FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting, and I'm not sure if this is the right category.

I've been playing MineTest for a while now, ever since my MineCraft account was hacked, and I've recently taken it upon myself to make a massive mod for MineTest to give it realistic physics, realistic textures, slightly reworked gameplay, and add a bunch of new nodes and tools, as well as mobs. In short, I want to make a mod that could essentially evolve into MineTest 0.4.14, or another future update.

However, every mod developer runs into a problem here and there, and as this is my first mod, I decided to bring my problem to other modders for help. First off, I've already finished the textures, so no problem with those, and they look really good so far. Secondly, I'm having trouble with gravity.

My idea for gravity is that there won't be any more floating blocks. For instance, I'm sure everyone here has come across a floating island in MineTest, and when you fell a tree it just floats there. What I want is for all blocks to fall like sand and gravel do, but not if they are connected to something else. I know how to make nodes fall, but I can't figure out how to make them fall only under specific conditions. Currently I cannot make tunnels or arches. I want the blocks to stay put unless they are just floating in thin air.

Now this question is a bit harder to answer, and the first was probably pretty hard. I want to make mobs that behave realistically, and I want to have both normal mobs, like actual animals, as well as creatures from legend, like dragons and trolls and others. I also want to make a sort of equivalent to MineCraft villagers, but without the big noses. Also, since I want this mod to be realistic, but still surreal, I want the mobs an avatars to have a more rounded appearance.

And last, this is probably easier to answer, when I got a high-res texture for lava, it started flowing backwards.

I know this is going to be massive, and I may have to do it all on my own, but I thought there's no harm in asking for help, especially when others are more experienced than I am.

Thanks, and Happy Mining

isaacthewriter wrote:My idea for gravity is that there won't be any more floating blocks. For instance, I'm sure everyone here has come across a floating island in MineTest, and when you fell a tree it just floats there. What I want is for all blocks to fall like sand and gravel do, but not if they are connected to something else. I know how to make nodes fall, but I can't figure out how to make them fall only under specific conditions. Currently I cannot make tunnels or arches. I want the blocks to stay put unless they are just floating in thin air.

That is very tricky. In order to achieve that, you'd have to rewrite the falling code from builtin. And even then it might be too expensive and not really worth the trouble. Just take another mapgen that creates less of those floating structures and don't build them yourshelf. Maybe you can react to the player's digging (there's a function for that) and check if a situation arose that requires removal of further nodes. As something like that can produce a cascade pretty easily, there might be lag involved.

isaacthewriter wrote:Now this question is a bit harder to answer, and the first was probably pretty hard. I want to make mobs that behave realistically, and I want to have both normal mobs, like actual animals, as well as creatures from legend, like dragons and trolls and others. I also want to make a sort of equivalent to MineCraft villagers, but without the big noses. Also, since I want this mod to be realistic, but still surreal, I want the mobs an avatars to have a more rounded appearance.

Try the animals modpack (mobf). Its mobs try to behave more realistic than other mob mods. To a degree. There are limits, and after all it's a blocky world. You'll have to take some compromises one way or another. As for the villager, just take the player model. There's no reason why npc ought to have a significantly diffrent model. Or create your own model using blender,

Thank you so much. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, and it's nice to get a second opinion.

Do you know of any way to set up a different block structure for specific nodes, so that liquids and gasses (which are being added) will move more realistically. My idea is for liquids and gasses to have a smaller grid base so that they (A) don't look like they're made of blocks (this will add to the surreal feel of the mod) and (B) move in a different, smoother way? I know that this will be especially hard, but I don't think it's impossible.

Also, sorry about the late reply, I've been busy with some back-to-school stuff.