Today I took an important step in VoxyGen: YAML compatibility!

For the uninitiated, YAML is a simple data presentation format designed to be human readable and editable. 

Eventually, I’d like VoxyGen to be fully usable (and scriptable) by non-programmers, so this is a great start. Right now, VoxyGen “scripts” contain a bunch of parameters for creating generative voxel pieces. I’m saving them as .vxgn files, even though technically they follow the YAML syntax exactly.

Here’s a simple example of a script that generates pyramid shapes (spires command with decay_rate=1), then overwrites them with rectangular prisms (spires command with decay_rate=0).

---
pyramids-n-spires:
    x: 50
    y: 50
    z: 30
    script: [
        {
            name: spires,
            spawn_rate: 0.01,
            growth_rate: 1,
            width: 15,
            decay_rate: 1,
            color_offset: 5
        },
        {
            name: spires,
            spawn_rate: 0.05,
            growth_rate: 0.8,
            width: 3,
            decay_rate: 0,
            color_offset: 10
        }
    ]

You may use some, all, or none of the named arguments for functions named in the wiki. If you don’t specify the value for an argument, a default value will be used.

This is the result! 

It also looks very snazzy with half of the materials set to glass shaders.

This update is available in the Voxygen Gitlab repo.