WIP Awesome New Blocks/Block shapes Production Thread!

A'nW

Member
Contributor
Art
Hello everyone, welcome to the thread for awesome new block/shapes production! This thread, I hope, will be the place to post cool blocks, shapes, or requests for blocks/shapes. :cool:

One of Terasology's really cool features is that it is really easy to make blocks and shapes for, and I think we should start adding some cool ones (because currently, there aren't that many shapes or interesting blocks...).

Some may know of metouto 's work on researching, and making blocks for an astonishingly wide variety of raw material/mineral blocks. This thread won't infringe on what he is doing a great job at. This thread will be aimed at:
  1. Making cool block shapes.
  2. Making new non-raw material blocks.
Some of you may notice the "requests for blocks/shapes" above. Not everyone has the time/skills to make the blocks they want to see in Terasology. That is why I have decided to take suggestions for new blocks. If it sounds good, I'll personally make a block or shape for it. To avoid misunderstanding later, I'm going to say this now. Every block suggested probably won't be made and included into the game for quality reasons. But still, if your suggestion is good and at least marginally useful to Terasology as a whole, it will stand a good chance of being made and included I think. :)

With all that said, I present the first batch of blocks and shapes I made for this thread. This includes both a few requests, and a bunch that I think would just be good to have in the the game.

First up, the Fence mod blocks. These are sort of unneeded at the moment, seeing as Terasology doesn't really have "mobs", but they still they make for good decoration. These also present a case where added blocks aren't "set in stone" for always being in the game. In this case, when Terasology gets surrounding aware blocks (I don't think Terasology has that yet?), replacing this entire mod with just one or two dynamic fence blocks à la Minecraft would be a good idea.
000002.jpg

Still, you can make nearly any sort fence setup with these..
000001.jpg

Second, we have the beginning of what I'm sort of referring to as the "construction group" of shapes which can be obtained in any free-shape material.
000003.jpg

The two shapes on the far left end where already made by @Immortius To expand the group a bit (and fill a request from @Cervator) I made the five on the right.
000004.jpg
Here is a half-slab for use.
000005.jpg

These are "pillar" shapes. @Cervatorrequested the generic cylinder on the right (which actually sort of looks like a barrel when gotten in wood :D ). I went ahead and made a base and crown shape for it.

To just demonstrate the new shapes (and show how, ideally, shapes should be widely useful for different things), I played around and built a few things. Note: Don't bash my building skills to much... :laugh: ).
000006.jpg 000008.jpg 000010.jpg 000011.jpg

So there we go, a bunch of new blocks should soon be available. Feel free to make suggestions.

Edit: I was going to leave it in as sort of an "Easter egg", but ... O well.
Anybody want some cheese wheels?
Cheese!.jpg
Just had to make it...
 

Skaldarnar

Development Lead
Contributor
Art
World
SpecOps
More block shapes - YEAH!!!
Would you mind making another slope style, like it can be used for roof tops? I am really interested in a lot from this, since I can use it for building generation stuff ;)
Non raw material would cover several roof types I think, maybe roof shingles (slate) or thatching...

And by the way: as I first saw these cheese wheels, I thought of the super mario coins :laugh:
 

Immortius

Lead Software Architect
Contributor
Architecture
GUI
Very nice, good to see someone taking the plunge and tackling the somewhat-exotic block shape creation process.

Yeah, with the fence blocks we probably need a new type of block family and some improved support in block placement for using information on adjacent blocks to select from the family.
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
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Woot! That is a great collection of awesome - and CHEESE WHEELS :omg:

I remember you prepped some bowling pins too, toss them in the pack too somewhere, would you? Speaking of, where is the mod? Want om nom nom for GitHub!

Skaldarnar - I requested the bottom half slop + top half slope specifically for roofs. Put two next to each other and tadaa, 2 wide 1 tall blocky roof. Although yes, now we need proper shingles, thatching, etc - consider those requested, please, A'nW :D

And yeah, we could totally use those cheese wheels as coins. I wonder how far in the future and how much work it would be to enable blocks and items in-game to be manipulated in 3D (turning, moving around inside a block space, etc)
 

Esereja

Active Member
Contributor
can you add also small 1/2 cube flating in mid air and same thing touching ground/roof, and ignots. whit those we get lot more choises. Prety please. And awesome results.
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
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Speaking of ingots we talked about those some already, would be great with a quantity-differentiated set of ingot shapes akin to bookcases with different numbers of books :D

With lazy loading of block/shape combos into IDs it wouldn't necessarily kill the block ID space to consider the option for x ingot quantity blocks times y materials
 

A'nW

Member
Contributor
Art
Hey everybody, glad this got off to a good start!
metouto Thanks. :)

Skaldarnar Absolutely. I can definitely make a new texture for a roof style slope. I'm thinking a slate shingle texture would look good.

Immortius Yeah, being able to have some sort of "parent" block that picked which "child" block to place based on the surrounding blocks and/or which surface it was placed on would be really handy for something like this.

Cervator Oh yeah! Completely forgot about that bowling pin. And yep, I'll work on making some nice roof textures . Hadn't seen that ingots issue before. That would be cool.

Esereja Hmmm... I'm not quite getting what you mean. :unsure: Do you mean like a half block ("slab") that is in the top half of the block space? Maybe a quick sketch or something would help me.
 

Esereja

Active Member
Contributor
I mean :
toomuchcoding.png

I hope this is more clear :rofl:.
Honestly toomuch coding my head is suvering.school work deadline coming tomorrow and sooooo hard topic. rewrite of bash. nice....

so needed to get rid of some frustration.:D . This "art" will hopely tell what I wanted.
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
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All the new blocks are in develop and the latest build! Quite a nice selection of new stuff - many thanks again, A'nW !
 

metouto

Active Member
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Art
Hope I can get it on my computer in time to play with it over the holadays :coffee: those shapes sure look cool A'nW!!!
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
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Here's the most simplistic block shape request we'll ever have: A flat single face "shape" :D

Need that for stuff like vines (one from eleazzaar is still pending addition) and the railroad tracks metouto just prepped. I brought those up thinking a flat rail track would be a nice placeholder until we can get a "fancy" block shape for tracks that stick out of the ground a bit - not realizing it is going to put the rail track on all six faces :rainbowlaugh:

Now true, nobody will be able to tell if you simply sink a line of track blocks into the ground but they'll look sort of funny above ground :)
 

metouto

Active Member
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Art
..... not realizing it is going to put the rail track on all six faces :rainbowlaugh:
:eek: What have I done :rolleyes: I never even thought about them being above ground when I was making them. Let along being on ALL six sides o_O Sometimes I wonder around thinking my brain will show up soon ;)

QUESTION .... what if I made a block with 6 different sides and track only on the top with the other 5 transparent :D would that work ???
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
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QUESTION .... what if I made a block with 6 different sides and track only on the top with the other 5 transparent :D would that work ???
Good question, I guess that would kinda-sorta work - but you'd still have a solid block and I'm not sure what the "back" of the one visible face would look like. The right approach is making it so the block is only made up by a single face that is placed according to the player, just like a torch :)

In the meantime having all six sides show rails is no big deal - as you can tell I didn't think about it either :D
 

metouto

Active Member
Contributor
Art
Ok ... I will leave the fancy stuff to the blender guys and my blocks can just be place holders till they fill the spaces ...

I will come up with a train type block place holder if you want me to knowing that it will be the same things on all sides but can be replaced later on ...

****** sorry about leaving chat so quick but had "real life" things to do *****
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
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No problem. A placeholder train can be multi-sided since it is a full block, as opposed to track :)

Probably needs different faces all around, unless it is just a minecart (that you can't jump into)
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
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A train would not be a block at all. :p
I suppose not, but it beats an ice block ;)

In novelty if nothing else :D

We should get something fancier later, sure, as well as shaped train track. Think a train should be a full model then, I guess?
 

metouto

Active Member
Contributor
Art
Ok ... no train block from metouto then I guess :barefoot: ... we'll wait for the full model :coffee:
 

A'nW

Member
Contributor
Art
Hey Cervator, yeah that will be plenty easy to make. :)
Came on to say that I should have all the block shapes on here soon! I sort of disappeared these last two weeks because of real life stuff, but I've got some time now to make those blocks.

Also... Merry Christmas everyone!
 
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