Anyone out there?

Although I personally am very much out of the loop these days, I still keep an eye peeled on Manic Digger, and came across a great 'photo gallery' post on the forums, for those that might not frequent the MD forums here's a link

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1136

I'm busy playing other games right now, and RL has been ultra demanding recently, but who know's I may get back into Manic Diggering at any given stage... I do miss the building and such!

all the best,

The mysterious and absent Ol' joe

Hello.. anyone out there?!

let me just dust this off...

Hello Diggers... Manic or otherwise, let me just throw you all a quick bite to eat before I once again dive into obscurity, exe Is very much alive and kicking and still has interest in the Manic Digger project. There are an ever increasing number of people which are forwarding offers of coding assistance.. and an ever growing number of people asking what the 'latest' version is.

I will restate that version tracking has gone a little off the scale for some time now. The releases that cirulate currently are known as 'nightly' releases, literally as new versions are compiled nightly which may or may not include fixed code or updated features... to get the 'latest' Manic digger check the repository here and look for the most recent date.

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/nightly/

this thread may help answer some things... or If you have a question.. direct it to the people that know!

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1039

now.. where did I put all that dust? I need to put it back over my blog posting computer once more...

*Away From Keys...

Hey folks, just a small update, and of no real importance... I'm currently not very active with Manic Digger. the mania has left me. I've started playing 'other' games .. and no... not a certain Crafty Mine-like game!

But I still check the forums occasionally and I'm still very please at the steady growth of Manic Digger. to all those that are developing the game in any way. Kudos and respect. to all the players! keep on diggin'!

I'm sure I'll get the itch for hewing my way through mountainsides and building things soon enough.


All the best (in absentia)

Ol Joe

Texture.. umm.. fest?

A BIG shout goes to liquidhot, who I have spoken briefly with in the past, he's been quite the genious! Manic Digger, as well all know, is essentially the same graphical engine as Minecraft, Albeit coded in a different fashion... as such, both games utilize a similar method to all the graphics into the game.

In theory it has always been possible to 'edit' the minecraft graphical layout to match that of Manic Digger, but such a task would have to be done by hand, and... as a graphically minded person, such tasks can be laborious and dull to undertake. Some people have already ported over Minecraft textures to use in Manic Digger, and some of the texture's i've seen are pretty good.

Liquidhot has now made it one step easier to use the wealth of freely available user made content that exists for Minecraft... and easily tranform it into a usable Manic Digger Texture pack!

This is a GREAT opening in the availability of textures, and now every Manic Digger player can enjoy the textures they like the most!!

Almost makes my recent contest seem a little moot, but I'm very happy that this little tool has been made!

Thank you liquidhot!!

Forum link

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=754

Download link

>>> { { Click here to download (3rd party DL site) } } <<<

Skinfest Apr 2011

Its been a long time coming, but here you are, my 1st SKINFEST!!!!!

Click on the link below to go to the 'skinfest' page!!!!

Contested times...

The texture contest has finally rapped up, the winner was declared as Andy! his entry is seen below;

As well as the texture contest Finally coming to an end, there have been great leaps forward for the community as a whole, a new 'fan forum' set up by Monaiz who has been giving a LOT to the progression of the game.

visit the new forum at the following link: 

http://kramansro.net/index.php

and finally, one small note... the next post I make will be my much delayed SKINFEST!!!

April Fools

for those that may even have entertained the idea that MIT was actually interested in Manic Digger, well that's April 1st for ya!

By some small way of apology.. here's some 'pixel art' I recently did (in single player...)

There Is still plenty of chatter in the forums about development. so while we may not be waiting for the MIT 'special build' there is a lot of work being done by lots of different people, which I have to say is great!! Oddly I haven't seen a lot of exe creative server, I can only assume it's not there while exe beavers away at including patches of code into a new build... I do occasionally pop into other servers just to see what's going and if there are any notable or interesting build's so, If you see Ol_joe pop on-line it's probably me paying a visit!

Wow.. just.. wow!

I just found a tweet with a link in regarding Manic Digger (I occasionally check Google search for recent activity involving the term "Manic Digger"...)

The link lead to a research document of all things, I was a little confused Until I read it more, in layman's terms and what I was able to actually understand, it seems M.I.T are looking to utilise the codebase of Manic Digger intending to refine it as a scientific module to help them visualise and work with nano-mechanical engineering.

Who would have thought of such a thing!! Just goes to show how diverse an Open Source project can become!

Time for T... errain.png

Be sure to pop over to the forums to check out the renewed terrain.png contest, remember the aim of the contest is to try to find new textures to replace the default ones which are packaged with the game download, emergency late entries are allowed up until this Sunday, with one more week of voting after that...

Votes are already open so come and make your opinion heard!

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=622

Holiday time.

Well I'm off on a weekend break, But I've noticed that the forums have been springing up posts with new patches, possible new Idea and alterations, I think finally Manic Digger is at a point where we'll see some significant growth in the project, perhaps even some branching projects..

If you are busy tapping code in, then I thank you and look forward to the end result..

Things which aren't In the current stable release (12 / 02 / 2011) but have been hinted at or actually have work being done on them..

• Flowing water, the exe creative server was recently running test versions has been mysteriously absent from my server lists recently, but I can confirm that the water is there, and does flow... and boy does it flow...
• Ladders? I've seen the screen's. and I admit that I really want ladders
• New log in screens, Nice looking graphical interfaces never hurt.
• In game alterations to the inventory, possibly other tweeks
• Admin kick/ban tools; an all too welcome addition, griefers be gone!

There are many more things yet to come, and lots of things I'd love to see in the game, but I'm a patient man, and besides! I'm on holiday! not like I'll be playing until I get back.

signing off until then!

(super secret hint, my LOOOONG delayed skinfest will be posted up when I return!)

oh... and don't fear about the terrain.png contest, I'll have some limited access to the net so I'll be sure to keep on top of that!

Ol Joe

-Dev /command: code moar!

Wow, there has been quite an explosion of coders and extra help suddenly popping up, we all know and love Huder who has been doing some work on terrain generation and other tid-bits... but now there are a couple other names popping up alongside large wedges of code (all of which is complete gobbledy-gook to me)

So to pay homage to the people that can...

Thank you.. and in some small way I hope these pictrues I took from liquidhot's server show how cool things can be when people knuckle down and do cool stuff.

Club 'Tron'

possibly the 1st US flag I've seen...

And the host himself Mr Liquidhot

If you haven't already, then pay a visit, the Tron texture is awesome!!!

In other news, we are now part way through the re-scheduled terrain.png contest entry period, so if you have a terrain.png that you would like to enter, please pop along and post it.

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=622

Entries should be in by no later than midnight (GMT) on the 27th March.

Some fun...

For anyone that ever 'tried' the flowing water...

Yet another catch up

Many apologies for my somewhat extended absence, sadly things don’t always run according to plan, or go as smoothly as they ‘should’ ..

Catch up point 1

The texture contest finished, and aside from the background textures being decided upon it was a tie for the actual terrain.png file!! As such I opened a new contest specifically for this, go >> here << to contribute or look at what’s happening.

Catch up point 2

I’m a little behind on any recent developments, mainly because my access to the internet is limited, so actually getting online to find out what’s going on in Manic Digger is an interesting pass-time, especially as when I do manage to actually get online I usually have more pressing matters to attend to, (again this boils down to some explanation of my absence!)

To remedy this I’m going to do a bit of snooping to see what I can find out about any new Manic Digger developments.

Catch up point 3

My skinfest has been delayed… corresponding with my ongoing lack of connectivity, however I’m looking at my skin directory right now and see I have 35 skins completed.. only 34 of which will be released Immediately… and there are still several I wish to add to the collection before the almighty skinfest release!!!

So, to those that follow this blog eager to see the latest news, my apologies!! I’ll try to get things sorted so I can once again make regular posts in the near future.

RamboTRS server

I have to reference back to my previous post, I'd like to point out that a lot of what I've been showing recently Is pictures from the "Lets Show RamboTRS" server which from what I've seen Is mostly populated by German or German speaking folk,

I have to give a LOT of respect to them for their Build which dwarves Tacobuilders bridge, at a quick check this monster is around 512 blocks long (it disappears in fog!!!)

So, for the work that RamboTRS and iami30 do, just because they can, hats off!!

I also spotted a little bridge which I quite liked as it was built on an angle! So it is for that reason (ie: that unlike everything else, its built deliberately on a 45 degree angle) here is a little picture of it.

There is also PLENTY of Mario and Nintendo retro/8-bit cartoon iconography littering the landscape, all of which gets the Ol_joe seal of approval!
As a small reminder; My texture contest ends TOMORROW!! so if you haven't voted come see what's going on! >> http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=578
And as a post reminder, just for the curious, my Super Mega All-Encompassing Ultra Skinfest 2011 (shortened to SMEAEUS 2011 ) is drawing closer, All the skins I have made in ONE place, the old ones I've already posted and MANY new ones!! so If you need a new skin to impress your Manic Digger Pals, be sure to stay tuned!

Meanwhile, back on the ranch.

Here is a little look back at some things which have otherwise escaped my rantings...

A nice 'Eiffel Tower' style build.	Hello to "Ian"
More Gronkh fans!	Whump! There are plenty of 'mario' or '8-bit' builds

In the time I have actually done something.. it was mostly this... a HUGE build of the Golden Gate Bridge on exe creative 5 (from the spawn point: turn around, go to the anti-vandal side, and off to the right (there is a rail link from the Oasis)

Many thanks to Jay-Jay for helping.	Group photo with the finished bridge
A different view, complete with 'The Statue' in the background.	Looks great at night.

This was a build by Tacobuilder, with help from me and a couple other people, I hope you visit! 
Just to keep things interesting... there is (at the time of writing) a test version dated 05 - 03 - 2011 ... exe is working damn hard on things at the moment. And others are beginning to assists with creating code or building versions for other platforms... to all these people THANK YOU!!!

I'll have an Apple please...

Things have been interesting, while I'm happily making some new skins for what has become dubbed "skinfest 2011" exe has been playing about with some new features...

check this out...

It's early days yet, but there is 'flowing' water...

In 'headline news... Mac may soon be on the list of available Manic Digger varients! for those that are appley inclined please check out the forum thread:

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=582

Been busy.

I personally have been working hard on some player skins, I plan to release these all at once (as well as some from previous posts) in one big happy skin-fest! so keep your eyes peeled for that,

In other news, my contest to try to find a new default texture pack has completed entry stage now, and the entries can all be seen HERE.

Thanks to the people that entered I wish you all the best of luck! and I hope we the player community can come together to decide on which if any should be used in future releases of the game.

Let's hope that with new textures we can see a new dawn on the progress of Manic Digger

Hello, Hallo, Zdravei, Hola, Saluton, Salut and Privet! to all.

In no so many words I'd like togive a special hello to all those that read this, I've been doing some poking around on my stats and info, It would seem that a LOT of Germans are visiting!!

A special Screenshot for you folk over the way..

I'm really happy that you spend the time and effort to come and read my English language blog! If anyone has any links to a German blog about manic digger, I'd be happy to link to it, just send a message to Maniacal.Digerer via the forums (or just post it for me to see)

To all the other international readers, Hello to you all! I dont have flags for everyone, but here's another that I'd seen on exe creative 5... 'hallo' to any Dutch players.

On a side note, my antipodean counterpart; Tacobuilder help me link up the 'statue of liberty' with a rail-line... for which he built a rather excelent bridge!

The other thing which I couldnt help but notice was a HUGE tree complete with hollow top with a room in! oh and the 'green' cubey thing next to it.. a bouncy castle!! (which I confess to having had a go in)

News time!

Hi to anyone silly enough to read this, here's some headlines...

• My 'new default texture' contest has been extended until the weekend (sat 26th final date for entry)
• I've come across some interesting finds

• A game called 'blokked' which apparently used the manic digger engine, I'm yet to see this game, or actually find information about it, all I have to go on so far is an 'offline' live stream which was supposedly showing 'blokked'
• On Sourceforge I found 'Manicdigger2' and am going to have a nose and see what it is...

Other than that, hello to everyone that was playing on exe creative a few nights ago, had a great time finishing off the statue of liberty which is now open for visitors!! there is a rail link that leads directly to it... I'll have to create some kind of signposting for people...

here's a rather so-so skin I've done for Dr House.. its not the best, but it's passable [to save it, click it to link to the proper picture of it... then right click that picture and choose save as]

Shh I'm resting...

Been on the back-burner recently, as well as doing some work on 'skins'

Other than that, nothing much from me, the forums have been a little quiet except for a few crash reports and a resurgence of Mincraft fanboys once again letting the Manic Digger community know just how shoddy the game we play is and the fact it is 'nothing more than a direct rip-off' of their much loved game.. ho hum.

My skinning / texture contest only has 4 days more and as yet, no entry's (other than my own)

Just to remind folk, the main aim of this contest is to replace the default (comes with the game...) terrain.png in doing so we will be one step further away from the 'Minecraft' that we are so called copying in exact detail, so come on folks! step up, grind a couple hours in your chosen picture editor and enter your own !!!

La... .. ...ag

Been getting some bad lag recently, so while I can't connect to MP I've been busy doing more skins,

On a related note..

here is the Mario skin.. I forgot t add it to the Mario post!

(remember: use the right click / save 'target' as ... to save these skins!)


And here is the Mario style tileset ... warning! its quite bright!

The Russians are coming!

well there has been more and more activity from our Eastern European counterparts, and in some small celebration of this, and in part because of this nifty flash video that Weeble had made, and which I happen to enjoy ...

I went ahead and made a 'russian dancing men' skin

feel free to download this (or any other skin/texture on my blog..)

Nothing like watching a beautiful sunset...

Well I'm blown away by this little sudden and unexpected update!!! nite and day was a great step, now there is a sun and a moon which fly accross the sky, and SO many updates it's silly!!

to name a few:

• persistant settings
• server side graphics
• more options in the ingame menu

And much more besides, not only that but this all comes from exe!!! he's still a one man band and is playing a tune that I like!

Once I catch my breath.. I'll make a proper post about this turn of events, until then

you know what to do people >>

Catch up..

Here's some pictures I'd found which I'd forgotten to share! mostly from Sonidarc's Server, and the Giant 'hour-glass' build which I did only the other day on exe creative 5

It'sa me Mario!

In keeping with my currently ongoing 'texture competition' I have been tinkering more than ever with textures, and skins..

here's a little taster of one I have brewing, like a spaghetti meat-a-balla..

I'm just working out the 'mine-cart tracks' .. but I'm very happy with this homage to 8-bit greatness!

Home of the brave and the land of the free (game!!)

Some serious renovation on the castle, and an all new 'feature' (you'll have to visit to find out what...) I helped out Tacobuilder on a joint effort build.. and not a small one..

Here's a view from the 'foot' looking up, just for scale!!

Well.. that's that for today.. watch this space for more insanity :-)

Contest time!

To help the project forward a little I'm holding a contest, the end result (with exe's blessing...) will be a new default texture pack that is distributed with the game.

Enter now! Have your work take pride of place!!!

so, If you are graphically inclined, or just fancy having a go, step up to the mark and show us what you have!!!

Happy times.

Some things that are unmissable if you ever visit the 'exe creative' server...

I did a little work to finish the Awesome! face ... but I'm unsure who did the mineplayer build (complete with a house in the head) but whoever sis that, well done!

It's all Spooky-like!

Hello to HumbleDigger and MynameisChan, both great people to have on the 'allowed' side of the wall. Here is a video I took to show off the new night time and 'shadows' It just happens to focus on a castle that someone that also writes a blo.. oh hell who am I kidding.. I built it!! (Tacobuilder helped with the walls)

So .. enjoy that while I work more on the following

• organising some screen-shots of peoples builds..
• re-edit my spongebob skin .. needs some serious fixing
• new spartan skin!! (Arrooogh Arroogh!)
• new texture pack (submission for 'default' textures)
• some more messing about building things!!!

Other than that, see you on the forums!

This just in..

And lo exe spake unto the blocky world and he said unto them... "let there be night!" and lo' t'was night...

Grab your torches folks, exe has seen fit to code in a 'night time' server rotation, meaning that if you are prone to spending a fair amount of time in game, it will at some point go spooky dark!

For this you will need:

• The latest download version (02.02.2011) which I for sake of continuity will call version 0.3d.. (for want of the correct version name...)
• You will need to go to the options in game and set "shadows" to "on"

Do that and then (unless your screen just goes black..) wait for night to fall!!!

Get it NOW!!!
>>

No skin off my back...

here's a couple of other's I'd neglected to share

Floating 'companion cube'

[EDIT: removed the jack skin for re-editing... some silly mistakes I need to take out / correct]

a 'jack' skin

Gimme some skin bro!

while I contemplate the server being up or down:

here's is an as yet unreleased Peter Griffin Skin

be sure to 'save target as' (or just open the picture in a new tab/window to right click - save as)
drop it in place and rename it as needed

enjoy.. eh-heheheh

oh, here is my 'nearly complete' Hi-res texture pack ... lets call this version 1 of the texture pack.

Still not 100% happy with this, and I've not even started to re-work the track, bust its pretty good as it stands.