I challenged myself to see if I could create Minecraft in just one week... So lets go!
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq3isov6mZ8
Note: I continued to edit after the 7 days, however the version seen in the video is found here https://github.com/Hopson97/MineCraft-One-Week-Challenge/tree/eb01640580cc5ad403f6a8b9fb58af37e2f03f0c
And the "optimized" version can be found here: https://github.com/Hopson97/MineCraft-One-Week-Challenge/tree/792df07e9780b444be5290fd05a3c8598aacafc8 (~1 week later version)
There also is a version of this game with very good graphics, and things like a day/night cycle. However, it was causing rendering issues for many people. This version can be found here: https://github.com/Hopson97/MineCraft-One-Week-Challenge/tree/aa50ad8077ef0e617a9cfc336bdb7db81c313017
This was made in a week, as a challenge for a video. There do exist other, more mature and developed Minecraft clones written in C++.
MineTest here: https://github.com/minetest/minetest
The easiest way to build is to use vcpkg and install dependencies through this:
vcpkg install sfml
vcpkg install glm
vcpkg integrate installThen open the Visual Studio project file to build and run.
Install Vcpkg and other required packages using your distribution's package manager:
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
# These are required to build some packages
sudo apt install cmake make autoconf libtool pkg-config
# The following are required for SFML
sudo apt install libx11-dev xorg-dev freeglut3-dev libudev-devEnsure paths are set correctly:
export VCPKG_ROOT=/path/to/vcpkg
export PATH=$VCPKG_ROOT:$PATHRECOMMENDED: Add the above lines to your .bashrc or .zshrc file:
echo 'export VCPKG_ROOT=/path/to/vcpkg' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export PATH=$VCPKG_ROOT:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrcTo build, at the root of the project:
vcpkg install # First time only
sh scripts/build.shTo run, at the root of the project:
sh scripts/run.shTo build and run in release mode, simply add the release suffix:
sh scripts/build.sh release
sh scripts/run.sh releaseEnd of day one commit: https://github.com/Hopson97/MineCraft-One-Week-Challenge/tree/44ace72573833796da05a97972be5765b05ce94f
The first day was spent setting up boilerplate code such as the game state/ game screen system, and the basic rendering engines, starting off with a mere quad.
The day was finished off by creating a first person camera.
End of day stats:
| Title | Data |
|---|---|
| Time programming Today | 3:21:51 |
| Lines of Code Today | 829 |
| Total Time programming | 3:21:51 |
| Total Lines of Code | 829 |
End of day two commit: https://github.com/Hopson97/MineCraft-One-Week-Challenge/tree/98055215f735335de80193221a30c0bb8586fba5
The second day was spent setting up the basic ChunkSection and various block classes.
I also worked out the coordinates for a cube, and thus created a cube renderer.
I finished up the day attempting to create a mesh builder for the chunk; however, this did not go well at all, and two had ended before I got it to work correctly.
End of day stats:
| Title | Data |
|---|---|
| Time programming Today | 4:16:07 |
| Lines of Code Today | 732 |
| Total Time programming | 7:37:58 |
| Total Lines of Code | 1561 |
End of day three commit: https://github.com/Hopson97/MineCraft-One-Week-Challenge/commit/78bd637581542576372d75cf7638f76381e933b4
To start the day off, I fixed the chunk drawing. Turns out I was telling OpenGL the indices were GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, but they were actually GL_UNSIGNED_INT. This took 3 hours to work out...
Anyways, after this I got the game working with more chunks. I now have an area of 16x16 chunks, made out of chunk sections of 16x16x16 blocks.
To finish the day off, I got some naive block editing to work.
End of day stats:
| Title | Data |
|---|---|
| Time programming Today | 3:15:38 |
| Lines of Code Today | 410 |
| Total Time programming | 10:53:36 |
| Total Lines of Code | 1974 |
The first thing I did on day 4 was create a sky box using OpenGL cube maps.
After this, I started work on the world generation, eg adding height map and trees.
End of day stats:
| Title | Data |
|---|---|
| Time programming Today | 3:14:15 |
| Lines of Code Today | 523 |
| Total Time programming | 14:07:51 |
| Total Lines of Code | 2489 |
I started off the day by cleaning up some of the chunk code, and then proceeded to make the world infinite, but I felt it was not needed, so I simply went back to a fixed-sized world.
I then added an item system. My implementation probably was not great for this, but it was my first time at creating that sort of the thing.
Basically, when a player breaks a block, it gets added to their inventory. When they place a block, a block is placed.
| Title | Data |
|---|---|
| Time programming Today | 2:54:14 |
| Lines of Code Today | 560 |
| Total Time programming | 17:02:05 |
| Total Lines of Code | 3049 |
Mostly optimizations, such as view-frustum culling and making the mesh building faster.
Focus on improving how it looks, eg adding directional lighting
Also implemented concurrency :)