A five-hour Wikipedia trawl, and what do I have to show for it? A list of colored gems that could be mined to make Gem Blocks. Shiny decorative blocks, to match the Wool colors.
Why would we need these? Well, Wool isn't fire-proof or creeper-proof. Or shiny.
After adding a bunch of gems and their associated gem blocks, move the Diamond block's texture to Turquoise Block, and make Diamond Block into a creeper-proof window. One that's less pixel-cluttered than the current window, and, in contrast to Glass, can be moved around however you like.
You'd find the gems around the area you start finding Gold, and overall they'd be, I suppose, as rare as gold, though the chances of finding any specific gem would be much less. A single gem block should spit out lots of gems, like the Lapis Lazuli block does. And you should have a chance of getting a bonus gem: 1 or 2 gems of a different type, in addition to the gem that was showing on the face of the block.
The Gemstones
Here's the list of gemstones I've come up with, in the order of the values for Wool. If you do end up making this mod, please don't just make them all recolors of the same gem; it'd be nice to have unique shapes, or perhaps divide the recolors into 4 different shapes at least.
*Yellow Topaz and Red Jasper have to keep the colors in their names because they actually come in many different colors. I hunted all over to find better choices, but these are the best representatives of their respective colors.
**Yeah, Silver ain't no gem. But I couldn't find a good distinctively gray gem, and the game needs Silver anyway, and why not make use of the Silver cube? Also: Silver ought to occur more regularly than gems, if we could find a good use for it. And maybe make half of the Gold spawns be Silver spawns instead?
***Though if you wanted a good black stone that wasn't partly purple, but all black, or mostly black with some dark gray in the pattern, perhaps Jet would be a good alternative.
Oh! And I'm not including Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald, the first two because I'm hoping to see them added in a more functional capacity (on par with Diamond, used for tools and armor), and Emerald because, even though it's a softer rock like the rest of the list (not on par with Ruby and Sapphire), people associate it with Ruby and Sapphire, so they'd probably get confused if it were merely decorative while the other two were functional. So I suppose I'll be trying to get Emerald to stay functional as well, for clarity's sake.
Decorative Stone
Additionally, I'd like a few new decorative stone types (less shiny than the gems). I guess the best decorative stone would be marble (resistant to explosions), spawned about where Iron is, so give that the full range of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black, gray, brown, cyan, light green... I can't find Magenta Marble images, but Creole Marble could be the Light Blue. (I found Pink Granite and Gray Granite, though.) One of the key points about Marble is that it's decidedly not a recolored texture; each texture should be unique.
I've seen a mod that made marble textures spread out over multiple blocks, but that breaks save files, and I don't think it's necessary. If you wanted to make a larger pattern, the easiest way would be to make a 2x2-block pattern (or 3x3, or 4x4), and then code it so that each Marble block generates with one of these four, randomly (like how a sheep has a random color of wool). (So you gather a bunch of Black Marble and find you've got 4 with pattern A1, 2 with pattern A2, 3 with pattern B1, and none with pattern B2... back to the quarry!) Ideally, the patterns would combine in different ways if you put them in a different order, so the variety across a marble wall would be visually interesting and aesthetically pleasing :smile.gif:
Other possible stones you could dig up, which might be less resistant to explosions: Alabaster, Limestone, maybe Shale or Slate (these last two'd spawn near/under large clay deposits, I think). I'm not sure what other types of decorative stones there are; the gem hunt kinda wore me out for tonight.
So... yeah. I think it'd be useful to have more decorative blocks in the game, even if they didn't do anything else but look pretty (and resist explosions).
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Why would someone steal credit from the actual modder (coder or texture artist)? That's just sad.
I'm in the middle of working on two mods and I think my reputation has been pretty well established for being a beginning mod Producer. You may ask about me on either of the mod threads: Harvest Moon mod or Zoo Tycoon mod.
If you would take this project in hand, I would be very grateful :smile.gif:
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Hey, epic crafter, here's some stuff I just pulled off a post I made in another thread, where this extra info didn't belong. But since it's about gems I suppose it belongs here. You don't have to add it to what you're doing if you don't want to, but it's just five more gems (and their associated blocks, and red and blue recolors of the Diamond armor/tolls I guess... please make it a nice, nuanced red and blue instead of something that looks like Playskool (I've seen a couple of mods that make the armors look flat and the tools look like they don't have an outline)).
Anyway, here goes:
There's such a thing as a Sunstone and a Moonstone. Be fun to have them in the game too. Sunstone glows during the day (it does glow when sunlight hits it! but ours could be more useful underground) and Moonstone would glow at night. Anything made with these would have the same properties, as would the decorative blocks. But nothing that lights up stuff as you move... unless that's an effect you could turn off in the options menu.
It'd be neat to get some phosphorescent stuff in here.
Ruby and Sapphire: The Functional Gems
Topaz and Beryl are 1/8 the hardness of Diamond; the rest of that list up there is even softer than that. But Ruby and Sapphire are only 1/4 the hardness of Diamond. For new tools and armor, they're the only two that matter.
Still, if they're just "Diamond's less useful cousins," then why add them? And distinguishing them by handicaps ("ruby's faster but wears out quick!") or utility ("ruby's good for tools, and sapphire for armor!") seem silly.
I'd make them functionally identical to Diamond. This lets the player choose a preferred color, instead of just wearing the color with the most stats. Or they could be better (faster and more durable) than Diamond if you built them around a Diamond core. I'm not sure how the recipe would work, but it would require more materials than normal... perhaps this:
Where Diamond is a Ruby or Sapphire, and the Arrow represents whichever tool or armor you're upgrading (which is a Diamond one).
Emerald
It's not as hard as Ruby and Sapphire; it's on par with Topaz. But people associate it with the hard gems, and it'd be confusing if Emerald were purely decorative. So either leave it out, or let it be the bridge between Iron and Diamond/Ruby/Sapphire (to help people remember the distinction: quasi-educational!).
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
If Diamond Blocks become the new window, they ought to respond to explosions not by breaking, but by becoming items you could pick up. And for that matter, a second explosion ought to break the block into the component diamonds, so you have a couple of chances to actually pick them up before losing a ton of diamonds.
The rest of this post isn't about the gem mod, but a place to collect ideas I've seen in other threads. And people can also comment about them on this thread :smile.gif:
Other Gems I've Seen in Comments
Aquamarine, Agate, Onyx, Quartz, Opal, Opalite, Zircon, Carnelian, Sard, Citrine, Charoite, Ammolite, Lolite, Garnet, Gaspeite, Quantum Quattro... I'm not familiar with half of these.
Amber and Pearl are also possible. Along with Jet, they're made from stuff that isn't a type of crystal or stone.
Since I took a long time to get my list right, I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't need any of these gems for decorative blocks (we've colored all the colors up there). But if there were a useful reason for them, I'd be glad to hear it.
Things That Aren't Gems
This thread is primarily about, well, Decorative Gem Blocks, but I'm open to expanding it to discuss other minerals (as noted in my title). I've been browsing through old threads and noticing various minerals that Minecraft could use. Here's some of them:
Chalk
Pumice
Bone
Coral
Magnetite
Granite
Pyrite (apparently used to make gunpowder; I never knew it was useful... and then someone else says it can't make gunpowder. I'll have to look it up later.)
Titanium
Platinum
Rhodium
I do think it'd be neat to find an unidentified silver-gray metal and have to figure out what it is somehow. It seems like a lot of the metals look the same but have different properties (such as how well they catch fire).
Limestone
Someone noted this process: Heat Limestone to get Lime, add Clay for Cement, then add Gravel, Sand, and Water to get Concrete. I've seen pourable Concrete on a mod vid before - it spreads out like water and then hardens into smooth stone. Useful for filling areas quickly (and apparently with fewer mats).
Lime plus Chalk would be Whitewash.
Alloys
Somehow need to add two materials together before stuffing them in the furnace, or else - and I think I'd prefer this - make a furnace shape out of Iron Ingots to get a furnace that's hot enough to smelt alloys and that has two slots instead of one.
Here are some reasonable alloys:
Steel: Iron + Coal (or Charcoal)
Bronze: Tin + Copper (the Bronze Age. Yeah. Also maybe cannonballs or bells)
Brass: Copper + Zinc (for plumbing, instruments, ammo, gears, and locks)
I've also considered Pewter (Tin, Copper, and Lead), Electrum (Gold and Silver), and White Gold (Gold and Nickel or Palladium). Only these don't seem to be as directly useful as Steel, Bronze, and maybe Brass.
We'd need to be able to find Copper, Tin, and Zinc, and maybe Lead and Nickel or Palladium. Someone said that Copper isn't found by itself, so it'd be nice to be able to find compounds and separate the elements in some fashion.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
So hey, apparently this thread doesn't show up on My Content or on the basic forum search. But this is a known issue (for more than just this thread) and they're working on it.
It's still kinda freaky to be positive that you created a thread, but watch the forum claim it's not there.
Oh, and btw, I don't mind a little thread necromancy on the threads I start. If you've got something to add, go ahead and add it; don't worry if it's a week or a month or a year old :smile.gif:
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My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Not bad. I'm a little busy right now (two other mods in the works, plus I'm gamemaster of a Shadowrun campaign), but I'll try to keep up with this too. Don't worry about slow going; I understand that it's kinda the holiday season and people have schedules outside of modding :smile.gif:
Here's Onyx
I hope you're not too offended by negative feedback, but here goes:
Onyx is on the "maybe we could think about these too at some point" list: Low-priority. Also I haven't thought about what to do with it yet. Since we've got all the colors, if we add it it's gotta be more than just decoration.
One of the reasons it's not on the main list is that when I looked it up, it had a huge range of variations, and I've been trying to stick to gems that can be expected to be found in a certain color. That's why even Topaz and Jasper ended up with specific color names instead of just the gem name by itself. And if we're going for a black gem besides Obsidian, I think Jet would be the best answer.
Anyway, the most common form of Onyx seems to be the black one... and there's a beautiful golden version too. It might be neat to make a separate block for that at some point (gorgeous color).
Lastly: If you're going to just make recolored versions of the Minecraft gems, then recolor Lapis Lazuli for the decorative gems, and recolor Diamond only for Ruby and Sapphire. Otherwise it'll get all confusing.
I hope at some point we'll be able to make individual gemstones for each type, or at least split them up into small groups so there's a bit of visual variety (which is kinda the point). E.g., Turquoise, Hematite, Snow Quartz, and Jasper I've seen in a smooth, rounded form, whereas several of the others are sharp crystals. Check the links I left for examples.
if you do want me to help could you send me a message with a full list of thing you want making as well as where you want them to spawn or how to make them etc.
Well, let's try this mod in parts, so that people can choose which part they'd like. The most obvious division is this:
Gemstones and Decorative Gem Blocks
Ruby and Sapphire tools and armor
Colored Marble
Other Minerals
These all involve new spawns. I hope it won't be too difficult to make them work separately and together.
The first part to do would be:
Gemstones and Decorative Gem Blocks
I think our best route is to make these all variants of the three Lapis Lazuli blocks: Gem Block, Gemstone, and Decorative Block. They'd be told apart by Damage Value, just like Wool and Dyes.
However, it appears that the Lapis Lazuli gemstone is treated as a dye, and is part of an existing array. We'll have to make a new item for that. It'd be ideal if we could make Lapis Lazuli (gemstone) into part of our array, and then let you make Blue Dye out of Lapis Lazuli.
The mined block drops 4-8 gems (and, if you can arrange it, 1-2 gems of a different (random) type as well).
The first post has the list, organized by colors. Here's it in a different order by color:
As for spawning: According to the wiki, lapis lazuli spawns pretty far down. I'd like to make our gems spawn higher. Would it be possible to say they spawn at the rate of Gold from 8-48 above Bedrock, and have a rarer spawn (say 1/4 the normal Gold spawn) at 49-64 above bedrock? So you'd find occasional gems in the stone near the surface, but a fair amount of them once you head under.
Oh! And be aware that, because we are adding a lot of gems (14 if you count Silver), that if you just set each gem to spawn at the rate of Gold, we'll get 14 times that many spawns. So cut it down a bit. Maybe each gemstone ought to spawn at 1/8 the spawn of gold. That way, gems in general will spawn at almost twice the rate of gold, but specific gems will be fairly rare.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Tanzanite does come in a dark blue like that, but as it's meant to be the purple gem (the most stunning purple I could find!), it needs to be decidedly purple.
Make Snow Quartz a lot more white (grey mostly on the edges, or a lighter grey than you're using now). Turquoise not so green; it's so strongly a bluegreen color that it became the name of bluegreen. Kunzite should be a little lighter, especially to distinguish it from the Amethyst. And Peridot maybe lighter as well; the ones I saw were very light yellow-green, so maybe outline it the way you did the Citrine.
I really like how you've distinguished Citrine from Yellow Topaz, by the way.
Wait... Citrine may come in Yellow, but is the Orange gem for this mod (check the link I gave). But use that light outline/dark outline trick for other gems, because it's really neat.
Other than that, nice work! These will definitely tell the gems apart, and work fine until we figure out a more varied set of gem shapes.
The Jet looks awesome... I'm just going by memory, but Jet, Red Jasper, Turquoise, and Snow Quartz (once made more white) would be fine sticking with this shape, a nice rounded stone. We'll eventually need some type of sharp crystal for several of these guys, and I'm not sure if we'll need a third shape beyond that or not.
So that leaves... Hematite, Malachite, Silver, and Smoky Quartz. Oh, and the gem ore blocks and decorative blocks, and recolored versions of the armor and tools for Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, though don't do too much too fast :smile.gif:
Then, if you'd like, you could work on the colored marble. The marbles need to differ from each other, not be just recolors, or it kinda kills the whole idea of marbling. Also, it'd be possible to have it just be a single marbled block, but it'd be cool if each marble design was actually a 2x2 block, so you'd randomly encounter the four types of that color marble (e.g., four different blocks of Red Marble that all fit together to make a distinct pattern).
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Really? I thought I'd set up most of them to be Bing displaying images of the stone in question. Do all of them redirect to the main Bing page?
If so, I guess you'll just have to look up the stones on Bing (images section) for yourself. I'd hoped to save you the trouble; sorry 'bout that.
uuuhhhh, errrrr quite a lot to take in but will do
I do tend to talk a lot, don't I? Hope I'm not too confusing. If you need me to say something shorter or more clearly, let me know.
miniboz, don't worry; we're patient. Minecraft having just gotten out of Beta, I'm sure there's a lot of things in flux.
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My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
I just had an idea!! maybe you could refine the gems using a hammer. I'd be happy to texture the hammer. the unrefined gems could be the recoloured lapis's and i'll make new textures for the refined gems
Not a bad idea. Refining gems is actually something I was hoping to do. Perhaps some would be cut and others tumbled (we'd need to make a tumbler block).
miniboz, the Ruby and Sapphire should drop like Diamonds, but all the other gems drop like Lapis Lazuli: 4-8 per block, isn't it?
Also, I'd like the gem blocks (include Lapis Lazuli, if you can manage it) to also have a chance of randomly dropping 1-2 gems of another type. So you see Larimar blocks, mine them, and get 6 Larimar and 2 Yellow Topaz, something like that. It'd make the mining a little more exciting :smile.gif:
And since the idea is to let players decorate more, I think 2x2 blocks would be more useful, but what do you think? If we go with 2x2 blocks, it'd be nice to make Lapis Lazuli do the same... hmm.
Also, it'd be neat if we could change the Lapis Lazuli spawn to be part of our general decorative-gem spawn, so it doesn't show up a lot more than the other gems do. I don't know how easy it would be to do that, though.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
I was just looking over possible gemstones for grey (using Silver doesn't sit well with me, although I still want Silver in the mod), and came across Grey Agate. It's not ideal (there's a lot of color shift and banding in agate), but it'll do until we get a better idea.
Okay, it looks like the gems can be divided in this manner:
Crystals
The Crystal-type gems are see-through and sharp. I can see from the searches that some of them can come in a polished-stone sort of form, but it appears that they're distinct from the Gemstones set.
These are all bright, beautiful crystals with sharp edges.
Gemstones
The Gemstone-type gems are opaque and smooth. They don't seem to have crystal forms (nothing similar to a diamond), and suit a polished-stone format.
The Gemstone Set: Turquoise, Malachite, Red Jasper, Hematite, Larimar, Snow Quartz, Lapis Lazuli, Grey Agate. Obsidian also fits here.
These are all richly colored stones that basically lack sharp edges.
Note that Larimar, Malachite, and Turquoise have distinctive marbling - they're not just one color all the way across. Red Jasper also does this, to a lesser degree, and Grey Agate has a sort of grey color shift too.
Refining the Gems
We should be able to make a rock tumbler to polish the Gemstone types, and use some sort of diamond chisel to make the Crystal types into finer forms. I'm not sure what we'd do with the refined versions, though.
Perhaps the Refined Crystals ought to make colored light blocks, similar to Glowstone? Or perhaps they'd only glow if there's a light source near/behind them, but it'd still be a colored light. This'd give us Pink, Orange, Yellow, Lime, Purple, Magenta, and Brown light blocks. Or perhaps we could use them to make colored Glass Panes.
Actually, if we're going with that, what say you use a 2x2 pattern with the Crystal gems to make a Glass Pane, and a 3x3 pattern to make the Gem Block? That makes sense and doesn't require rewriting the Lapis Lazuli block.
But what could we make with a 2x2 pattern of the Gemstone ones?
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Yes. We'd probably need: Diamond Chisel (Diamond on Stick, diagonally?) and Tumbler (block).
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My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
It strikes me that Obsidian could be treated as the Gem Block form of an Obsidian gem, just that you find it generated in solid blocks and have to break it up. Along with Grey Agate, that'd complete our set.
When we get an Alpha release up and running, I'll make a new thread over in the Mods section instead of Requests. That might generate more traffic.
What we need for an Alpha release is this:
Graphics
All 16 decorative gems need the Gem Block (to mine), the Rough Gem, and the Decorative Block. The full list is: Citrine, Amethyst, Yellow Topaz, Peridot, Kunzite, Smokey Quartz, Tanzanite (all crystal-type gems); Turquoise, Malachite, Red Jasper, Hematite, Larimar, Snow Quartz, Lapis Lazuli, Grey Agate, Obsidian (all smoother opaque gemstones, some with marbling).
The Diamond Block needs to be a transparent block with the barest of outlines. Use the current Diamond Block for Turquoise Block and go from there.
If we're adding the colored alternatives to Diamond Armor and Tools to the Alpha release (instead of waiting), then we'll need Red, Green, and Blue versions of these. We'll also need the Gem Block and Gem for each of them (recolors of the Diamond for now), and a colored version of the transparent Diamond Block.
I'm making an executive decision: To let people have the best color choice, we're not going to go with the weaker Emerald; the gemstones on par with Diamond are Ruby, Sapphire, and Green Sapphire. If we later decide to include Emerald, it'll be for something else.
Coding
Decorative Gem Recipes:
Decorative Block (Turquoise Block, Red Jasper Block, etc.): 3x3 pattern of the Rough Gem. Put the block back in the crafting square to get the gems back from it.
Useful Gem Recipes:
Red Window, Blue Window, Green Window: 3x3 pattern of Ruby, Sapphire, and Green Sapphire respectively. Rename Diamond Block to Clear Window. You can get gems back from all of these.
Tools: Rubies, Sapphires, and Green Sapphires create tools, identical to Diamond in every way.
Armor: They all create armor, too - again, identical to Diamond in every way.
Stuff for Later:
Window Pane (Amethyst Pane, etc.): 2x2 pattern of the Refined Gem. You can't get gems back from this one. Since we won't have refining in the Alpha release, we don't need this recipe yet.
And if we're going to make a set of cool windows from the crystal types, we ought to make something cool out of the non-crystal types. Perhaps fences?
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Is your primary aim to match the Window Pane recipe without using more than 4 gems?
I still kinda prefer the 2x2 pattern, but what do you think, miniboz? What seems more natural?
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My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Wow. This is brilliant. Have you got a modder already (By the looks of the posts, you don't currently...)? Or is this just an idea?
I have a mod, but I'd be able to maintain two since I only have a day job and that's it (I'm not in Uni/College/School).
So has anyone taken this on board? Because I would gladly like to, or even to collaborate would be nice :smile.gif:
And a tumbler texture (contains the top, side, front (off), and front (on) textures)
By the way, I did some research on Tumblers, and found out that they require power (duhh), water, and a abrasive grit (the one used in real life is Silicon Carbide, or Moissanite powder, but we should go with sand, rather than create another mineral) to function. So the tumbler would probably need water, sand and coal to tumble gems, but this seems to be very expensive as compared to the Diamond Chisel technique for crystals.
Also, how do you use a tool (diamond chisel) on an item (the crystal)?
Now we've got a pretty good chance of making this work, even if someone has to quit the team. I'm thrilled :biggrin.gif:
And a pleasant "Hullo!" to FireHawkDelta, who has joined our cheering section and has already helped by throwing out ideas :smile.gif:
Lapidary Mod
After hunting through a few articles tonight, I've hit across a neat word that might make it into our mod name: Lapidary. It means "concerned with stones" and is about gemstones and other minerals. So we might end up calling this "Lapidarian(s)" or just "The Lapidary Mod" or something like that. I'll give it some thought.
At least it's better than "Decorative Gem Blocks mod". Which is just way too long, and doesn't take into account the other facets of our mod.
Dyes
With Lapis Lazuli becoming rare again, FireHawkDelta suggests we add blue flowers. I agree.
It looks like flowers currently take up two items on the block list: 37 and 38. I'm trying to figure out why they aren't just two versions of a single item. It would make more sense to have them be Flower (0) and Flower (1), just like Dyes. On the other hand, I don't want to overwrite the vanilla Minecraft behavior (my spriter on the Harvest Moon project, Icalasari, says that's usually a bad thing to do, and I trust him on that one).
I guess I'll think it over. My instinct is to just make a blue flower be a variant of the yellow one, but I'm not yet sure if that's the way I want to play this.
Productive, aren't you? :biggrin.gif: I love to see my team going out and getting information on their own. Makes me feel less like the guy who has to do it all.
Well, let's see. If the crystals require a Diamond, it seems reasonable to make the others require at least Redstone. So Redstone power it is. (My other thought was to make it hand-cranked, but that seems silly in the context of Minecraft.)
That Tumbler texture looks pretty sweet. And we might be able to use it to make pretty glass shards as well, for making stained-glass windows or something :smile.gif:
the one used in real life is Silicon Carbide, or Moissanite powder, but we should go with sand
I was gonna disagree, as I've wanted to add more minerals with this mod and this seems like a fine time to do so... but after reading up on these a little bit, it seems that they're prohibitively rare, and synthetic versions are used in modern tech. So sand it is :smile.gif:
We could do a two-step process, with gravel first and then sand second. Or just keep it simple and do that one-step process.
I'd like to see an interface that looks like a double crafting square, so you can put in up to 9 gems on the left side, and as the thing works it'll pop out completed gems on the right side. I'm torn as to whether they ought to complete all at once, or come out one at a time. But this avoids having to work just one type of gem at a time, because you won't have to stack them.
Blue Dye and Silver
The Blue Dye doesn't look too bad.
The Silver, on the other hand, I have a problem with. I'm not sure if my instincts are just theatrical ("but it's always so shiny in the movies!") or real, but it seems that silver would be brighter than iron, not the other way around. I don't think players will look at those two next to each other and think that the darker one is Silver.
However, it'd be reasonable to darken Iron if you like, for contrast.
I look forward to seeing more work from you :smile.gif:
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
...which is a shaped gemstone, like when you see them made into a heart or a teardrop. This works for the softer transparent/translucent gems, as well as the opaque gems.
And then there's the more random style, which is:
3. Tumbling
This just brings out the beauty of the natural shape, while rounding and smoothing all the sides together. It's mostly for the opaques.
We could conceivably make a Faceting Machine for the crystals, a Tumbling Machine for the opaques, and then provide the option of making Cabochons out of any of them, where you could hang a Cabochon on the wall or something (like a painting).
Thoughts?
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My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Why would we need these? Well, Wool isn't fire-proof or creeper-proof. Or shiny.
After adding a bunch of gems and their associated gem blocks, move the Diamond block's texture to Turquoise Block, and make Diamond Block into a creeper-proof window. One that's less pixel-cluttered than the current window, and, in contrast to Glass, can be moved around however you like.
You'd find the gems around the area you start finding Gold, and overall they'd be, I suppose, as rare as gold, though the chances of finding any specific gem would be much less. A single gem block should spit out lots of gems, like the Lapis Lazuli block does. And you should have a chance of getting a bonus gem: 1 or 2 gems of a different type, in addition to the gem that was showing on the face of the block.
The Gemstones
Here's the list of gemstones I've come up with, in the order of the values for Wool. If you do end up making this mod, please don't just make them all recolors of the same gem; it'd be nice to have unique shapes, or perhaps divide the recolors into 4 different shapes at least.
**Yeah, Silver ain't no gem. But I couldn't find a good distinctively gray gem, and the game needs Silver anyway, and why not make use of the Silver cube? Also: Silver ought to occur more regularly than gems, if we could find a good use for it. And maybe make half of the Gold spawns be Silver spawns instead?
***Though if you wanted a good black stone that wasn't partly purple, but all black, or mostly black with some dark gray in the pattern, perhaps Jet would be a good alternative.
Oh! And I'm not including Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald, the first two because I'm hoping to see them added in a more functional capacity (on par with Diamond, used for tools and armor), and Emerald because, even though it's a softer rock like the rest of the list (not on par with Ruby and Sapphire), people associate it with Ruby and Sapphire, so they'd probably get confused if it were merely decorative while the other two were functional. So I suppose I'll be trying to get Emerald to stay functional as well, for clarity's sake.
Decorative Stone
Additionally, I'd like a few new decorative stone types (less shiny than the gems). I guess the best decorative stone would be marble (resistant to explosions), spawned about where Iron is, so give that the full range of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black, gray, brown, cyan, light green... I can't find Magenta Marble images, but Creole Marble could be the Light Blue. (I found Pink Granite and Gray Granite, though.) One of the key points about Marble is that it's decidedly not a recolored texture; each texture should be unique.
I've seen a mod that made marble textures spread out over multiple blocks, but that breaks save files, and I don't think it's necessary. If you wanted to make a larger pattern, the easiest way would be to make a 2x2-block pattern (or 3x3, or 4x4), and then code it so that each Marble block generates with one of these four, randomly (like how a sheep has a random color of wool). (So you gather a bunch of Black Marble and find you've got 4 with pattern A1, 2 with pattern A2, 3 with pattern B1, and none with pattern B2... back to the quarry!) Ideally, the patterns would combine in different ways if you put them in a different order, so the variety across a marble wall would be visually interesting and aesthetically pleasing :smile.gif:
Other possible stones you could dig up, which might be less resistant to explosions: Alabaster, Limestone, maybe Shale or Slate (these last two'd spawn near/under large clay deposits, I think). I'm not sure what other types of decorative stones there are; the gem hunt kinda wore me out for tonight.
So... yeah. I think it'd be useful to have more decorative blocks in the game, even if they didn't do anything else but look pretty (and resist explosions).
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
I'm in the middle of working on two mods and I think my reputation has been pretty well established for being a beginning mod Producer. You may ask about me on either of the mod threads: Harvest Moon mod or Zoo Tycoon mod.
If you would take this project in hand, I would be very grateful :smile.gif:
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Anyway, here goes:
There's such a thing as a Sunstone and a Moonstone. Be fun to have them in the game too. Sunstone glows during the day (it does glow when sunlight hits it! but ours could be more useful underground) and Moonstone would glow at night. Anything made with these would have the same properties, as would the decorative blocks. But nothing that lights up stuff as you move... unless that's an effect you could turn off in the options menu.
It'd be neat to get some phosphorescent stuff in here.
Ruby and Sapphire: The Functional Gems
Topaz and Beryl are 1/8 the hardness of Diamond; the rest of that list up there is even softer than that. But Ruby and Sapphire are only 1/4 the hardness of Diamond. For new tools and armor, they're the only two that matter.
Still, if they're just "Diamond's less useful cousins," then why add them? And distinguishing them by handicaps ("ruby's faster but wears out quick!") or utility ("ruby's good for tools, and sapphire for armor!") seem silly.
I'd make them functionally identical to Diamond. This lets the player choose a preferred color, instead of just wearing the color with the most stats. Or they could be better (faster and more durable) than Diamond if you built them around a Diamond core. I'm not sure how the recipe would work, but it would require more materials than normal... perhaps this:
Where Diamond is a Ruby or Sapphire, and the Arrow represents whichever tool or armor you're upgrading (which is a Diamond one).
Emerald
It's not as hard as Ruby and Sapphire; it's on par with Topaz. But people associate it with the hard gems, and it'd be confusing if Emerald were purely decorative. So either leave it out, or let it be the bridge between Iron and Diamond/Ruby/Sapphire (to help people remember the distinction: quasi-educational!).
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
The rest of this post isn't about the gem mod, but a place to collect ideas I've seen in other threads. And people can also comment about them on this thread :smile.gif:
Other Gems I've Seen in Comments
Aquamarine, Agate, Onyx, Quartz, Opal, Opalite, Zircon, Carnelian, Sard, Citrine, Charoite, Ammolite, Lolite, Garnet, Gaspeite, Quantum Quattro... I'm not familiar with half of these.
Amber and Pearl are also possible. Along with Jet, they're made from stuff that isn't a type of crystal or stone.
Since I took a long time to get my list right, I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't need any of these gems for decorative blocks (we've colored all the colors up there). But if there were a useful reason for them, I'd be glad to hear it.
Things That Aren't Gems
This thread is primarily about, well, Decorative Gem Blocks, but I'm open to expanding it to discuss other minerals (as noted in my title). I've been browsing through old threads and noticing various minerals that Minecraft could use. Here's some of them:
Limestone
Someone noted this process: Heat Limestone to get Lime, add Clay for Cement, then add Gravel, Sand, and Water to get Concrete. I've seen pourable Concrete on a mod vid before - it spreads out like water and then hardens into smooth stone. Useful for filling areas quickly (and apparently with fewer mats).
Lime plus Chalk would be Whitewash.
Alloys
Somehow need to add two materials together before stuffing them in the furnace, or else - and I think I'd prefer this - make a furnace shape out of Iron Ingots to get a furnace that's hot enough to smelt alloys and that has two slots instead of one.
Here are some reasonable alloys:
I've also considered Pewter (Tin, Copper, and Lead), Electrum (Gold and Silver), and White Gold (Gold and Nickel or Palladium). Only these don't seem to be as directly useful as Steel, Bronze, and maybe Brass.
We'd need to be able to find Copper, Tin, and Zinc, and maybe Lead and Nickel or Palladium. Someone said that Copper isn't found by itself, so it'd be nice to be able to find compounds and separate the elements in some fashion.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
It's still kinda freaky to be positive that you created a thread, but watch the forum claim it's not there.
Oh, and btw, I don't mind a little thread necromancy on the threads I start. If you've got something to add, go ahead and add it; don't worry if it's a week or a month or a year old :smile.gif:
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Here's Onyx
I hope you're not too offended by negative feedback, but here goes:
Onyx is on the "maybe we could think about these too at some point" list: Low-priority. Also I haven't thought about what to do with it yet. Since we've got all the colors, if we add it it's gotta be more than just decoration.
One of the reasons it's not on the main list is that when I looked it up, it had a huge range of variations, and I've been trying to stick to gems that can be expected to be found in a certain color. That's why even Topaz and Jasper ended up with specific color names instead of just the gem name by itself. And if we're going for a black gem besides Obsidian, I think Jet would be the best answer.
Anyway, the most common form of Onyx seems to be the black one... and there's a beautiful golden version too. It might be neat to make a separate block for that at some point (gorgeous color).
Lastly: If you're going to just make recolored versions of the Minecraft gems, then recolor Lapis Lazuli for the decorative gems, and recolor Diamond only for Ruby and Sapphire. Otherwise it'll get all confusing.
I hope at some point we'll be able to make individual gemstones for each type, or at least split them up into small groups so there's a bit of visual variety (which is kinda the point). E.g., Turquoise, Hematite, Snow Quartz, and Jasper I've seen in a smooth, rounded form, whereas several of the others are sharp crystals. Check the links I left for examples.
Well, let's try this mod in parts, so that people can choose which part they'd like. The most obvious division is this:
The first part to do would be:
Gemstones and Decorative Gem Blocks
I think our best route is to make these all variants of the three Lapis Lazuli blocks: Gem Block, Gemstone, and Decorative Block. They'd be told apart by Damage Value, just like Wool and Dyes.
However, it appears that the Lapis Lazuli gemstone is treated as a dye, and is part of an existing array. We'll have to make a new item for that. It'd be ideal if we could make Lapis Lazuli (gemstone) into part of our array, and then let you make Blue Dye out of Lapis Lazuli.
The mined block drops 4-8 gems (and, if you can arrange it, 1-2 gems of a different (random) type as well).
The first post has the list, organized by colors. Here's it in a different order by color:
Red Jasper, Malachite, (Lapis Lazuli); Yellow Topaz, Turquoise, Amethyst; Kunzite, Peridot, Larimar; Citrine, Smoky Quartz, Tanzanite; Snow Quartz, Silver, Hematite, (Obsidian or Jet)
And here's it alphabetically. I'm not sure which order would be more useful to you.
Amethyst, Citrine, Hematite, (possibly Jet), Kunzite, (Lapis Lazuli), Larimar, Malachite, (Obsidian), Peridot, Red Jasper, Silver, Smoky Quartz, Snow Quartz, Tanzanite, Turquoise, Yellow Topaz
As for spawning: According to the wiki, lapis lazuli spawns pretty far down. I'd like to make our gems spawn higher. Would it be possible to say they spawn at the rate of Gold from 8-48 above Bedrock, and have a rarer spawn (say 1/4 the normal Gold spawn) at 49-64 above bedrock? So you'd find occasional gems in the stone near the surface, but a fair amount of them once you head under.
Oh! And be aware that, because we are adding a lot of gems (14 if you count Silver), that if you just set each gem to spawn at the rate of Gold, we'll get 14 times that many spawns. So cut it down a bit. Maybe each gemstone ought to spawn at 1/8 the spawn of gold. That way, gems in general will spawn at almost twice the rate of gold, but specific gems will be fairly rare.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Make Snow Quartz a lot more white (grey mostly on the edges, or a lighter grey than you're using now). Turquoise not so green; it's so strongly a bluegreen color that it became the name of bluegreen. Kunzite should be a little lighter, especially to distinguish it from the Amethyst. And Peridot maybe lighter as well; the ones I saw were very light yellow-green, so maybe outline it the way you did the Citrine.
I really like how you've distinguished Citrine from Yellow Topaz, by the way.
Wait... Citrine may come in Yellow, but is the Orange gem for this mod (check the link I gave). But use that light outline/dark outline trick for other gems, because it's really neat.
Other than that, nice work! These will definitely tell the gems apart, and work fine until we figure out a more varied set of gem shapes.
The Jet looks awesome... I'm just going by memory, but Jet, Red Jasper, Turquoise, and Snow Quartz (once made more white) would be fine sticking with this shape, a nice rounded stone. We'll eventually need some type of sharp crystal for several of these guys, and I'm not sure if we'll need a third shape beyond that or not.
So that leaves... Hematite, Malachite, Silver, and Smoky Quartz. Oh, and the gem ore blocks and decorative blocks, and recolored versions of the armor and tools for Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, though don't do too much too fast :smile.gif:
Then, if you'd like, you could work on the colored marble. The marbles need to differ from each other, not be just recolors, or it kinda kills the whole idea of marbling. Also, it'd be possible to have it just be a single marbled block, but it'd be cool if each marble design was actually a 2x2 block, so you'd randomly encounter the four types of that color marble (e.g., four different blocks of Red Marble that all fit together to make a distinct pattern).
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Really? I thought I'd set up most of them to be Bing displaying images of the stone in question. Do all of them redirect to the main Bing page?
If so, I guess you'll just have to look up the stones on Bing (images section) for yourself. I'd hoped to save you the trouble; sorry 'bout that.
I do tend to talk a lot, don't I? Hope I'm not too confusing. If you need me to say something shorter or more clearly, let me know.
miniboz, don't worry; we're patient. Minecraft having just gotten out of Beta, I'm sure there's a lot of things in flux.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Not a bad idea. Refining gems is actually something I was hoping to do. Perhaps some would be cut and others tumbled (we'd need to make a tumbler block).
miniboz, the Ruby and Sapphire should drop like Diamonds, but all the other gems drop like Lapis Lazuli: 4-8 per block, isn't it?
Also, I'd like the gem blocks (include Lapis Lazuli, if you can manage it) to also have a chance of randomly dropping 1-2 gems of another type. So you see Larimar blocks, mine them, and get 6 Larimar and 2 Yellow Topaz, something like that. It'd make the mining a little more exciting :smile.gif:
And since the idea is to let players decorate more, I think 2x2 blocks would be more useful, but what do you think? If we go with 2x2 blocks, it'd be nice to make Lapis Lazuli do the same... hmm.
Also, it'd be neat if we could change the Lapis Lazuli spawn to be part of our general decorative-gem spawn, so it doesn't show up a lot more than the other gems do. I don't know how easy it would be to do that, though.
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Okay, it looks like the gems can be divided in this manner:
Crystals
The Crystal-type gems are see-through and sharp. I can see from the searches that some of them can come in a polished-stone sort of form, but it appears that they're distinct from the Gemstones set.
The Crystal Set: Citrine, Amethyst, Yellow Topaz, Peridot, Kunzite, Smokey Quartz, Tanzanite.
These are all bright, beautiful crystals with sharp edges.
Gemstones
The Gemstone-type gems are opaque and smooth. They don't seem to have crystal forms (nothing similar to a diamond), and suit a polished-stone format.
The Gemstone Set: Turquoise, Malachite, Red Jasper, Hematite, Larimar, Snow Quartz, Lapis Lazuli, Grey Agate. Obsidian also fits here.
These are all richly colored stones that basically lack sharp edges.
Note that Larimar, Malachite, and Turquoise have distinctive marbling - they're not just one color all the way across. Red Jasper also does this, to a lesser degree, and Grey Agate has a sort of grey color shift too.
Refining the Gems
We should be able to make a rock tumbler to polish the Gemstone types, and use some sort of diamond chisel to make the Crystal types into finer forms. I'm not sure what we'd do with the refined versions, though.
Perhaps the Refined Crystals ought to make colored light blocks, similar to Glowstone? Or perhaps they'd only glow if there's a light source near/behind them, but it'd still be a colored light. This'd give us Pink, Orange, Yellow, Lime, Purple, Magenta, and Brown light blocks. Or perhaps we could use them to make colored Glass Panes.
Actually, if we're going with that, what say you use a 2x2 pattern with the Crystal gems to make a Glass Pane, and a 3x3 pattern to make the Gem Block? That makes sense and doesn't require rewriting the Lapis Lazuli block.
But what could we make with a 2x2 pattern of the Gemstone ones?
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
When we get an Alpha release up and running, I'll make a new thread over in the Mods section instead of Requests. That might generate more traffic.
What we need for an Alpha release is this:
Graphics
All 16 decorative gems need the Gem Block (to mine), the Rough Gem, and the Decorative Block. The full list is: Citrine, Amethyst, Yellow Topaz, Peridot, Kunzite, Smokey Quartz, Tanzanite (all crystal-type gems); Turquoise, Malachite, Red Jasper, Hematite, Larimar, Snow Quartz, Lapis Lazuli, Grey Agate, Obsidian (all smoother opaque gemstones, some with marbling).
The Diamond Block needs to be a transparent block with the barest of outlines. Use the current Diamond Block for Turquoise Block and go from there.
If we're adding the colored alternatives to Diamond Armor and Tools to the Alpha release (instead of waiting), then we'll need Red, Green, and Blue versions of these. We'll also need the Gem Block and Gem for each of them (recolors of the Diamond for now), and a colored version of the transparent Diamond Block.
I'm making an executive decision: To let people have the best color choice, we're not going to go with the weaker Emerald; the gemstones on par with Diamond are Ruby, Sapphire, and Green Sapphire. If we later decide to include Emerald, it'll be for something else.
Coding
Decorative Gem Recipes:
Decorative Block (Turquoise Block, Red Jasper Block, etc.): 3x3 pattern of the Rough Gem. Put the block back in the crafting square to get the gems back from it.
Useful Gem Recipes:
Red Window, Blue Window, Green Window: 3x3 pattern of Ruby, Sapphire, and Green Sapphire respectively. Rename Diamond Block to Clear Window. You can get gems back from all of these.
Tools: Rubies, Sapphires, and Green Sapphires create tools, identical to Diamond in every way.
Armor: They all create armor, too - again, identical to Diamond in every way.
Stuff for Later:
Window Pane (Amethyst Pane, etc.): 2x2 pattern of the Refined Gem. You can't get gems back from this one. Since we won't have refining in the Alpha release, we don't need this recipe yet.
And if we're going to make a set of cool windows from the crystal types, we ought to make something cool out of the non-crystal types. Perhaps fences?
Possible pattern for Diamond Chisel:
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
Is your primary aim to match the Window Pane recipe without using more than 4 gems?
I still kinda prefer the 2x2 pattern, but what do you think, miniboz? What seems more natural?
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
This mod looks so good it could revolutionary
I could help you guys doing some texturing, seeing there's so much stuff to texture here.
I could also double up as a idealist, and possibly modeller too.
Please consider me :biggrin.gif:
I have a mod, but I'd be able to maintain two since I only have a day job and that's it (I'm not in Uni/College/School).
So has anyone taken this on board? Because I would gladly like to, or even to collaborate would be nice :smile.gif:
Thanks.
And silver (basically darkened iron)
And a tumbler texture (contains the top, side, front (off), and front (on) textures)
By the way, I did some research on Tumblers, and found out that they require power (duhh), water, and a abrasive grit (the one used in real life is Silicon Carbide, or Moissanite powder, but we should go with sand, rather than create another mineral) to function. So the tumbler would probably need water, sand and coal to tumble gems, but this seems to be very expensive as compared to the Diamond Chisel technique for crystals.
Also, how do you use a tool (diamond chisel) on an item (the crystal)?
So now our team looks like this:
And a pleasant "Hullo!" to FireHawkDelta, who has joined our cheering section and has already helped by throwing out ideas :smile.gif:
Lapidary Mod
After hunting through a few articles tonight, I've hit across a neat word that might make it into our mod name: Lapidary. It means "concerned with stones" and is about gemstones and other minerals. So we might end up calling this "Lapidarian(s)" or just "The Lapidary Mod" or something like that. I'll give it some thought.
At least it's better than "Decorative Gem Blocks mod". Which is just way too long, and doesn't take into account the other facets of our mod.
Dyes
With Lapis Lazuli becoming rare again, FireHawkDelta suggests we add blue flowers. I agree.
It looks like flowers currently take up two items on the block list: 37 and 38. I'm trying to figure out why they aren't just two versions of a single item. It would make more sense to have them be Flower (0) and Flower (1), just like Dyes. On the other hand, I don't want to overwrite the vanilla Minecraft behavior (my spriter on the Harvest Moon project, Icalasari, says that's usually a bad thing to do, and I trust him on that one).
I guess I'll think it over. My instinct is to just make a blue flower be a variant of the yellow one, but I'm not yet sure if that's the way I want to play this.
That's awesome. I think that'll work out just fine.
Productive, aren't you? :biggrin.gif: I love to see my team going out and getting information on their own. Makes me feel less like the guy who has to do it all.
Well, let's see. If the crystals require a Diamond, it seems reasonable to make the others require at least Redstone. So Redstone power it is. (My other thought was to make it hand-cranked, but that seems silly in the context of Minecraft.)
That Tumbler texture looks pretty sweet. And we might be able to use it to make pretty glass shards as well, for making stained-glass windows or something :smile.gif:
I was gonna disagree, as I've wanted to add more minerals with this mod and this seems like a fine time to do so... but after reading up on these a little bit, it seems that they're prohibitively rare, and synthetic versions are used in modern tech. So sand it is :smile.gif:
We could do a two-step process, with gravel first and then sand second. Or just keep it simple and do that one-step process.
I'd like to see an interface that looks like a double crafting square, so you can put in up to 9 gems on the left side, and as the thing works it'll pop out completed gems on the right side. I'm torn as to whether they ought to complete all at once, or come out one at a time. But this avoids having to work just one type of gem at a time, because you won't have to stack them.
Blue Dye and Silver
The Blue Dye doesn't look too bad.
The Silver, on the other hand, I have a problem with. I'm not sure if my instincts are just theatrical ("but it's always so shiny in the movies!") or real, but it seems that silver would be brighter than iron, not the other way around. I don't think players will look at those two next to each other and think that the darker one is Silver.
However, it'd be reasonable to darken Iron if you like, for contrast.
I look forward to seeing more work from you :smile.gif:
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!
1. Faceting
This is used for the transparent to translucent gems that are pretty hard.
The softer gems are easily scratched by sand and grit, so it's better to cut them into a:
2. Cabochon
...which is a shaped gemstone, like when you see them made into a heart or a teardrop. This works for the softer transparent/translucent gems, as well as the opaque gems.
And then there's the more random style, which is:
3. Tumbling
This just brings out the beauty of the natural shape, while rounding and smoothing all the sides together. It's mostly for the opaques.
We could conceivably make a Faceting Machine for the crystals, a Tumbling Machine for the opaques, and then provide the option of making Cabochons out of any of them, where you could hang a Cabochon on the wall or something (like a painting).
Thoughts?
My YouTube channel is currently on hiatus, but I hope to get back to it at some point. Content is fairly random, but can be enjoyable, and is mostly game footage (mostly random Minecraft clips) from my nephews and me. Most popular MC vid so far is the one Vechs laughed at on Twitter!