Minecraft Animates Its World

[IanDavis]

Minecraft Animates Its World

The latest Minecraft snapshot adds an animated texture system to the mix.

To gaze into the future, you might need to hire a seer. To see into the future of Minecraft, all you have to do is download the latest snapshot. While major patches come every few months, all the latest features and tweaks are field tested in weekly updates that interested parties can test drive. This week's release changed the way textures work, allowing for subtle animations to be added and enhancing the sense of rural immersion, or possibly inducing vomit if you do it wrong.

Within moments, modders seized ahold of these new features and quickly threw them from the cliff of logical extremes. Why make your pixel paradise look that much more vibrant when you can make the walls crawl? Thankfully, even the most dizzying animations cannot hold a torch to [a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JpksyojwqzE]this vomit-inducing[/a] shader mod.

Equilibrium-disturbing abuses aside, the new features not only make Minecraft a more lively-looking place, but also improves how the game loads textures. Instead of loading from one large image file, Minecraft now can load textures from individual files, which opens up a host of opportunities. Beyond simple animation, this new system improves support for custom blocks. It can even mix and match resolutions, so if an update adds new blocks and items, it won't completely break your current custom texture pack.

While the latest snapshot can be downloaded [a href=http://www.mojang.com/2013/01/minecraft-snapshot-13w02b/]here[/a], it's recommended that you use a custom launcher (like [a href=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/939149-launcher-magic-launcher-100-mods-options-news/]Magic Launcher[/a]) to load them, so that you can revert back with ease. Remember: practice safe modding!

Source: [a href=http://www.mojang.com/2013/01/minecraft-snapshot-13w02a/]Mojang[/a]
Video: [a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1tm8K3n_Tps]Lex[/a]

Permalink

 

[emeraldrafael]

I hope its one of those options you can turn off or its not as quick as it was in the video, or I'll have to stop playing minecraft before I get motion sickness.

Looks cool though.

 

[josemlopes]

Do they only just move or can they actually change the texture, like the small diamonds on a rock sparkling and shit (like a texture gif).

Because if they can only move then its very retarded.

 

[Best of the 3]

Did that video make anyone else feel weird? I couldn't look at it for more then 10 seconds at a time.

 

[Legion]

Yay, more unnecessary things while still not adding ridiculously simple and useful ideas like half-blocks and stairs for all of the basic block types such as glass, and obsidian.

Even mods have these and they work perfectly.

 

[Quaxar]

I don't even know what you could do with this apart from simulating those flat escalator thingies for your Minecraft airport...

 

[Scars Unseen]

Do they only just move or can they actually change the texture, like the small diamonds on a rock sparkling and shit (like a texture gif).

Because if they can only move then its very retarded.

From the updated Minecraft Wiki: [http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Texture_Packs#Textures_for_Blocks_and_Items_in_Minecraft_1.5]

Texture Animations in Minecraft 1.5

Any sheet image can be animated by placing additional frames of animation in the same image in y-axis slots. The default behavior will be that, at 10 updates per second (100 ms per frame), the game will copy the next slot into the active texture. Once the bottom of the sheet image is reached, the game will start over from the topmost slot again. For example, to create a block texture that quickly flips between two 16x16 images, place them above each other in a 16x32 sheet image.

It will be possible to customize the duration and selection of which frames to use. For example you may want to "ping-pong" the animation (using frames 1-2-3-2-1) instead of looping it (1-2-3-1-2-3). This will be done by creating a text file with the same name as the sheet image (such as "dirt.txt" for "dirt.png") and specifying which frame indices the game should pick when it's ticked.

The format of the animation file is simply numbers specifying which frames to pick (indices start from 0), separated by either commas or new lines. For example, if you would want to ping-pong an animation that has 4 frames, the contents of text file would look like this:

0,1,2,3,2,1

... or like this:

0
1
2
3
2
1

To make the animation slower than 10 updates per second, the animation file can be specified to keep the frame for any number of ticks using an asterisk and the number of ticks to keep it. For example, to make the animation above four times slower, the file would look like this:

0*4,1*4,2*4,3*4,2*4,1*4

So the new animations will work similar to an animated GIF, meaning that you could have a texture behave pretty much however you like. Another thing that the article doesn't really point out is that the new texture format doesn't rely on sprite sheets, so you can mix and match textures and resolutions. This means that from 1.5 onward, even if your favorite texture replacer hasn't been updated, you can at least use the default texture for any blocks that the old pack doesn't account for.

All in all, an excellent addition to the game, and much better than adding a new creature or what have you.

 

[Covarr]

I hope its one of those options you can turn off or its not as quick as it was in the video, or I'll have to stop playing minecraft before I get motion sickness.

As far as I know, it won't be enabled by default on any of the textures, certainly not on things like stone. Texture animation speed CAN be controlled.

Do they only just move or can they actually change the texture, like the small diamonds on a rock sparkling and shit (like a texture gif).

It can be changed. In fact, it doesn't have any support for "moving". The creator of the video likely just shifted the texture in each frame to mimic movement.

For more information, check out this explanation [http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Texture_Packs#Texture_Animations_in_Minecraft_1.5]. Obviously this information is subject to change, since it's still only in snapshots at this point.

P.S. Thanks

edit: Ninja'd by Scars Unseen. Darn.

 

[Smooth Operator]

If you want the actual glimpse into the future then you put in some mods, If I remember correctly animated textures were done about two years ago.

But hey at least Mojang is keeping busy, some day they might even take priority with that modding API instead of trying to catch up to the tens of thousands who produce it every day.

 

[Scars Unseen]

If you want the actual glimpse into the future then you put in some mods, If I remember correctly animated textures were done about two years ago.

But hey at least Mojang is keeping busy, some day they might even take priority with that modding API instead of trying to catch up to the tens of thousands who produce it every day.

Keep in mind that the animated textures, while certainly the more flashy announcement, is not the most significant aspect of the texture format change. With each texture being its own separate file now, texture packs should be easier(and therefore hopefully quicker) to update, as people won't have to deal with sprite sheets anymore(which I haven't seen in use outside of RPG Maker in ages). Additionally, this will allow people to mix and match their textures if they should so choose.

And in any case, it's certainly not a bad idea to bring something as basic as this into the unmodded game. I wouldn't necessarily want to see everything that you can get in mods brought over, but this is simple, yet potentially pretty powerful for visual enhancement if used subtly.

 

[Bigsmith]

Out of everything they could have made, they make this. THIS! Seriously Mojang.

 

[Tom_green_day]

That video is so trippy
But apart from that, really? My computer can barely handle Mincraft as it is, I really don't need this to come and screw things up.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

If you want the actual glimpse into the future then you put in some mods, If I remember correctly animated textures were done about two years ago.

But hey at least Mojang is keeping busy, some day they might even take priority with that modding API instead of trying to catch up to the tens of thousands who produce it every day.

Keep in mind that the animated textures, while certainly the more flashy announcement, is not the most significant aspect of the texture format change. With each texture being its own separate file now, texture packs should be easier(and therefore hopefully quicker) to update, as people won't have to deal with sprite sheets anymore(which I haven't seen in use outside of RPG Maker in ages). Additionally, this will allow people to mix and match their textures if they should so choose.

And in any case, it's certainly not a bad idea to bring something as basic as this into the unmodded game. I wouldn't necessarily want to see everything that you can get in mods brought over, but this is simple, yet potentially pretty powerful for visual enhancement if used subtly.

Pretty much this. I got the impression that this particular thing was to make it easier for people to make mods too. There's a whole load of changes, it should be great... It'll just be a pain in the arse for our poor server admins.

 

[Covarr]

Keep in mind that the animated textures, while certainly the more flashy announcement, is not the most significant aspect of the texture format change.

This, and then some.

To expand on what Scars Unseen said, the texture pack changes aren't even the most significant aspect of 1.5. They're working on an entirely new rendering engine, of which the texture pack is just a small part. One of the biggest features is significant performance improvements compared to the old engine. One of the developers implied on twitter that it's enough faster to obsolete OptiFine [https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/261801989246164993], which has long been one of the most popular mods of the game. Of course, OptiFine might still see continued success for some of its other features, such as anti-aliasing and vsync, but it won't be the necessity that it currently is for many.

P.S. Thanks

 

[The Lunatic]

If you want the actual glimpse into the future then you put in some mods, If I remember correctly animated textures were done about two years ago.

But hey at least Mojang is keeping busy, some day they might even take priority with that modding API instead of trying to catch up to the tens of thousands who produce it every day.

They dropped the API idea after the backlash when Notch considered charging people for it.


I guess if nobody is going to pay for it, they're not going to make it.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

It also means that default animated textures are stored as relatively-easy-to-extract PNGs instead of being hard-coded, so people wanting to create a Minecraft theme for modding other games can now have animated water, lava, and fire.

 

[uchytjes]

1. I want a texture pack dedicated entirely to the scrolling shown in the video.

2. can mobs be textured like this? if so then that is amazing.

3. Not best part of update. the redstone overhaul and hoppers are the best.

4.

They dropped the API idea after the backlash when Notch considered charging people for it.


I guess if nobody is going to pay for it, they're not going to make it.

Actually, they are still kind of doing it through the buckit server system by working closer with that team. Also, they are going around the API thing by putting more "mods" in the vanilla game. Have you seen some of the new stuff the map makers can do?

 

[lacktheknack]

Out of everything they could have made, they make this. THIS! Seriously Mojang.

What? This is bloody fantastic.

Now we can actually have in-game-supported moving grass, water, lava and redstone! This is AWESOME!

 

[The_Echo]

Yay, more unnecessary things while still not adding ridiculously simple and useful ideas like half-blocks and stairs for all of the basic block types such as glass, and obsidian.

Even mods have these and they work perfectly.

Well if there are mods available that work perfectly, why are you complaining? You still get glass stairs either way.

And really, what defines a "necessary thing" in Minecraft? The game is designed to be almost entirely free-form. Anything goes. I personally think animated textures is a fantastic idea, and it's going to lend to some really great texture packs in the future, I'm sure.

 

[SoulSalmon]

I'm getting the impression from this thread that some people think what's in the video are gonna be default texture animations...

They've merely added more customization to texture packs, the video was an example of one of the more extreme things you can do.
Expect to see big texture packs like Sphax have optional 'animated' versions with sparkling gems, twinkling stars, glowing furnaces and a flaring sun

Expect adventure map packs to have dripping walls, eerie pulsing relics, blinking NPCs, moving cogs and other background niceties.


I'd say they're doing an awesome thing with Minecraft, between the updated redstone, command blocks, custom enchantments/spawners/potions and other things they've added that are 'useless', people are doing awesome things [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXVb9TSU2ik]