If you are anything like myself, you find your workshop too sparse and your buildings too spartan. It taxes your suspension of disbelief that you can build everything on a simple workbench you made by punching down a tree, and you're put ill at ease that you're sleeping in a room with windows without curtains. Mojang will add a few aesthetic improvements every few months or so, but you realize that after they add one tile you're just going to find that your house is unbearably drab for lack of another tile. You could start playing any one of several fine mods that add lots of features to the game, but Mojang doesn't support mods, so you're too afraid of what might happen if your world gets corrupted or the mod stops being kept up to date and you lose everything you've built.
I propose that several new workstations be added to the game which allow the player to create custom-designed thin tiles, like carpet, which have textures created on an in-game GUI with no need to modify assets. These patterns would have unique texture data saved and recalled in a similar fashion to how item frames holding maps load that map and display it on the face of the tile, save that in this case the saved texture fills the entire face of the tile. I realize that some of the ideas I am about to present have been suggested before, but I hope the reader will find merit in the variations I propose.
Looms
First, carpeting, tapestries, drapes, flags, banners, and what-have-you will be crafted on a loom. Using a loom pulls up a 16x16 gui with 16 additional boxes on the far left and two output boxes on the right. The sixteen boxes on the far left are each tinted one of the sixteen colors wool can be died. Wool blocks (or conversely, skeins - details to follow) of the designated color can be placed into these blocks. The GUI multiplies the number of ingredients by 256 (the number of cells on the grid). This is the number of individual cells on the grid which may be colored that color before additional ingredients are required. The user may now create whatever pattern he desires on the main grid out of the wool he provided, and when satisfied, he may take the tile from the output on the right.
Every square in the GUI needn't actually be filled to create a finished product. Whatever isn't filled in will simply be a see-through hole in the carpet when laid or hung. This allows for the creation of ribbons or garlands or curtains that don't reach all the way to the floor or tattered-looking rugs if you're intentionally going after a distressed look.
There's one small hitch. Because these designs need to be saved somewhere as data, and it's probably a good thing to avoid the creation of a unique template every time the loom is used, the second output slot on the right is used to write the pattern to a book every time a new template is created. The design book could be used in the future to easily pull up a specific pattern one uses often without needing to re-click every one of the 256 tiles on the GUI. Moreover, if the book is trashed, the patterns will be deleted entirely and the tiles will reset to standard carpet. I say this only because I feel it's best for players to avoid creating carpets, placing them, destroying the design, forgetting about them, and then re-designing them over and over again. My programming experience is limited, but I suspect that while some unique texture blocks won't cause serious performance issues, lots will. But I'm willing to be corrected on this point if I'm wrong.
Spinning
I further like the idea that rather than using wool blocks, the loom uses skeins of yarn. Skeins would be crafted from wool on a spinning wheel. While mousing over the wheel, right click the block of yarn on the skein, and the spinning wheel converts the block of wool into a skein. I envision spinning wheels being insufferably slow if used in this manner - think smelting speed slow. This is because spinning took way, way more work than weaving throughout history. However, I also envision the spinning wheel being affixable to the back of a furnace, and while the furnace runs, the spinning wheel will work exactly like a smelter works, converting wool which is deposited into it into skeins, still at smelter speed, but without you being forced to do it by hand. Consider this a small version of the industrial revolution in Minecraft, but without going to all the extremes they've got in Tekkit.
One may further ask, "why are you calling these skeins? Why not just make the spinner make string?" My answer is that I don't like string as it currently exists at all. String primarily makes bows, but bowstrings are properly made of animal sinews. If I had my way, spiders drop silk, which could be used to spin shirts which could be used to give the equivalency of an anti-arrow enchant on armor (silk shirts apparently make it easier to pull an arrow out, minimizing mortality), bows would be made using sinew, an occasional drop off of any animal, and "string" as such is no longer in the game. But the last two paragraphs are optional to the function of the loom. If you didn't like them, nothing serious would be lost by not implementing them.
Carpentry
A second station would be added to make the same kind of tiles out of wood. Wood's textures work a little differently than wool's, so there would be a few differences. Users would begin by laying boards of whatever species on another 16 by 16 grid. Boards will run the length of the grid vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, but must either run until they hit the end of the GUI or another board on both ends. The spaces bounded by boards can be filled in from textures from any species of tree, bark, cross-section, or planks. Glass panes can be used to create a framed window. Most importantly (at least to me), some source of lacquer or varnish will allow one to give the wood a more finished look. My roommate complains endlessly that he doesn't have any way to make paneling that looks like what one finds for the bottom meter or so of the walls in a traditional mansion or a den. The carpenter's station is basically designed to do that job. Once again, plans are kept in books. I have no particular conception of how much of what resource should be used in the creating of these tiles - that can be left to balancing.
Masonry
A mason's station allows the creation of stone tiles that also can be placed like carpet or paneling. Same basic GUI as carpeting, no fancy rules like carpentry.
Landscaping
My last idea is slightly different in that tiles won't necesarally all be thin. It is presently nearly impossible to garden in vanilla minecraft. Using a combination of flowers, leaves, wood, sod, dirt, gravel, water, an potentially many other outdoorsy ingredients, a landscaper should be able to create flower beds with the potential for multiple flowers in one plot, defined edges (this is where the wood comes in), shrubs (made of leaves), water features, zen gardens (gravel/sand) etc., etc. The GUI for this tool is least well defined in my mind, but the one unique feature I suggest it should have is the ability to control how thick of a base of dirt these tiles have. An ornate house deserves ornate landscaping, and that requires the ability to gently change the elevation of tiles, instead of the present requirement that lawns either be flat or have meter high elevation changes.
I appreciate Minecraft primarily for the LEGO factor, but the computerized LEGO creator I played with back in the days of Win 98 had far more pieces and far more design versatility than Minecraft presently does. I don't envision Mojang getting right to work on adding a few thousand decorative pieces to our inventory any time in the near future. But by adding even one of these concepts, those of us who are in this game for the architecture will be able to ornament our structures by ourselves far better than we could after dozens of patches adding only a couple of decorative blocks each time.
Ok, I got through that block of text. Your ideas are well thought out, but your presentation is abysmal. PLEASE add titles, subtitles, pictures, crafting recipes etc. I suspect that the reason you haven't had any feedback is because nearly nobody wanted to read through all that.
There is another tread which proposes adding the spinning wheel here. I suggest borrowing some of their ideas.
Alright, to your ideas:
Looms:
I like your idea of a loom to add all these things into minecraft, but I would expand on how each of these are different (through crafting) and how they are placed. I suggest just making a fabric with the loom and doing other thing with it to change it to something workable.
For example: Crafting a piece of fabric with a fence makes a flag.
Woodworking:
I think it's too complicated. This part sound too much like a mod. Most people, and me included don't want micro blocks.
Gardens:
I like the idea of multiple flowers in one pot, maybe through flowers bundles, but I don't like the smooth elevation changes, and the rest you can already do in minecraft.
Too Junk-Jacky, simplify things down. For instance, you could craft a skein on a crafting table, not a spinning wheel. However, the idea I support, we need tanks and boilers and pipes!
Ok, I got through that block of text. Your ideas are well thought out, but your presentation is abysmal. PLEASE add titles, subtitles, pictures, crafting recipes etc. I suspect that the reason you haven't had any feedback is because nearly nobody wanted to read through all that.
<snip>
Woodworking:
I think it's too complicated. This part sound too much like a mod. Most people, and me included don't want micro blocks.
Gardens:
I like the idea of multiple flowers in one pot, maybe through flowers bundles, but I don't like the smooth elevation changes, and the rest you can already do in minecraft.
I've added section breaks for now, but am not the greatest photoshopper, so concept art may be long in coming.
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing on woodworking. I don't envision the final product being anything more than what gets produced by the loom - 1/16th thick surfacing tiles. They'd have custom apperances created by combining textures, but they wouldn't be micro tiles. The only reason I made that interface work differently is that wood isn't simply a color, it's a texture, and needs to be laid down in large enough pieces for textures to show up and make the user recognize wood paneling as wood. I may be overthinking something with an easier fix here, but that was my purpose.
With gardening, I'm not talking about adding smooth elevation changes, but shallower elevation changes, so that I could, for instance, make a terraced series of flower beds without needing to build five meters tall if there are five beds to be terraced. I basically modeled my idea for flower beds around what I discovered I lacked when I built my childhood home last month. I had to build it at nearly 2x scale because it wouldn't look anything like reality otherwise, given the unforgiving nature of working in meter by meter chunks. I'd like to be able to elevate these landscaping features in quarter slab increments, but half-slab would still be a huge improvement.
Too Junk-Jacky, simplify things down. For instance, you could craft a skein on a crafting table, not a spinning wheel. However, the idea I support, we need tanks and boilers and pipes!
If skeins aren't crafted on something with a furnace-style GUI, I'd rather just use wool blocks on the loom. Spinning is a long, long process - prior to the industrial revolution, it took five man-hours of spinning for every one of weaving.
I re-read the woodworking part (and it's much more readable now, thank you), and I see that I must have misunderstood you. But I still can't picture want you want to do, unfortunately. What I do understand is that you want to create panels, which I like.
And dirt/grass half slabs could be nice, but I don't know if they would be reimplemented.
Well, so spinning wheels are simply there to add realism to an unrealistic game? Ihey had other uses apart from making skins, i may reconsider my opinion but as it stands now, no support.
Whether minecraft is realistic or unrealistic depends on what we're talking about. Yes, you can bake bread instantly using a workbench. No, you don't make iron bars out of ore on a workbench. The furnace mechanic exists, and I'd like to see some other machinery that operates on the same premise. My proposal is based somewhat on the premise that minecraft ought to add more specialized workstations, particularly those found in medieval cottage industry. If you use that premise, the spinning wheel makes good sense. If not, you don't. But that's not a reason not to have something, it's just personal taste.
Well, you see, all of the 'tables' in Minecraft are used to make more than one thing. Brewing stands make various potion types, enchanting tables enchant items. This Spinning Wheel only makes skeins. That the sort of thing that belongs in a crafting table.
Look, if you don't like something, you don't like something, but it seems a little odd to say it's actually a bad idea on the grounds that everything in minecraft should multitask. Axes only cut trees. Hoes only till soil. Where minecraft has added features with multiple uses in the past, this is merely because the feature lends itself to multiple uses. This has not restricted the addition of singular fetures in the past.
But, if there are not to be spinning wheels, the loom should use wool directly. It would make as much sense to smelt iron on the crafting table as it would to spin wool on it.
I propose that several new workstations be added to the game which allow the player to create custom-designed thin tiles, like carpet, which have textures created on an in-game GUI with no need to modify assets. These patterns would have unique texture data saved and recalled in a similar fashion to how item frames holding maps load that map and display it on the face of the tile, save that in this case the saved texture fills the entire face of the tile. I realize that some of the ideas I am about to present have been suggested before, but I hope the reader will find merit in the variations I propose.
Looms
First, carpeting, tapestries, drapes, flags, banners, and what-have-you will be crafted on a loom. Using a loom pulls up a 16x16 gui with 16 additional boxes on the far left and two output boxes on the right. The sixteen boxes on the far left are each tinted one of the sixteen colors wool can be died. Wool blocks (or conversely, skeins - details to follow) of the designated color can be placed into these blocks. The GUI multiplies the number of ingredients by 256 (the number of cells on the grid). This is the number of individual cells on the grid which may be colored that color before additional ingredients are required. The user may now create whatever pattern he desires on the main grid out of the wool he provided, and when satisfied, he may take the tile from the output on the right.
Every square in the GUI needn't actually be filled to create a finished product. Whatever isn't filled in will simply be a see-through hole in the carpet when laid or hung. This allows for the creation of ribbons or garlands or curtains that don't reach all the way to the floor or tattered-looking rugs if you're intentionally going after a distressed look.
There's one small hitch. Because these designs need to be saved somewhere as data, and it's probably a good thing to avoid the creation of a unique template every time the loom is used, the second output slot on the right is used to write the pattern to a book every time a new template is created. The design book could be used in the future to easily pull up a specific pattern one uses often without needing to re-click every one of the 256 tiles on the GUI. Moreover, if the book is trashed, the patterns will be deleted entirely and the tiles will reset to standard carpet. I say this only because I feel it's best for players to avoid creating carpets, placing them, destroying the design, forgetting about them, and then re-designing them over and over again. My programming experience is limited, but I suspect that while some unique texture blocks won't cause serious performance issues, lots will. But I'm willing to be corrected on this point if I'm wrong.
Spinning
I further like the idea that rather than using wool blocks, the loom uses skeins of yarn. Skeins would be crafted from wool on a spinning wheel. While mousing over the wheel, right click the block of yarn on the skein, and the spinning wheel converts the block of wool into a skein. I envision spinning wheels being insufferably slow if used in this manner - think smelting speed slow. This is because spinning took way, way more work than weaving throughout history. However, I also envision the spinning wheel being affixable to the back of a furnace, and while the furnace runs, the spinning wheel will work exactly like a smelter works, converting wool which is deposited into it into skeins, still at smelter speed, but without you being forced to do it by hand. Consider this a small version of the industrial revolution in Minecraft, but without going to all the extremes they've got in Tekkit.
One may further ask, "why are you calling these skeins? Why not just make the spinner make string?" My answer is that I don't like string as it currently exists at all. String primarily makes bows, but bowstrings are properly made of animal sinews. If I had my way, spiders drop silk, which could be used to spin shirts which could be used to give the equivalency of an anti-arrow enchant on armor (silk shirts apparently make it easier to pull an arrow out, minimizing mortality), bows would be made using sinew, an occasional drop off of any animal, and "string" as such is no longer in the game. But the last two paragraphs are optional to the function of the loom. If you didn't like them, nothing serious would be lost by not implementing them.
Carpentry
A second station would be added to make the same kind of tiles out of wood. Wood's textures work a little differently than wool's, so there would be a few differences. Users would begin by laying boards of whatever species on another 16 by 16 grid. Boards will run the length of the grid vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, but must either run until they hit the end of the GUI or another board on both ends. The spaces bounded by boards can be filled in from textures from any species of tree, bark, cross-section, or planks. Glass panes can be used to create a framed window. Most importantly (at least to me), some source of lacquer or varnish will allow one to give the wood a more finished look. My roommate complains endlessly that he doesn't have any way to make paneling that looks like what one finds for the bottom meter or so of the walls in a traditional mansion or a den. The carpenter's station is basically designed to do that job. Once again, plans are kept in books. I have no particular conception of how much of what resource should be used in the creating of these tiles - that can be left to balancing.
Masonry
A mason's station allows the creation of stone tiles that also can be placed like carpet or paneling. Same basic GUI as carpeting, no fancy rules like carpentry.
Landscaping
My last idea is slightly different in that tiles won't necesarally all be thin. It is presently nearly impossible to garden in vanilla minecraft. Using a combination of flowers, leaves, wood, sod, dirt, gravel, water, an potentially many other outdoorsy ingredients, a landscaper should be able to create flower beds with the potential for multiple flowers in one plot, defined edges (this is where the wood comes in), shrubs (made of leaves), water features, zen gardens (gravel/sand) etc., etc. The GUI for this tool is least well defined in my mind, but the one unique feature I suggest it should have is the ability to control how thick of a base of dirt these tiles have. An ornate house deserves ornate landscaping, and that requires the ability to gently change the elevation of tiles, instead of the present requirement that lawns either be flat or have meter high elevation changes.
I appreciate Minecraft primarily for the LEGO factor, but the computerized LEGO creator I played with back in the days of Win 98 had far more pieces and far more design versatility than Minecraft presently does. I don't envision Mojang getting right to work on adding a few thousand decorative pieces to our inventory any time in the near future. But by adding even one of these concepts, those of us who are in this game for the architecture will be able to ornament our structures by ourselves far better than we could after dozens of patches adding only a couple of decorative blocks each time.
Ok, I got through that block of text. Your ideas are well thought out, but your presentation is abysmal. PLEASE add titles, subtitles, pictures, crafting recipes etc. I suspect that the reason you haven't had any feedback is because nearly nobody wanted to read through all that.
There is another tread which proposes adding the spinning wheel here. I suggest borrowing some of their ideas.
Alright, to your ideas:
Looms:
I like your idea of a loom to add all these things into minecraft, but I would expand on how each of these are different (through crafting) and how they are placed. I suggest just making a fabric with the loom and doing other thing with it to change it to something workable.
For example: Crafting a piece of fabric with a fence makes a flag.
Woodworking:
I think it's too complicated. This part sound too much like a mod. Most people, and me included don't want micro blocks.
Gardens:
I like the idea of multiple flowers in one pot, maybe through flowers bundles, but I don't like the smooth elevation changes, and the rest you can already do in minecraft.
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Curse PremiumI've added section breaks for now, but am not the greatest photoshopper, so concept art may be long in coming.
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing on woodworking. I don't envision the final product being anything more than what gets produced by the loom - 1/16th thick surfacing tiles. They'd have custom apperances created by combining textures, but they wouldn't be micro tiles. The only reason I made that interface work differently is that wood isn't simply a color, it's a texture, and needs to be laid down in large enough pieces for textures to show up and make the user recognize wood paneling as wood. I may be overthinking something with an easier fix here, but that was my purpose.
With gardening, I'm not talking about adding smooth elevation changes, but shallower elevation changes, so that I could, for instance, make a terraced series of flower beds without needing to build five meters tall if there are five beds to be terraced. I basically modeled my idea for flower beds around what I discovered I lacked when I built my childhood home last month. I had to build it at nearly 2x scale because it wouldn't look anything like reality otherwise, given the unforgiving nature of working in meter by meter chunks. I'd like to be able to elevate these landscaping features in quarter slab increments, but half-slab would still be a huge improvement.
If skeins aren't crafted on something with a furnace-style GUI, I'd rather just use wool blocks on the loom. Spinning is a long, long process - prior to the industrial revolution, it took five man-hours of spinning for every one of weaving.
And dirt/grass half slabs could be nice, but I don't know if they would be reimplemented.
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Curse PremiumBut, if there are not to be spinning wheels, the loom should use wool directly. It would make as much sense to smelt iron on the crafting table as it would to spin wool on it.
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