Connected Textures Mod Discussion and Information

[EdzyWhat]

So I'm going to work on getting us as much CTM information as possible, in addition to potentially talking to those mod makers about potential additions that would extend functionality to Better than Wolves.

Helpful Links:
Artist's Guide to MCPatcher - Has CTM information
CTM Community Q&A Thread
MCPatcher Thread - has CTM information in spoiler
Github for .properties files in CTM
MCPatcher's Git Repo
Original CTM Thread - It's Dead...

What CTM Does:
The Connected Textures Mod allows texture artists to make custom textures for certain arrangements of blocks, or to randomize the appearance of blocks. It is a powerful texture tool that greatly helps reduce some common problems with MC texture packs, namely in ugly and obvious tiling issues, and with making parts of blocks look especially cool in certain situations.

Making CTM work for us:
As far as contacting the author of CTM, we may have some issues. Apparently, it's creator (morpheus_017) was last on MCF in July, so he may be unreachable. Now, the information I've gathered so far. CTM works with mods in one way, and one way only (currently). If a mod block utilizes a texture from the vanilla terrain.png, then you can CTM a texture for it in the standard way. However, any mod block that utilizes a texture from a different picture file will not be able to be CTM'd. For example, you can CTM Obsidian Pressure Plates in BTW, but currently we cannot CTM White Cobble or Soap blocks.

If anyone can find anything contrary to this, PLEASE let me know so I can stop bugging people :)

[Katalliaan]

If there is a CTM revisit, it will have to address the potential of the game-crashing bug where your client crashes when you approach or place a mod block that has the same texture index as one of the terrain#.properties files.

[nmarshall23]

[quote="Katalliaan"]If there is a CTM revisit, it will have to address the potential of the game-crashing bug where your client crashes when you approach or place a mod block that has the same texture index as one of the terrain#.properties files.[/quot

Are you using the lasted mcpatcher CTM?
I haven't experienced that bug for awhile. I'm using the lastest Misa's with CTM.

[nmarshall23]

So I'm going to work on getting us as much CTM information as possible, in addition to potentially talking to those mod makers about potential additions that would extend functionality to Better than Wolves.

Making CTM work for us:
As far as contacting the author of CTM, we may have some issues. Apparently, it's creator (morpheus_017) was last on MCF in July, so he may be unreachable. Now, the information I've gathered so far. CTM works with mods in one way, and one way only (currently). If a mod block utilizes a texture from the vanilla terrain.png, then you can CTM a texture for it in the standard way. However, any mod block that utilizes a texture from a different picture file will not be able to be CTM'd.

Thanks for the information.
Tonight I will try to decompile CTM. Know that BTW and the mcpatcher patches do not plat nice with each other in the decompiler. I will try just CTM.

I'm very curious about how mcpatcher applies it's mods the source code has to be there somewhere.
Could you ask the author of mcpatcher about how it works? And where the patches are? How would someone add a new patch.
Tonight I will give mcpatcher's source code a better looking through and see if I can find any answers.

[nmarshall23]

Never mind I found the source code it's in mcpatcher's github. Tonight I will give this a look and get back to you. I'm not making any promises I've no clue how much time it would take. It might be easier to just wait for the new tenderer.

[EdzyWhat]

Never mind I found the source code it's in mcpatcher's github. Tonight I will give this a look and get back to you. I'm not making any promises I've no clue how much time it would take. It might be easier to just wait for the new tenderer.

Thanks and best of luck! One quick question, since I've only ever decompiled assembly code: do you get comments and the names of variables when you're using a Java decompiler? I've never tired to make a foray into modding because school is typically enough on my plate, but winter break is coming up... :)

[Katalliaan]

If there is a CTM revisit, it will have to address the potential of the game-crashing bug where your client crashes when you approach or place a mod block that has the same texture index as one of the terrain#.properties files.

Are you using the lasted mcpatcher CTM?
I haven't experienced that bug for awhile. I'm using the lastest Misa's with CTM.

I haven't seen it lately myself, but I also haven't tried to use a TP that has that situation.

[nmarshall23]

Ok, guys here is my assessment.
Adding Mod support to CTM or creating a mod to apply Connected Textures would be difficult.

References to "terrain.png" are hardcoded in several places. CTM was written with out considering Mods. It would require an architectural change to CTM to add mod support.

There might be clever hack to add support, however, 3d programming is outside of my experience area... I'm a database, and business logic guy. I will craft an email to the MCpatcher crew asking about their future plans, and if they plan on adding support to CTM for mod textures. But I'm afraid that adding support myself would be grueling.

Some notes about MCpatcher, for "Better With Renewables" or anyone that wants to patch BTW. check out MCpatcher, it has support for injecting, code at the bytecode level. It's very neat, uses regex.
I'd add the caveat that if you never looked at java bytecode you in for a world of hurt.

[FlowerChild]

Like I mentioned in the other thread man: it may just be best to wait for Mojang to rewrite the rendering pipeline.

It still seems like its a priority for them for the near future, and I believe it's going to support custom textures.

Hence, you'd expect any CTM-style mod to then adjust to support the vanilla format and basically provide the functionality you are looking for.

[Panda]

Umm you can give custom animated textures and CTM to mod block, HOWEVER, it is very code heave and not as simple as designating a block ID and saying "Makes the CTM does stuff" method we currently use, i have seen examples of this for industrycraft.

[EdzyWhat]

nmarshall23 - if you're loving it, go for it! I personally would appreciate any movement on this front, but I don't know if I'd be the only one who might appreciate an easier solution. Of course FC's advice is probs sound. Don't sink too much time in there if they're just going to completely redo rendering.

And a quick question from an interested academic who has never gotten entrenched in java: is bytecode just really low-level stuff, like a version of assembly?

Panda - do you have the reference to those guys doing the CTM industrycraft stuff? I'd love to take a look at it.

[Anbaric]

As Panda said, adding animated textures for mod-added items and blocks can be done, but I would like to point out that although the CTM side of MCPatcher probably wouldn't work well, (Haven't even found a way, Myself) adding animations to mod ID'sare as easy as animating VMC ID's. The difference is in one variable that is available in the animation code and isn't in CTM. The "to" method. It lets you chose the source animation, and then any .png in the texture pack folder can be the target for overwriting. It even lets you select the actual coordinates on the target .png instead of having you mess around with the tile number. :/

Example:

Spoiler

Show

I like little tweaks like this. ^_^ The crucible now has moving lava on the inside, and my Battle Axe has floating blades (albeit very crude, it was a test).

For sake of ease, I did make the Crucible's frames 16x16, but I could have just as easily made it 10x10 and omitted the steel border. Then a quick change to the precise coordinates (three to the right, and three down) would give exactly the same effect.

Not sure how much work Kahr would have to do to add the "to" variable so we can pick a 256x .png, but then all the artist would have to do is choose a tile or select coords. In this way, it would be quite similar to the terrain style of ctm, choosing a tile to be replaced.

Edit: EdzyWhat? Could you send me the ctm file and .properties for the stone brick you showed in the "Question about Old versus New Smooth Stone Pedestals" Thread? I think I may have an idea, thanks to Glimmar.

[nmarshall23]

And a quick question from an interested academic who has never gotten entrenched in java: is bytecode just really low-level stuff, like a version of assembly?

Yup, it's assembly but for the java virtual machine, ie JVM. Java is really cool in that lots of things compile down and run on the JVM.