Asphaltum/Tar
MrAndrew420 opened this issue ยท 27 comments
Idea by AnonTheMouse at Minecraft Forums for a new building block (Asphaltum) and Liquid (Tar). Definitely a great idea in my opinion and I would love to see them added in.
I will be attempting to do the textures by reverse engineering mockups made by the AnonTheMouse.
Scott, you said you could work with what I had on tarpits. Do you still need/want a separate one for the item behaviours, or can you work from my original designs for that? (Been thinking that using Pitch somehow, either as a splash potion or generally crafted, could produce some kind of "Greek Fire" bottle. Might be OP though.)
I agree with Rosethorns about gravel texture modified. To me, the textures above look like A: bloody cobblestone, B: appears too chaotic, nothing for the eye to "rest" upon. What about inverting the grey-scale values of the gravel + some darkness saturation?
Closed as there seems to be no movement on this. If someone has more ideas/suggestions for this, let us know and we can always reopen it.
As I understand it, the design specs are more or less where they need to be (correct me if I'm wrong and I can get them there), and the main thing missing right now is proper textures.
Where would they go though? Currently, I can't think of which biome they would fit in to. I'm not opposed to the idea, just not sure where this would go. Does it also need a block created for it with specific properties? Tar would be thicker than water or lava.
The plan had always been to have them appear in Wastelands on the surface, infrequently underground, and more frequently in the Nether. I believed that was documented somewhere, but it's possible that Scott has the only full copy of the proposal.
@AnonTheMouse the specs were in the planning repository, but it looks like the team has either deleted that repo or made it private. I do not have a copy.
I'm guessing that Mister Fiber probably has the things from one whakaaro since we don't use that anymore. We use Github mainly as the place for issues and new idea discussions and for it's tracking capabilities, but we use google drive to store all the documents the team is working on as it is a lot more user friendly for creating documents and spreadsheets and with the Share ability the team can all work on the same document at the same time.
Regarding the wasteland biome, there has been discussion about removing it as it's so ugly and barren, unless we can find something we can add to it to make it more interesting and we have no plans currently to add anything to the Nether. That's not to say that we are going to remove it, just that we know that something needs to be done with it as it is pretty much a waste of a biome ID as it stands right now.
Maybe if it was retextured it could fit into the Hot Springs Biome we are working on add a "tar pit" to a swamp or desert?
I'm guessing that Mister Fiber probably has the things from one whakaaro since we don't use that anymore. We use Github mainly as the place for issues and new idea discussions and for it's tracking capabilities, but we use google drive to store all the documents the team is working on as it is a lot more user friendly for creating documents and spreadsheets and with the Share ability the team can all work on the same document at the same time.
May I have access to the google drive? I've actually been under the impression that one whakaaro was still the design location, and have no idea what url the drive is at.
Regarding the wasteland biome, there has been discussion about removing it as it's so ugly and barren, unless we can find something we can add to it to make it more interesting
I say:
- Let the cracked blocks spread.
- Let cracked blocks be combinable with water, etc.
We had proposals for generating quicksand, for keeping the spread of cracked sand under control on 24/7 servers, for generating clay (not as necessary now with redrock as a source of clay, but still a potentially automated clay generator), etc.
Is a vanilla desert of interest, or is it barren?
How about a vanilla island in the ocean, with no animals, often no trees, etc?
If we need some kind of plants, or animals, native to wasteland, I'm certain we can find something that grows in dry, desolate areas. Maybe some strange mutant animal or plant (even if the plant is nothing more than a reskin of an existing plant). Maybe some dried-out shrub-trees (one, or at most two, blocks of wood above ground; only drops sticks unless it's the rare two-high one. No leaves, as they would be a waste of water. Think a cross between a tree and a cactus.)
Most people wanted the ability to turn off the spreading of cracked sand because it can over take a world, especially on a server or in SSP when someone uses something that keeps a chunk active. There is still an issue on Github about quicksand being used in other ways, such as to make concrete.
Vanilla deserts at least have cactus in them. We have plans to greatly expand what is currently generated in our desert biome. We also have plans to add many new types of biomes which are more dry and arid such as an "outback" type biome as well as steppes all with mutliple types of plant life which would be native to those types of areas. We also have plans to add more interest to the red rocks areas as in real life they can have some very interesting features.
Hmm. I find this news...disheartening. While as in intellectual exercise it was quite engaging, it would seem that the lion's share of what Key and I worked on has been completely abandoned. As to the wastelands having nothing in them, I think that was one of the key points of the tar pits. They would have added a special resource that could not be easily collected outside them. By my original concept, the liquid Pitch would have been useful in bulk torch creation, creating "Asphaltum" as a new building material, and a high-yield fuel (now more useful with the advent of hoppers). I believe there was also talk of using Cracked Sand to make some form of adobe or brick, as well as plans for a renewable "dust layer" that could be farmed for dirt, allowing it to be replaced without having to tear apart other landscapes.
It's not that it's been abandoned so much as that they were never completed and both you guys have been inactive for a long time. After Scott left it was pretty much me trying to keep things together and since there were no completed documents for them they were not pursued further.
I like the ideas of the liquid pitch and what it could be used for as well as tar. If you'd like to complete a document or ask Mister Fiber to send you a copy of what was on one whakaaro regarding that and you can complete it and we can use it for something in the future.
There seems to have been a bit of communication failure somewhere. My understanding has been for some time that most documentation was deemed sufficiently complete to be used. I had often checked for confirmation on proposals, and assumed that, as everything I submitted should have been understood to be drafted pending approval, that if there were anything that needed to be expanded, revised, or collated and compiled, I would be informed.
Now I mean no disrespect, but the way that things have been handled, particularly the elimination of my role on the team without notification (and Keybounce receiving the same treatment, to all appearances) - if indeed most of the team ever considered us to truly be on the team at all - leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and at this point I am uncertain of my desire to be further associated with Extrabiomes in any case.
I'm sorry you feel that way, man. I wasn't in position to assume as much larger a role I had to when Scott left the modding scene, and I was looking for ways to streamline our development and working systems to minimize confusion on my part. This included my decision to drop a lot of team members we used to have due to them being inactive or occupied with other projects. I dropped the team down to only people who were actively participating within the mod and had assumed that if a person who was removed from the team on GitHub would like to rejoin, they could simply request.
I do agree that I should have given notice, and apologize to you, Keybounce and everyone else for not providing it.
It's not that it's been abandoned so much as that they were never completed and both you guys have been inactive for a long time. After Scott left it was pretty much me trying to keep things together and since there were no completed documents for them they were not pursued further.
Less inactive, and more of "just reading (I'm pretty sure I've read every idea in my inbox), keeping an eye on things, and not seeing anything else to chime in on".
(sorry, I can't figure out why github thinks this next paragraph is a quote)
Equally, while the results for cracked sand/etc were scattered, they were fairly complete -- I thought it was up to the "could be coded for" point, and I know I worked to make sure it was "The Brain" level for it's attempts to take over the world (no matter how close it got, it would fail -- the borders might shift a little, but a normal vanilla world would never see it spread forever even with chunk loaders). I think it could take over a desert, but that should be its limits -- rain would eliminate it, and I thought I had made sure it could not be used to grief in SMP. Point here, is that I did not see the ideas as "never completed", but more a case of "the current programmers didn't like the idea of spreading cracked sand/dirt". If you guys did like the idea of spreading, but wanted more information, I wish you had mentioned this. I know I've been non-zero in my activity level, so I know you've known I've been at least lurking.
I did get worried about the whole "sunlight versus sky exposure" issue with glass, at one point, and made a check of things. Cracked sand wasn't affected by that (sun shining in through a glass roof, or a hole in the roof, would behave the same; so you could have a "greenhouse" growing dried ground), but the idea of "cold" and permafrost could be. That's the only area that did not get a strong second look (I did take a second look, but wasn't sure if it needed adjusting or not.) I still like the idea of "cold tech", with permafrost plus redstone. The idea of trying to tame the cracked blocks, and the permafrost block, to control it and gather resources from something dangerous has always seemed like a plus to me.
With bonemeal now nerfed to require lots of it, the "dust bowl fertilizer" idea can be implemented as straight bonemeal; again, the idea here is the same as real world cases of dried lake beds in the sahara desert (and other places) acting as major soil dust fertilizer on the winds. And there isn't any other renewable source of dirt, and people who landscape with dirt/soil need a way to counter the effect of creepers on their work.
(Yes, you can find dirt in large quantities underground. More than I had thought when I started playing. Sand, not so much. So maybe some people don't want to go mining, and only want to play landscaping. My roommate, for one, but she plays in creative, for example.)
( In fairness, I now use mystcraft flat single biome world for sand and dirt collection. Much easier than getting sand from deserts, for example. )
Now, there have been a few more responses:
the elimination of my role on the team without notification (and Keybounce receiving the same treatment, to all appearances)
And here I have to agree. I never considered my role to be more than design, but I did consider myself to be on the team for design. Not for coding, simply because I have not been in any position to do coding up til relatively soon now, and even then I have my coding sights set on mystcraft add-ons.
I dropped the team down to only people who were actively participating within the mod and had assumed that if a person who was removed from the team on GitHub would like to rejoin, they could simply request.
Then please consider this a request to get back on as a design / idea person, even if not a coder person.
If I thought 1.6 / version 3 was in any way stable, I'd be considering offering to code up the new cracked sand spread.
I'm very seriously not looking to upgrade my server to 1.7. I seriously dislike what has happened to the overworld generation. I am seriously not looking forward to EBXL's version 4 "Start over and destroy your world". My big plan for a mystcraft add-on is to permit multiple worlds being generated by different generators -- so that it is possible to get a 1.1 generated world, or a 125 generated world, or a 1.7 generated world (here I'm assuming that Mojang will maintain the older generators as an option, like they have so far), or an ATG world, or an EBXL 4 world.
Once I do that, I can then look at adding in the new worlds to play in, to explore, as ages.
Once there is some sort of "stability", I can look at coding up the spreading cracked blocks, and the fertilizer dust, etc.
...
Keep in mind a lot of major changes are coming in EBXL4, and we can't be sure the mod will be in a state to accommodate some of these ideas. Please don't become too invested in them, as it's unsure the mod will be suitable for them in the future. As well as it has to fit our teams vision for the mod, as myself and the rest of the team ultimately decide together what happens with it.
So ...
I cannot help but read between the lines here. If I'm misunderstanding anything here, let me know:
EBXL 4 will have major changes (known); it's closer to a full rewrite than just an adjustment (known). Ideas such as cracked sand/dirt spreading, permafrost, etc; any sort of biome-specific hazard, etc., are regarded as "less than desirable" by the people doing the coding. Therefore, the people doing the coding are deciding that, as far as they are concerned moving forward, the primary design team and decision makers will be the coders. As such, coding will permit those things that the coders feel fit the design, and other things may not have the hooks in the code that are needed.
Yea, I think that's what I'm reading here. The code will be designed with certain features, and hooks; the features and hooks will permit what the new design team thinks is appropriate; however, the new design team is the coders, without regard to the previous design people or previous design documents.
And, the new coders are concerned with the looks and "beautiful landscape" more than "potentially hazardous variety of landscape".
Does that about summarize it? Is the "cautia" module basically on the "not planned to be supported" in the future track?
Completely off-track, the whole new look of "oceans" in 1.7 makes me think more of what I understand about "Canada", with lots of stationary bodies of water not really connected, no real rivers or drainage, just sitting there ... and I'm thinking, "If it's Canada, we really need permafrost" :-)
one whakaaro has been moved to my GitHub account and can be found there publicly. If you two want to have issue write access, you can ask and I'll look into it.
The repo had been inactive for an extremely long time. Most of the documents were either incomplete and had been ignored for some time, or just were forgotten or obsoleted. Plus our design documents had moved to other locations, as Annysia had stated... So that's my reasoning for moving it. I didn't really want to delete it, because archives.
The Google Drive documents are only for official ExtrabiomesXL team members to access and modify. I'd be not quite very willing to share those with people outside our internal reaches, no matter who they may be. No disrespect.
Keep in mind a lot of major changes are coming in EBXL4, and we can't be sure the mod will be in a state to accommodate some of these ideas. Please don't become too invested in them, as it's unsure the mod will be suitable for them in the future. As well as it has to fit our teams vision for the mod, as myself and the rest of the team ultimately decide together what happens with it.
Anyway, back to the point, one whakaaro is here: https://github.com/MrFiber/oneone-whakaaro I'll add y'all on request. Thanks!
At the present time, this is not being implemented. If in the future enough interest is shown in it, we will look again at the idea.
Asphaltum
First Attempt:
Screen
Texture
Second Attempt. Added more noise, as per AnonTheMouse's suggestion.
Screen
Texture
Eh, I think the noise makes it look more like real asphalt. Maybe a touch less contrast on the noise layer though? Maybe fade it a little?
@Rosethorns is our art director. Let's get her comments.
For reference: Original proposal by @AnonTheMouse
I think Shavahi is on the right track. Without the noise, it looks too much like cobble, but the current "noised" version is a bit chaotic. An overall darkening and desaturation might help that. Definitely want to know what @Rosethorns thinks, though.
I like the idea. But I'm not entirely sure about the red in the texture. Lets see what that texture looks like when you change the red into more of a contrasted dark-grey-almost-black type colour. I think the noised version more closely resembles asphalt but doesn't fit as well with the original mojang look (not that their look is particularly unified) I'd suggest possibly working with the original gravel texture in your case and having a look at that too.
Try both, see what turns out and throw us another screenshot.
Oh I wanted to add, I realize the red is to keep it in theme with it's original home in the nether. But I think we could argue that black (and yellow for that matter not that we want yellow :P) are nether colours, We could also argue that pitch is an overworld material that also occurs in the nether rather than the other way around (if it was added to wasteland biomes).