FlowerChild's Dev Diary: Week of September 10th

[risingphoenix]

Those huts in the far back left are definitely made of dirt. You can see the grass on the window ledge. Why waste wood when they are perfectly content to live in simple dirt mounds? I definitely like the look of the entry gate, looks very forbidding :-)

[Sarudak]

You should know better than to dig where there's a sign saying "dig here." I bet you eat biscuits labeled "eat me" and drink from vials marked "drink me" too. that's just asking for trouble.

I have an excuse, it was my sign.

He said it was a friendly server! :(

[FlowerChild]

He said it was a friendly server! :(

Then why you trying to sap under my walls? :)

[morvelaira]

Friendly is a relative term.

[teh_tetra]

You should know better than to dig where there's a sign saying "dig here." I bet you eat biscuits labeled "eat me" and drink from vials marked "drink me" too. that's just asking for trouble.

I have an excuse, it was my sign.

He said it was a friendly server! :(

The Trojans were friendly too.....

[Sarudak]

Then why you trying to sap under my walls? :)

Because you told me too?

[FlowerChild]

Because you told me too?

Actually, Anarch told you to. I just put out the welcome mat.

[Sarudak]

Actually, Anarch told you to. I just put out the welcome mat.

Well I just figured all the signs at your base were from you and I had to do whatever they said ;)

[FlowerChild]

Well I just figured all the signs at your base were from you and I had to do whatever they said ;)

<runs off to make more signs>

[Detritus]

Ha ha, people are funny.
I didn't realise that the test server was open to be played on. Or is it only for Turtles?

[Heilkaiba]

You should know better than to dig where there's a sign saying "dig here." I bet you eat biscuits labeled "eat me" and drink from vials marked "drink me" too. that's just asking for trouble.
I have an excuse, it was my sign.

He said it was a friendly server! :(

The Trojans were friendly too.....

And this is where he went wrong. Instead of attempting to dig under the walls he should have built a wooden horse outside the gate. I would like to see that actually.

Ha ha, people are funny.
I didn't realise that the test server was open to be played on. Or is it only for Turtles?

Yeah it's the test server so only people specially authorised by Flower (presumably turtles and above) get to play on it to avoid the inevitable griefing you would get on a normal server.

[teh_tetra]

You should know better than to dig where there's a sign saying "dig here." I bet you eat biscuits labeled "eat me" and drink from vials marked "drink me" too. that's just asking for trouble.
I have an excuse, it was my sign.

He said it was a friendly server! :(

The Trojans were friendly too.....

And this is where he went wrong. Instead of attempting to dig under the walls he should have built a wooden horse outside the gate. I would like to see that actually.

had a reply to this decided not to say it because it sounded too much like a suggestion..

[Rianaru]

And this is where he went wrong. Instead of attempting to dig under the walls he should have built a wooden horse phallus outside the gate. I would like to see that actually.

Fixed that for you

[TheAnarchitect]

Why not both? Lets just say the view from the gate is.... Impressive.

Spoiler

Show

[Dreambolt]

Wow that's just priceless.

[Folrig]

Does anyone know what the cluster of huts are behind FC's base? Peasant living?

Well I logged on and looked at it but I can't really tell you what it is... ;)

Ha! I first misread this as "you looked at the picture and couldn't tell what it was" (silly me). So, is FC actively recruiting Teasers from the Flying Turtles now?

[utakataJ6]

Trojan Horse / Rabbit in a better than wolves test server?
"15 academics just punched the air."

[DocHussey]

Given the angle of the screenshot and the little open space behind it, the nether portal seems to be sneering at the horse?

[FlowerChild]

Well, yesterday I largely spent on SMP optimizations, and today I shall continue with that trend.

To give you guys some idea of what it involves, basically what I am trying to do is move as much display and sound related code for the mod blocks over to the client in order to minimize the bandwidth they consume.

Sounds are the biggest issue I'm tackling right now actually. When the mod was SSP only, something would happen with a block (like it turning on), and that would trigger a sound directly. However, now, something like a block turning on really only happens server side, and if I play a sound from there, it turn into a huge network packet to the client specifying the name of the sound, its location, volume, and pitch. That's an awful lot of extraneous data to be sending over for an event that the client can be notified of through a simple change in the block's metadata, and which it often needs to be informed of anyways. Obviously, this isn't a big deal for a single block turning on and off. However, when you're dealing with hundreds of blocks, it adds up quick.

This is basically what I did for the Axles and Gear Boxes in the previous release. I setup a framework whereby the client will react to metadata changes (something which wasn't already built into the MC code-base for some reason), and can do their own thing (like play sounds locally) based on that information. Previously, the client was only aware of the *current* metadata values, so it was totally oblivious to when changes took place.

Anyways, so now I'm just going through the blocks one at a time and making sure that the amount of bandwidth they generate is minimal using the above system. Along the way I'm also fixing up a number of particle effects that were lost in the port to 1.3, similar to what I did for our beloved placenta with the last release. So now, I have Bellows blowing particles working again, Mining Charge explosions, Groth spores, that kind of thing.

So, that's the state of my work right now. Nothing too exciting from a "oh wow! new feature!" standpoint, but good and necessary work just the same :)

[bmanfoley]

basically what I am trying to do is move as much display and sound related code for the mod blocks over to the client in order to minimize the bandwidth they consume.

Thank you so much for this. I really wish Mojang would move a bit more of the vanilla game client side in this manner. From what I can tell, things like these improve performance drastically.

[FlowerChild]

Thank you so much for this. I really wish Mojang would move a bit more of the vanilla game client side in this manner. From what I can tell, things like these improve performance drastically.

Yeah, I'm honestly thinking I may have to do a bit of this for them for mob-traps and such. For example, I think that the hurt sounds that mobs play when damaged, may be done with the server-side method I describe above as being slow, rather than on the client side.

If you're killing mobs one on one, this isn't a big deal. However, if you have a mob-trap killing hundreds of them, it definitely is. Given this is an issue related to mob-traps however, and given that Mojang seems to want to pretend they don't exist, I can't really count on them to resolve it.

[ThatOneDude]

So now, I have Bellows blowing particles working again, Mining Charge explosions, Groth spores, that kind of thing.

A bit off-topic, but will this include the "XP shower" effect?

[FlowerChild]

A bit off-topic, but will this include the "XP shower" effect?

Yeah, let's avoid the off-topic. "Is this done?"..."Is that done?" questions rapidly get annoying.

But yes, I did do a full pass on XP passing through the Hopper, including fixing a vanilla bug that was causing XP orbs to have an invalid position on the client when first spawned. This is why they were not visible when they first dripped out of a Hopper, as there position wasn't set to a valid one until they received the next position update from the server.

[devak]

I feel bad for you when you have to fix minecraft before you can actually make the features you want....

[FlowerChild]

I feel bad for you when you have to fix minecraft before you can actually make the features you want....

Bugs of this kind are inevitable when developing a game, and given that the effects of this one aren't apparent with vanilla functionality (it just causes a slight delay when XP orbs are dropped from mobs...which just makes it look like they only spawn when the corpse despawns), it's not the kind of thing that tends to get noticed or fixed. It's really no big deal.

As for me, today I'm continuing with the SMP optimizations (although they should benefit people with lower-end computers in SSP as well given the 1.3 code restructure).

I'm going to need a break soon though and will likely move on to more creative aspects of the mod development this afternoon. These optimizations are definitely useful and necessary, but for my own sanity I'd rather spread them out over several releases intermixed with additional features and tweaks for the mod, otherwise, this begins to feel very much like a job rather than something I am doing for pleasure.