hide but small animal can also hide in grass, so better eye can mutate for birds
Love that idea
Without making promises, indeed an idea I like!
THIS UPDATE IS SO BIG AND GOOD.
You litterally never cease to amaze. here i was thinking grass was some far off feature but NOPE! here it is! You are seriously an inspiration to us all. I cannot wait for what your going to reveal next devlog. keep doing what your doing, your awesome at it!
Great, now we need flowers that don't come from trees (and probably root food like potatoes, bulbs and tubers), which I forgot to add in my previous "ideas" comment.
Edit: I like @DG-iw3yw's pollination idea.
thats a good idea ground fruit and flowers
thats a great idea. the potatoes and stuff. he could also have a pig snout added with it!
Baby steps, I'd be sad if it was rushed
@@dougrious_diswiggle and digging claws like a mole's
Root-based foods is an amazing idea. New limbs for digging, which opens up burrowing options for birthing and eggs, as well as predators that dig up burrows for said eggs and animals.
YESS THE GRASS UPDATE, THE BIGGEST UPDATE FOR THE SAPLING WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR
The inclusion of grass bumped this game up to top 5 games I wanted. Never thought it would have mattered that much but I'm hype!
You a beast of a man adding grass to a game that already had performance issues, and making it work! (Alone no less!)
That happy accident with the grass in the water is going to improve the games feel quite a lot. Thanks for persevering even in the face of these obstacles!
The square grass patches may look rather weird. My recommendation would be either/both changing the grid to triangular/hexagonal for terrain, or using intermediate graphics when different terrains share borders (alternatively, autotiling), or using tiles as centers of circular areas that fill grass in covered regions.
#YouCanTouchGrassInSapling
It would be nice if there was some kind of blending so that the border between different colors is more gradual
Alternatively, implement some kind of grass spread/percentage system that decides how covered each tile is, although that might be laggy
Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated! Multiple people seem to be suggesting this, so it's definitely something I'll look into
@@TheSapling I’ve been down a lot of the same rabbit holes and have a Sebastian Lague terrain of my own. I’m pretty sure I saw some videos about switching out his material stuff for a shader graph material that just uses the vertex heights and blends different materials into each other, but I’m not sure how easy this would be if you are not using vertex height for when the textures need to transition.
Also can you list what you did for this grass and it’s effect on the main thread speed? Because idk how many optimization techniques I need to pack in for performant grass. I assume you used GPU instancing idk if it was indirect or just normal, and I see you used a shader to make it move, did you use a chuck system for LODs or for culling? Did you do anything else?
This patch is sounding better and better! Grasses along with poisons for seeds is really gonna encourage diversity for herbivores.
Maybe adding some sort of poison system for all the different plant leaves/parts in a future update as other people have suggested might be a good idea?
Thanks! Without making promises, it's indeed an idea I'm interested in
I think a way to immerse the player more in the simulation could be to jave the animals move while idle and stop when they sense danger food or something interesting
IT IS TIME TO TOUCH GRASS FELLOW GAMERS!!
Great video. I love that you incorporated grass into the evolutionary process.
Btw I think that there is quite a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of adding visuals in the game. Stuff like simple rocks and pebbles generated around the world and particle effects. If you dive into shaders I think you can do a lot (although I understand this might not be the priority). I highly recommend the RUclips channel Acerola if you haven't already seen his videos. Freya Holmer is also awesome.
Thanks for the tips! There are indeed rocks in areas where the ground hardness is below average :)
@@TheSaplingyou may want to peruse graphics maven inigo quilez' material.. i think he's one of pixar's big guys.. developer of 'shadertoy' which kind of taught humanity how to use shaders, how procedural methods are good for some things. also, you may want to huff on a chongus ol blunt holmes and get some of that good stuff in you when you tinkle those black and whites grass baby yeah
Hype
hype
Hype
I just love how great your game is
I had always wanted a game where a player starts it but it evolves in its own way completely random and creates a one in many different ways of an ecosystem
And it just keeps getting better and better every single time
Dude, I would love another video/miniseries where you start another simulation!
You and me both :)
HOLY CRAP THIS WILL EXIST
I love how the squares look. It's a different look but it is so pretty and artful.
Thanks! I'm not sure if they'll stay though, as a lot of others seem to dislike the squares
With the addition of Grass you may now need to add Plant Litter and Detritus to the ground near trees to balance the visuals.
Bruh just a few days ago I said this "This game really needs grass because it just looks like a desert" and you just added grass now so this was good timing The sapling/"your real name" whatever is it.
One thing I'm surprised this game doesn't have is the ability to change the terrain with a sort of brush tool.
Like when you are in the planet customization screen you should be able to use a brush tool to raise and lower the terrain.
It'd also make sense for this to apply to the other things as well.
I know this would probably be a ton of work but It'd just allow players to customize their planets to their liking.
The game actually does have a primitive version of what your suggesting! In the main world view (so not the planet editor), if you look at a statistic, there are two arrow buttons to change it. The UI/UX there definitely needs improvement though.
I'm not sure if this already in game, but having natural disasters that change the course of evolution randomly would be cool. Kind of like how when the asteroid hit earth, only smaller bird-like animals were able to survive the aftermath.
I really do like this idea yes :)
Also, small animals that live in burrows can survive forest fires (though fires would be very laggy)
I can’t wait to see this! There are so many more opportunities for the game now! Rock on!
LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WE CAN FINALLY TOUCH GRASS WITHOUT GOING OUTSIDE
Happy to see more dev logs!
Performance is always one of my top concerns, so I am glad to see it doing pretty well.
This is super exciting!! One thing I'd appreciate (like many other commenters), is a way to smoothly transition terrain colors between grass types (so it's not just a square border). Magnificent job, though!
Thanks for your feedback! It's indeed often suggested, something to look into! :)
@@TheSapling thanks so much for the response! I was also wondering if you're going to say anything about the whole Unity shenanigans, because I know you've said that The Sapling is built on Unity. It's unlikely to impact The Sapling specifically (not enough revenue or downloads), but it's definitely something to think about.
I love this game its everything I’ve ever wanted from an evolution sim and more!
The moment this update comes out, I’m going to make purple grass as a tribute to that ONE stubby plant that nearly made my computer burst into flames by being a little *too* fertile.
"you planted grass?"
"'Grass!?!"
*Laughter*
This is amazing! Every part of this showcase more than the last one. I can't wait to check the update :)
The sea grass made me think about corals. I think that would be a cool thing to implement at some point, but probably it's way more work than I imagine.
Thanks! Without making promises, corals are indeed an idea I like
Yes, it's a great way to make underwater less barren, it would look very pretty!
Ice could be a really interesting addition
I'm hyped Already been loving creating my own worlds and seeing how they evolve over time, Keep up the good work!
this is going to be great
Woooooo
Now I can obligate my creations to touch grass. Marvelous.
Maybe with grass around my herbivores will stop dying out so much
As fans of this game and inherently fans of you. It will be very nice to see this game grow. This is the spore we never got. Your dedication to this project helps me keep many of my dreams alive. Just that i might have to upgrade my pc by the time you're done with this.
Adding grass was a genius idea
Bold move to force a bunch of gamers to touch grass
It would be great to see more variety underwater as well. If algae could evolve into more complicated plants underwater that would be interesting
Without making promises, indeed an idea I like!
While We Had Been Following Since Near The Beginning Of This Channel If We Recall Correctly. What Really Hooked Us Personally Is Evolution Simulated Series You Did.
To Put It Rather Bluntly. You Are The First Person To Design A Simulation Capable Of, If Rather... Let's Call It "Abridged" But Nonetheless The First Person To Be Able To Show Complex Life Going From Underwater To On Land With Minimal Player Interaction And ALL Evolution.
THAT, Right There, Is Amazing, And Honestly Should Be Celebrated More
I never felt so exited and I NEED THIS GAME over grass before.
What a superb title.
I’m planning on rewatching every video on this channel (plus maybe some other people’s videos on the game) and seeing what I come away with.
This looks amazing! Grass was definitely something this game was missing and it looks so much better now. In the future I’d love to see fern-like plants, big bushes and other small plants that will help flush out the landscape even more
Without making promises, definitely ideas I like!
Grass-type plants! I hope they will be somewhat customizable
It'll be cool if it is the inbetween plant and algae too
I can only think it would be like algae
this is WAY more customizable than you expected methinkies
@@nonsensicalhumanoid my question is if that is a new editor like algae and plants and animals or if it is made in the same editor as plant editor
@@de-zo6ex Like moss
Finally, we can touch grass in The Sapling
love the game so far! (currently my favourite devlog series on youtube)
Bro really be smoking grass while making this🔥🔥🔥
I love it! A lot of great games set in other worlds have different grass colors, to really sell that ‘other world’ feel. I have a suggestion though, changing of sky and water color? If the light of the sun can be changed, shouldn’t that affect the atmosphere and and water color? Just a little suggestion that might go a long way!
yeah i think that'd be a nice touch. doesn't need to have much function imo, just a nice cosmetic thing
Yeah this is a cool idea, I actually looked into the science of this, but I haven't been able to turn it into a game mechanic I like so far. I do have something to say about water colors later though :)
@@TheSapling Thanks for replying :)
I WILL FINALLY TOUCH GRASS!
I think adding small insects like pollinators would add so much to the game
The game has pollinators! They're just relatively large
@@TheSapling it would be cool if there were another size like tiny for things like insects, i think they could be an interesting addition to the sapling that would add a lot of depth and new mechanic possibilities ( i have no clue how hard that would be to implement tho)
I found this glitch in the game, but it just made the game better. The fruit’s swaying animation was delayed behind the actual plant’s swaying. It made it look even more like the fruit was swaying!
Amazing work! But a a little tip or.. critique Ig from my side, some kid of gradient between different colors of grasses might be cool, so it looks more natural 😅
maybe some kind of gradient for the frontiers of the biomes as well, so the change is not so sudden
Thanks for this feedback, much appreciated! I see multiple people suggest this, so definitely something to look into.
These videos are SO charming wow. Great work and can't wait to see what comes next.
Me: yeah
My computer: *crying in flames*
This game is coming along so well
This is so cool! I always wanted to build such a game.. Tried a few times, but never got around to making such progress. You're on the other hand is step by step looking more professional. I love it! Keep the videos coming!
I am so happy for you I love your passion for your project I hope it continues to thrive
I got the game on a very bad pc yet I love to play every day love your videos and I love your game.
I LOVE GRASS!!!! I LIKE TO WATCH SMALL GROUND PLANTS GROW AND ADAPT TO THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!
Thank you for your dedication to this game, this is very much my dream evolution sim and I'm so happy to be there to see it being made!
finally, watching grass grow update
Great to see so much progress on the game!
I hope grass will be an easier way to have plants appear from seaweed
Finally, I can touch grass in The Sapling
Finally I can touch grass without going outside
Absolutely beautiful, I love that the grass will change colors across the landscape just like everything else. Makes for some really beautiful, alien worlds.
Can't wait to try out the update when it comes out! The Sapling is one of my favorite projects, keep up the good work Wessel!
I love your work. I wish you all the best! There should be more people like you :)
Just like in Planet Zoo, people get excited about Grass being added in. LOL LOVE IT!
I can't wait to play this!
Finally, our wildlife will get to touch grass
Your game is incredible I’ve never played anything like it before I could definitely see some big time RUclipsrs getting in to it
Yes! I've been hoping for grass to be implemented at some point but wasn't sure how you'd manage the performance. Really love this, thanks!
yesss can't wait to get home to eat cookies and watch this
glad to see your being conscious about performance with grass
hope to see similar treatment with other features
I can’t lie, I’ve seen someone play your game once and I’ve seen the thumbnails for your past dev logs come up but the gas’s and the animal on this video is what made me click
This is useful info, thanks! Fun fact: thumbnails with animals on them do way better ;)
This looks so good!
Every new update I get more and more excited to play this game
FINALE!! I was waiting for these for sooooo loooooong!
Considering grass is known for destroying herbivore teeth via a unique level of abrasiveness, will only some herbivore mouths in The Sapling be good at eating grass like on Earth?
The game has been on my wishlist waiting for it to be on sale, now after seeing a few of your devlogs i think i will buy it full price. Seeing your passion gives me the trust that this game is really something great and will become even greater.
I loved it! The game is start to looking so good!
Lol sounds great
I thought it needed ground cover
random person says go touch some grass
me *loads up the sapling*
Animals should be able to hide inside tall grass. it could read it's position on the texture and compare the grass height and the animal size, and have it be harder for other animals to see it if the grass is tall enough. This could result in some interesting scenarios where predators could stalk prey, or prey could evolve to be short, and harder for predators to spot.
Without making promises, indeed an idea I like!
I love these devlogs
oh i adore this. it looks great!
Thank you Wessel, that is exactly what I want
More things can add: parasites that live partially or entirely on larger animals, map changing you can use to create islands, or combine them with mainlands, or create mountains.
Thanks, indeed ideas I like!
Wonderful work i love this game! Thanks for your consistency with thid game!!!❤❤
G R A S S S S S !!!!!!! honestly really excited for this. im so glad to have gotten this when it was first released.
Now I want this game even more
I no longer have to go outside to touch grass, thank you