Question HOW DO PEOPLE MAKE FALLING SAND GAMES?!

I have surfed across the internet, even used chatgpt, saw almost every singular youtube video any no one in the world shows any at least PIECE of code related to falling sand games they only showcase their game they either show the code for money (patreon) or they don't show the code at all, now I'm not saying I'm literally reliant on people showing code, but even without code there is no video for unity C# there is only one really good video about falling sand in C, nothing else, and even chatgpt Is so frustrating to work with it keeps thinking something else instead of the other, now i did not come here to rant I came here to say has anyone of ya'll made a falling sand game, if you did please, JUST PLEASE LINK THE PROJECT OR SMT, I'll at least learn the basics of the code so i can make my own falling sand game!

 

I researched that for a while and I remember seeing good tutorials that explain it very well. Code isn't needed much because the principle is so universally applicable. You basically just update an array (of pixels) every frame, like this diagram shows:


Then there's plenty of example games out there in the open source, most of them not in C# but still, relatively straightforward to port.

I would suggest starting with the very basic setup: a 2D array of colors (a texture) for instance, and then go over that array and for every color that isn't black move the pixel down a step, provided the pixel below it is "empty" (black). You could also use a 2D array of Cube meshes and do it in 3D. You will start to see pixels or cubes falling down, and then you can take it from there with the tips/demos from various tutorials.

 

Wow thanks for the info
tbh that diagram is more helpful then the youtube videos I watched
I'll be sure to try this technique out!

 

One name for this is cellular automata (CA).

The most famous CA is probably Conway's Game Of Life.

Attached is my Unity implementation.

You could probably take the knowledge from @CodeSmile above and replace the

CalculateOneGeneration()

method in this project to make it be falling sand.

 

btw in case you haven't noticed: that image links to the youtube video which explains the abstract concepts very well

 

Thanks for that. I tried to go to sleep but instead I have now spent an hour on youtube sinking ever deeper into that sandpit

 

Yep... I know what I'm taking a crack at coding this weekend.