Eureka!

[Ethazeriel]

RIP NOT A BLOCK, long live the lens!

[FlowerChild]

Honestly, i've been wondering what had happened to the lens, and had kinda assumed this WOULDN'T be it, so as not to get my hopes up.

Clearly, i was wrong.

Hehe...yeah, it's been a long road getting this one out. As I mentioned above, I really wasn't familiar with the Minecraft architecture when I thought of the idea for that one, and I've been working on the problem of how to pull it off for close to a year now.

Honestly, it's pretty damn fulfilling for me to be wrapping this one up. With this feature, the original design for the mod is now complete. Everything that was originally intended for the mod is in the game, either through my hand, or Mojang's. Obviously, I've gone way beyond those initial 6 block ideas since then, but still, it's very satisfying to be finally meeting my original objectives :)

[Johnnyboy]

So was the thirsty dog song hint in the first verse? Wire and trenches?

[FlowerChild]

So was the thirsty dog song hint in the first verse? Wire and trenches?

No, every musical hint up to the last was just me fucking with you guys and pulling out random shit that I happen to like :)

[Schmitty]

>mfw the lens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GHX8dvu ... plpp_video

The amount of new contraptions this thing could make, oh my god....

[johnt]

Oh well, i guess villager breeding is going to have to wait for the next release.

[FlowerChild]

Oh well, i guess villager breeding is going to have to wait for the next release.

Well, at least now if it does happen you can put a nice spot-light on the action :)

[PatrickSJ]

So, how did you manage to cram all of the required data into 4 bits?

[Dralnalak]

So, how did you manage to cram all of the required data into 4 bits?

Quantum mechanics.

[Ribky]

Oh. My. God.

I... I... don't know what else to say. No snarky remarks. No jokes. I got nothing... only... thank you.

[kregoth]

It transmits light, it acts as a trip-wire, it acts as a projector, it's capable of long distance and vertical signal transmission...it slices, it dices...

I am very pleased with it in that I managed to include every aspect I had originally conceived of for it before I had even started working on the mod, or ever looked at the Minecraft code, or ever heard of the 4 bits of meta-data thing. The "Eureka" came from me finally figuring out how to cram all the data the beams require into 4 bits and do so at a reasonable speed to leave the door open for large projector projects working off of them.

At present, it's feature complete, but I ran out of energy so I decided to put together the video and will tackle the final round of testing tomorrow ;)

Your right in the thought of the "how the hell did you code that into 4 bits" so WTF did you do?

This is going to be an awesome addition to work with.. I am really digging the trip wire aspect, as well as wanting to see how I can use it as a relay for large projects.

[FlowerChild]

So, how did you manage to cram all of the required data into 4 bits?

Well, the major problem was the intersections between beams. A single block can have beams coming into it from 6 different directions at once, each of which should really have at least a single bit to indicate it. Plus, the beam block also needs to store if an entity is currently colliding with it.

PLUS, I realized early on that if this thing were to have decent speed, I'd basically need to lay down the beams soon as the lens block was placed. This allows them to be toggled on and off very rapidly, without having to set a potential 128 blocks each time that happens (the range of the Lens I finally decided on). So, beam blocks also need a bit to indicate whether they are on or off.

That's basically 8 different on off states that are required.

However, my "Eureka!" moment was in realizing that intersections are really the exception case and will be a very small minority of the total number of beam blocks that will exist.

So, what I did was complicate the processing of intersection blocks, making them slower to handle in that they have to recompute their state from any sources. But since there are so few of them, that's no big deal.

Instead of 6 different bits for indicating incoming beam directions, I replaced that by a single bit indicating if a beam block is an intersection. Most of the time it's not, so any processing done on it is just in a straight line from one block to the next. If it is, I do more complex calculations to determine its precise state.

In other words, in the end I decided to use a less than optimal solution for the exception cases, in order to preserve performance for the majority.

In the end, my 4 bits for the invisible beam blocks represent on/off state, entity collision on/off, intersection on/off, and whether or not the block is also a Detector Block detection-zone (I use the same invisible blocks for both the beams and the DB). I also threw in a second block ID that handles the glowing end-points of a lit beam, that also contains a custom renderer to project onto surfaces that the beam may intersect with.

So yeah, that's the long complex technical explanation that is bound to get me into trouble with the posts that will follow :)

[SilvasRuin]

So to get the obvious question out of the way...

Can these light beams be used to reflect sunlight or light block light to hemp and allow it to grow that way?

[kregoth]

Wow that is a pretty big "Eureka" moment. I can't wait for the release of this :) Bah now I restless and unable to sleep thinking of all the things I could do with the lens.

[Heilkaiba]

Possibly the perfect time for this, after today I have no school for a week.

[FlowerChild]

So to get the obvious question out of the way...

Can these light beams be used to reflect sunlight or light block light to hemp and allow it to grow that way?

I'm thinking I may *eventually* (definitely not for this release) add the ability to start fires with the Lens using the sun, but that won't exactly help you grow Hemp :)

[Mrchaim]

So to get the obvious question out of the way...

Can these light beams be used to reflect sunlight or light block light to hemp and allow it to grow that way?

I'm thinking I may *eventually* (definitely not for this release) add the ability to start fires with the Lens using the sun, but that won't exactly help you grow Hemp :)

Pfft, sez you. Everyone knows flame-toasted hemp seeds are the way to go when creating a crop to support your mechanical empire!

(The above post may be entirely false.)

[Ribky]

Help grow hemp... maybe not.

Set up light perimeter in underground base to torch enemies... maybe.

[FlowerChild]

Help grow hemp... maybe not.

Set up light perimeter in underground base to torch enemies... maybe.

Plus, if you're still having trouble growing Hemp by the time you hit the New Age in the tech tree...well, I just don't know what to say :)

[echo off]

jizzed in my pants!

[Blueblade11]

And the obvious answer WAS the right one for once.
This never happens to me... I mean, I remember being a lurker awaiting the lens... so long ago...

[Williamson]

Wow, can't believe this feature is finally out! That's really awesome!
On an aside,thanks for the explanation of how you managed to compress the data, that's a very interesting solution to the problem.

[Robilar]

I was literally jumping in my chair as much as steve the second you placed the first lens.

Lucky for me, Morv already took her right of prema-squeetus, so I may squee in delight. I may never find out all the potential uses for this.

[grimper12341]

So was the thirsty dog song hint in the first verse? Wire and trenches?

No, every musical hint up to the last was just me fucking with you guys and pulling out random shit that I happen to like :)

Knew it.

But I don't get it...why are you actually telling us what it is before it's out after dropping all those fake hints? D:
Far as I remember you haven't done that with any other features since this forum has been up, doesn't seem like you at all to reveal something before it's out.

Is this one last game of screwing with our minds using edited footage and a fictional technical explanation before releasing something totally different to the lens? x.X

[Battosay]

Same here.
When I saw a block, with a diamond side, and you fliping that lever, I instantly knew : OMFG ! This bastard made it !