The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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I've finished the last holiday pack for A Brave New World and have also written a new launcher for seasonal rotation. Currently, I'm not ready to release the finished version as it's only Windows compliant and I want to make sure I can simultaneously release Mac and Linux compliant launchers. Basically, the launcher will check the month and place the appropriate seasonal texture pack. If anyone remembers the original launcher that used to inject the files for quandary, this is similar but uses Minecraft's native texture pack function, so no direct injection is required increasing compatability for future versions and making it much easier to "turn off" in the event that an update requires a texture pack update.
Excerpt from Tumblr http://minecrafties.tumblr.com/
"The Brave World Needs Your Help!
I’m looking for people to assist with testing the experimental new A Brave New World launcher. The new launcher will be patcher independent, will make use of the built-in Minecraft texture pack system, and will rotate texture packs on a monthly basis.
Here’s what I need:
Testers for Windows 7, Mac, and Linux platforms.
Testers for both HD patched and unpatched minecraft.
Testers both using and not using the wild grass modification.
One or Two people with the capacity to translate the source to native Linux and Mac console language. (That’s right, it’s a batch file. I wanted to make it as open and accessible as possible for novice people to understand and customize.)
Here’s what I offer in return:
Exclusive pre-release access to the launcher source.
Exclusive pre-release access to the NEW SUMMER VACATION TEXTURE PACK*!
Exclusive pre-prelese access to updated Halloween weapons with crowbars, spears, clubs, lazer swords, and keyblades.
*New texture pack includes, but is not limited to, surf boards, realisticish palm trees complete with fronds, land-seacows, kraken!, pelickens, turtlepigs, hermit sheep, Okami dogs, raper sharks, pirate skeletons, rastafarians, flying eyeballs, sand creeper, beach bums, putty slime, taratulas, paper lanterns, and hot crossed buns!
To apply, submit a comment through the Comment or Ask a Question button on the right. Make sure to provide a method of contact whether it be an email address, your Tumblr ID, or your Minecraft Forum account name. Tumblr membership not required."
For those of you new to A Brave New World, this isn't a 100% unique texture pack in as much as it is a seasonal rotating collection of the best 16px texture work for Minecraft in existence while striving to remain true to the original source as much as possible. In other words, A Brave New World doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel. We're only smoothing it out so it will roll better, then adding a few more, an engine to drive it, and turning it in to a car. Think of it more as a seasonal Minecraft conversion. Roughly 50% of the work is my original art, but where this pack really shines is when you boot up on the first of the month to expect greenery and you find the leaves have turned. Either that or you'll find yourself being stalked through your mines by Michael Jackson.
So this is like that Quandary pack season rotator tool that you could download from the Quandary website back when the pack still had seasons?Cool.I never tried the Quandary rotator,but I might try this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Keeltoll »
Yo dawg I heard you like playing Portal so now you can play Portal while playing Minecraft while going to Hell.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Yeah, basically, it pings the system clock for the month, then goes through a series of if statements to determine the appropriate texture pack and copies the corresponding file to the /texturepacks folder. I wanted to keep it a simple batch file and will be releasing the source so it can be customized even by novice users. If you wanted to, you could even have it ping the day and have 365 texture packs or, more practically, you could have a special texture pack for just a specific day of the year as in Jan 1st, or you could have a specific texture pack just for the first day of every month. It opens up a lot of possibilities. And, of course, if you just happen to like a specific texture pack, like one of the A Brave New World holiday packs for instance, all you have to do is set your system time to that month, run the launcher, and then just bypass the launcher and load minecraft from the standard launcher as usual and you'll keep the texture pack indefinitely.
I originally had 12 months like Quandary used to, but I found that the 12 months in addition to 4 holidays made for way too much updating when Minecraft updates hit. By reducing the number of packs to seasons, I've cut down my workload by half and can update much quicker. The calendar looks something like this:
Jan - Winter Season
Feb - Spring Holiday
Mar - Spring Season
Apr - Spring Season
May - Summer Season
Jun - Summer Season
Jul - Summer Holiday
Aug - Summer Season
Sep - Fall Season
Oct - Fall Holiday
Nov - Fall Season
Dec - Winter Holiday
This way, the naming convention is not only aligned with the seasons but also kosher (pardon the pun) for all different kinds of people. And by keeping the launcher open source, I can allow people to customize the rotation for the seasons in their hemisphere and climate. For instance, I'm in North Carolina, USA, where we have short winters, long summers, and medium length spring and fall. Therefore, my rotation has a 2 month winter, a 3 month spring and fall, and a 4 month summer. This is middle North Carolina, mind you. Were I living on the coast, I'd likely reduce winter to a single month and have a longer summer. In the mountains, I would invert winter and summer, then reduce fall and spring down to 2 months and extend winter even longer. You might be able to tell that I've lived in all of these places and this is a good example of just how much flexibility I've built in to this tool so that you can make your Minecraft experience very much your own.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Quote from Demacish »
This seems awesome would love to help if you need an tester whith Windows 7 64 bit and HD patched Minecraft
Ask and you shall receive. Sending a PM now. Let me know if you have any questions for set-up, but it's pretty straightforward, so you should be able to extract it and go. I programmed the calls fully qualified using %appdata%, so you should be able to run it from anywhere.
I really don't have a number of testers in mind. It all really depends on the variety of set-ups for applicants I get. Windows users is filling up the quickest, as expected.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Just a quick update. I've sent the final request for feedback from my testers. I plan to release within the next 24 hours without support for Mac and Linux platforms. As need arises, I'll recruit talent to convert the code to those platforms. In the mean time, I'll be taking pictures and video to showcase the visual aspects of the seasons for release. Stay posted for more information.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Sorry for the delay. I didn't know about the forum maintenance and didn't want to release without the forum community involved. I'll go ahead and start uploading media now and get ready for official release later today.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Long story made short, I've had another pressing matter today that had to be taken care of. I run a skin database out of Tumblr and they recently bombed photo linking so my skins couldn't apply directly to Minecraft. This led to a format change for my skin previews in which I basically had to repost all 268 existing skins and rebuild the directory. I managed to get it finished, but it kept me from completing the media package I was wanting to put together.
The directory is located at Minecrafties.com if you want to take a look. You can find the skins directory by following the button on the right side of the page. I only list the finest skins, so you won't find any garbage there.
As for A Brave New World, I've got all the pictures uploaded, but I don't want to release media until everything is ready and the videos aren't done yet. That aside, to hell with it. I'll release without media for the brave to try and I'll post the media package tomorrow.
Edit:
Here's an image I have on-hand. It's scaled down and blurred because it's actually the background image for the skins directory, but I don't have time to show more, so this will have to do for now. http://minecraft-textures.googlecode.com/files/preview.png
Also, to clarify, what is ABNW?
-Seasonally rotating texture pack w/ holidays.
-Tries to stay true to the original nature of Minecraft.
-A compilation of some of the best 16px pixel art in existence.
-Does not presume to be 100% original, but rather strives to be 100% beautiful.
Are you still taking testers ;)i would like to be one if you still are. i run windows 7 32 bit btw
Actually, I just released the finished version. We posted just about the same time. Have fun! Let me know what you think. The launcher should work fine.
Instructions I forgot to include:
Extract THE WHOLE /launcher folder to anywhere and run launcher.exe, Minecraft will load as normal, select A Brave New World.zip from the tex packs menu. The launcher will rotate the seasons automatically, so you never have to manually change the seasons, and if you want to use another tex pack for a while, just switch in the menu.
Bahaha, Canadian Minecraft? Yes please!
Sounds very good though, can't wait to see how it looks!
Canadian Minecraft would actually be very easy to set up. I can tell you how and I'll even do it for you and compile it if you like, but it's a very simple process. And actually, I'll do a custom season rotation for any region. Just PM me and I'll ask you a series of questions to get started.
Excerpt from Tumblr
http://minecrafties.tumblr.com/
"The Brave World Needs Your Help!
I’m looking for people to assist with testing the experimental new A Brave New World launcher. The new launcher will be patcher independent, will make use of the built-in Minecraft texture pack system, and will rotate texture packs on a monthly basis.
Here’s what I need:
Testers for Windows 7, Mac, and Linux platforms.
Testers for both HD patched and unpatched minecraft.
Testers both using and not using the wild grass modification.
One or Two people with the capacity to translate the source to native Linux and Mac console language. (That’s right, it’s a batch file. I wanted to make it as open and accessible as possible for novice people to understand and customize.)
Here’s what I offer in return:
Exclusive pre-release access to the launcher source.
Exclusive pre-release access to the NEW SUMMER VACATION TEXTURE PACK*!
Exclusive pre-prelese access to updated Halloween weapons with crowbars, spears, clubs, lazer swords, and keyblades.
*New texture pack includes, but is not limited to, surf boards, realisticish palm trees complete with fronds, land-seacows, kraken!, pelickens, turtlepigs, hermit sheep, Okami dogs, raper sharks, pirate skeletons, rastafarians, flying eyeballs, sand creeper, beach bums, putty slime, taratulas, paper lanterns, and hot crossed buns!
To apply, submit a comment through the Comment or Ask a Question button on the right. Make sure to provide a method of contact whether it be an email address, your Tumblr ID, or your Minecraft Forum account name. Tumblr membership not required."
For those of you new to A Brave New World, this isn't a 100% unique texture pack in as much as it is a seasonal rotating collection of the best 16px texture work for Minecraft in existence while striving to remain true to the original source as much as possible. In other words, A Brave New World doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel. We're only smoothing it out so it will roll better, then adding a few more, an engine to drive it, and turning it in to a car. Think of it more as a seasonal Minecraft conversion. Roughly 50% of the work is my original art, but where this pack really shines is when you boot up on the first of the month to expect greenery and you find the leaves have turned. Either that or you'll find yourself being stalked through your mines by Michael Jackson.
I originally had 12 months like Quandary used to, but I found that the 12 months in addition to 4 holidays made for way too much updating when Minecraft updates hit. By reducing the number of packs to seasons, I've cut down my workload by half and can update much quicker. The calendar looks something like this:
Jan - Winter Season
Feb - Spring Holiday
Mar - Spring Season
Apr - Spring Season
May - Summer Season
Jun - Summer Season
Jul - Summer Holiday
Aug - Summer Season
Sep - Fall Season
Oct - Fall Holiday
Nov - Fall Season
Dec - Winter Holiday
This way, the naming convention is not only aligned with the seasons but also kosher (pardon the pun) for all different kinds of people. And by keeping the launcher open source, I can allow people to customize the rotation for the seasons in their hemisphere and climate. For instance, I'm in North Carolina, USA, where we have short winters, long summers, and medium length spring and fall. Therefore, my rotation has a 2 month winter, a 3 month spring and fall, and a 4 month summer. This is middle North Carolina, mind you. Were I living on the coast, I'd likely reduce winter to a single month and have a longer summer. In the mountains, I would invert winter and summer, then reduce fall and spring down to 2 months and extend winter even longer. You might be able to tell that I've lived in all of these places and this is a good example of just how much flexibility I've built in to this tool so that you can make your Minecraft experience very much your own.
Congratulations, Ghil, on being accepted as the first official A Brave New World beta* tester. I got your submission and have processed your request.
I'll be around for a few more hours, so if you'd like to join Ghil, let me know and I'll hook you up.
*Beta period estimated to last no more than one week, no worries.
Ask and you shall receive. Sending a PM now. Let me know if you have any questions for set-up, but it's pretty straightforward, so you should be able to extract it and go. I programmed the calls fully qualified using %appdata%, so you should be able to run it from anywhere.
I really don't have a number of testers in mind. It all really depends on the variety of set-ups for applicants I get. Windows users is filling up the quickest, as expected.
Edit: Fixed.
to the current win7 testers, might need to force xp compatibility and/or run as admin.
wilmington nc is a **** place to spend a friday.
Sounds very good though, can't wait to see how it looks!
The directory is located at Minecrafties.com if you want to take a look. You can find the skins directory by following the button on the right side of the page. I only list the finest skins, so you won't find any garbage there.
As for A Brave New World, I've got all the pictures uploaded, but I don't want to release media until everything is ready and the videos aren't done yet. That aside, to hell with it. I'll release without media for the brave to try and I'll post the media package tomorrow.
http://minecraft-textures.googlecode.com/files/ABNW1.5.1.zip
Enjoy!
Edit:
Here's an image I have on-hand. It's scaled down and blurred because it's actually the background image for the skins directory, but I don't have time to show more, so this will have to do for now.
http://minecraft-textures.googlecode.com/files/preview.png
Also, to clarify, what is ABNW?
-Seasonally rotating texture pack w/ holidays.
-Tries to stay true to the original nature of Minecraft.
-A compilation of some of the best 16px pixel art in existence.
-Does not presume to be 100% original, but rather strives to be 100% beautiful.
Actually, I just released the finished version. We posted just about the same time. Have fun! Let me know what you think. The launcher should work fine.
Instructions I forgot to include:
Extract THE WHOLE /launcher folder to anywhere and run launcher.exe, Minecraft will load as normal, select A Brave New World.zip from the tex packs menu. The launcher will rotate the seasons automatically, so you never have to manually change the seasons, and if you want to use another tex pack for a while, just switch in the menu.
Canadian Minecraft would actually be very easy to set up. I can tell you how and I'll even do it for you and compile it if you like, but it's a very simple process. And actually, I'll do a custom season rotation for any region. Just PM me and I'll ask you a series of questions to get started.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/331660-a-brave-new-world-presented-by-minecrafties/
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