Modding Adventures: Big Trees and Carved Stones

Modding
21

To start with, nice tree! Makes me want to build a city of tree huts. :smiley:

About the pillar, I like the second version the most in both size and shape. I agree that it looks too high-tech and I think the main reason for that is that thereā€™s so many runes that the stone thatā€™s left looks more like a stylish metal casing of some sort. One column with 2-4 runes on each side should be enough.
Iā€™m not sure what the colored part of the ground piece is supposed to be, but I think it too adds to the high-tech feel. It looks a bit like something from a sci-fi movie that you stand on and say ā€œActivateā€. It would be more ok if it was a rune there as well, but isnā€™t it supposed to be the runes on the pillar that makes it fly?

Something thatā€™s been done before (in Warcraft and other game) but looks good is to attach flying stones to the ground with a chain or two. Just a thought, if you donā€™t feel that itā€™s too done before.

About the color, I donā€™t know. I like the blue, but that could just be because @TobiasSabathius use it on his runes. I think the purple looks kind of evil though (which makes me a bit worried about @SteveAdamo), probably because purple is often used as a colorful version of black.

I hope to see beams of light going up from those pillars at some point. :smiley:
Keep up the good work!

1 Like
22

Thanks for the thoughts, I really was trying to pack too much into the square pillar, and I considered chains but you just cant make something that visually reads as a chain at these resolutions.

Random idea:

T5uKFE9.png1880Ɨ1054 180 KB

2 Likes
23

I think I just had way too many glowy bits and details in the pillar, here is a version with the runes filled in and darkened.

2uFKSDq.png1884Ɨ1056 253 KB

And I noticed my randomly chosen Carpenter is one scary little lady, I love these new character bios.

CdHmhQM.png1884Ɨ1056 718 KB

24

this is my favorite, definitelyā€¦ if you match the base (glowy green) part like the top, it will look very slickā€¦

25

Quite a pity, I do like my glowy bits, butā€¦that looks good.

B73t3Ip.png1880Ɨ1056 189 KB

26

agreed, but now that i see it, im tornā€¦ i think the new base matches top portion better, for sureā€¦ but either works for meā€¦ :smile:

without a doubt though, the top portion of the pillar looks substantially betterā€¦

nice! :+1:

27

Back to fiddling with this fellah, iā€™ll work some proper glowy bits into a design somehow.

7krc0Ym.png1880Ɨ1058 200 KB

2 Likes
28

I think this is definitely something that would read better once animated.

Currently the floating does make it feel high tech, but I can imagine it in game starting as a single object, being activated somehow and then slowly rising to float and rotate and stuff!

29

The wolf thingy really reminds me of Warcraft. Only thing missing is green slime emitting from their mouths (and eyes?).

About the runes, like Iā€™ve saidā€¦ It could be possible to have whatever color (and glow?) you want if you split it up into two objects, I think. But no promise yet, havenā€™t come around the whole rendering/material block yet.

30

I like this pillar better.
Did you found out anything more about the collision shapes?

31

aside from taking a look at the .json for a number of files, Nope, unfortunately there are not yet any nice big objects to steal code from so I have to actually figure out what this stuff does, you have an entry like

  "region_collision_shape": {
     "region": [
        {
           "min" : { "x" : -1, "y" : 0, "z" : -1 },
           "max" : { "x" :  1, "y" : 1, "z" :  1 }
        }
     ]
  },

for a Dining Table, however then you look at the Firepit and it is

  "region_collision_shape" : {
     "region": [
        {
           "min" : { "x" : -1, "y" : 0, "z" : -1 },
           "max" : { "x" :  0, "y" : 3, "z" :  0 }
        },
        {
           "min" : { "x" : -1, "y" : 0, "z" :  1 },
           "max" : { "x" :  0, "y" : 3, "z" :  2 }
        },
        {
           "min" : { "x" :  1, "y" : 0, "z" : -1 },
           "max" : { "x" :  2, "y" : 3, "z" :  0 }
        },
        {
           "min" : { "x" :  1, "y" : 0, "z" :  1 },
           "max" : { "x" :  2, "y" : 3, "z" :  2 }
        }
     ]
  },

Perhaps these are different designations for different types of interaction? gathering around to enjoy the fire versus walking up to it to drop in some wood and light it? I will have to test.

32

If you have debug keys enabled, it makes more sense.

The firepit simply has four boxes instead of one. I would guess you can have as many as you please. The format specified are min-max boxes, with y being ā€œupā€ - so the collision boxes for the firepit are 3 units tall, while those for the dining table are just one.

I have no idea why the dining table/table for one (same thing) one is offset. It should be centered around the middle.

1 Like
33

I think they are for something else. They are just different sides of the firepit. Assuming y is the vertical (have not tested this, but makes most sense at first sight).

The thing I think it is, is that 0 is not actually included 0. max means till that number without including it. Then you get this:

With a ā€˜holeā€™ in the middle for the woodblock.

edit: error and ninjaā€™d

1 Like
34

Yepp, wrong. min-max boxes work with two vectors which are the minimum position (i.e. the corner with the least coordinates) and maximum position (i.e. the corner with the largest coordinates). This is including. You see it at the fire pit, where each pillar is 1x3x1 and in-between thereā€™s a 1 unit gap.

On a related note, those collision boxes can be added during the runtime as component it seems (at least itā€™s done somewhere). So I would assume they can be modified, too - not that this would be required here I believe, but just saying.

35

I see now thanks. :smile: