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jake_the_odd

Implementing Colored Glass, Stained Glass, and Glassblowing!

Colored Glass, Stained Glass, and Glassblowing!   58 members have voted

  1. 1. Should this be implemented?

    • YES! Definitely!
      40
    • Yes, but it could be done in a different way, like for instance...
      14
    • Meh...
      3
    • Nah, not worth the coding...
      1
    • AW HELL NO!
      0

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67 posts in this topic

I've been doing some research on glass blowing to see how it works in real life. From what I've gathered the modern way of doing it is quite a bit more sophisticated than it was in antiquity, so there should be room for simplification.
 
The basic process involves a curcible, a blowpipe, a couple special furnaces, and a special table called a marver. 
 
First step is to melt the glass in the crucible. I can't think of any reason to not use a standard crucible. There already seems to be a good conversation going about glass recipes with silica based sands, flux, soda ash, lead, etc. You could go a lot of ways with that, but I'd imagine a similar mechanic to alloys.
 
The next step is to "gather" glass on the blowpipe. For a blowpipe you could use a Tuyere, but that seems weird to me since they aren't close to the same thing in real life. I was thinking a new tool with a similar smithing recipe only from a single sheet instead of a double. To gather just put the blowpipe in the output of the crucible to get X amount of units of glass. Here are some concept textures for blowpipes with various stages of glass on them. Here are some concept texture for blowpipes with various stages of glass blowing.
 
Posted Image blowpipe
Posted Image blowpipe with gather
Posted Image blowpipe with stage 1 vessel
Posted Image blowpipe as punty
 
Posted Image
 
From the crucible the gather goes to the "marver". It serves two purposes, to smooth the glass blob and control the temperature. In modern glassblowing it is stainless steel, but I read that they used to use smooth marble. I was thinking of a chiseled marble (or similar stone) block that opens a UI like a cooking table when clicked with a blowpipe.
 
You can gather a larger amount of glass for larger objects (i.e. bottle use 10 units, jug use 20 units, pane use 40 units, etc...). Basically put it back in the crucible to get X amount more and then back to the marver between gathers.
 
Then you start the actual blowing process. I am imagining something like an anvil interface where you line up the arrows based on rules. I don't know if it makes more sense to have that interface as part of the marver, or just opening from the blowpipe in hand like the knapping interface. Here is a concept if you tied it into a marver.
 
Posted Image Open the UI by clicking the marver with the blow pipe.
You can put a gather pipe in the marver slot similar to weld in order to cool it or smooth it.
 
To actually blow a vessel you put the gather blowpipe in the blowpipe slot. Then you follow the rule to get it to Stage 1. I think it will be easier to implement in stages kind of like making armor or working with blooms. Then Punty and Cut to "transfer" the vessel to to the punty pipe slot. This represents the real life process of attaching a punty rod and cutting the vessel lose of the blow pipe.
 
From there you get a new set of rules to get it to Stage 2. The actions for the rules would have to be different to make sense. In real life you don't blow on a punty, it's only for shaping the opened end. 
 
Once you complete the second set of rules you cut it again to get a vessel in the output slot. From there you could just use it or put it in an annealing furnace depending on how complicated you want this process to be for the game.
 
At any time if the glass gets too cold while working it then it has to go in a furnace. In real life modern glass blowing there is a special furnace called a "glory hole" but I feel like the innuendos would get really old if you called it that in a game. Why not just call it a "glass furnace". I suppose you could just use a forge or fire pit if you wanted to. Either that or a special furnace crafted from fire clay maybe. Again it just depends on how complex this should be.
 
In real life the finished vessel would go into another furnace called a "Lehr" that anneals it by cooling it slowly. You could make that a feature of the "glass furnace" if you decided to go that route. Maybe have a second group of slots in the furnace UI like the ones on a forge for holing things being annealed. Perhaps even a function like sealing a barrel so that you have to wait for it to be done and can't use the glass furnace while things are annealing.
 
I don't know if all of this is too complicated for TFC (if there even is such a thing). Obviously it is not a fully worked out idea and certain liberties will have to be taken to make it playable.
 
I think this could easily be adapted to making glass panes the way Dunk has been talking about. There were two methods used in antiquity. One is called crown glass (that is what Dunk was talking about) the other is called cylinder glass. You'd just have to add some extra steps at the end of the blowing process.
Posted ImageCrown glass works by spinning it till it's flat
 Posted ImageCylinder glass works by cutting open a cyliner
With either method you make small panes and join them together with lead caming. That could be a whole other mega post though...
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After seeing the new loom in build 79 on pakratts's testing stream I no longer like my UI concept. If they can make weaving cloth look that realistic I'm sure there is a more realiatic way to do glass blowing too.

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Honestly, if possible, I'd like to see us getting away from UIs.  Have the glory hole (or forge or whatever) be something that you hold right click in front of to heat the glass.  You could shift-right click with the blowpipe to add some air in, or right click to spin it.  Do either too many times and the product would be ruined (though you should be able to remelt it and try again).

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With the glass blowing process that would create a pretty tediois process with a lot of back-and-forth from the crucible to the marver to the glass furnace, but that's not exactly foreign to TFC. I'm starting to think along those lines aswell. It's a pretty complicated process and i think it makes sense to simplify it a little for the sake of gameplay. At the end of the day it has to be worth the effort to make glass otherwise nobody will want to do it. In the 79 loom you don't actually pass a shuttle through it each time you weave a row, that would make it really tedious. I think similar simplifications need to be made for glass blowing to be viable.

I agree that there should be a mechanic for remelting failed vessels. Maybe with a little bit of loss just to keep thing interesting.

I think if there was a big advantage of glass over clay jugs it would be enough incentive for people to want to make glass. Dunk has expressed interest in blown glass for panes so that will help a lot. Maybe if there was a glass jug too that had better durability than the clay jug. I also would like to see glass bottles that stack (to 6 so you can make a 6 pack of beer). That last one might just be me. :)

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I love the idea of stained glass, and to have glass panels requiring led would give a use to an already existing ore in the mod.

Where I draw the line is on the glass bottle. A glass bottle inside the timeline of TFC was actually more fragile than a clay jug.

source: http://www.wallafaces.com/a-history-of-the-glass-wine-bottle/

Glass has been around a long time. Naturally occurring obsidian glass has been used in human tools since the Stone Age! The first true glass was produced around 3,000 BC in Northern Syria. In South Asia, glasswork was used beginning around 1730 BC. The ancient Romans were particularly well-known for their glasswork, which was used both domestically and industrially. They developed the technique of glassblowing, which was used to make wine bottles. It’s no surprise, then, that the term “glass” was first used by the Romans.

Sadly, the delicate glass of yore wasn’t a good method for storing wine. Because it was too fragile to travel, wine was usually stored in clay pots called amphorae. However, glass was still used on occasion- people would pour their wine into hand-blown glass bottles for fancy events. When glass bottles did need to be shipped, they were wrapped in straw. This protected them and allowed them to be stored upright.

Posted Image

In the 17th century, the invention of the coal-burning furnace changed that. The hotter temperatures allowed for thicker, darker glass that had previously been impossible to produce. Add in the invention of a cork closure and you have yourself a decent way of transporting wine!

If a more durable drinking water container is desirable, we should go with the leather skin, the cooked leather, the drinking Horn or the metal canteen that was used by ancient roman soldiers and totally inside the timetable of this mod. 

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your observations about early glass are why I've always advocated a higher-tier of pottery, requiring some sort of real kiln and adding ground minerals to the clay - of the available stones, I'd suggest ground quartz, possibly bone meal as well - to make porcelain clay, which must be fired in a high-temperature kiln. Porcelain can be much harder and stronger than crude fired clays that preceded it, so a porcelain jug could have thinner walls (holding more) and be less fragile (so not random breaking, or lower chance of it at least)

 

Of course, when they really wanted things to be durable, they made it out of wood or metal in these time frames. Wood is too cheap for balance-purposes, but metal could be a plausible option as well. And as for wood, well, perhaps just a wood cup - which can't actually carry water around, but can only be used to drink more quickly from a water source than just standing in it? Just a random idea that occurs to me and I thought I'd throw out there.

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I had written up a whole thing along the lines of some of the previous ideas a long time ago, along with the proper minerals. I'll see if I can find it later

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Djakuta, I admire your adherence to Earth history, but I worry that adhering too strongly might hinder the gameplay of a game that is largely about creativity. TFC is still a nonlinear sandbox game and not a history of the world RPG. I think in a game like this it makes sense to take some artistic liberties with reality in order to foster creativity. It allows for a more robust game that supports lots of different gameplay styles.

 

While it is true that the glass vessels of antiquity were not very good and were mostly ornamental, it wouldn't serve much purpose to add ornamental glass vessels. The timeline of the game spans WAY past Roman technology anyway. Maybe you just make iron or steel a requirement for glass blowing so it fits the timeline better. At the same time why limit iron age Steve to Roman technology just because it is a good example of that culture? There were other places in the world that were progressing quite differently at the same time. Technology progresses because of the availability of resources and the demand for innovation. Maybe Steve is more innovative than the Romans were. It wouldn't have been impossible for the Romans to make a better type of glass, they just didn't. If the demand for better glass vessels was around maybe they would have come up with it sooner. The Chinese had furnaces hot enough to cast iron in the 5th century, 1000 years before Europeans did. Nothing was impossible, the technologies just hadn't met yet.

 

On a related note, why limit ourselves to absolute reality at all? I've seen people on here make that argument about the climates and planetary tilt being based on Earth. Steve is still carrying around 1000+ cubic meters of stone while fighting zombies. This game is clearly fictional and not based on Earth reality.

 

As far as alternatives, I've seen it pointed out several times that stone age leather work doesn't really fit the game mechanics because leather work currently requires barrels. I agree that it would be cool to see more primitive leather good, but right now they don't fit the game. I do however think that it would be cool to see tin or pewter (tin copper alloy) for vessels and bowls. I think that could be a whole other thread though since this one is about glass.

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I like the way you think, and am not in a absolute disagreement.

As for the mod not being realistic is just semantics, after all we are even implementing "TASTE". So I think the mod is as realistic as it fits the vision of the Dev's, as it should be since they are the ones doing the hard work.

Yes technology evolves differently around the cultures of the world. But they all fallow a progression. No one had steel before they had bronze. There are also questions of believability, that have to be balanced with gameplay.

My point is that if we are to consider adding a glass jug and to justify making it more durable, why not just add a metal canteen? There would be no need to change any game mechanic, It would be something only obtainable after metals. You can even make it so it requires an anvil, just so is not a mold item.

The advantages of glass over clay is not so much how durable it is, but the fact that glass is not porous and so is really hermetic, also more hygienic. To this day that we don't go around walking long distances or on horse back, we avoid glass containers in our cars. We use metal or plastic.

For the argument that the game is fantasy, off course it is. This is where we can be the kings of the world and forget all the frustrations of real life. That said Minecraft is still based on the real world and TFC even more. Thats why we have all those ores and the whole metallurgy mechanics that the Dev's are so proud, The fact that TFC is more realistic than Minecraft is the main reason why so many players come to TFC. Thats also why suggestions like flying pink unicorns are not even considered for the mod.

Should we go to extremes to make the mod realistic? NO. That would take away all the fun. Is a very hard job to balance gameplay within realistic items blocks and mechanics. I do not envy the Dev's. I remember when the chests were first tweaked and  the avalanche of complains that the forum had. It took some time to reach a compromise that satisfied some realism with gameplay. So today we can store hundreds of cubic meters of dirt inside a chest, but not tree logs.

Bottom line you have some good arguments, I am not dismissing them. I just think if you want a better alternative to the clay jug, you are not alone, there are a lot of people including me who think the clay jug is a drag. I just think glass jug should not be it. We have other solutions. The metal canteen, The wood canteen ( used by the civil war because metal was scarce), Bull Horns, Cooked Leather that is shaped. I am sure there were some other inventions in human history.

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I like the way you think too. My point is that there is still a demand for glass to stay in the game. People like using blocks and panes for windows and things. Brewing alcohol is making a grand re-entrance in 79, so bottles will be a thing again. It makes sense to refine the glass making mechanism to meet the demand for glass in a more TFC style and so far the developers seem to support that idea. Maybe there is a slight anachronism having glass bottles early in the game, but I don't think it is nearly as far fetched as flying pink unicorns. Throwing any of the 21 types of sand in a fire pit and getting the same clear block every time (or glass at all) doesn't make sense. Crafting 3 glass blocks together and getting a bottle doesn't make sense. Blown glass bottles and crown glass panes do make sense.

 

The idea of messing with glass durability was just to create an incentive for Steve to start using glass. Maybe that was a bad idea, but at some point in the timeline I feel like there needs to be a distinct advantage (or at very least and equality) to glass because it is cheaper to just make clay forever. There isn't a mechanic for sickness yet so being more sanitary isn't really an option. The only things left are durability and volume. Maybe you do a progression of glass tiers (silica, soda-lime, leaded, etc) so that you don't have the good glass till later. Maybe you tie the glass quality to a skill level so that you have to make 200 bottles before you get a good one. There are a lot of ways you could play with the mechanics to make it balanced and believable. 

 

The main reason I support more types of glass vessels isn't to serve as an alternative to clay. I have no problem accepting more types of drinking vessels into the game. I'd welcome them because they might work better in place where one particular resource is scarce. A leather or horn jug would be awesome in a plains biome with animals and no trees to where you can't make clay. With glass making I think that if they are going to spend the time to code and model a complicated mechanic that only makes one type of bottle then it would go to waste because it is only scratching the surface of potential. In the real world you can blow not only bottles but jugs, jars, bowls, carafes and more. I'd like to see something like that to keep things interesting. 

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I dunno, if you start having to do glass working to make panes and blocks, then that's incentive enough; glass bottles could be largely a preference choice, glass doesn't need to have some major advantage necessarily. As they're done now, the small vanilla-like bottles are much smaller but stackable compared to jugs; a trade-off like this works for me, and if there were glass jugs, identical to jugs except for appearance, I would likely make end up making both, for decorative purposes, and for practical use making whichever was more convenient given my current tech and resources. Porcelain makes more sense to me as an upgraded material, but there could be tiers to glass working as well; I would think glass tiers would have a lot to do with processing the starting materials more to make "purer" glass, possibly with finer temperature control during the glass working process as well.As for substitutes for scarce materials, I've yet to find myself in a situation where clay was not viable. Worst case, a few times, I've not been able to find clay the first day - after dealing first with food, gathering stones for tools, and chopping a few trees - before having to camp down for the night, which is frustrating but not something that would justify rebalancing. If I haven't yet, clay is usually my top priority day 2, and I've yet to fail to find a clay deposit by the 2nd night.

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I usually don't have problems finding clay either, but I've started seeds with no trees in sight so you can't make a pit kiln to fire them. The biomes are big so it could feasibly take more than a day to find trees. That is a situation where another type of primitive vessel would be nice.

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I usually don't have problems finding clay either, but I've started seeds with no trees in sight so you can't make a pit kiln to fire them. The biomes are big so it could feasibly take more than a day to find trees. That is a situation where another type of primitive vessel would be nice.

But if you have no clay and no trees how are you going to progress technology enough to get glass?

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But if you have no clay and no trees how are you going to progress technology enough to get glass?

For that post I was talking about your bone or leather vessels. Sorry for not clarifying. 

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For that post I was talking about your bone or leather vessels. Sorry for not clarifying. 

 Yeah more alternatives would be good.

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Mabye the glass could be coloured using gems?

Not a bad idea as far as gameplay and creating a use for gems. I still think Dunk is on point with using metal oxides. More true to reality. Gems are more or less useless except for decoration even in real life. We shall see assuming that glass work ever gets implemented.
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