Billboard effects

Zake · January 2015

I think I remember some grumblings about how the grass billboards made it hard to see anything. I found a setting to turn them off today, and, well, the landscape looks kinda dead.

646AB12A3B530E47547BC0729290FF0A2BED754E

I think I'll stick to lurking in the shrubbery.

Nekochu · February 2015

Our next update offers a slider for the billboards, so you don't have to have an all or nothing on them. Plus we are working on the art style for them as well so that we can use fewer amounts without having to sacrifice the fullness that they offer.

nickwest · February 2015

Nekochu wrote:

Our next update offers a slider for the billboards, so you don't have to have an all or nothing on them. Plus we are working on the art style for them as well so that we can use fewer amounts without having to sacrifice the fullness that they offer.

Is there, or will there be a way to cut the grasses down in game? I know right now manipulating the ground below the grass will remove it, but I think it'd be awesome if the sword could slice down the tall grasses, or maybe a sickle tool that would make quicker work of it.

If this isn't coming, it sounds like a good mod opportunity, who wouldn't want to mow their virtual lawn?

Simba · February 2015

nickwest wrote:

who wouldn't want to mow their virtual lawn?

Red Agliator · February 2015

Nekochu wrote:

Our next update offers a slider for the billboards, so you don't have to have an all or nothing on them. Plus we are working on the art style for them as well so that we can use fewer amounts without having to sacrifice the fullness that they offer.

Hurray! (I think the slider slipped into 0.8.2, though. And I'm really loving it!)

Zake · February 2015

I didn't mean to imply that it was a toggle. Just after hearing so many complaints about the billboards, once I found the slider, I moved it to 0 to see what would happen. It's currently sitting at about half. But yeah, the slider has worked fully since 0.8 first came.

My reason for turning it down is actually just because I couldn't really see things through it, which is partially the point. Though the fact that they can't be removed like other plants and materials does make it inconvenient. If it's feasible in the code I wouldn't mind being able to do some weeding without digging a hole.

nickwest · February 2015

Awesome Simpson's reference! I'm completely serious about actually wanting to be able to mow my lawn in TUG though. My little house has an unruly field of grasses in front of it and the grass has started to overgrow in my apple grove making it tough to find recently dropped fruit.

I might find the time to play with this concept in a mod this week/weekend. Haven't started playing with mods in TUG yet, but looking through the mod forum and the API documentation I'd say now is a good time to start. I figure I'll just start with sword to cut the grass one by one, then maybe look into adding a sickle that could do wider area at once, then maybe one of those solar powered lawn mowing robots later... or maybe goats should eat down tall grasses and available food would impact goat migration... :shock:

Zake · February 2015

What has stopped me every time I think about it is that I'm pretty sure the game shows billboards everywhere there's a grass block. Though now that I think about it, perhaps you could make a new block, that doesn't have billboards attached, but has the same textures. Then make a grass cutting tool that replaces the tall grass block with the mowed grass block.

I might do this myself if you don't, it would be fun practice.

nickwest · February 2015

Zake wrote:

What has stopped me every time I think about it is that I'm pretty sure the game shows billboards everywhere there's a grass block. Though now that I think about it, perhaps you could make a new block, that doesn't have billboards attached, but has the same textures. Then make a grass cutting tool that replaces the tall grass block with the mowed grass block.

I might do this myself if you don't, it would be fun practice.

I haven't dug deeply at all into the API yet, nor have I played with modding TUG yet, so this may be naive, but having a variable to toggle billboards for a given block could be possible. Of course it depends on ton on what's exposed and what's not, and how exactly the billboards work and if that itself can be modded or not.

From playing, it seems like the grass grows though? am I wrong in that and it was just my mind laying tricks on me? I swear the area by my home has slowly become overgrown. In that case, there has to be some variable already in place to say what height the grass billboards should be on a block. I'm hoping this is the case because then it'd be as "easy" as making the interaction decrease that grass height variable (again probably completely naive).

Nekochu · February 2015

Actually one of our designers is working on a mod to the tools to allow you to trim down the grass, but it regrows when you reload the world right now. Too realistic.

Billboard effects

Comments