[Mod] Grasses [0.1.8] [dryplants]

[Mossmanikin]

GRaSSeS

(By Mossmanikin, in collaboration with Neuromancer. Junglegrass by VanessaE.)


Dependencies: farming (minetest), plants_lib
Supports: flint, stoneage, sumpf

Reedmace will grow near water. Although the plant appears in different shapes, you'll get the same drop from each. You can plant it (the sapling) and new reedmace will grow (doesn't have to be next to water).

Small juncus grows near water and at dunes/beaches (two different looks).

Tall grass is a lot more common. It is partially dry (if you don't like the look, you can simply delete the textures).

You can cut tall grass or jungle grass with a sickle, it will become cut grass (placeable) and lie on the ground. You can also cut some grass from dirt with grass. If you wait a while it will become hay (placeable).

Out of hay you can make reed for roofs.

Out of papyrus or reedmace you can craft wet reed.

You can change some things in settings.txt:

+ Settings

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

-- Here you can enable/disable the different plants
REEDMACE_GENERATES                     =     true
SMALL_JUNCUS_GENERATES                 =     true
EXTRA_TALL_GRASS_GENERATES             =     true



-- Amount of Reedmace near water or swamp
REEDMACE_NEAR_WATER_PER_MAPBLOCK    =    35        -- plants per 80x80x80 nodes (absolute maximum number)
REEDMACE_NEAR_WATER_RARITY            =    40        -- percent

-- Amount of Reedmace in water
REEDMACE_IN_WATER_PER_MAPBLOCK        =    35        -- plants per 80x80x80 nodes (absolute maximum number)
REEDMACE_IN_WATER_RARITY            =    65        -- percent

-- Amount of Reedmace for oases, tropical beaches and tropical swamps
REEDMACE_FOR_OASES_PER_MAPBLOCK        =    35        -- plants per 80x80x80 nodes (absolute maximum number)
REEDMACE_FOR_OASES_RARITY            =    90        -- percent

-- growing of reedmace sapling
REEDMACE_GROWING_TIME                 =     50      -- seconds
REEDMACE_GROWING_CHANCE             =     5        -- percent



-- Amount of small Juncus near water or swamp
JUNCUS_NEAR_WATER_PER_MAPBLOCK        =    70        -- plants per 80x80x80 nodes (absolute maximum number)
JUNCUS_NEAR_WATER_RARITY            =    75        -- percent

-- Amount of small Juncus at dunes/beach
JUNCUS_AT_BEACH_PER_MAPBLOCK        =    70        -- plants per 80x80x80 nodes (absolute maximum number)
JUNCUS_AT_BEACH_RARITY                =    75        -- percent



-- Tall Grass on dirt with grass
TALL_GRASS_PER_MAPBLOCK                =    4800    -- plants per 80x80x80 nodes (absolute maximum number)
TALL_GRASS_RARITY                    =    67        -- percent



-- short grass becomes dirt with grass again
GRASS_REGROWING_TIME                 =     2         -- seconds
GRASS_REGROWING_CHANCE                 =     0.5        -- percent

HAY_DRYING_TIME                     =     200     -- seconds

REED_WILL_DRY                         =     false    -- wet reed nodes will become dry reed nodes
REED_DRYING_TIME                     =     200     -- seconds

AUTO_ROOF_CORNER                     =     true

-- support for higher resolutions textures
TEXTURE_RESOLUTION                     =     16


Times are in seconds, chances in percent.
If you set REED_WILL_DRY to true wet reed (when placed) will become (dry) reed over time.
When AUTO_ROOF_CORNER is set to true, roof blocks will change shape under certain circumstances (just test it).

Recipes:

+ Cut Grass

+ Hay

+ Sickle

+ Wet Reed

+ Wet Reed Slab

+ Wet Reed Roof

+ Dry Reed

+ Dry Reed Slab

+ Dry Reed Roof

Credit

Concept
Mossmanikin
Neuromancer

Code
Mossmanikin
VanessaE (Plantlife)

Textures
Mossmanikin
Neuromancer (dryplants_juncus_*.png, dryplants_reedmace*.png, default_grass_5.png & default_papyrus.png)
VanessaE (default_grass_*.png)

Review
Evergreen
Ikishida
Inocudom
Jordach
Neuromancer
Thermal_Shock
VanessaE
Yingaya

Other Inspiration
Casimir (sickle)
MasterGollum (DarkAge)
Mito551 (Dwarves)
Sokomine (cottages)

Last, but not least
all whom I forgot to mention, who made Minetest, modding and this mod possible and those whom inspired me

Note: just because I give credit, doesn't mean people actively worked on this mod or intended to do so. It just means their work or feedback helped to get the mod where it is now.

Download (direct)

latest:
https://github.com/Mossmanikin/dryplants/archive/master.zip

older versions:
dryplants-0.1.5.zip
dryplants-0.1.4.zip
dryplants-0.1.3-test.zip
dryplants-0.1.2-test.zip
dryplants-0.1.1.zip
(for "prehistoric" stuff see dryplants of prehistoric-0.1.7 or earlier)

Browse code/files: https://github.com/Mossmanikin/dryplants

License
dryplants_junglegrass_medium.png, dryplants_junglegrass_short.png & dryplants_junglegrass_shortest.png: CC BY-SA 3.0
Ev'ryt'ing else: WTFPL

[Neuromancer]

What if we each search for pictures of reedmace/cattails that can inspire us and represent what our vision of what we are trying to achive is?

[Mossmanikin]

What if we each search for pictures of reedmace/cattails that represent what our vision of what we are trying to achive is?

Good idea, i'll "google" a bit ;)

[Mossmanikin]

What if we each search for pictures of reedmace/cattails that can inspire us and represent what our vision of what we are trying to achive is?

't is hard to find a pic which shows exactly what I have in mind. But here's something that comes close to:
[spoiler=this][/spoiler]

Inspired by your review and texture

I tried to make the plants look more organic:

What do you think? Is this going in the right direction?

EDIT: hid pic

[Neuromancer]

I like your picture and I think your texture is headed in the right direction.
I've attached my altered versions of your texture, they are not polished, but they give you the idea of what I am thinking.
darker greens
half of the time not perfectly shaped thick brown parts.
put a very light brown tinge to the ones that have gone to seed instead of gray
only part of the brown part of the cattail goes to seed, the rest (top and bottom is intact)
more brown maces/cattails (thick brown pieces)
thick brown part not always straight up and down
leaves that go higher than the thick brown maces/cattails
a little bit of yellowed leaves

I noticed from your picture that the bottoms are lighter brighter greens, and yellowed. I also grab the colors out of my inspiration pictures.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/7g2qlo804xtalam/reedmace2.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j567n33hl2qt7kf/reedmace3.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/75k7bm9g8s4i85k/reedmace4.png

Is it possible to show images inline using dropbox? I used to be able to using omploader, but my []syntax doesn't work anymore.

[Evergreen]

I like your picture and I think it is headed in the right direction.
It's not completely polished, but here's what I was thinking.
darker greens
not perfectly shaped brown catttails
put a very light brown tinge to the ones that have gone to seed instead of gray
only part of the cattail goes to seed, the rest (top and bottom is intact)
more brown maces/cattails
not always straight up and down
leaves that go higher than the brown maces/cattails
a little bit of yellowed leaves

I noticed from your picture that the bottoms are lighter brighter greens, and yellowed. I also grab the colors out of my inspiration pictures.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/7g2qlo804xtalam/reedmace2.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j567n33hl2qt7kf/reedmace3.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/75k7bm9g8s4i85k/reedmace4.png

Is it possible to show images inline using dropbox? I used to be able to using omploader, but my []syntax doesn't work anymore.

Just use tinypic or imgur.

[Neuromancer]

Ugh, I looked at my textures #4 in game and they look hideous. The greens need to be very close to each other in terms of darkness, or it looks really bad. Even the yellows look bad. My original texture looks way better even if it is short. But I think you get my ideas from the post.

I'm actually kind of liking my first texture. It clearly is not a reedmace/cattail, but it does look like some sort of marsh plant that doesn't look half bad. I'd also like to see what your texture looks like.

[Mossmanikin]

Ugh, I looked at my textures #4 in game and they look hideous. The greens need to be very close to each other in terms of darkness, or it looks really bad. Even the yellows look bad. My original texture looks way better even if it is short. But I think you get my ideas from the post.

I like your ideas and I'll experiment with them and try to find a "compromise" that works after I got some sleep.

[Neuromancer]

I'm thinking what we have now isn't so bad. Here's a combination of my old texture and your new one in game.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i8tirz8jkb0a2bv/BothPlantsView.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1u7rzfqbu3c1c39/BothPlantsView2.jpg

But if my ideas can help you make yours even better, then definitely give it a try. :)

What do you think of adding my texture to your mod as an additional small marsh plant? I think they look good together.

[Mossmanikin]

I'm thinking what we have now isn't so bad.

I agree, it isn't bad.
To imprevo it, I'd say we need some recoloring and details.
My textures should have some saturated yellow at the bottom and some more dark and or saturated green in general. Also a bit more definition wouldn't harm. And of course: less straight lines.
IMO your texture(s) could use some dry parts, also some definition and some "harmony" (hope you get what I mean). Maybe the plants would look better if the texture were brighter, but still darker than mine.

What do you think of adding my texture to your mod as an additional small marsh plant? I think they look good together.

I'm starting to love these small rushes, so: yes. :)
We just have to find a way to "align" the styles of the textures.

I've been trying some stuff. None of it is meant to be even close to final.
[spoiler=Here it is]
I used the pollen of your reedmace2.png:

More green and yellow will follow.

To test how it would look, I cut some pieces out of your cattailsG.png and edited them to fit in a 16x16 space:

I don't really like the result. They should be bigger; one plant should touch the next one.

Anyway, this is how it looks ingame:



If you like to look at the code and some unused textures:
dryplants-0.1.2-test.zip
[/spoiler]

[Neuromancer]

I'm loving your new textures. Really starting to look natural and beautiful! Here's something I realized. Cattails usually grow in water also. I'm not sure if it is possible to make them grow in 1 node deep of water, as the roots would displace the water node. Maybe make them grow like lilly pads, above the water?

[Mossmanikin]

I'm loving your new textures. Really starting to look natural and beautiful! Here's something I realized. Cattails usually grow in water also. I'm not sure if it is possible to make them grow in 1 node deep of water, as the roots would displace the water node. Maybe make them grow like lilly pads, above the water?

One who doesn't know about it will probably not notice, but actually I've already implemented plants that grow in water.
I (ab)used entities to get a more or less satisfying result.
Maybe it would be nice to increase the spawn rate...

[Neuromancer]

One who doesn't know about it will probably not notice, but actually I've already implemented plants that grow in water.
I (ab)used entities to get a more or less satisfying result.
Maybe it would be nice to increase the spawn rate...

What mod did you do this in? I know that topywo did something similar in his sea mod which I liked a lot but really hurt performance. I'd be concerned about performance of entities for sure, but might be worth investigating. I was hoping for a trick that wouldn't hurt performance.

Edit: You did underwater roots! And it doesn't seem to impact performance! They look awesome!

[Mossmanikin]

One who doesn't know about it will probably not notice, but actually I've already implemented plants that grow in water.
I (ab)used entities to get a more or less satisfying result.
Maybe it would be nice to increase the spawn rate...

What mod did you do this in? I know that topywo did something similar in his sea mod which I liked a lot but really hurt performance. I'd be concerned about performance of entities for sure, but might be worth investigating. I was hoping for a trick that wouldn't hurt performance.

Edit: You did underwater roots! And it doesn't seem to impact performance! They look awesome!

Thank you. :)

I've been working on the [spoiler=textures]
Something isn't right yet, but I think they're better than before:






[/spoiler]

EDIT: added pic

[Neuromancer]

I've been working on the [spoiler=textures]
Something isn't right yet, but I think they're better than before:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/62yfik8j00ek3em/big_pic_4.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/vt8co1fqi3fof2o/big_pic_5.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ejfuz2lu597m830/dryplants_juncus_02_whole2.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/w1uch1uscxnn5pw/dryplants_juncus_03_whole2.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/skjs5vfm71xt88v/screenshot_99008532.png
[url][/url]
[/spoiler]

EDIT: added pic

Looks better all the time. The obvious thing that jumps out at me is that the stem right under the thick brown flower spike is just as thick as the flower spike. But for reedmace the stem is always very thin and rigid. It should only be 1 pixel thick at most.
I like the yellow around the roots. Doesn't look as pretty as it did before but much more realistic, and there is a beauty to that.

The other thing I'm not sure about is this, your textures are still a much lighter shade of green than real reedmace. What I don't like about this is that it reminds me of thick aloe vera leaves. But Reedmace leaves are ribbon thin. I think I know why you go with a lighter shade of green, and that it blends in with the grass colors, and in general, light colors seem to be much more forgiving than dark colors which are harsher and can seem more hand drawn.


Again my version of your texture probably looks like garbage if you put it in the game, and it definitely needs darker greens, but you get the idea of what I'm thinking about:
[spoiler=textures]https://www.dropbox.com/s/1tmme1i3z1fwsn4/big_pic_5G.png[/spoiler]
Also the spike goes through the brown flower out past the top.

I tried to make the leaves look like there were many thin tall ribbon like leaves twisting in front of each other by trying to strand a single shade of green in front the other shades, like a single thin leaf. I still think the bottom portion still looks like a few thick leaves (bad) rather than many thin leaves (good), but maybe you can see where I'm trying to go with this. Also the leaves should go past the top of the flowers, which all I did was make a few of them a little taller than what they were, but not taller than the flowers.

Edit: The grenns already contain shades as dark as real leaves. I think the greens in the thinner flower stems that I just did are about as dark as the leaves need to be, and there should be some lighter shades in the leaves as well. I just think maybe there are too many of the lighter shades still and not as many of the darker shades that are already in the texture.

[Mossmanikin]

The obvious thing that jumps out at me is that the stem right under the thick brown flower spike is just as thick as the flower spike. But for reedmace the stem is always very thin and rigid. It should only be 1 pixel thick at most.
I like the yellow around the roots. Doesn't look as pretty as it did before but much more realistic, and there is a beauty to that.

Yeah, I've been struggling with this from the very beginning. On one hand the size on your texture is more realistic. On the other hand it's not in the mid below the fruit.
Both versions (yours and mine) are compromises. I'll experiment a bit with light, shadow, colour and saturation and hopefully find an optical illusion that's more satisfying.

The other thing I'm not sure about is this, your textures are still a much lighter shade of green than real reedmace. What I don't like about this is that it reminds me of thick aloe vera leaves. But Reedmace leaves are ribbon thin. I think I know why you go with a lighter shade of green, and that it blends in with the grass colors, and in general, light colors seem to be much more forgiving than dark colors which are harsher and can seem more hand drawn.

You're right about the green and fading with grass. I like when the game environment, especially plant life, looks like everything is connected. But I will moderately use some darker greens.
The leaves are too thick, yes. I already started to make them thinner.

Again my version of your texture probably looks like garbage if you put it in the game, and it definitely needs darker greens, but you get the idea of what I'm thinking about:
[spoiler=textures]https://www.dropbox.com/s/1tmme1i3z1fwsn4/big_pic_5G.png[/spoiler]
Also the spike goes through the brown flower out past the top.

I tried to make the leaves look like there were many thin tall ribbon like leaves twisting in front of each other by trying to strand a single shade of green in front the other shades, like a single thin leaf. I still think the bottom portion still looks like a few thick leaves (bad) rather than many thin leaves (good), but maybe you can see where I'm trying to go with this. Also the leaves should go past the top of the flowers, which all I did was make a few of them a little taller than what they were, but not taller than the flowers.

Edit: The grenns already contain shades as dark as real leaves. I think the greens in the thinner flower stems that I just did are about as dark as the leaves need to be, and there should be some lighter shades in the leaves as well. I just think maybe there are too many of the lighter shades still and not as many of the darker shades that are already in the texture.

This doesn't look like garbage to me. :)
I might adopt some of the changes.
Funny: I already tried some spikes go through the fruits

With your suggestions and texture I have something to work with. :)
Unfortunately I won't have that much time to work on this for a couple days.
So I'll only post something here if there really is some progress.

[Neuromancer]

Yeah, I've been struggling with this from the very beginning. On one hand the size on your texture is more realistic. On the other hand it's not in the mid below the fruit.
Both versions (yours and mine) are compromises.

my idea was a attempt at making it look like the spike and fruit were not straight up and down, and so the spike went in on one end the fruit was implied to be leaning to one side, and the spike continued on leaning even further out the other side. It would take a bit more playing to get it to look just right.

I saw some cattails on the way home today, and the leaves do pretty much go more straight up and down, not crisscrossing each other like crazy, but if there are enough of them, they do tend to splay outward slightly. But the leaves were all very thin, very tall and the wind would make them sway and bend all in the same direction.

[Mossmanikin]

Yeah, I've been struggling with this from the very beginning. On one hand the size on your texture is more realistic. On the other hand it's not in the mid below the fruit.
Both versions (yours and mine) are compromises.

my idea was a attempt at making it look like the spike and fruit were not straight up and down, and so the spike went in on one end the fruit was implied to be leaning to one side, and the spike continued on leaning even further out the other side. It would take a bit more playing to get it to look just right.

I saw some cattails on the way home today, and the leaves do pretty much go more straight up and down, not crisscrossing each other like crazy, but if there are enough of them, they do tend to splay outward slightly. But the leaves were all very thin, very tall and the wind would make them sway and bend all in the same direction.

Yeah, observed something similar while going for a walk yesterday.
Animation for cattails in the wind might be added in version 21.9.3 ;D

[Neuromancer]

Since I started assisting you with this mod, I've been noticing things every time I'm outside.

We just were on a brief vacation, and all the way home I was staring out the windows looking at the grasses and plants. I noticed a few things. Now that it is between summer and fall, everything isn't green any more. In fact, I saw an ocean of 40% green, 40% yellow, 10% brown, and 1% white. There were some really common plants:
So many varieties of grasses, green on the bottom, and yellow like wheat on the top, brown dried out queen anne's lace, yellow goldenrod, and many varieties of browned stalks, stems and seeds. I wonder if this would be more interesting than all the greens that we currently have. I also noticed lots of bushes that are about 4x4 nodes in size. I wonder if it would be possible to create these larger bushes using some combination of plant and leaf nodes, where the plant nodes could form a network of small branches.

I think that is a big part of the appeal of cattails, they aren't the standard one node sized plant, like most of the plants in the game.

But the other day I was in a vast park that had such a beautiful collection of prairie plants, with so many additional colors intermixed. The thing I mostly noticed in both scenarions the intermingling of these plants altogether so that 1 node would contain yellows, browns, greens, and different mixtures of 3 or so varieties of plants. But I did notice that there are either trees, bushes or plants growing almost on every node of the real world, not the short mowed lawns of the traditional dirt with grass blocks.

[Evergreen]

If you need any textures for this, I would be glad to help.

[Mossmanikin]

Since I started assisting you with this mod, I've been noticing things every time I'm outside.

We just were on a brief vacation, and all the way home I was staring out the windows looking at the grasses and plants. I noticed a few things. Now that it is between summer and fall, everything isn't green any more. In fact, I saw an ocean of 40% green, 40% yellow, 10% brown, and 1% white. There were some really common plants:
So many varieties of grasses, green on the bottom, and yellow like wheat on the top, brown dried out queen anne's lace, yellow goldenrod, and many varieties of browned stalks, stems and seeds. I wonder if this would be more interesting than all the greens that we currently have. I also noticed lots of bushes that are about 4x4 nodes in size. I wonder if it would be possible to create these larger bushes using some combination of plant and leaf nodes, where the plant nodes could form a network of small branches.

I think that is a big part of the appeal of cattails, they aren't the standard one node sized plant, like most of the plants in the game.

But the other day I was in a vast park that had such a beautiful collection of prairie plants, with so many additional colors intermixed. The thing I mostly noticed in both scenarions the intermingling of these plants altogether so that 1 node would contain yellows, browns, greens, and different mixtures of 3 or so varieties of plants. But I did notice that there are either trees, bushes or plants growing almost on every node of the real world, not the short mowed lawns of the traditional dirt with grass blocks.

Yes, there's a lot of variation in colour and shape in nature. I'd love to see plants in different colours in Minetest (like grass in Minecraft has) and more different sizes.
I'd also like to see more tall grass and plants in general.
But I'm afraid the game would be unplayable, everything would be far too slow, very soon.
Maybe some options for more plants and variation would be a good thing. So the user could try, depending on the limits of the hard- and software, what works.

[Neuromancer]

I'm having issues bringing reedmace textures into the game. Is there any rule about how to chop up the image (what sizes) and filenames to use.

It used to be, top 16 pixels go to dryplants_reedmace_spikes, 17-32 go to dryplants_reedmace, and 33-bottom go to dryplants_reedmace_bottom. I did that, and didn't touch the left and right images, but they really got strange when I did this.

How wide should left right and center be?

[Mossmanikin]

If you need any textures for this, I would be glad to help.

Any help is appreciated. :)
Can't promise your textures will be used "as is", but I'm quite sure I'll at least be inspired or use parts of 'em. ;)

I'm having issues bringing reedmace textures into the game. Is there any rule about how to chop up the image (what sizes) and filenames to use.

It used to be, top 16 pixels go to dryplants_reedmace_spikes, 17-32 go to dryplants_reedmace, and 33-bottom go to dryplants_reedmace_bottom. I did that, and didn't touch the left and right images, but they really got strange when I did this.

How wide should left right and center be?

Here's a picture of how the textures are used:



The actual size of the surface for the textures is 64x64.
But I use "only" 9 textures for the biggest plant.
The textures used on the picture (with more saturation) are (@ horizontal,vertical):

dryplants_reedmace_top_left.png @ 8,8
dryplants_reedmace_spikes.png @ 24,8
dryplants_reedmace_top_right.png @ 40,8

dryplants_reedmace_left.png @ 8,24
dryplants_reedmace.png @ 24,24
dryplants_reedmace_right.png @ 40,24

dryplants_reedmace_bottom_left.png @ 8,40
dryplants_reedmace_bottom.png @ 24,40
dryplants_reedmace_bottom_right.png @ 40,40

It takes some time to get used to "[combine", but it really has some advantages.
In combination with "visual_scale" one can combine different textures for different plants while still having the same size for pixels (yes, I think it looks ugly otherwise).
This means you can reuse textures for different nodes, while they still look different and you don't have to make a lot of oversized textures.
When not using a texture for a part of the whole plant, it's simply invisible, not a random colour (unless you're not using any texture at all, of course).

[Neuromancer]

If you need any textures for this, I would be glad to help.

Awesome, the more people we have working at this, the better our textures will be. What kinds of plants/textures do you think you want to work on?

[Evergreen]

If you need any textures for this, I would be glad to help.

Awesome, the more people we have working at this, the better our textures will be. What kinds of textures do you think you want to work on?

I don't really care, just tell me some of the ones you need, and I'll see what I can do.

[Neuromancer]

I'm a little confused. so the sample full image file used to be 48x48. Do you start with that or do you start with a 64x64 image?
Or the size of the image in your example here is 128x128?
Then you manually chop it up in a paint program and save it into these 9 png files that you list above?

Here were my original assumpmtions. You start with a 48x48 image. Then you manually chop it up into 9 images in your paint program and save each
dryplants_reedmace_top_left.png from 0,0 to 16,16
dryplants_reedmace_spikes.png from 17,0 to 32,16
dryplants_reedmace_top_right.png from 33,0 to 48,16

dryplants_reedmace_left.png from 0,17 to 16,32
dryplants_reedmace.png from 17,17, to 32,32
dryplants_reedmace_right.png from 33,17 to 48, 32

dryplants_reedmace_bottom_left.png from 0, 33 to 16,48
dryplants_reedmace_bottom.png from 17,33 to 32,48
dryplants_reedmace_bottom_right.png from 33, 33 to 48, 48

then you use the combine statement in the lua to say where you want the image files displayed relative to each other. That is where you would use the 8,8 etc.

[Mossmanikin]

I'm a little confused. so the sample full image file used to be 48x48. Do you start with that or do you start with a 64x64 image?

The sample image still is 48x48. It is cut into 9 textures (manually).
The 64x64 surface is only used in the code/game.

Or the size of the image in your example here is 128x128?

I only enlarged the pic so you wouldn't have to zoom in. Sorry for the confusion.

Then you manually chop it up in a paint program and save it into these 9 png files that you list above?

Exactly

Here were my original assumpmtions. You start with a 48x48 image. Then you manually chop it up into 9 images in your paint program and save each
dryplants_reedmace_top_left.png from 0,0 to 16,16
dryplants_reedmace_spikes.png from 17,0 to 32,16
dryplants_reedmace_top_right.png from 33,0 to 48,16

dryplants_reedmace_left.png from 0,17 to 16,32
dryplants_reedmace.png from 17,17, to 32,32
dryplants_reedmace_right.png from 33,17 to 48, 32

dryplants_reedmace_bottom_left.png from 0, 33 to 16,48
dryplants_reedmace_bottom.png from 17,33 to 32,48
dryplants_reedmace_bottom_right.png from 33, 33 to 48, 48

then you use the combine statement in the lua to say where you want the image files displayed relative to each other. That is where you would use the 8,8 etc.

That's almost correct.
It's:
0,0 to 15,15
16,0 to 31,15
...
But I'm quite sure that's what you meant. ;)
For the code, of the 3 nodes high plant, you add 8 to the coordinates of the upper left corner, yes.
For the 2 nodes high plant it's 24 for the vertical value...

Hope this isn't even more confusing.

[spoiler=another version for testing]

- a lot of edited and unused textures
- slightly different code, some of it unused

dryplants-0.1.3-test.zip
[/spoiler]

[Mossmanikin]

If you need any textures for this, I would be glad to help.

Awesome, the more people we have working at this, the better our textures will be. What kinds of textures do you think you want to work on?

I don't really care, just tell me some of the ones you need, and I'll see what I can do.

[spoiler=These are the names of the plants and textures that don't look right yet]

dryplants_juncus_02_whole*.png
- dryplants_juncus_02_left.png
- dryplants_juncus_02_right.png

dryplants_juncus_03_whole*.png
- dryplants_juncus_03_left.png
- dryplants_juncus_03_right.png

big_pic*.png (a version without fruits)
- dryplants_reedmace_top_left.png
- dryplants_reedmace_top.png
- dryplants_reedmace_top_right.png
- dryplants_reedmace_left.png
- dryplants_reedmace.png
- dryplants_reedmace_right.png
- dryplants_reedmace_bottom_left.png
- dryplants_reedmace_bottom.png
- dryplants_reedmace_bottom_right.png

big_pic*.png (a version with fruits)
- dryplants_reedmace_top_left.png
- dryplants_reedmace_spikes.png
- dryplants_reedmace_top_right.png
- dryplants_reedmace_left.png
- dryplants_reedmace.png
- dryplants_reedmace_right.png
- dryplants_reedmace_bottom_left.png
- dryplants_reedmace_bottom.png
- dryplants_reedmace_bottom_right.png
[/spoiler]

[Neuromancer]

@Evergreen:
To be honest I think that Mossmanikin has achieved perfection with a couple versions of his juncus textures already. And the reedmace is looking really good. I'd say work on whatever inspires you. Personally I think that between the 3 of us we should set our goals really high. We should try to take the look of Minetest to a whole new level. I think the thing that really hurts the game's realism is the look of the grass on dirt nodes. If you go to real unspoiled land, it doesn't look like the mowed lawn effect that we get with grass on dirt. For example in a woods or forest, no grass grows. Instead you see dirt with roots and decaying leaves, with sporadic plants here and there. We should try to do this. If there are a bunch of tree trunks and leaves around, replace "dirt with grass" with "dirt with roots". The other thing is that where there aren't trees, there are long grasses and other wild plants/weeds everywhere. I think Minecraft get's the idea a little by having a lot more long grasses spawned than Minetest, and put a lot more effort into making those textures look good. But we should go farther creating patches of grasses that are green on the bottom, and yellow on top with brown dried out weeds sticking up in places. There should be whole patches of brown weeds. There should also be large bushes 3x3x2tall and some even larger than this. I like the idea of experimenting with using both plantlike textures for branches and leaf nodes for bush leaves. I also like the idea of single nodes containing multiple colorful prairie plants. As Mossmanikin pointed out all this could hurt performance, but I think it wont hurt nearly as much as moretrees. And if needed we could split it into separate Mods so people could take just those things that they love (large bushes, treeroots, prairie plants). Do any of these ideas sound interesting to you, or do you have some of your own you'd like to have us work on?

[Evergreen]

@Evergreen:
To be honest I think that Mossmanikin has achieved perfection with a couple versions of his juncus textures already. And the reedmace is looking really good. I'd say work on whatever inspires you. Personally I think that between the 3 of us we should set our goals really high. We should try to take the look of Minetest to a whole new level. I think the thing that really hurts the game's realism is the look of the grass on dirt nodes. If you go to real unspoiled land, it doesn't look like the mowed lawn effect that we get with grass on dirt. For example in a woods or forest, no grass grows. Instead you see dirt with roots and decaying leaves, with sporadic plants here and there. We should try to do this. If there are a bunch of tree trunks and leaves around, replace "dirt with grass" with "dirt with roots". The other thing is that where there aren't trees, there are long grasses and other wild plants/weeds. I think Minecraft get's the idea a little by having a lot more long grasses spawned than Minetest, and put a lot more effort into making those textures look good. But we should go farther creating patches of grasses that are green on the bottom, and yellow on top with brown dried out weeds sticking up in places. There should be whole patches of brown weeds. There should also be large bushes 3x3x2tall and some even larger than this. I like the idea of experimenting with using both plantlike textures for branches and leaf nodes for bush leaves. I also like the idea of nodes containing multiple colorful prairie plants. As Mossmanikin pointed out all this could hurt performance, but I think it wont hurt nearly as much as moretrees. And if needed we could split it into separate Mods so people could take just those things that they love (large bushes, treeroots, prarie plants).

Those are great ideas, it might be a lot easier(and faster) when mapgen v7 is released, with biomes, decorations and such.