[WIP] Undergrowth [GitHub]

[Neuromancer]

Something about the twigs bothered me. The fact that they were all perfectly centered in the node just looked fake to me. So I slid them over to the edge of the node. I was hoping to get the effect of multiple twigs joined together to make one large twig. Instead what I got was what looked like a long twig that got stepped on an broken, but still a cool effect. And not so centered on the node they look more natural. But I also got 2 random pixels on the sides of the nodes. At first I thought this looked bad like a glitch, but when approaching the twigs from far away, it looks like all kinds of random natural twig debris on the ground. Try it out. Change the texture names to use the 3 "e" textures e.g. trunks_twig_1e. I'm not saying this is perfect, some glitches need to be ironed out, but I really like the look of it! Try it out, start wandering around seeing all the random debris on the ground and let me know what you think.

[Neuromancer]

The circles are lily pads

No I meant the tiny dots of green. Algea?

[Casimir]

It's delicious duckweed.

[Neuromancer]

I'm not sure sticks float on water.

Most wood floats.

To be honest, whether or not sticks float, I really like the look of them on the water. Makes the water look more natural. I'd like to see more dirty water as well.

[Mossmanikin]

Something about the twigs bothered me. The fact that they were all perfectly centered in the node just looked fake to me. So I slid them over to the edge of the node. I was hoping to get the effect of multiple twigs joined together to make one large twig. Instead what I got was what looked like a long twig that got stepped on an broken, but still a cool effect. And not so centered on the node they look more natural. But I also got 2 random pixels on the sides of the nodes. At first I thought this looked bad like a glitch, but when approaching the twigs from far away, it looks like all kinds of random natural twig debris on the ground. Try it out. Change the texture names to use the 3 "e" textures e.g. trunks_twig_1e. I'm not saying this is perfect, some glitches need to be ironed out, but I really like the look of it! Try it out, start wandering around seeing all the random debris on the ground and let me know what you think.

Feel free to add what you've done so far. :)
Just change textures/code, we can always roll back to a previous version in case it doesn't work.

I'm busy doing stuff not related to minetest at the moment, so I'll probably not add anything the following couple of days.

Generally I'd say: the three of us just add and change stuff if we think it's a good idea, and in case it turns out it wasn't, well, we still have the older version, right?

[Neuromancer]

Feel free to add what you've done so far. :)
Just change textures/code, we can always roll back to a previous version in case it doesn't work.

I'm busy doing stuff not related to minetest at the moment, so I'll probably not add anything the following couple of days.

Generally I'd say: the three of us just add and change stuff if we think it's a good idea, and in case it turns out it wasn't, well, we still have the older version, right?

Ok I did check in my changes, but I saved your original textures with an "o" at the end if you want them back. I also bumped up the number of twig textures from 3 to 4 in the nodes.lua. My change makes the twigs look totally random, Some really long, some really short, some twisted and angled. It adds a lot of variety but also can look a little chaotic. This is an experiment, but you told me to go for it. Thoughts?

[Neuromancer]

Side note: Could you change the filename of the texture being used for the "leaves" in these bushes, so I can texture them separately in HDX?

I changed the Bush Leaf filename textures to something other than the moretrees, so you can texture them.

Also I cleaned up the code in the Bushes mod a little bit.

[Mossmanikin]

Ok I did check in my changes, but I saved your original textures with an "o" at the end if you want them back. I also bumped up the number of twig textures from 3 to 4 in the nodes.lua. My change makes the twigs look totally random, Some really long, some really short, some twisted and angled. It adds a lot of variety but also can look a little chaotic. This is an experiment, but you told me to go for it. Thoughts?

I tested the mod with your changes.

Sometimes it really looked like there was something missing. Some straight edges made the twigs look incomplete.
However, because of your changes I was convinced that we needed some more twigs and some huge ones too.

Therefore I used the old three small twigs again and used your textures to make another small one and two huge ones.

It's still not "perfect", but I think it looks better than before. Feel free to experiment further with it.

I also took a look at the new shapes of the branches and bushes.
Look much better now. Good job.

Meanwhile, I suggest using a flat nodebox for the moss. The signlike drawtype makes it "float" above the object it sits on, which looks kinda odd on the trees.

After some further playing and looking at moss I must agree. Will be the next thing I'll do.

[Neuromancer]

I tested the mod with your changes.

Sometimes it really looked like there was something missing. Some straight edges made the twigs look incomplete.
However, because of your changes I was convinced that we needed some more twigs and some huge ones too.

Therefore I used the old three small twigs again and used your textures to make another small one and two huge ones.

It's still not "perfect", but I think it looks better than before. Feel free to experiment further with it.

I also took a look at the new shapes of the branches and bushes.
Look much better now. Good job.

Yes your addition of large twigs looks really good. What I do see on land now sometimes is super small twigs (which I love), but I never see them in water. I think you need to incorporate a few really small thin twigs that aren't centered in the middle of the node and all will be good. These look like debris, which is actually the most common kind of twig that you see in nature. Nature loves small debris. It doesn't like things centered, and it doesn't like them all of similar size. You might even want to incorporate some of these small debris twigs in other nodes with larger twigs already on them.

[Mossmanikin]

Yes your addition of large twigs looks really good. What I do see on land now sometimes is super small twigs (which I love), but I never see them in water. I think you need to incorporate a few really small thin twigs that aren't centered in the middle of the node and all will be good. These look like debris, which is actually the most common kind of twig that you see in nature. Nature loves small debris. It doesn't like things centered, and it doesn't like them all of similar size. You might even want to incorporate some of these small debris twigs in other nodes with larger twigs already on them.

Good ideas!
Some smaller ones will be added. :)

[Neuromancer]

The more I see of the sticks on the water, the more I love them.

It makes me think that we need more suface weeds. Pond/small lake water is never just open water along the shore.



But it's difficult to do realistic pond scum:


What do you guys think, is it worth attempting surface weeds/ pond scum? I checked in the pondscum texture under trunks if you want to play around with it.

Not sure this would look good, but is it possible to have a plantlike nodebox sit on top of the water to look like grasses growing out of the water?

Another approach is to use many small lillypads (with a better color) and only a few flowers here, and then do what we did with twigs to have many lillypad variations. I also checked in to github.trunks.textures the beginnings of a multi lilly pad texture.

[Neuromancer]

I added 2 more LillyPad textures to the trunks mod on GitHub. Feel free to improve them, move them or write code to generate them along the shoreline (not in the middle of the water).

[VanessaE]

fwiw, since you use plants_lib, the plantlife modpack's flowers_plus mod has four lilypad textures at different rotations (a total of 16 rotations when combined with simple facedir), and it also generates "seaweed" along shorelines.

[Neuromancer]

I've been messing with the fallen logs code trying to make logs that are randomly 3, 4, & 5 nodes long rather than the standard 3 nodes long. The problem is that there are a lot that wind up hanging over the edge, and possibly some that might defy gravity. It might be important to check for air under the nodes before placing them. I'd check it in to github under a different name, but the code is broken after I added the random element.

Edit: I got it working and checked it in as Trunks\generatingLong.lua copy it over Trunks\Generating.lua if you want to try it out.

One of the things I don't like is when two different types logs cross each other or a stump from another log is placed in the middle of a log, so you get what looks like a log made up of 2 different types of trees. This was a common bug in the orignal code, and is a bug in my modfied version as well.

[Neuromancer]

fwiw, since you use plants_lib, the plantlife modpack's flowers_plus mod has four lilypad textures at different rotations (a total of 16 rotations when combined with simple facedir), and it also generates "seaweed" along shorelines.

I haven't seen much seaweed yet, but that's maybe because I create and dump worlds so quickly because I'm mostly testing stuff. Does it grow on land, or on the surface of the water? I'm trying to get the effect of many lilypads in clusters together along the shores. The current lilypads seem to be randomly distributed over the water. The other thing is that they seem to accumulate over time. Very scarce at first and then overpopulation later. I'd sooner have more tightly controlled populations. With a bunch at the beginning, and slowly being added back after being harvested back to some maximum value. Maybe I could fork and customize the flowers_plus mod to do this, and use my textures with many small pads rather than 1 big one. Vanessa, do you like these ideas and would you be interested in incorporating these changes into the flowers_plus mod, or should I work these into undergrowth?

[Neuromancer]

I added lilypads that spawn along the shore near grass. There are some things that need to be changed. Signlike needs to be changed to nodebox. Settings and the naming and location in Trunks may need to change based on what Vanessa, MM and EG think. also it may hit performance too hard when generating new terrain. But the look and overall effect is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Feel free to tweak and improve any and all aspects of this.

[Mossmanikin]

I added lilypads that spawn along the shore near grass. There are some things that need to be changed. Signlike needs to be changed to nodebox. Settings and the naming and location in Trunks may need to change based on what Vanessa, MM and EG think. also it may hit performance too hard when generating new terrain. But the look and overall effect is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Feel free to tweak and improve any and all aspects of this.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/541wapym6vxifp0/LillyPadPic2.jpg

Moved lily pad related stuff to own sub mod and renamed everything in use. Edited some of the code. flowers_plus is now supported: soft dependency and Vanessa's lily pads generate near shore.
Actually I'm not sure if we need new lily pads. I like those of flowers_plus, eventhough they're quite huge.
Maybe we just use those and add a few smaller ones in a similar style and some algae at the water surface?

[VanessaE]

fwiw, since you use plants_lib, the plantlife modpack's flowers_plus mod has four lilypad textures at different rotations (a total of 16 rotations when combined with simple facedir), and it also generates "seaweed" along shorelines.

I haven't seen much seaweed yet, but that's maybe because I create and dump worlds so quickly because I'm mostly testing stuff. Does it grow on land, or on the surface of the water?

It grows on both land and water surfaces, but only along water<->dirt/grass shorelines, and only when/where it's dark enough. It takes a long while to grow.

I'm trying to get the effect of many lilypads in clusters together along the shores. The current lilypads seem to be randomly distributed over the water. The other thing is that they seem to accumulate over time. Very scarce at first and then overpopulation later.

Lilypads only grow in shallow water (I think I set the limit to 2m deep), and only where the lake bed is sand or dirt. I could restrict them to only being near shorelines (though they should spread further away than seaweed), but I never really thought to do that. They can also be thinned down if they're too dense, and they can be made to grow much slower too, if so desired. They use the ABM-based spawner, but adding or changing them to use the mapgen-based one should be trivial, as is changing the various growth factors, since those are managed by the plants_lib API anyway.

I'd sooner have more tightly controlled populations. With a bunch at the beginning, and slowly being added back after being harvested back to some maximum value. Maybe I could fork and customize the flowers_plus mod to do this, and use my textures with many small pads rather than 1 big one.

Why not have both? I'm not at all opposed to adding more stuff to the Plantlife modpack if it makes sense.

Vanessa, do you like these ideas and would you be interested in incorporating these changes into the flowers_plus mod, or should I work these into undergrowth?

Sure! Fork and pull-request, and we'll discuss what needs to be changed, as I'm not completely happy with the current state of Plantlife anyway (and plants_lib might benefit from a new feature or two as well). :-)

Maybe we just use those and add a few smaller ones in a similar style and some algae at the water surface?

That's what the seaweed was supposed to be. Someone had requested some kind of algae, and seaweed was the closest I could think to add, after some quick research.

[Neuromancer]

I agree that currently my lilypads do not go well with Vanessa's I'm not sure I can completely bridge the gap between them. What I like about hers is the greater number of colors, which I will do, but with lesser difference between each color. I like the smaller size of the slit/opening on mine. I like the smaller overall size of mine. I'll keep playing with my textures because they just are too flat. But I disabled hers in the along_shore mod (because hers still generate in the middle of the water and do not look good together with mine. I disabled the pond scum. That was a horrible failed experiment. This needs more work and more thought. If you guys can help improve my textures I'm open to it. I just think Vanessas are too bright of a green. I like a green that is more dirty if that makes sense. Nature is dirty. Vanessa's is way too clean for my taste. But mine are too flat. Hers have a little more variety to them. One thing I did was add a single lone small non-centered lilypad with as along_shore_lilypad4 because it makes them look much more random and natural when placed with the others.

[Mossmanikin]

Made an attempt to bridge the gap between the different lily pad textures.
Edited the textures of both along_shore and flowers_plus.
Feel free to play with it.

[Neuromancer]

Made an attempt to bridge the gap between the different lily pad textures.
Edited the textures of both along_shore and flowers_plus.
Feel free to play with it.

That is looking really really good. Try it with my new seaweed texture. The seaweed is VanessaE's shape, my colors. I checked it in to GitHub, but you might have to move it to flowers_plus\textures



I'm thinking we're going to need a variety of shapes of the seaweed, because it is good to use as much of it as you did, but it gets too repetitive when so much of it is used. It might be good to give some a shape that don't fill the entire node like moss, or just 3/4 or 1/2 a node.

[VanessaE]

Looking good, guys.

[Melkor]

beautiful screenshots! Bravo!

[Neuromancer]

beautiful screenshots! Bravo!

Glad you like them. For a list of mods used check here:
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=7027

You'll find all kinds of awesome views with these mods.

[Melkor]

beautiful screenshots! Bravo!

Glad you like them. For a list of mods used check here:
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=7027

You'll find all kinds of awesome views with these mods.

thank you Neuromancer, sometimes is hard to me follow new thing in the forums

[Neuromancer]

I was looking for more variety in seaweed, and again Mossmanikin delivers:



It's in github if anyone wants it.

[VanessaE]

I like the tweaked waterlily textures as well as the added varieties of those and algae/seaweed. Pull requests against Plantlife welcome. ;-)

As an aside, I've just added undergrowth and dryplants to my servers.

[Mossmanikin]

I like the tweaked waterlily textures as well as the added varieties of those and algae/seaweed.

I'm glad you like the changes. :)

Pull requests against Plantlife welcome. ;-)

As an aside, I've just added undergrowth and dryplants to my servers.

Sounds nice. :)

[JackGruff]

Everything in this mod looks amazing... except for the bushes.

If you look at a real life bush, the root trunk has twigs branching off and sprouting the leaves. With this mod, it looks like someone took all the leaves off, shaved the bush flat on top, layed a glass surface on top and drop the leaves back on.

I suggest a block between the two you currently have, that contains both the roots and the leaves. This way, the termination of the twigs won't be so sudden.

But anyhow, keep up the good work!

-Jack

[Neuromancer]

Everything in this mod looks amazing... except for the bushes.

If you look at a real life bush, the root trunk has twigs branching off and sprouting the leaves. With this mod, it looks like someone took all the leaves off, shaved the bush flat on top, layed a glass surface on top and drop the leaves back on.

I suggest a block between the two you currently have, that contains both the roots and the leaves. This way, the termination of the twigs won't be so sudden.

But anyhow, keep up the good work!

-Jack

Thanks for the ideas. I wasn't happy with them either, just got distracted by other things. I'm thinking just by adding some of the leaf texture to the "Side branches" nodes would accomplish much of this. The other thing I've noticed about bushes is that they don't start from just the center and branch out like my center branch texture. Instead there are many straight sticks growing straight up from the ground, with the ones at the edges bowing outward a little. There is a little criss crossing of these sticks. I tried making textures like these, but they looked worse, but I need to spend more time at it. It may or may not make sense to add leaves to these center textures as well.

MM & EG if you want to help out with this you can as well. This isn't just my mod, and it needs a lot of help. Also, I'm thinking the seaweed needs to have it's lighter greens made darker. Seawead usally doesn't have any light pastel colors.

Edit: I put some leaves on the side branch nodes and they do look better (in Github). I need to figure out how to get it into the code.