this is actually quite a shame as it is now, because other translucent blocks, or partially translucent could be cool to play with, even without actual freezing processes. (rainbow bridge, glass, stianed glass for churches/cathedrals…)
In terms of transparent blocks, I’m trying to see if I can’t throw stuff out on that too… I’m just not coming up with anything concrete on tht. My mind is running in circles thinking about ‘transparency’ in the game… Hers a snippet,
Ghosts? Like, if you are about to place a bench, but that refers to entities, not terrain.
I’m curious as to how the mining tool works… You know how it makes the blocks disappear visually, so you can see beneath, however, the blocks are still there?
What if ‘glass’ were entities, like a bench or a workshop… would that work? Prolly create a lot of lag.
One could create a semblance of transparency using a grid pattern of visible and not-visible pixels, but that not how blocks in Stonehearth work.
You know. circles. Dead ends.
Ghosts are basically entities that are rendered with a different material using a different, transparent shader. I’ve not looked into the whole bit about how mining works (not sure what you’re referring to), but I would assume that the x-ray vision and the other bits you can see would most likely be in C++/part of the engine, not in lua itself. I could be wrong, but it seemed way too fluent (especially in earlier alphas) to be done in lua.
In terms of the mining bit, Uhhh. Like. When you a select a block to be mined and you get the yellow highlight? Like Here:
You can’t see the block anymore, just the highlight, allowing you to see right through it.
Not promoting myself but Glassworks has all that 
Both “pre-designed” stained glass windows and 1x1 stained glass windows in 21 colors that you can use to make your own designs 
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I have been interested in glassworks, but haven’t gotten into it becasue, from I can tell, its big… And my computer is a potato. xD
I’m sorry ;-;
I have a lot of stuff I “promised” people - a LITE version, an update to fix current issues, etc… but with all the ACE stuff I just never have time to work on it I should get a weekend sometime soon and dedicate it to fixing my mods now that SH is 1.0
Lol. No rush. Stonehearth isn’t getting any more updates for the most part. You’ve got time.
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So digging a bit into this, but not going further because my time in the spotlight has long since gone… What I would do is the following:
- These things are usually done using selectors. Find out where the mining selector is, and what it does. There’s got to be a callback/command somewhere.
- The x-ray stuff seems to be partially controlled by the subterrean-service and/or component. Taking a closer look at this might be worth your time.
However, as I look closer, I find things like this:
for index in self._xray_tiles:each_changed_index() do
_radiant.renderer.mark_dirty_index(index:to_float())
end
So it might be possible that the real magic happens, as I’ve assumed, within C++/the renderer. But one would have to investigate. At most, it would allow you to have something quite tricky: You can use a normal terrain (of any color), then hide it, and maybe overlay some entity (similar to water) just for the show.
That’s really nasty though.
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Well. Thanks for you time and input Pan. 
So, fake ice
Nintendo 64 style trickery, :’)
Thanks for thinking along RepeatPan :)… But now I understand why you went “yeah, nah :’)”
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