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Blarg, sorry for the silence again! I went down to the beach for a few days with some friends.

Finally home now and with nothing planned for the next week so I can really knuckle down and bring out an update!


Right at the moment I'm working on a custom day skybox. It's not really high priority work but I was inspired by the release of sikki's pack (here, go check it out, it's great) to finish mine as it really does add a LOT of atmosphere.

I still have a little list of things I want to redo but I'll leave them till the next update so I can get this one out already!

Here are some WIP screenies, still need to mess with colours, shading and decide on blending style:

Quote from dunnra

You nailed the skybox. Gosh, it's so beautiful! :3

Thanks!

Still blending in the third colour (the darkest one at the bottom) to make it flow better but it's going pretty well so far!


Just out of curiousity, which do you prefer? The previous pictures I showed or these ones:





Previous use the replace blending method (no background sky shows through, it's just a solid box covering the normal minecraft sky) and then these pictures use the multiply blending method which means it's slightly affected by custom sky colours and fog if I choose to do that. Also means it transitions in and out more smoothly for night time although it's a lot harder to get colours that I want.

Thankyeh feathers!


Anyways everyone, I'll hopefully have the update out in a day or two. Not much I need to do for it now (just sidegrass and finishing the skybox).

Quote from dunnra

I like em both. The first has the most overall soothing color of sky though. The last pictures looks very fitting for a sunset. If that's possible?

Not really but I'm going to try and get the first version to work as I want it to work. I can add a nice orange glow or something to it for evening time and morning if it works properly.

Then I just need to figure out the style I'll use for the night skybox....

Well damn, its a pretty even split... For now I'm going to have to use the second but I'll tweak it to make it as similar to the first as possible.

Oh and zam, its going to have more wispy background clouds, a bit more shading and possible another feature like a star or planet, but that is the general design. I've already done a bit more shading work since those pics and it suits the pack more and more so by the time the sky is done I think it will fit in pretty well.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Ok I've adjusted the colours on the second one a little so it's in between the first and the second styles. Looks pretty good now methinks. Just going to finish up the shading on it now.

Just wondering though, is there another feature any of you would like me to add? Maybe a larger moon or a planet somewhere? A shining star? Anything?

Quote from dunnra

A planet sounds neat. And before anyone says it; Yes!, it'd fit minecraft.

Alright, It's going to be pretty huge so I've got to decide on a nice place for it to go... Mebbe halfway behind one of the cloud formations....

Ok, initial planet design looks really weird, I think I will plant it halfway behind a cloud or at least have a couple of small clouds somewhat obscuring it. Anyway, shading on the clouds themselves is done, now just need to add wispy bits here and there and maybe some background clouds. Then it will be done.



EDIT: Testing rotation...



Seriously though, do people thing it rotating horizontally (so basically just circling the player) pretty slowly is a good idea? I've tested it and it looks pretty neat but I'll have to do something about the planets. Maybe make them a different skybox or something that rotates more slowly or even just stays in one place.

Here's how the planet looks now btw:

Quote from dunnra

I like it. Maybe it could be a bit further away, instead of hiding behind a cloud-formation? I personally preferred the 1st picture of em' actually, but that's me.

I'm currently trying to make it so that the planet and moon are stationary while the clouds rotate so they cover up the planet and moon from time to time. Should be the best of both worlds that way!
Also starting work on a night skybox because why not. It's really quite peaceful work. I'll post some pictures when I actually get some worth showing.

EDIT: Actually, teeaaaser (blurry since it's blown up a lot):

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Quote from Moozipan

I´m not completely convinced of the new clouds, even though the design in general is nice. I feel like there are too many blank spots at the moment but since you said you´re going to add stuff I´ll wait how this turns out.
Then I think the clouds could use a bit more antialiasing - you already did that for the edges but maybe you could add it to the colour transitions on the inside as well. Pixelated skyboxes do work and you picked a good size but for me they should have a richer palette since they´re so far away. It would work in a still pixelart image, but not in a 3D environment like this. Rotation is a good thing, Syclone already executed it really well, even though I still think of a better way for cloud immersion.
And for the planet, I don´t like that you included the background sky colour for its shading, it just looks like it has a huge hole in it this way (again only caused by the 3rd dimension). Also I think it looks rather like a big moon instead of a planet with all those craters. I know planets can have craters like but maybe you want to give it a try and give it some visible continents.
Your preview of the night skybox is pretty cool, I like the warmth in it and it could make for a really cozy feel at night. Just dont make the stars too big.

Apart from that, I love all the new stuff you came up with over the last months, solely the villagers I can´t get happy with, not because they ain´t drawn nicely but for their design, which is too far away from default for my taste. But it´s rather hard for me to find some villagers I´m happy with these days so I probably have to make my own for your pack at some point. (Won´t be the first thing I changed and I´m sure you don´t mind but I never can use a pack made by someone else just as it is.)

Edit: Looking back at my post I hope this wasn´t too much criticism, just wanted to point out a few things and it´s all just my opinion in the end.

Phew, first off, thanks a bunch for taking the time to write out all this feedback, moo!

Ok, I'm gonna say right at the start that the pictures are sort of a bad indication of what it's actually like to have the clouds in-game. Since I'm working on them and I told everyone to look at them they've sort of become the focus of the pictures, whereas in-game they're basically just the background which is entirely what I intend them to be. That's another reason why there are a few gaps in the clouds, I really don't want to overwhelm the rest of the blocks and environment when you're playing and with the rotation they just sort of pop in your peripheral vision from time to time as a reminder that they're there but they still don't take your focus away from actually playing the game.

So basically I was going to add more stuff but after actually playing with it for 20 minutes or so I've decided the amount I have is currently fine.

As for the colours, that's not really something I can change too much as I'm limited by the blending method I'm using (multiply so it's also borrowing colours from the sky behind)... I would love to use the replace method so that I can handpick all the colours and shade things exactly how I want them, but there are currently some issues with how it appears and disappears for night that make me not want to use it. It's a pity but unless it's fixed there's not too much I can do about it unfortunately...

I also agree that some AA on the actual clouds themselves would be nice but I'm sticking with just a 4 colour palette for the clouds as once I started adding in more shades it just became a bit too much work than I want to spend on the skybox for the moment and also started to lose a bit of its pixel art charm (that's more just personal opinion though, not everyone would agree). I might update it later but for the moment I'm happy with it. Oh and I really should stop calling it a planet too as I agree, it really doesn't look like one... Shading on it is pretty tricky due to the limited palette but I think the current moon look is pretty decent - at least when it's half obscured by a cloud which is one of the reasons I did it. Again, it's something that looks nicer in-game when it's not the only thing you're focused on.

I'll make sure not to make the stars too big too, they're right on the limit for size right now so I definitely don't want to make any larger stars. I agree about the size though, they look a little goofy when they get too big IMO. As it is I'm gonna have to be careful about how many of the larger stars I place down...

As for the villagers... Well, not really much I can do about that! I always intended them to be quite different from default as I HATE the default squidwards but even though I'm happy with them I know not everyone will be and there's really just nothing I can do.
If you do end up making your own for the pack I'd love to see pictures of them because who knows, I might eventually make an addon pack like the grass and change some of the more.... Interesting... Mobs to be a bit more default-esque.



Anyways, thanks again for the feedback moo, this detailed kind is the type I value most highly. It's very, very useful stuff!

EDIT: Actually, out of curiousity, if I was to add some more features to the sky, what sort of things would you like to see in it? Just more clouds or what?