[Mod] Snowfall, rainfall, settling snow [0.4.0] [snowdrift]

[paramat]

Download https://github.com/paramat/snowdrift/archive/master.zip rename mod folder to 'snowdrift'
Browse code https://github.com/paramat/snowdrift

For Minetest 0.4.12 and later
Depends default
Licenses: code WTFPL, textures CC BY-SA

Mapgen is auto-detected so the mod is compatible with mgv5, mgv6 and mgv7.
Overcast snow cloud appears (abruptly) during snowfall, it's darkness smoothly varies during the transitions between day and night.
Adjust the snowflake density with parameter 'FLAKES' according to the power of your computer.
By default snowfall is constant in snow biomes, vary parameters 'PRECTHR' and 'PRECSPR' to control the coming and going of snowfall with time.
Thr brightness of the overcast day and night skies can be set with parameters 'DASVAL' and 'NISVAL'.
Snowfall stops when the player is undercover, this is to avoid snowfall passing through buildings when the player is inside, necessary because for performance collision detection is disabled for particles.

[VanessaE]

Do you also have a "light rain" equivalent?

[paramat]

That is possible, as is sandstorms in deserts, i released this early as only snow but may add more, i know how to detect current biome in MGV6 so can restrict each type of weather to a suitable biome.
Anyone else want rain and possibly sandstorms?

[Evergreen]

I assume you would like this feature? That is possible, as is sandstorms in deserts, i released this early as only snow but may add more, i know how to detect current biome in MGV6 so can restrict each type of weather to a suitable biome.
Anyone else want rain and possibly sandstorms?

Me! :-)

[paramat]

Just can't get inspired to work on light rain (drizzle mod ... the excitement), the only rain i care for is heavy with thunder, and that will not look right under a fairly clear sky. This mod will remain snow only.
I am however in love with particles (ooer) and will continue to experiment in seperate mods, might still try sandstorms.

[paramat]

Version 0.1.2 released.

[fairiestoy]

First of all, great work. I like your environment affecting mods especially the realms.
But i have a question. Does it make any difference in peformance if i replace the lines 39 to 78 with a while statement and using minetest.after() instead of globalsteps? Instead of performing a random number generation every step and maybe do nothing just perform a random number generation for the next calculation by pushing that value to minetest.after()?

Keep up that great work

[paramat]

Thanks, i'll look into your suggestion, i'm really not much of a programmer and have never used while and minetest.after(), so nows the time to learn :)

[paramat]

Okay unless i have misunderstood, your suggestion does reduce calculations by perhaps 1 but the speed improvement will be unnnoticeable, barely worth the effort.

[philipbenr]

I tried Jeija's rain and snow mod, and it messed up my world, so that placing blocks was really really hard. I would place blocks, and then they would disappear. It would take me 4 or 5 tries to actually place a block down while it was raining or snowing... does your mod do this too?

[paramat]

That sounds like lag caused by the large amounts of processing in Jeija's mod, this is partly why i wrote this mod as a 'light' version. No offence meant to Jeija but his code is very processing-heavy.
My mod does not cause this much lag, if you do get lag you can reduce parameter MAXCHA, default is 0.5, if you want heavier snow try 1.0.
Try it and see! ;)

[philipbenr]

ok then. :) sounds good to me.

[paramat]

Let me know how you get on.

[fairiestoy]

Okay unless i have misunderstood, your suggestion does reduce calculations by perhaps 1 but the speed improvement will be unnnoticeable, barely worth the effort.

The while statement was more of a suggestion reduce the lines and saves you some typing ( yeah i know, copy&paste exists, however ). Sad that the minetest.after() didnt have more effect. Thanks for the feedback of that suggestion :)

[paramat]

Version 0.2.0 with rain, new screenshot in first post.
Currently it snows or rains continuously within each defined perlin noise area, i am working on making precipitation intermittent.

[paramat]

Version 0.2.3 with settling snow! excitement! Info, new screenshots in first post.
A good way to add snow to previously generated chunks of a world (perhaps i should add a height threshold too ...)
Intermittent snowfall and rainfall is coming soon.

[Evanleo]

it seems like a good mod...but i do not know how to up load a mod the the game

[VanessaE]

Be sure you first turn dirt-with-grass into dirt-with-snow as a first step, before causing a snow node to form on top -- that way it can form snow "under" say wild grass and other small plants that grow on dirt with grass.

[Topywo]

it seems like a good mod...but i do not know how to up load a mod the the game

Click the download link. Go to downloads. Select the mod (snowdrift-master.zip). Unzip it in a minetest folder called mods. Rename it to snowdrift. Start minetest. Create/select a world in the minetest menu. Click Configure. Select snowdrift. Check (click) the box before enabled. Press save. Start the world.

This should work for most mods.

[paramat]

Version 0.2.4.
Snow/rainfall is triggered by the OS clock and perlin noise, it is no longer continuous. Parameters control shower length and rarity.
Plants have the dirt_with_grass beneath them changed to dirt_with_snow.
New raindrop texture, not yet shown in screenshots.
Bugfixes and code improvements.

[VanessaE]

Ok, let's give this another run then :-) Installed on three servers, with the following settings changes:

SCALP = 1
RAIN = true
PRET = -0.5

(because I want the rain/snow to be fairly prodigious if I can make it so without driving up CPU usage :-) )

Not actually seeing much so far, but a little here and there. I do *not* have the snow biomes mod installed.

[paramat]

Rainfall is too light by default, try DROPS = 16 or even 32.
You can also increase PPPCHA a bit for heavier snow, try 0.2 or 0.3.

[VanessaE]

ok, I've set those for 32 and 0.3, respectively. I'll put those into effect in a little while, the servers are a bit busy with players at the moment.

[paramat]

Hm i must remember particles are client side ... best to keep DROPS = 16, PPPCHA = 0.1 otherwise your players' FPS might really suffer.
Also the default humidity threshold HUT is too high, it only rains in small aeas of map, best to lower that.
It will rain in deserts, i'm working on that, if i add noise offset parameters it will be possible to use MGV6 desert noise params as the humidity noise params.

[VanessaE]

Ok, DROPS is 16, PPPCHA reverted to the default of 0.1, HUT is turned down to 0.2. I'd recommend the noise/humidity params you suggested - I use this same method in plants_lib for the mgv6 humidity map, and for the same reason. :-)

[alps21]

hey at some would you think of possibly creating tornados or tsnuami efects
oh and sory if this was already suggested i havent taken time to read comments

[paramat]

The settling of snow is server side so you could increase SETCHA if you want, perhaps double it? It looks unbalanced with the snowfall though if increased too much. Rain is WIP next version i'll stop the rain in deserts.

[VanessaE]

The current settings (not including your suggested change to SETCHA) seem to be working pretty well, at least server-side. I'm standing in the middle of a snowfall with dozens of particles around me, and I see no appreciable effect on CPU usage (it's floating at close to 15%, which is around what I should see at this moment).

The length of time that the snow falls, and the size of the area in which it falls, and the snow accumulating on the ground, are perfect! The only question now is ramping up just how many particles are falling at their peak.

As for snow on deserts, it's okay to allow rain and snow to fall and accumulate on deserts, as this does happen on occasion in real life, just don't let it fall/accumulate in the middle of a huge desert is all.

Oh, one other thing: don't change any of the current variable names or their default settings - I don't wanna have to rewrite my buildbot scripts ;-)

[gsmanners]

Maybe it's just my computer, but this mod with snow falling, it sends my frame rate down about 30% lower than what I'm used to. I need settings for something like a low end machine (weather = false, I guess).

[paramat]

Uh ... the raindrops seem big and too slow, they're not meant to be realistic but cute, i'll try a 4x4 pixel drop and see how it looks. These fall at 8m/s which is normal for a large raindrop, perhaps it looks slow for a ball-sized object.

VanessaE,
> don't change any of the current variable names or their default settings
:D funny
I wont change the existing variable names, default settings will certainly change best be prepared for that.

gsmanners, try reducing parameter PPPCHA slightly, this controls snowfall heaviness, number of particles.
To compensate that you can create the illusion of more snow by reducing the area they spawn over ...

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Code: Select all

minetest.add_particle(
                {x=pposx-32+math.random(0,63), y=pposy+16, z=pposz-16+math.random(0,63)}, -- posi

Edit the first line of each add particle statement to that, i might even make this default. The disadvantage is that when walking at 4m/s you might out-walk the snowfall before it gets down to your level.