New weather system proposition

[MirceaKitsune]

Perhaps something similar to add_particle?
IMO a weather system would be a bit too generic. What if you wanted a floating HUD that was displayed in front of a player, or a visualization of an effect or an arrow to show which direction to go.

Perhaps rename it to add_particle_system, with the option to lock it to a player. Give it options for radius around player, move with player or not, etc.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. I considered a name like add_particle_sphere or add_particle_circle, since the idea is to have a set of particle spawners surrounding the player. I still need to process the idea in my mind properly, to know exactly what I need to do.

[MTDad]

My dream Minetest Survival Game would have weather and seasons that matter. I've been studying Paramat's snow drift mod to see if I can use that to make it happen, but I'm a greenhorn with code.

If your weather system will allow me to make a mod so I can freeze to death in a snowstorm, I'm all for it.

[Gael de Sailly]

0.5.0 is coming soon, so it would be a great idea of improvement.

Weather mods written manually in Lua are very inefficient and / or laggy. The effects need to be hard-coded client-side.

I agree.

We should develop a so-called proper weather API, with params which can be set through Lua, but are managed on client side.
We should normalize humidity and heat, because it's already defined by mapgen, and then some mods redefine it another way… Nonsense ! It would be normalized parameters that mods can eventually redefine but after loading time they will all use the sames.
We can re-implement minetest.get_heat and minetest.get_humidity in a proper way.

I like the idea to re-implement clouds and fog according to weather system.

[Linuxdirk]

I like the idea to re-implement clouds and fog according to weather system.

Speaking of clouds: The downfall should come from them (at least visually) and above the clouds the weather should always be clear (but the weather below the cloud cover should be visible).

This (and this) would look just awesome in Minetest! :)

[jp]

How goes that interesting brainstorming, finally ? Hope it'll be realized somewhen.

[ABJ]

I voted for the second one because I have ideas for more functions for wind.
Watching a Minecraft video of KotoAndSen KAS, who tests destruction mods on their city known as Greenfield (Man you should watch their vids they're awesome! And REAL adrenaline pumping), the particular mod which was tested happened to be a hurricane mod, I got intrigued by the wind effects on the players and nodes. The hurricane ripped up roads and totally me$$ed up buildings. When Sen tried to get out of his apartment building, he couldn't because the wind pushed him back in to the less windy area inside. And when Koto somehow managed to get out, he was sent upwards by the wind. And the road next to the building got ripped up with a CRRRAACK sound.
We could implement this kind of thing in Minetest, like, you know, have different wind intensities. "Breeze" would be common and not effect anything. "Gale" could be for bad weather and would cause fires to stop after a while. "Storm" would effect players and sand and such extremely weak things. "Bad Storm" could instantly blow out fires and blast things like glass panes. "Hurricane F1" could effect players badly and effect trees and strength of basic building materials such as wood, and stuff. "Hurricane F2" could affect cobble, etc. "Hurricane F3" could worsely effect stone and cobble and stuff. "Hurricane F4" could mess up pretty much everything. "Hurricane F5" could destroy everything and briefly effect obsidian. And then there are the tornados. They have levels like the hurricanes but are more concentrated and cause more destruction (MORE!) and are visible as textured and move around and stuff.
Feel free to add and refine :)

[ABJ]

HEY I forgot. Lightning that could set things on fire and kill players and desnow and degrass dirt.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Great idea! Although tthat ay be hard to code.

[ABJ]

Why not create a new nodetype "windtype" or something like that? And then set params like "wind_strength" or stuff like that? Know it's hard to make but could help. And add another type for tornados and hurricanes etc that have textures and strength etc

[Dopium]

Some input if it's of any use or not idk, im kind of leaning towards the seasons idea server side but effects client. So utilizing the existing biome temps but having them float in regards to a solar calender. Tie both solar calender (time) with biome temps.

Having biomes such as desert never capable of reaching temps cold enough for snow and rarely reaching rain temps would solve that issue.

So really it's a shared load, all the server side is doing, is time = date = biome temp then the client reads biome temp and generates weather condition in regards to the temp.

With that in mind 2 or more players can experience the same weather conditions in the same area as it's reading set variables given from the server.

Just an idea.