[WIP] Undergrowth [GitHub]

[Inocudom]

For caves, I recommend stalagmites to go along with the stalactites.

I examined this modpack today, so I can say that it is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen done for Minetest.

[Evergreen]

For caves, I recommend stalagmites to go along with the stalactites.

I examined this modpack today, so I can say that it is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen done for Minetest.

Sorry about that, been lazy about working on the stalactites/stalagmites. I'm not sure when it will be done.

[Neuromancer]

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to combine bushes and young trees into one mod for performance reasons because they all use the same spawning rules. But I'm not sure what the mod should be called. BranchingPlants doesn't sound that good and doesn't give a great idea of what's inside. Maybe call the mod Branchlings?

[VanessaE]

Maybe something generic like misc_foliage ? Really, bushes is still more than adequate I think.

[Mossmanikin]

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to combine bushes and young trees into one mod for performance reasons because they all use the same spawning rules. But I'm not sure what the mod should be called. BranchingPlants doesn't sound that good and doesn't give a great idea of what's inside. Maybe call the mod Branchlings?

Maybe something generic like misc_foliage ? Really, bushes is still more than adequate I think.

I think merging them is a good idea. But I'm not sure if renaming bushes would be necessary. One could still see bushes as the main theme and the mod would also have some different but related stuff.
Is renaming everything and creating all these aliases worth the result?
In case you really want a different name: "branchlings" sounds good, here some other suggestions: "woody_plants" or "groves".

[VanessaE]

Actually, "groves" sounds good!

But, renaming the mod comes with a side effect: you'll have to either rename the nodes/items to match the new name, and add aliases to avoid breaking maps, or keep everything under the "bushes" namespace but prefix all nodes/items with a colon as usual.

[Mossmanikin]

Added mole hills.

[Sokomine]

Added mole hills.

Finally! I've waited for them for a long time, even planned to do some myshelf - but they didn't look convincing.

I've paid no special attention to this thread so far even though what it aims at intrests me a lot. Now I started exploring the undergrowth at Vaneassas Survival server - and I have to say: I'm impressed! You did with that mod to nature what excellent builders do with blocks - but instead of a house, you three created a very convincing, wild, detail-rich nature where at every step there's something new and nice to explore: Here a root, there a twig, a diffrent color, nice plants, fallen trees, bushes, smaller trees.... No longer boring meadows with just trees!

Thank you for this wonderful mod! It will be part of my next singleplayer world.

[Mossmanikin]

Finally! I've waited for them for a long time, even planned to do some myshelf - but they didn't look convincing.

Wanted to add them from the moment on you mentioned them, because I really like the idea (but there were so many other things I was working on), so it's a "Finally!" for me too. :)

I've paid no special attention to this thread so far even though what it aims at intrests me a lot. Now I started exploring the undergrowth at Vaneassas Survival server - and I have to say: I'm impressed! You did with that mod to nature what excellent builders do with blocks - but instead of a house, you three created a very convincing, wild, detail-rich nature where at every step there's something new and nice to explore: Here a root, there a twig, a diffrent color, nice plants, fallen trees, bushes, smaller trees.... No longer boring meadows with just trees!

Thank you for this wonderful mod! It will be part of my next singleplayer world.

Thank you for your feedback and you're welcome. :)

[Inocudom]

Anything going on with this mod lately? It is such a nice mod.

[VanessaE]

My survival and creative servers have a bit of code added via a separate sort-of-mod that redefines many of this modpack's plants so that they wave when the waving leaves/plants shader RBA's did is enabled.

This code also makes similar changes to ferns, dry grasses, and a few others.

[Inocudom]

My survival and creative servers have a bit of code added via a separate sort-of-mod that redefines many of this modpack's plants so that they wave when the waving leaves/plants shader RBA's did is enabled.

This code also makes similar changes to ferns, dry grasses, and a few others.

Will the code ever be released (and will farming_plus get the coding too?)

[Enke]

My survival and creative servers have a bit of code added via a separate sort-of-mod that redefines many of this modpack's plants so that they wave when the waving leaves/plants shader RBA's did is enabled.

This code also makes similar changes to ferns, dry grasses, and a few others.

Will the code ever be released (and will farming_plus get the coding too?)

That would be nice to see.

[Neuromancer]

My survival and creative servers have a bit of code added via a separate sort-of-mod that redefines many of this modpack's plants so that they wave when the waving leaves/plants shader RBA's did is enabled.

This code also makes similar changes to ferns, dry grasses, and a few others.

I agree with everyone else, please share this mod code! This is one of those holy grail features I thought would never come to minetest but wished for! Too good to be true.

[Inocudom]

My survival and creative servers have a bit of code added via a separate sort-of-mod that redefines many of this modpack's plants so that they wave when the waving leaves/plants shader RBA's did is enabled.

This code also makes similar changes to ferns, dry grasses, and a few others.

I agree with everyone else, please share this mod code! This is one of those holy grail features I thought would never come to minetest but wished for! Too good to be true.

Was the code added?

[VanessaE]

Sure. See attachment. Some of the code is obsolete now since minetest_game now directly supports the new shaders, but that doesn't break anything.

You'll have to edit this to suit your particular install, as it doesn't do any dependency checking - it just blindly assumes the supported mods exist.

[Mossmanikin]

Sorry I've been inactive here for a while. I had a lot of other stuff to do and still have.
Don't know exactly when I'll continue modding for minetest, but I hope soon.

[Neuromancer]

Sure. See attachment. Some of the code is obsolete now since minetest_game now directly supports the new shaders, but that doesn't break anything.

You'll have to edit this to suit your particular install, as it doesn't do any dependency checking - it just blindly assumes the supported mods exist.

I got Sfan's latest build, and I put this mod in my Eden game, and changed settings to waving plants, waving leaves, and waving water.
but still no waving. I see that it complains about farming plus not being loaded. I removed farming plus from depends.txt and init.lua but then I got "attempt to access clonenode a nil value", so I added plantslib to depends right after default, and the error went away, but still no waving leaves or plants.

Is Sfan's latest sufficient?
Do I have to enable something in the configuration?
Was I right to pull out farming plus definitions from init.lua and depends?

I do see the waving water and that looks awesome. No waving plants or leaves though.

[VanessaE]

I'm not entirely sure why it didn't work, but suffice to say, you can get by without it - just add

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

waving = 1,

to each of the node defs that you want the waving to apply to. Then just make sure both the client and server are up-to-date enough and that you have the shaders turned on in the client of course (which I guess you do).

These waving shaders only work with plantlike and allfaces_optional drawtypes (leaves) and with liquids of course, as you saw.

For plants, use it on pretty much everything that would be kinda "loosely organized" in real life, i.e. grasses, reeds, ferns, anything "floppy" or "swishy".

For the young trees, use it only on the node that serves as the top/crown, because there is no shader available yet that would make the base of the plant sway properly relative to the top (but the top swaying by itself does look really good).

Don't apply the effect to the bushes leaves, because those should really sorta "flutter", and neither of the shaders does this (maybe an animated texture is more appropriate).

Don't apply the effect to flowers, horsetail ferns, or any other plants where the whole object should move in one piece, because there is no shader that will achieve this effect yet (otherwise, you get an effect that looks like two flowers or whatever sliding back and forth through one another. That's why I suggested using it only on "floppy", "swishy" plants where that effect would be appropriate).

[Neuromancer]

I'm not entirely sure why it didn't work, but suffice to say, you can get by without it - just add

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

waving = 1,

to each of the node defs that you want the waving to apply to. Then just make sure both the client and server are up-to-date enough and that you have the shaders turned on in the client of course (which I guess you do).

These waving shaders only work with plantlike and allfaces_optional drawtypes (leaves) and with liquids of course, as you saw.

For plants, use it on pretty much everything that would be kinda "loosely organized" in real life, i.e. grasses, reeds, ferns, anything "floppy" or "swishy".

For the young trees, use it only on the node that serves as the top/crown, because there is no shader available yet that would make the base of the plant sway properly relative to the top (but the top swaying by itself does look really good).

Don't apply the effect to the bushes leaves, because those should really sorta "flutter", and neither of the shaders does this (maybe an animated texture is more appropriate).

Don't apply the effect to flowers, horsetail ferns, or any other plants where the whole object should move in one piece, because there is no shader that will achieve this effect yet (otherwise, you get an effect that looks like two flowers or whatever sliding back and forth through one another. That's why I suggested using it only on "floppy", "swishy" plants where that effect would be appropriate).

Thanks much Vanessa! That did the trick. Thanks to your help, I added a lot of waving plants to the Eden game. The only hard part was realizing the grass was overridden not just in dryplants, but also in farming which is where I needed to make the change.

[VanessaE]

I've removed junglegrass from the plantlife modpack as the active spawning-and-regrowth stuff was somewhat annoying and laggy, but I was thinking, maybe you'd like to absorb it into the Undergrowth modpack, or maybe into the Dry Grasses mod, purely on an on-generated basis either way. I replaced it with some aliases to air to avoid unknown nodes, but those would be removed of course.

[Neuromancer]

I've removed junglegrass from the plantlife modpack as the active spawning-and-regrowth stuff was somewhat annoying and laggy, but I was thinking, maybe you'd like to absorb it into the Undergrowth modpack, or maybe into the Dry Grasses mod, purely on an on-generated basis either way. I replaced it with some aliases to air to avoid unknown nodes, but those would be removed of course.

I know that junglegrass is a key ingredient for many crafting recipies. Won't this be a problem if you remove it from a core mod?

[VanessaE]

Well the default junglegrass node is still provided by minetest_game, as it always has been, and it is spawned at mapgen time (I think it happens whether jungles spawn or not). The active regrowth and multiple sizes just aren't being done by plantlife anymore, which is why I recommended at least adding the multiple sizes at mapgen time to the Undergrowth modpack.

The active growth/regrowth on random land is a dead deal though, imho. That turned out to be just plain annoying, as it tended to uglify nice clean yards around homes. MAYBE it could be farmed, as someone else had suggested, though.

Thoughts?

[Mossmanikin]

Well the default junglegrass node is still provided by minetest_game, as it always has been, and it is spawned at mapgen time (I think it happens whether jungles spawn or not). The active regrowth and multiple sizes just aren't being done by plantlife anymore, which is why I recommended at least adding the multiple sizes at mapgen time to the Undergrowth modpack.

The active growth/regrowth on random land is a dead deal though, imho. That turned out to be just plain annoying, as it tended to uglify nice clean yards around homes. MAYBE it could be farmed, as someone else had suggested, though.

Thoughts?

I'd like to see the different sizes of jungle grass again.
Personally I'd prefer adding them to the grasses/dryplants mod, just because of the theme. But I'm not against adding junglegrass to undergrowth.

Unwanted weed is part of a gardener's or farmer's life. So why not make that annoying growth optional (disabled by default)? It makes the game feel more "alive".

About farming jungle grass: why not? After all one might need it for resources.

[Inocudom]

Jungle grass, papyrus, and cacti are farmed in Minetest Classic. Maybe flowers could be too.

[Neuromancer]

I'd like to see the different sizes of jungle grass again.
Personally I'd prefer adding them to the grasses/dryplants mod, just because of the theme. But I'm not against adding junglegrass to undergrowth.

Unwanted weed is part of a gardener's or farmer's life. So why not make that annoying growth optional (disabled by default)? It makes the game feel more "alive".

About farming jungle grass: why not? After all one might need it for resources.

Agree, junglegrass makes way more sense in grasses mod. Also annoying growth makes gardening fun.

[VanessaE]

Ok, then let's add those nodes to the dry grasses mod, and I will remove the remnants from the plantlife modpack (at present, all that remains of the junglegrass mod now is some various sizes -> air aliases, plus the git history, which you will probably want to call up to get the last real node defs and plants_lib settings if you don't have them).

Definitely leave active re-spawning-on-random-land off by default, but making them farmable is a good idea.

[Mossmanikin]

Ok, then let's add those nodes to the dry grasses mod, and I will remove the remnants from the plantlife modpack (at present, all that remains of the junglegrass mod now is some various sizes -> air aliases, plus the git history, which you will probably want to call up to get the last real node defs and plants_lib settings if you don't have them).

Definitely leave active re-spawning-on-random-land off by default, but making them farmable is a good idea.

Got an older version of Plantlife (more than one). Just started adding your code and textures to dryplants.
Spawning on already explored ground will be disabled by default.
I'm thinking about adding an abm to add variety to existing default junglegrass...

[VanessaE]

That might prove to be difficult, as the ABM would trigger repeatedly (per the interval setting) on the same set of nodes, unless you replace all of them on the first pass.

You could perhaps turn all default:junglegrass in the active region into randomized selections of the former plantlife sizes and/or say "drygrasses:junglegrass" (i.e. a different node name, but with the exact same appearance and properties as default jungle grass), all of which could drop default:junglegrass on dig, for compatibility with old recipes and the like.

Then your ABM will only ever fire once for a given area unless someone plants some new jungle grass or it somehow manages to respawn (I can't remember if the default plant spreading code in minetest_game does that or not, as it does with flowers).

This may still serve to annoy people though. :-)

[VanessaE]

some further suggestions:

[12-30 05:49] <Hirato_> cute, little rock models :o
[12-30 05:49] <Hirato_> but why do I need a pick to pick up a pebble :P
[12-30 05:50] <VanessaE> ?
[12-30 05:50] <Hirato_> it wouldn't let me pick up the pebble until I grabbed a wooden pick from a nearby chest
[12-30 05:52] <VanessaE> in my game?
[12-30 05:52] <VanessaE> interesting
[12-30 05:52] <Hirato_> yeah
[12-30 05:52] <VanessaE> maybe because they're still stone
[12-30 05:53] <VanessaE> have to bug Mossmannikin about that then
[12-30 05:53] <VanessaE> I forget if they drop cobblestone or what they become
[12-30 05:53] <Hirato_> it adds a "pebble" into my inventory

^^^^^^
Perhaps the pebbles, which probably should be called "small stones" or "small rocks" should be hand-diggable, since they give you exactly those into your inventory.

[12-30 05:54] <Hirato_> am I supposed to get things like YoungTree2Bottom from punchign certain trees?
[12-30 05:59] <Hirato_> "Forest Soil 4", weird
[12-30 06:01] <VanessaE> yes, those are all parts of the undergrowth modpack
[12-30 06:01] <VanessaE> it's still a work in progress :)
[12-30 06:01] <Hirato_> I'd expect them to turn into wood, and sticks, and dirt :P

^^^^^^
Indeed, the different pieces of the young tree should probably randomly drop sticks or leaves, while the forest soil blocks should probably split apart into dirt or dirt with grass, and leaves (or maybe a "crushed leaves" item that can be used as fuel or used in new recipes).

[12-30 06:02] <VanessaE> lemme post an excerpt from this chat to the appropriate topic
[12-30 06:04] <Hirato_> ahaha, floating moss, thanks to infinite liquid
[12-30 06:04] <Hirato_> er.. finite

^^^^^^
Add an ABM that runs every so often and checks if the node under these objects is indeed still water, and if not, drops these objects out as items?