I'm in the process of setting up a PVP Minecraft server right now that is going to have a fairly in-depth magic system. The server will require a custom texture pack for appropriate play, which I am currently working on. Spells will be implemented on the server via bukkit, and they will have a 'cost' to cast, in the form of blocks that are consumed from a player's inventory. For example, a player wishing to cast fireball would need a 'fire' cube; casting the spell would consume the cube and launch the fireball.
At the heart of this whole system is the humble Wool block. Since I can't add new crafting recipes to the game without modding the client, which is not an option here, the idea is to take advantage of the crafting system that is already in place in the game for wool. Plain, white wool is reskinned into a colorless crystal block. Now, just as one would dye wool with certain other items in the game, the player will be able to 'infuse' this base crystal with elemental properties to produce the final magic gem.
Let me give a quick example. I have plugins in place to do all of the following:
Say the player wants to be able to cast the fireball spell. To do so, he'll have to create a fire crystal, which will be consumed in the casting.
WOOL IS DISABLED FROM DROPPING AT THE OUTSET - punching sheep yields none.
A player mines LAPIS LAZULI blocks, which are retextured to be 'prismatic stone':
Once broken, the above block yields WHITE WOOL, which in my texture pack is intended to be reskinned as a colorless / neutral elemental orb:
The player then goes and mines NETHERRACK BLOCKS, which have a 5% chance of dropping, let's say, an INK SAC (by extension, I will have made ink sacs not drop from squid). This Ink Sac is retextured to look like a fire-red crystal shard:
Then, when the player crafts the COLORLESS ORB [White Wool] together with the INK SAC [Fire Crystal Shard], they get a FIRE ORB [Black Wool]. This can then be used to cast the fireball spell.
You can see, based on the above, that by modifying the game's textures and the ways items drop, you can implement an elemental crafting system that is based primarily on the wool block.
NOW, with all this background in place, here is my problem: Making the textures for the elemental blocks is giving me a hell of a time. This is mostly because the item that I am reskinning is a wool cube, and shows in isometric in the player's inventory. If I could just do 2d sprites instead, this'd be much easier, but as-is I'm stuck trying to make a cubic-looking elemental block texture that makes sense in the context described above.
Here are some of my examples:
This was my first test for the neutral, 'colorless' crystal. It's okay - I like the crystal texture, but I am not really big on the 'frame' around it, mostly because I feel like it looks a little too futuristic.
As a test, I tried making a block that would be used to cast a lava spell (creates a temporary pool of lava) based on the above texture:
I also tried making the texture transparent, but that caused some undesirable issues, since the wool blocks aren't designed for that:
It works, but honestly I'm not super happy with it. I'm hoping I might solicit a bit of help from these forums to create a general elemental cube 'base' for a colorless elemental block that can then be imbued with other elements by changing the color and appearance of the main section.
A base texture to play with, if you're interested:
I would really, really appreciate any help you guys might offer. The textures I've already created for this will do in a pinch, but I'm really not 100% happy with them and I'm hoping to solicit alternative designs that maybe don't look so futuristic/companion-cube-ish.
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At the heart of this whole system is the humble Wool block. Since I can't add new crafting recipes to the game without modding the client, which is not an option here, the idea is to take advantage of the crafting system that is already in place in the game for wool. Plain, white wool is reskinned into a colorless crystal block. Now, just as one would dye wool with certain other items in the game, the player will be able to 'infuse' this base crystal with elemental properties to produce the final magic gem.
Let me give a quick example. I have plugins in place to do all of the following:
Say the player wants to be able to cast the fireball spell. To do so, he'll have to create a fire crystal, which will be consumed in the casting.
WOOL IS DISABLED FROM DROPPING AT THE OUTSET - punching sheep yields none.
A player mines LAPIS LAZULI blocks, which are retextured to be 'prismatic stone':
Once broken, the above block yields WHITE WOOL, which in my texture pack is intended to be reskinned as a colorless / neutral elemental orb:
The player then goes and mines NETHERRACK BLOCKS, which have a 5% chance of dropping, let's say, an INK SAC (by extension, I will have made ink sacs not drop from squid). This Ink Sac is retextured to look like a fire-red crystal shard:
Then, when the player crafts the COLORLESS ORB [White Wool] together with the INK SAC [Fire Crystal Shard], they get a FIRE ORB [Black Wool]. This can then be used to cast the fireball spell.
You can see, based on the above, that by modifying the game's textures and the ways items drop, you can implement an elemental crafting system that is based primarily on the wool block.
NOW, with all this background in place, here is my problem: Making the textures for the elemental blocks is giving me a hell of a time. This is mostly because the item that I am reskinning is a wool cube, and shows in isometric in the player's inventory. If I could just do 2d sprites instead, this'd be much easier, but as-is I'm stuck trying to make a cubic-looking elemental block texture that makes sense in the context described above.
Here are some of my examples:
This was my first test for the neutral, 'colorless' crystal. It's okay - I like the crystal texture, but I am not really big on the 'frame' around it, mostly because I feel like it looks a little too futuristic.
As a test, I tried making a block that would be used to cast a lava spell (creates a temporary pool of lava) based on the above texture:
I also tried making the texture transparent, but that caused some undesirable issues, since the wool blocks aren't designed for that:
It works, but honestly I'm not super happy with it. I'm hoping I might solicit a bit of help from these forums to create a general elemental cube 'base' for a colorless elemental block that can then be imbued with other elements by changing the color and appearance of the main section.
A base texture to play with, if you're interested:
I would really, really appreciate any help you guys might offer. The textures I've already created for this will do in a pinch, but I'm really not 100% happy with them and I'm hoping to solicit alternative designs that maybe don't look so futuristic/companion-cube-ish.