IMPORTANT: Upcoming changes

[FurkeyRefills]

Hey Flower, what happened to you taking a long break ?
Couldn't thing of a better activity than to humiliate and abuse wolves ? ;P

[Triskelli]

Flower, you do what you think is best for the mod. I wouldn't mind getting a teaser from the released texture file, but I love spoiling things for myself. =]

[Lighthouse]

Thank you guys for the explanation.

[KriiEiter]

Nice ! Could you send me, or even better post it here, the new BTWterrain.png once you have it completed ?
This way the textures pack could be updated before the next release :)

Hmmmm...let me think about this one. I will likely have some new features built into the next release too, and that would likely give some of them away, not to mention that if I send out the textures early, it'll kinda screw you guys up if I need to add additional ones before release.

It means that instead of having an individual .png for every BTW textures, they'll all be included in a single BTWterrain.png, just like for the vanilla textures. So the textures pack for BTW will have to adapt to that little change. That's less than 1 hour of work to make the change, so it won't be long.

Yup, exactly. It's just a pain in the ass for me to do because I also have to change all the code to use the corresponding textures at the same time and test each individual block to make sure it's being retextured properly. Plus, as I mentioned, I'm making many visual changes along the way to take advantage of the new freedom this affords me in assigning custom graphics to different blocks.

To give you an example, the Hemp no longer shares the growth-stages of wheat in the version I have running now ;)

So much for that vacation you were talking about.

Love the idea of a rebalance (especially for windmills and powering saws with a handcrank always bugged me).

[FlowerChild]

Hehe...nah, my vacation just got slightly postponed. I've been taking it easy with the mod as of late, and just playing some Minecraft, but that resulted in a bunch of small ideas I wanted to get in before the next age ;)

I won't get back to the serious modding until after my vacation.

[FurkeyRefills]

Hehe...nah, my vacation just got slightly postponed. I've been taking it easy with the mod as of late, and just playing some Minecraft, but that resulted in a bunch of small ideas I wanted to get in before the next age ;)

I won't get back to the serious modding until after my vacation.

Cool :) I'll probably be back at school when you go on vacation, so I'll have other things on my mind :)
Enjoy your holiday and take it easy with the mod PLEASE !!!

Night everyone XXX
(GMT)

[empath]

Man, looking for slimes is fucking miserable, i just spent a couple of hours going through an old cave that I had lit up and looking for one and ended up falling in lava, and didn't see a single one.

Whatever you do, please don't make slimes important for moving up the tech tree like they are now :( Right now I'm stuck on both finding slimes and wolves and having no luck and it's not very fun...

[darahalian]

I have to say, the future of this mod is starting look even more exciting. Without the limitations on graphics and whatnot I think we'll start seeing this mod take advantage of a whole new level of freedom. I hope that we'll be hearing some custom sounds shortly as well.

I've always been impressed with your creativity and vision, especially since you always seem to know where the line is drawn between cool content and balance, and what makes something worth playing and enjoyable for more than a couple of hours. Knowing this, I'm excited to see what changes your making, as I'm sure it will make the BTW experience even more awesome than it is now. And since BTW is already the most thought-out mod I've seen in the area of design and gameplay experience, the prospects are quite good.

Good luck with it all, and don't forget to enjoy your vacation when it comes; you deserve it!

[Urian]

I second Battosay's request for a version of the new textures file in order to make the texture packs compatible. Perhaps via PM and/or with the new textures left blank.

Does the new texture system support texture packsnother than 16*16? I'm guessing so but I can also imagine how it might mess things upp if it's only one file similar to terrain.png if you're using a higher resolution file.

[Kwilt]

I third Batto's idea, if only for a small exclusive group. Maybe the Turtles and a select few, such as those who have worked on texture packs in the past for BTW compatibility. It does nothing but speed up the process, instead of you updating, posting, having them download, then having to migrate over with their own possible improvements/touch-ups, instead of having others sitting and waiting for something that, while little, could have already been done.

Just my pair o' pence.

[Miss_Kat]

I wouldn't push for this, guys. If there are some textures and things he wants to keep a surprise, let him. It's not going to kill anyone to have to wait for their texturepacks to be updated.

[FlowerChild]

As a compromise, what I'll probably do is release the texture files once I'm done with the basic conversion for the existing mod blocks, then I'll add in the new content later.

This will allow you to adapt your existing textures to the new system to get a head start on that, but you'll of course have to add in the new ones once the new release comes along (pretty much what you'll have to do for any other release anyways).

I'm still not quite done on the basic conversion however (maybe today), and I'll wait for the next version of Forge to be released to do so anyways (since it will correct a few small problems with the texture system), but you guys should have something.

Also, I'm not sure about the hi-res texture support. It's all dependent on there being a Forge compatible HD-patcher out there (and I play with default textures so I wouldn't know). If there isn't one now, I'm sure there will be one in the future.

[Ferrus.Manus]

While speaking about improving BtW looks how hard would be making powered axles actually spin? I think it would drastically improve how various contraption look and would also make much easier to see which axles are powered. However I don't have a slightest idea how Minecraft modding works so if this is too hard to code or would impact performance too much (or you just think it wouldn't fit aesthetic of MC) you can feel free to ignore me.

[FlowerChild]

While speaking about improving BtW looks how hard would be making powered axles actually spin? I think it would drastically improve how various contraption look and would also make much easier to see which axles are powered. However I don't have a slightest idea how Minecraft modding works so if this is too hard to code or would impact performance too much (or you just think it wouldn't fit aesthetic of MC) you can feel free to ignore me.

That would be a performance issue, and is off-topic regardless. This isn't a visual-improvement suggestion thread.

I intend to eventually animate the *texture* on the axles to provide the impression of spinning. However, actually animating the individual blocks that comprise the axles would likely be a big performance hit, especially given the quantity in which they are used.

[TheHoboHunted]

Animated Axle Rotation Textures?! No more smoke from non-combustible elements? Though I could see them producing smoke from all the friction involved... Regardless *NERD SQUEE*

Take your time, and make it so.

[FlowerChild]

All right guys, here are the new texture files that the next version will be using MINUS any additional features I will be adding.

Should give you a head-start in making the switch if you are so inclined ;)



Now, with the terrain.png above, here's a few notes on the layout:

The 4 textures at the top left are reserved for hit-effects when you destroy blocks. Sometimes the textures I apply to blocks aren't appropriate for the hit effects, so I just keep some standard textures around for that purpose. Only two of them are used at present (stone and wood), and I've left two open for future use.

As for the rest of the blocks, my system is that for each block in the mod, the textures are listed in the following order:

Top of block, Front facing of block (if the block has one), sides of block, bottom of block

Then, any remaining textures after that are for special purpose textures used by the block (like the meaty one for the companion cube, or the filters for the hopper, or the blade for the saw).

I've tried my best to separate out the different sides for the blocks, even if they use duplicate textures (for like top and bottom) to allow for maximum customization in texture packs. Similarly, I no longer reuse textures between blocks for the same reason, which is why you may see many duplicates of the same texture throughout the image.

The row of colored textures towards the bottom of the image are used by the Vase. Obviously, below that are all the growth-stages for Hemp.

The item.png is a lot simpler, and I don't think any explanation is required:



Keep in mind that these texture files will change when I release the next version, but I'll be careful to leave the present format intact so that you can safely work on these now.

[FurkeyRefills]

God damnit, this mod feels so sophisticated now, it started with six block types and now look at it !
Using this png system is pretty cool I have to say. :P

[Battosay]

Thanks a lot man ! :)

[Grateful42]

This is so cool :D
Have you thought about animating the falling cement texture? You could make it look like the souls are trying to escape while they still can :L

[FlowerChild]

This is so cool :D
Have you thought about animating the falling cement texture? You could make it look like the souls are trying to escape while they still can :L

Hehe...yeah, that would indeed be cool, but I've yet to touch animated textures so I'm unfamiliar with how they work, and that would also probably push my lacking artistic ability beyond the breaking point ;)

[Battosay]

I'm sure we could ask Urian, or Riveter, and see what they can come up with ? :)

[FlowerChild]

I'm sure we could ask Urian, or Riveter, and see what they can come up with ? :)

Well, at this point I don't particularly want to be delving into the code for animated textures either as I have other things I'd like to focus on. I'll likely get to that when if/when I animate the axle textures.

[Vongard]

i still havent gotten around to playing with steel and you are planning to change the entier tech tree!! lol i have never seen a mod develop so fast.

great work man please keep it coming and dont forget to sleep =P

~Von

[FlowerChild]

i still havent gotten around to playing with steel and you are planning to change the entier tech tree!! lol i have never seen a mod develop so fast.

great work man please keep it coming and dont forget to sleep =P

~Von

Hehe...thanks, but if you think this is fast, you haven't seen nothing yet ;)

I'm actually moving very slow these days by my usual standards, getting ready for my vacation and just generally taking it easy :)

[Yushatak]

One thing's for sure, if Notch had half the work ethic/speed that you do, Minecraft as it will be at release would have been completed in a few months rather than a few years, heheh.

I've yet to be disappointed by a change or addition to this mod (I've followed it since it was a new mod, even though I'm rather new to the community), and I'm sure this will be no different. I'm glad to hear you're looking at balance and always glad to hear that you're still enthusiastic and playing your mod - always a good plan - I wish Notch would spend more time playing Minecraft rather than his 3DS and so on (granted, he might play it more than he lets us know). :p

As they all said, enjoy your respite. :3