Here you can see the humble beginnings of a grow simulation. Every plant is stitched together, out of pieces like sticks, leafs and blossoms. It was not easy to achieve a good look with less entities. Now a plants needs 5 to 15 entites.
Every "seed" creates one or more sticks. These sticks are creating child sticks and / or blossoms, depending on different algorithms.
Each plant has its own "parcel" wich reflects the water level and the nutrition content. A little database feeds the algorithms with values like health, growfactor, stick angles, texture names and so on.
Every "child" entity inherit the attributes of its seed. This is done with the help of local pointers and handles. Everything is game_save / game_load proof.
It´s easy to define lots of different plants and shapes, even trees and veggies. Atm there are five different types.
Thats really cool. I also want to have real tree and plant growth in my game.
It might be interesting for a functionality which detects the terrain skin under the plant type to determine soil type and the soil type might decide how well a plant would respond to certain stimuli.
@NITRO: Such things are planned, but it´s a long way to go. Maybe it´s interesting for you as well, a mindmap that introduces different plant shapes, organized in seeds, sticks and blossoms:
You should tell all your aunts and uncles about this game, and tell them that they have to write a letter to the publishers that they want this game to get a chance to continue with their garden work in this garden when its cold and winter outside.
