Showcase Animated Gigachad Via 2000 Terraria Pixelboxes

[xXCrypticNightXx]

Why be a chad then you could be giga? Welcome to my two days of suffering lol.

This project only took me two days to build but there was allot of stuff that had to be completed to get it up and running.
Firstly was programming the intense amount of memory required.

The pixel box uses a four channel serial hybrid with a 36x60 resolution.
Displaying 135 frames @30 FPS with a space requirement of 291,870 Bits / 36.48 KB of required memory.

Bellow is the compressed 273x1619 full serial ROM @2-Bits per 3 tiles. Not the most dense ROM possible but the fastest for scale.

Cool, rom, just plug 1 & 0's into it right? Done? NO.
This rom uses wires to represent the on and off states along with the XOR format. XOR uses a truth table to re-order bits as shown bellow.

In the XOR format, the value `0100101110` would be represented in `0110111001`.
See how I programmatically do it via code at this dotnetfiddle: Convert XOR Array for ROM.

Cool so now using another tool I coded we can convert all black and white image sequences (processed in after effects) to raw binary.
1 representing on and 0 representing off.

From here we can upload the bits to ROM using another long and very complicated code (This is where we convert to XOR).

Cool! Done right? Nope
Now due to the games awful abliity to process large circuits, we now need to use a mod called the Terraria Circuit Preprocessing Accelerator.

The Terraria Circuit Preprocessing Accelerator is a TML mod that will render all circuitry prior to loading into the world. Then when using larger circuits it will not lag at all. Without this mod, each frame takes 2-3 seconds to load in vanlla, with the mod its instant.

Dope right? NO. This baby is outdated and I had to struggle to update it LOL.

And finally, showcasing this in a video!

Credits:
Main wiring contributor: @yfdyzjt
After effects file convertor: @SpeeQz
Original wireShark mod creator: @CXUtk
Secondary wireShark mod updater: @cc004
Final wireShark maintainer: @xXCrypticNightXx ​

 

[Gammaboy45]

2 days... surely you didn't place every bit by hand, right?

Easily the most impressive work of Terraria engineering I've seen. I've always been of the opinion that Terraria's wiring system is needlessly confused, and I guess this goes to show that miracles are indeed possible.

 

[xXCrypticNightXx]

2 days... surely you didn't place every bit by hand, right?

Easily the most impressive work of Terraria engineering I've seen. I've always been of the opinion that Terraria's wiring system is needlessly confused, and I guess this goes to show that miracles are indeed possible.

Thankfully not everything had to be built by hand. Just the general outline, from there I could use TEdit to stack it. But while I still believe Terraria logic is the holy grail of video game logic, I know it has limitations as with all games. For normal people using it to wire up a base its fine, but for larger builds, its flaws do show and it could use some optimization from the devs.

 

[Gammaboy45]

Thankfully not everything had to be built by hand. Just the general outline, from there I could use TEdit to stack it. But while I still believe Terraria logic is the holy grail of video game logic, I know it has limitations as with all games. For normal people using it to wire up a base its fine, but for larger builds, its flaws do show and it could use some optimization from the devs.

I figured TEdit would've had to be of some help. Even then, 2 days to get all the logic sorted is a tall order. Did you have to manually input the binary to ROM, or did you find a handy way to interface that into TEdit?

Personally, I think Terraria wiring's greatest barrier to entry is that its behavior is really good for setting up simple contraptions but it's immediately less intuitive than systems like those in Minecraft or Starbound-- all inputs are toggles, all devices are either toggled or adjusted by a pulse, and wires work both ways (with the thankful exception of logic gate outputs). While all wiring systems tend to have their drawbacks, Terraria really falls short by seemingly picking the worst features of all of them. It seemed like a pointless task adapting the existing wiring system by adding more components with the wiring update. They may have saved the now antiquated adventure maps from breaking, but I think it would've been a necessary evil if they were to make a system that worked more seamlessly. The wiring update did a lot of good, but it's still a bit of a mess and I'd imagine that's half the struggle with putting together a build like this. Every time I've tried to do anything with any timing involved, it quickly becomes a mess of jumbled feedback and logic gate 'diodes'-- definitely a step above where we were before, but not by much.
I really hope they take another look at the wiring system when Terraria 2 rolls around.

I personally think Starbound has the best of the three. More diverse input options with a dedicated toggle latch for turning any input into a toggled input, no worry about crossing wires, no unwanted wire feedback... it's barebones in execution, but the most enabling and accessible solution. Such a shame everything else about Terraria makes it the better game by far, I hardly see good Starbound wiring builds these days.

 

[xXCrypticNightXx]

I figured TEdit would've had to be of some help. Even then, 2 days to get all the logic sorted is a tall order. Did you have to manually input the binary to ROM, or did you find a handy way to interface that into TEdit?

If you look above at my attached gif, I show off using an in-game command that programs the binary to ROM. To do this I wrote a custom script within DNspy and compiled it to the game.

Every time I've tried to do anything with any timing involved, it quickly becomes a mess of jumbled feedback and logic gate 'diodes'-- definitely a step above where we were before, but not by much.
I really hope they take another look at the wiring system when Terraria 2 rolls around.

I personally think Starbound has the best of the three. More diverse input options with a dedicated toggle latch for turning any input into a toggled input, no worry about crossing wires, no unwanted wire feedback... it's barebones in execution, but the most enabling and accessible solution. Such a shame everything else about Terraria makes it the better game by far, I hardly see good Starbound wiring builds these days.

Honestly, terraria wiring is one of those things that you need to fully understand not so much by a logic gate level, but by its core coded game mechanics to be able to create massive pieces of art with. Timing in this game and how everything processes within a single frame is one that caused me much trouble in the beginnings as well. And I can see why other titles like starbound and factorio have their appeals because of this.

I have done a bunch of stuff with Minecraft a decade ago and since switching to Terraria I have learned to enjoy it more. So honestly I feel its up to personal preference. The only way people become masters at something is with not only practice, but a favorable desire in what they're doing.

 

[Gammaboy45]

If you look above at my attached gif, I show off using an in-game command that programs the binary to ROM. To do this I wrote a custom script within DNspy and compiled it to the game.

Ooh, I missed that. Neat!