Post by Zowja on Jul 4, 2016 13:51:25 GMT -5
1.8.5 is a strange update. It will fix some bugs people have found, re-texture a lot of metal blocks, make a rare Alpha biome, and add in some new quirks. Why this is strange is this possibly the first update has no serious big thing it is adding. Like 1.8.1 was old sounds (although it did have a lot of random stuff it changed too), 1.8.2 was authentication, 1.8.3 was books, 1.8.4 was a wild rewrite to ore generation, 1.8.5 is... a bunch of random stuff with no focus. Maybe the Alpha biome? Anyways, here's what has been happening.
1.8.4 has all serious gameplay aspects needed for NFC to continue without needing new worlds per update, so 1.8.5 is sorta a polish and cleaning up some things I didn't do in 1.8.4 (there's quite a few texture bugs and occasional severe server lag from an unknown bug) with adding some new, but small, unique things. I haven't been able to work on it too much because of graduating and working and a lot of family events and going to friend's graduation parties and cleaning out the house and it's just been a bit crazy, but now things are finally opening up it seems. The first and probably biggest thing I'll be adding is an Alpha biome. Originally how I was going to incorporate that was by having grass and trees and what not look like they did in Alpha when the biome is a certain temperature and humidity at that position. That means occasionally when a biome picks those exact numbers that are set for an Alpha biome, suddenly everything in the biome looks Alpha, and it would be rare because it would have to be the two exact numbers for temperature and humidity. This meant grass in the biome would look alpha no matter what, and grass outside of that exact area would look normal no matter what. I wasn't able to find such a biome, but it did have an interesting side affect. Biomes transition from one to another, which means sometimes they would hit the exact numbers for Alpha in their transition, making streaks of Alpha grass through the terrain. Although it was sorta out of place, it looks absolutely wild.
This almost looks like a 4th wall of Minecraft is being broken: Alpha invading the Beta. Because of this odd side effect, I decided to add in a legit Alpha biome instead of it being based off some random numbers. What I'll be doing is when the alpha biome is picked, the grass will get a metadata (a little piece of information every block has, grass doesn't use it as far as I know, but even if it does I can still use it) telling it that it needs to look alpha instead of normal. This mean you can spread the Alpha grass! The Alpha actually being a biome means a bunch of other things too: I can manage what the weather is like there, I can make it not spawn tall grass (since that wasn't in alpha), I can try to make it not have birch trees, etc. This is going to take a longer time, but I think it's going to be pretty cool.
The other primary thing in this update is reworking almost all of the metal block textures. What I originally did was recolor all of the metal blocks for efficiency, the outcome as a serious texture for NFC I think was rather weak.
So I'm trying to make some new textures to give a lot of variety in building with metal blocks. I'm attempt to balance a realistic look of the metal with an Old Minecraft look. Currently this is a little more realistic than Old Minecraft-ish, but it's really pretty nonetheless.
I've also worked on Brass, Bronze, and Zinc, but they haven't been too successful yet to be shown yet. Perhaps I'll give you another update in a week or so on their looks,
Outside of bugs and being able to interact with oil, there' one more unique thing I'm adding that I haven't told anyone about, including the NFC development staff: A semi-rare bioluminescent mushroom. Currently I have only done mild exploring of the code for how I'll add it in, but know the image in my head for what I'm going for is something like this:
The one and only reason I'm adding this is because it's pretty cool and pretty looking. I think I can make it fit Minecraft pretty well though, imagine using this in houses.
So what do you think about this? I've modified this section so now you can comment on blog posts I make!
1.8.4 has all serious gameplay aspects needed for NFC to continue without needing new worlds per update, so 1.8.5 is sorta a polish and cleaning up some things I didn't do in 1.8.4 (there's quite a few texture bugs and occasional severe server lag from an unknown bug) with adding some new, but small, unique things. I haven't been able to work on it too much because of graduating and working and a lot of family events and going to friend's graduation parties and cleaning out the house and it's just been a bit crazy, but now things are finally opening up it seems. The first and probably biggest thing I'll be adding is an Alpha biome. Originally how I was going to incorporate that was by having grass and trees and what not look like they did in Alpha when the biome is a certain temperature and humidity at that position. That means occasionally when a biome picks those exact numbers that are set for an Alpha biome, suddenly everything in the biome looks Alpha, and it would be rare because it would have to be the two exact numbers for temperature and humidity. This meant grass in the biome would look alpha no matter what, and grass outside of that exact area would look normal no matter what. I wasn't able to find such a biome, but it did have an interesting side affect. Biomes transition from one to another, which means sometimes they would hit the exact numbers for Alpha in their transition, making streaks of Alpha grass through the terrain. Although it was sorta out of place, it looks absolutely wild.
{Spoiler}Alpha Streak
This almost looks like a 4th wall of Minecraft is being broken: Alpha invading the Beta. Because of this odd side effect, I decided to add in a legit Alpha biome instead of it being based off some random numbers. What I'll be doing is when the alpha biome is picked, the grass will get a metadata (a little piece of information every block has, grass doesn't use it as far as I know, but even if it does I can still use it) telling it that it needs to look alpha instead of normal. This mean you can spread the Alpha grass! The Alpha actually being a biome means a bunch of other things too: I can manage what the weather is like there, I can make it not spawn tall grass (since that wasn't in alpha), I can try to make it not have birch trees, etc. This is going to take a longer time, but I think it's going to be pretty cool.
The other primary thing in this update is reworking almost all of the metal block textures. What I originally did was recolor all of the metal blocks for efficiency, the outcome as a serious texture for NFC I think was rather weak.
{Spoiler}Copper - Before
So I'm trying to make some new textures to give a lot of variety in building with metal blocks. I'm attempt to balance a realistic look of the metal with an Old Minecraft look. Currently this is a little more realistic than Old Minecraft-ish, but it's really pretty nonetheless.
{Spoiler}Copper - After
{Spoiler}Copper - After after a few more tweaks and compared against the current ingot texture.
I've also worked on Brass, Bronze, and Zinc, but they haven't been too successful yet to be shown yet. Perhaps I'll give you another update in a week or so on their looks,
Outside of bugs and being able to interact with oil, there' one more unique thing I'm adding that I haven't told anyone about, including the NFC development staff: A semi-rare bioluminescent mushroom. Currently I have only done mild exploring of the code for how I'll add it in, but know the image in my head for what I'm going for is something like this:
{Spoiler}Bioluminescent Mushroom
The one and only reason I'm adding this is because it's pretty cool and pretty looking. I think I can make it fit Minecraft pretty well though, imagine using this in houses.
So what do you think about this? I've modified this section so now you can comment on blog posts I make!