Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Texture Packs

Textures Rule the Creative Minecraft World

Sometimes you see these wonderful structures in videos, taken from a creative server. They'll be all shapes and sizes. What I have noticed is it is pretty common to see things that are not all that creative architecturally and instead have amazing texture packs applied so they look amazing despite the lackluster craftsmanship.

Often a creative server will judge players based on the size of their creations, the time spent working on it, rather than the skill applied in creating it. But what always seems to remain true, no matter the quality, is that a good texture pack always makes things look several factors better.

That isn't the current goal of the server's texture pack.

Yep!

But What About Us?

Right now, the goal of the textures is to make use of every block and item available to us, to decide their final form regardless of quality. I certainly don't mind re-working a few textures to make them prettier, but at the same time I don't intend to re-work a texture 20 times to get the ultimate iteration.

Each texture should be refined only in structure - adjusting the shape, perhaps widening or thinning the edges a bit. Working on what each LCARS display will hold in general (such as simply buttons or a specific interface like one found in engineering) or refining the actual purpose of the pieces.

I suppose it is no surprise then that my favorite texture is the hand held phaser, which has had only 3-4 stages of refinement put into it, and yet is probably the best looking texture of the bunch! It's also just plain entertaining to fire a phaser in Minecraft... even if it's still technically just a painted bow.

I'd really love feedback or design ideas for those textures though anything will do. Don't like a certain texture? Let me know! Think there is a better way to get the same effect? Try adjusting it yourself, post your results, or just share the idea.

I'm especially happy if you simply explore the ship and find need of something we do not yet have. Those are most important, because those ideas are what I need to use up the rest of the blocks available to us.

Some examples of unused items:

  • Netherrack
  • Caulderon
  • Minecarts
  • Boats
  • Lapis Lazuli Ore
  • Powered/Unpowered Rails (note: unpowered rails are different from standard rails)
  • Detector Rail
  • Iron Bars
  • Mycelium
  • Redstone Repeater
And Then What?

Once blocks are established its great to fine tune the texture pack. My goal is to have 100% unique textures, hand made not based on images taken from google or texture websites. This will be especially true with the HD texture packs we'll inevitably make in the future, where you will be able to tell without much trouble that the image has been "borrowed". Acquiring permission to use detailed textures would also be acceptable, of course.

If you'd like to help right now, as you're reading this, brainstorm some weapons or tools that crew members aboard the Enterprise might use - we've got TONS of hand held items which can be made into just about anything, similar to how the swords and bow have already been made into more Star Trek like weapons. As an example: I plan on making a tricorder using the stick texture.

Thanks for reading, can't wait for 1.2 release! Make it so!

The current terrain.png (note that there are more textures than just this, but it covers the majority):

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