Project Harmonia

It's a crate for dynamic and contextual input mappings for Bevy, inspired by Unreal Engine Enhanced Input.

While porting my game, I made many improvements. Actually using the crate gave me a better perspective 😅

Here's a quick showcase from my game. Smooth movement now automatically done by built-in LerpDelta modifier.

Also notice how pressing Esc cancels object spawning first due to the context priority.

Pressed keys displayed via screenkey app.

I also refined controls and added proper gamepad support. But touchscreen is still required due to missing UI navigation in Bevy. And I need to add cursor control with sticks 😅

Now I planning to implement some important features for bevy_replicon.

📜Full changelog 📦bevy_enhanced_input

Migrating my game to bevy_enhanced_input and making some tweaks to the crate. I'll do another release once I finish.

Had to rewrite some game logic to adapt it to the observer pattern. Working with young engines like Bevy means constant rewrites 😭

But I love the power of ECS, everything is so decoupled. Combined with Rust’s strict type system, it makes the rewriting process a lot smoother. I think the engine has great potential!

It's a crate for dynamic and contextual input mappings for Bevy, inspired by Unreal Engine Enhanced Input.

I really like the UE approach and decided to bring it to Bevy.

Despite being the first release, it's packed with features:

• Map inputs from various sources (keyboard, gamepad, etc.) to gameplay actions like Jump, Move, or Attack.
• Assign actions to different contexts like OnFoot or InCar, which are regular components.
• Activate or deactivate contexts by simply adding or removing components.
• Control how actions accumulate input from sources and consume it.
• Layer multiple contexts on a single entity, controlled by priority.
• Apply modifiers to inputs, such as dead zones, inversion, scaling, etc., or create custom modifiers by implementing a trait.
• Assign conditions for how and when an action is triggered, like "hold", "tap", "chord", etc. You can also create custom conditions, such as "on the ground".
• React on actions with observers.

I've implemented everything from UE and even added some extras. The crate also has ~90% test coverage.

Finally released! Next up, I'll be migrating the game to use it. After it I will need to implement some requested features for bevy_replicon.

📦bevy_enhanced_input

Over the past two weeks, I have been working on an input management plugin.

LWIM crate is good, but I wanted to try a different approach inspired by the Unreal Engine Enhanced Input.

If you have never used it, I explained the approach in the README, where you can also find a link to UE's documentation.

I finished the implementation and added examples, but I still need to write tests and improve the documentation. Planning to release it soon and continue focusing on the game :)

https://github.com/projectharmonia/bevy_enhanced_input

It uses the novel Polyanya algorithm instead of the classical A*.

I faced a few issues during the migration, but the author helped me resolve them all. He even dumped the navmesh of the house I built in the game and created a test named after the project 😅

I also implemented skipping points that the agent has projected past to prevent jitter when multiple points are close to each other.

This week, I was fixing bugs (there were a lot!) and refactoring.

I finally migrated the game's physics from XPBD to Avian. The migration was seamless since we're only using it for picking, collision checking, and navigation for now 😅

It's worth noting that I also switched from Avian's global Position component to Bevy's relative Transform, as the global Position breaks when there are multiple cities.

I’ve finally added the ability to edit and remove previously spawned walls, along with an undo/redo system.

Implementing the undo/redo was a bit challenging. If a command spawns or despawns an entity, it needs to be tracked to update the history with the correct ID. Additionally, since the game is networked, I had to introduce the concept of pending history commands. These commands are only added to the history after server confirmation.

It’s a crate for server-authoritative networking. We use it for Project Harmonia, but it's general-purpose.

Some highlights:

• Added the ability to defer replication, which is useful for exchanging messages or downloading assets required by the server before replication starts.
• If there is any spawning, despawning, removal, or insertion, client events wait for replication. However, with this release, it can be disabled per event.
• Fixed entity mapping when a client event is buffering.

📜Full changelog 📦bevy_replicon

Got sick last week, finally back to the game. Working on undo/redo system. Continue replacing the old models. The old bench is on the left, and the new one is on the right.

Added initial support for roads, reusing some logic from the walls implementation.

Currently, I'm using segments for road creation, but I plan to add Bezier curves to allow for curved walls and roads. Maybe I should use Bezier curves even for straight lines 🤔

I also need to use a texture without road markings for connection islands and implement rounding for turns.

But wanted to share the current progress :)

Our game stylistic changed during the development and @[email protected] has decided to redo some old models :)

Old is on the left, new is on the right.

My wife just finished playground asset pack for the game :)

Here are the renders in Blender:

I found that Tonemapping::AcesFitted better fits the game aesthetic. With a little bit of bloom and an environment map, it looks much nicer.

My wife also made more placeable objects, and I finished refactoring into new features from Bevy 0.14. Substates are so convenient!

Added placeable carousel made by my wife.

I like how easy it is to integrate new objects when the logic for them is already written. All I need to do is add a metadata file in RON format and the object will be available in the game.

While I am refactoring the code to new features from Bevy 0.14, my wife continues making models.

I think Bevy can look attractive. However, I am still not fully satisfied with my lighting configuration and will come back to it later.

I took a small break to relax and publish my translation application under the KDE umbrella. I am waiting for the review process to finish, but the webpage is already available at https://apps.kde.org/crowtranslate.

Just added a children's ladder made by my wife and updated the game to Bevy 0.14. But I need some time to utilize the added features. Additionally, I added a lot of logging, it's so convenient in development!

It’s a crate for server-authoritative networking. We use it for Project Harmonia, but it's general-purpose.

This release adds support for Bevy 0.14.0 and includes features from the previous RC. I like Bevy's new release candidate process a lot!

But it will take some time for the messaging backends to update. The bevy_replicion_renet that I maintain needs the renet crate to be updated to Bevy 0.14 first.

📜Full changelog 📦bevy_replicon

I took a small break from developing Project Harmonia. But I planning to get back soon!

I last month I was asked to move my translation app under KDE umbrella. Since I'm a KDE fan, I couldn't refuse 😅

The migration is almost done, will draft a new release soon.

After that, I plan to return to the game development.

I didn't stop working on bevy_replicon, though :)

It’s a crate for server-authoritative networking.

We usually don't make breaking changes when a Bevy release is around the corner, but decided to make a small exception for this one :)

This release adds support for Bevy 0.14.0-rc.4 and splits the crate functionality by features. For example, for headless server you can disable client feature. By default all features, except diagnostics are enabled, so you have the same set of plugins as before. But most plugin authors will need to add default-features = false.

📜Full changelog 📦bevy_replicon

It’s a crate for server-authoritative networking.

Bevy has started drafting release candidates to let users test them before the actual release. And I think it's awesome!

This release adds support for Bevy 0.14.0-rc.2. There are no functional changes.

We haven't released bevy_replicon_renet because we need to wait for bevy_renet. However, other crates, including other messaging backends, won't be blocked.

📦bevy_replicon

Bought the device a few days ago. And of course I tried to run the game on it. Bevy engine supports it natively since it's just a regular x86 with GNU/Linux.

The game runs great. I get stable 90 FPS (90Hz is the refresh rate of the device) consuming only 13.1 W. The UI is a little big and controls aren't adapted well for gamepads, but I will fix it later.

The console itself is also a nice machine for development. Next I will write about my development setup 😄

As you may know, it runs SteamOS with KDE and based on ArchLinux.

Packages mostly mirror official ArchLinux repositories, but there are some additions and everything is compiled by Valve. So you can even install SuperTuxKart or GNOME 😃

Another difference from vanilla ArchLinux is immutable file system. You can make it writable via a single command in terminal, but each update wipes all changes made to the system. Home directory remains untouched.

Because of the immutable filesystem, I decided to try Flatpak. It installs packages into the user's home directory. Therefore, such apps won't be removed after an update.

But I faced some limitations due to containerization. For example, the Firefox extension for KeePassXC does not work because apps can't interact with each other. And it's not suited for installing stuff like compilers or libraries. So I decided to explore other options.

Next, I tried to create a script that I planned to run after each update. It installs all the packages I need through the system package manager.

But packages on SteamOS are older then in Archlinux. For example, Neovim on SteamOS is 0.9, but on ArchLinux it's 0.10, so I had to downgrade my configuration. And it causes incompatibilities with AUR. For example, I couldn't install Crow Translate because of it.

Another problem with such script is that Valve nuked /usr/include directory to free space. All packages are present, but the folder is missing. It makes sense for a gaming device, but I need it to compile packages from AUR.

It can be solved by reinstalling all packages that put files into /usr/include. But it causes another problem 😃 Allocated space for / is limited and you quickly run out of space after restoring headers and installing a couple of packages.

Then I decided to try Distrobox. It creates containers that tightly integrated with the host system. It even comes pre-installed on the Steam Deck.

And I like it a lot! It is very easy to use and combines the advantages of both approaches. All packages will persist across updates and I have access to all packages that I have on my regular PC. Graphical apps look native and can interact with each other.

The game on photos was compiled on the Steam Deck 🥰

🧬 Bevy Replicon 0.26.0 is out!

It's a networking crate for the Bevy game engine that we use for @projectharmonia.

In this release, we have completely reworked the events.

The public API for events has not changed, except that custom systems have been replaced with serialization and deserialization functions.

In addition, all network event registration functions can be used on regular events, automatically making them network events.

📜 https://github.com/projectharmonia/bevy/_replicon/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
📦https://crates.io/crates/bevy/_replicon

#bevy

Object side snapping

Implemented a special component that allows the sides of objects to snap to others with the same component. Bevy's gizmo was very helpful in visualizing the math.

@projectharmonia

#projectharmonia #bevy #gamedev

🧬 Bevy Replicon 0.25.0 is out!

It's a networking crate for the Bevy game engine that we use for @projectharmonia.

Here are some highlights:
- Group-based replication rules, similar to queries.
- Deserialization and writing now defined separately.
- Writing now based on markers for more flexibility.
- Deserialization in-place now can be customized.

📜 https://github.com/projectharmonia/bevy/_replicon/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
📦https://crates.io/crates/bevy/_replicon

Also check out 📦 https://github.com/NiseVoid/bevy/_bundlication for a bundle-like API for replication groups.

#bevy

Vintage counter

Added vintage counter from this post to the game: https://toot.garden/@YaraGardaria/112322312099954470

@projectharmonia

#projectharmonia #bevy #gamedev