Darmo

I think it's supposed to be logs, not sticks? Been awhile since i made one.... They do seem fairly rare. I seem to mostly find soggy ones but that's probably because I hang around rivers and lakes a lot. The others do exist. It's not really possible to survive right now, so don't sweat it. It'd probably be more feasible if animals didn't 1-shot you. It'd be really nice if there were more 'foraging' options available right now. It could be awhile before we can hunt animals, as I'd imagine Bioxx still needs to finish animal behavior, then finish the combat code, possibly hunting mechanics, then implement different meats (maybe....butchering?) etc, etc. There's still a lot of basic game building blocks out there yet to be done I think, before we really get the 'fun' stuff.

Ok, so now in the context of your most recent post. It's good, I still think the leg section above the paws could be thinner front to back. At the same time, a texture might change my mind. If he looks shaggy enough maybe the thick legs read as fur. But my instinct is thinner. I do like the back legs Stroam did, so I'd suggest going that route. The front legs I'm ok with. Like I mentioned preceding this post, columnar front legs are a good option I think. I would however try to keep the shoulder box so that only the top corner sticks out of the chest, and not any of the other 3 corners. I still think the paws look too fat. I'm having a little trouble reading the head-neck-jaw area from those pics, a model would help. Jaw might be a little long. I think cheek puffs could be great, and they could fill in some of that area behind the jaw so you could shorten the jaw. This is an area where we can take artistic license vs conventional portrayals. I don' know if transparent cheeks would be the best route, this guy is a lot bigger than an ocelot - might be too insubstantial. Might want to make it a solid block, with some slant to it, so that it doesn't read as too massive, maybe. There's a lot of options there. But make sure he doesn't have the derpy eyes.

OK, so I wrote up all of the following and was just about to post it right before you posted your most recent post. So read all this without the context of your latest post. I'll start a separate reply for that. My main problem with the more 'real' legs is that they very likely are not going to be animated to move properly. They'll just rotate where they join the body. So you end up with a leg that looks all primed and ready to move, but it's just a solid wooden piece, and to me that's disappointing. It also doesn't match well with the 'norm' in minecraft, of peg legs. But for monsters, I'm trying to be more open to more detail. Especially large ones. What Stroam did there, is only 1 more box than the legs the 'normal' big cats have, and without the paw it's the same number as most of our current ungulates. It's really just got the one angled piece in the middle, which is the same as elk and moose. So the rear legs especially are really pretty close to our current norm. The front legs have the extra shoulder box, but in this context that was kind of a 'special feature'. The front legs are bending the opposite of the way they do irl though, which is jarring. I'm much more comfortable with those back legs than the front, basically. But, in both the front and rear what I like is that the haunch boxes are square with the body, and the paw and lower leg are square with the ground. The mid-legs bridge the gap from the slanted body to the flat ground. I feel like it's not as jarring as when the body is orthogonal to the ground, and there's a bunch of leg sections all at different angles, orthogonal to neither the ground nor the body. The unfortunate thing is the front legs, the haunch by being square to the body is setting up the wrong bending mechanic. I opened the model to play around with the front legs a bit, and I think the only way to make them work is either have them be a straight column, or have the haunch bend backwards, in which case the rest should probably be a column. It breaks the orthogonal haunch relationship to the body, but as long as the rest is orthogonal, I think it could work. All that said, I like what you did originally Krono (just maybe leg proportions a bit different). I like that it matches better with the 'normal animals' we've already got. And prehistoric animals are kind of a bridge between 'normal' animals, and monsters. At the same time, I'm trying to be open for monsters to be more complex. And so as a bridge creature, again, I'm also willing to entertain more complex legs. If you would like to do the more complex legs, I'd say go for it. Just try to limit them to one non-orthogonal piece. And I should say, just to be clear for future monsters, I'll probably never be ok with things like using boxes just to try to make a slant between two other boxes. But more boxes for more discreet structure or detail, I think is worth looking at. I do kind of like the shoulder feature, so if I were suggesting, I'd probably say go for the shoulders. In terms of paws, regular big cat paws appear more square than long, I think, and more flat than tall. And ya, my understanding is that vanilla wolves, when their eyes turn red, that's a different texture. And sheep shearing also just swaps textures. The sheared version still has the wool box, it's just got no texture so it's invisible. Same principle. You could even have two jaws, one closed for 'normal mode' and one open for angry. Just one or the other will be invisible at any given time. My concern with claws is whether they'd look better as a simple vertical plane, or a fractional box. I'm guessing fractional box, so that they're visible from the front.

Might also be an opportunity to introduce some simple sand casting. Pig iron was normally done in sand beds. But that was industrial scale, of course.

That's a good take Stroam. You front legs are backwards and there's some proportions I'd suggest changing, but other than that I like what you did there - would you mind posting the model so we could see the legs in action? Your call if you want to adopt some of that or not Krono. I can go either way.

Sorry didn't reply earlier. RL stuff. I definitely like the slanted body more. It helps in giving it a hulking appearance. The shoulder blade thing was just a thought. I can kind of imagine how it'd be hard to actually implement, with animation, and have look good. It'd probably be a lot different from the way we've structure most animals so far. I don't think you could just lengthen the upper leg box, that'd be too long and weird, so you'd about have to do it in two pieces probably. It definitely would be challenging and I don't have answers. I'm fine with it being generally structured as we've been doing (which is what you have right now) - I do think the slanted body with larger chest gets the muscular idea across pretty well. The legs and paws still seem a bit oversized to me. I hear what you're saying on muscular and I agree it does enhance that, but to me it also makes it look slow and clumsy, rather than lithe and agile. Maybe if they were a bit long, so they didn't seem as stocky? Here's a screenshot of the mountain lion I did way-back-when in Techne, in the days before MCMC. I structured all my big cats the same. I think your smilidon is actually a bit smaller than my big cat models, which to me jumps out mainly in the face, and the paws. I had three claws per pawn, which required 6-wide boxes. I think yours are 5 with two claws - I think 3 claws would be better. I think another very important thing for predators is to try and avoid the derpy eyes - I actually made my heads 10 wide to accommodate an extra eye pixel and center the pupils. I think it helps them look more focused and aggressive. Even the nose and ears appear to be 1 pixel wider than your smilodon. So, I'd recommend scaling up the head to at least allow for that, and then scaling up the rest to match. And if you want to go even bigger I'm fine with that. These are primary predators of the player, and I think it'd be fine for them to be bigger than 'normal' big cats. I kind of agree with Stroam on the fangs - might be slightly too curved. I don't think separate claws are necessary, but if you want to try it out I'm open to the notion. It could be interesting if the texture changed so they only appear when the smilodon is angry, rather than constantly being out.

For some reason if I try to download that I get a corrupted version. Also have you tried that brick one in a tiled setting? I'd be concerned that the dark bricks may establish too repetitive and obvious of a pattern...

Hi Krono, great to see ya back! I think Bioxx was ok with taking some 'artistic license' with the smilodon, so don't feel totally constrained on dimensions and such. I forget which picture he gave as an example, but as I recall it had a 'mane'. Maybe similar to the Ark smilodon? Not sure, and it doesn't mean that's how you have to go. But prehistoric animals we have a bit more license I think. And as a large and serious predator, I'm ok with them having more detail. You could add paws for instance. I like what you've got with the head, and I'd be fine with even another section of fang taper if you want. I'm ok with the ear tips as well, though I question if it will look very good once textured. I would suggest making the legs perhaps a bit thinner, at least the front ones, and adding paws. Since big cats' paws are a primary attack item, I think it's worth depicting them (I did that for all the 'regular' big cats). As for "muscular", I think perhaps the best way to do that would be to use a 2-piece body, with thicker chest, and thinner waist. A lot of big cats have what I'd consider a 'muscular' feature of their shoulder blades extending above their backbone a bit, so you can see them move. Might be interesting to try out - though it wouldn't work well if you decided to go with a mane. I'd also be ok with another section or two on the tail. I'd even entertain separate 'cheek tufts' if you wanted. I gave tigers a separate box to represent those. I'd also be interested in seeing just a quick texture with eyes and nose. It's a large enough model I'm not immediately clear how they will be arranged/sized. Maybe also a quick take on the ears to see if that diagonal section will mesh well texture-wise. And remember that since it's prehistoric, we have no real precedent on coloration or pattern. So feel free to try spots, stripes, or whatever. Just in general, unless Bioxx says otherwise, any large prehistoric or fantasy creatures - and especially highly player-aggressive ones - I'm allowing for more detail, and artistic license. I'd still like to stay away from dramatically angled leg structures on mammals (insects are obviously a different matter in that regard) but about anything else, I think we can bump it up a notch.

I was just meaning a 2-step block, just like vanilla stairs (IV in your graphic). It's just always irked me that that even in TFC1, thatch was a solid block, and you couldn't even chisel it, despite that it's most appropriate use was for roofs. I think the 2-step model is fine considering the general blocky nature of the world. I've never been a fan of those mods that put a slanted plane in place of steps. The finer-grained slopes you show would just I think be a lot more polys at not that much benefit. And pattern IV already exists, so should be much less work for you I'd imagine. Here is a good depiction of some standard brick layouts: Of course the limitations of 16x16 graphics means anything diagonal is probably out - though I might give it a shot. Various others don't really lend themselves due to not being square in pattern. And anything 'stacked' is relatively modern. But the basics mentioned above are in there. Soldier coursing is when your orient the bricks vertically, and is typically done above windows (as a lintel), or for steps (sleepers - soldiers laying down). 360×360 - diyadvice.com I should say though, that flat brick lintels are a relatively modern thing, as they rely on a steel angle to support the brick. "back in the day" a brick lintel would have used a full or jack arch to give it it's own strength, without steel: Of course it would be impractical to try to do jack arches in minecraft. Brick soldier courses can also be used within a wall to add interest: And then you can do corbeling to add even more interest: IRL corbeling is mostly done with horizontal coursing because the bricks have to extend into the wall as well in order to be tied in with the wall, but within the context of using a 2-step model and not being strictly constrained by physics, I thought soldiers would be more visually impactful. One could actually do a 3-step sleeper corbel model if they wanted, which would be similar to the left graphic above. There's a huge, huge variety of sort of applique brick details one could do if one were ambitious enough. It could get pretty wild, if there were several colors of brick. Do a google search for "polychrome brickwork" and you can see some of the amazing stuff that's done with multi-color brick patterns. The basics are red, black, and sort of off-white/tan. Most of what one finds on the internet can't really be reproduced effectively in minecraft I think, but some could. Brick and half-timbering go really well together, btw

I would suggest roofing blocks be stepped, to make for a finer slope. In addition to the wood and slate roofing you mentioned, I'd suggest thatch, and a few colors of ceramic (red, blue, green). I'd also suggest some alternate brick patterns. Rather than have a separate recipe, maybe a new tool - trowel - is added, and the player simply sets the trowel to the pattern they want, and then right-clicks on a brick block to change it to that pattern. Example patterns might be basket weave, herringbone, and Flemish bond. a stepped soldier course for roof eaves and steps would be amazing. And that's just layout patterns. Bond patterns could be an entire other level. Brickwork could be a mod all by itself, honestly. I could probably help with the graphics, if desired. Regarding your patterns given, I'm interested to see how the half-timbering is implemented - that is, if it's at all automated, or the player has to selected each pattern. You could honestly ditch the horizontal 22.5 degree angled beams. That's almost never used irl.

Ya, I'd think it might be worth trying to re-use the old TFC1 texture. I am imagining a lot of people will have the same problem. Or at least make it not looks so much like sand.

In my experience, most average length rivers have about 1 deposit. So it's not very common. It'll spawn around lakes as well I think, but the lake itself seems to delete most of the deposit, so it's hard to spot. Easiest way is just to travel up a river till you hit it. It looks a lot like sand so you have to be watchful. It's not as obvious as in TFC1. But it's bright, and interrupts the gravel river banks. So the darker the stone of your island, the easier it is to spot.

Scratch that, I realized it was the xp bar. Doh! Been awhile since I played an actual game, rather than just debug testing, I guess.

Haven't had much time for testing of late, but I noticed in clay crafting, if you don't successfully complete a shape, it still uses up the clay. Didn't know if that was intended since it's not how it worked in TFC1. It's also kind of funny how when you knap stone tools, the resulting tool heads actually get heavier. Game balance though I guess. I like how the encumbrance thing looks so far. I think it'll be good that it stays away from exact numbers. It seems that the bar in the hud, the big long one that I assume is for encumbrance, doesn't work yet?

Is that the actual confirmed plan, long-term?

Ya, I don't think Bioxx has coded that yet. The game is VERY early alpha stages. You can't make a saw or any metal tools yet, never mind the stuff that requires a saw to make it. The stone age isn't complete yet, even. The only way to "solve" the problem is go creative mode.

Adobe bricks would be good, as there was a great demand for them for TFC1, given that pretty much every LP I watched used that mod that brought in adobe bricks. The rest of the stone age stuff are a bit 'meh' to me, unless they do in fact get incorporated into a mechanic of resisting mob attack. The plaster and half timber stuff is what I'd be most wanting. In TFC1 I would keep all raw chalk and granite blocks, because they were the best simulation of plaster that could be had in vanilla TFC1. But that was very tedious. It'd be really great to be able to make plaster. Maybe gypsum would be the 'easy-mode' way to get it, with baking lime the 'hard way'.

Slingshots depend upon elastic material. Basically rubber, and irl were not possible till vulcanized rubber was discovered in the mid-1800s. Slings on the other hand, have existed god-only-knows how long. But have also been suggested before. A lot. Like, many times. A ridiculous amount, honestly, for what would be an early-game weapon, abandoned in the mid-to-late game, or at best kept for hunting.

Thanks, it went through a lot of revision so I'm glad it made some sense. I did totally forget to mention one other characteristic that could separate containers, that being speed of opening. So chests and large vessels could open faster, barrels could have a pause, bins a longer pause, and crates could have nails in the texture, and require the player to right click each one with a hammer to open the crate. In that scenario maybe crates could have a lot of slots, since they would not be quick-access. Safes/vault doors would have a code to input, and then either instant, or some additional pause. Also I was going to suggest having bins maybe only show half their inventory, with the rest of the slots light grey for empty or dark grey for occupied. This would kind of represent that they are mass-storage solutions, not great for finding what you put in them fast.

So I wanted to make a case for a non-enumerated system of containers and inventory. I was planning on making a separate post, but ultimately it's all about encumberance, so I decided to continue this thread. Originally I was going to propose is a system that does not use weight at all, but found some problems so now am basically proposing to keep TFC1's system of size and weight, that does not use any numbers. This is as opposed to the OP and in Konlii's tier-based weight/encumbrance thread. THE TLDR: In a nutshell, I think a non-enumerated system of size and weight, like TFC1 used, would be sufficient to accomplish the above goals. The main 'new' mechanic would be to limit heavy items like ore (and building materials if desired) to the hotbar only, and not allow them in the inventory itself. By doing this you limit the player's native slots that can carry the heavy items, and so it becomes much easier to make conveyances that are superior in capacity. Specifically if ore blocks dropped themselves, and then had to be pulverized for ore, those ore blocks could be made to fit only on the hotbar, and stack very low (4 or 8, perhaps). Furthermore, I think a non-enumerated system would be simpler to balance. Rather than having to decide how much every single thing weighs, and how much every container will hold, and trying to balance it all, and having the 'realists' complain, you only worry about 'what should fit in this container' and 'what is the effect of this weight on the player'. There is still some balancing, but less detaily, I think. I think it would also be easier for players to understand and plan around: it's much easier to understand how many slots you have available I think, vs figuring out how much weight capacity you need to allow for a given task (I'm assuming that in an enumerated system the player would have a meter or number to tell them how much they are currently carrying, so knowing how much weight they are already carrying would not be hard). That's the idea in a nutshell. I'd now like to try and portray how this system could function, and the variety of containers and conveyances that might be used to create a dynamic and interesting system. SIZE AND WEIGHT CATEGORIES CONTAINER TRAITS CONTAINERS AND SKILL CONTAINER LIST CONTAINER DETAILS So that's all the basic details. There would of course be other containers, this was just a basic list. I was going to add more containers (like Stroam's seed bags) but the spoiler mechanics of this forum and the table I cut and pasted, don't play well. In the early game, large items could be cumbersome to deal with. The player's first copper mine will probably be where the player sets up operations. They may well process the ore down in the mine, since it will be somewhat tedious to carry it out, without conveyances or pack frames. They can carry 1 block at a time and run and jump and climb, but any more and they can't do those. So they would have to build a staircase out of the mine, and they would have to walk it. But, once the player has that first saw, they can make a cart, maybe a pack frame and crates, and now they can transport ore more effectively. There is still the question of what would make the player use minecarts for mining vs pack animals, since pack animals don't require tracks. It could perhaps be that some ores are even heavier, and cannot be carried by pack animals (or wooden rails). These would probably be fantasy ores, maybe iron. If such ores were y-limited to deeper regions, it would make the staircase scenario less practical. The track problem could also be alleviated somewhat if there are mineshafts - similar to the abandoned mineshafts in vanilla, except not abandoned. They could provide a good supply of tracks. There could also be added weight categories, for instance that only prevent the player from climbing ladders and jumping, but still allows them to run. But anyway, that's my case on why limiting certain large items to the hotbar could make the non-enumerated system still deserves consideration.

I think you meant something like 50% and 75% decreases? A 100% decrease would be immobilized. Are we talking in the context of an enumerated weight system? I'd think it'd be better just to base it on total weight, and the armor weighs a lot? Unless the plan were to discourage the player from wearing heavy armor constantly, as is the norm in TFC1 (or vanilla, for that matter). In that case it actually probably would simplify things to just give the armor a speed debuff all it's own. 50% seems like too much to me though.

Ya, I've read before about how full armor was much more mobile that some stereotypes allow. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that armor and knights declined as armies changed to firearms, and so the remaining armor became more ceremonial, and less well suited for field use. There was also the matter of jousting armor, which was entirely different from combat armor.

Not totally opposed, but not wild about it. Logically I'd think a shield would make more sense if you killed a missile-using enemy to unlock it - the assumption being it used it's missiles on you, so you decide you need a shield. At a minimum, if killing with missile is the gate, it needs to be an actually threatening enemy. No killing rabbits and chickens to unlock shields. As for armor, I think it remains to be seen how armor shakes out. Will there even be different types with different resistances? Or will it merely be differences in effective tier level, and maybe encumbrance? Unless the differences are significant, I'm not really a fan of unlocking. Weapons, so what would the player start with, a knife, axe, and a javelin? Everything else (presumably at least sword and mace) would have to be unlocked? If it's only mace and sword, I don't know that there's much point in gating them. I have a hard time imagining a much larger resistance array as far as weapons go, if we're going by damage type. I'd forsee people grousing over maces, as that's probably the very first kind of weapon mankind ever had. I guess to me in general it'd make more sense to have weapons unlocked by obtaining an example of that weapon from an enemy. Even armor could work that way. And then you wouldn't automatically unlocked things the first time, assuming mobs dropping weapons and armor is rare. That might make it less a matter of checking off a box, and more of a surprise-reward-drop situation. Which might be more enjoyable. By 'protected' do you mean has innate or armor resistance? Because while skeletons are common in vanilla, I'm hoping that in TFC2 they will be far less common. I would think that there would be humanoid mobs (goblins, orcs, troglodytes, etc) that would fill in the 'general threat' roster. With more resistant mobs being perhaps more rare. That could be totally off though.

Forgot to mention that I do I like that, although I think keeping the back slot for backpacks and maybe cloaks or something would be a good idea. What would people think of a meta-change from barrels being the long-range transport option, to carts or pack animals? So then barrels could prevent you from running/jumping/laddering. Making the ability to move them more a matter of arranging them, rather than using them to transport goods on your person.

I was envisioning each container having it's own inventory, like vessels in TFC1, but that's a good look, and would handle size variance neatly, and like Stroam says it would allow easy transfer between containers. But my concern would be that it may not allow for much container size variance. I was hoping containers could have increased slots, with increased player skill. Maybe as many as 5 different grades. Although not all would necessarily increase inventory.