Random thoughts 9

I'm using the Steamworks.NET library more and more. This is a great wrapper over the c++ library provided by Valve. The latest version includes the Steam Datagram Relay API. Good for us.

i got the first bits of steam multiplayer working yesterday. I'm going to tap into the Steam Datagram Relay service. This will make the life easier and more secure for the user as it hides the server and there is no need to open up ports in firewalls. Yay!

I think I'm going to keep normal multiplayer as an option. So when you create a server you can select "Steam sockets" or "Normal sockets". Why? Because if you play multiplayer on a local network "normal sockets" will be way faster.

The game needs better texturing. Right now I'm using big atlases for all the textures. On the upside this is very fast (which is the reason I implemented the solution in the first place). Unfortunately this also makes it hard to do certain things like proper texture filtering and mip mapping. I solved the mip mapping part with some (for me) tricky shader code years ago but the ugly filtering is stil there. That is why you see the individual pixels on all the surfaces in Blockscape. Monogame support texture arrays so I will do some investigation to see if that works and is fast enough to use in Blockscape.

I fixed some parts of the player character model. Knees to connect the legs, a solid neck, solid belly and some other minor adjustments.