Downtown Guppy

[PeterB]

Pille, I revoke what I have said. Firstly I have to digest it. Thats quite some approach to gaming. I accept your opinion.

Useless starting a debate here, similar as to being a vegetarian or not. Hence, my opinion does not add any benefit.
In short my view is not that black or white.
Is modding curse or blessing or both?
Do we agree upon modding helped the game becoming successful!

Nevertheless I appreciate taking your time and sharing your elaborated view.

Back to the thread: Guppy, how is your downtown progress so far?

[Guppycur]

By your logic, sir Pille, with tfp adding the purposeful support of additional blocks (and they did), is it not within the spirit of vanilla?

...fact is, vanilla supports additional blocks. Whether myself or Joel puts them in is immaterial.

As far as bullet point 3, that's true in vanilla from alpha to alpha, where prefabs break and have to be converted, so if the same ends up being true with models then again I ask, what's the difference?

A18 comes out, I spend 5 minutes re exporting the blocks using the new unity version, and I'm done. That'll probably take LESS time than it will for you to find replacement vanilla blocks for the ones tfp will remove.

...spent a full day on the elevator mod, then another day importing the new blocks, then binged 13 reasons, so no new progress...

[Pille]

I don't want to look like a troll but my previous comment wasn't that dead serious.^^ It was just an attempt to convert Guppy. My true stance is much more pragmatic. The result is the same though. Still want to stick to vanilla for a while (some possible exception aside). Ok since you asked I am going to reply (again not meant to be serious):

By your logic, sir Pille, with tfp adding the purposeful support of additional blocks (and they did), is it not within the spirit of vanilla?

That's a tough question. I would say they make it easier to sully the holy spirit of vanilla. Thus they have a partial debt.

As far as bullet point 3, that's true in vanilla from alpha to alpha, where prefabs break and have to be converted, so if the same ends up being true with models then again I ask, what's the difference?

A18 comes out, I spend 5 minutes re exporting the blocks using the new unity version, and I'm done. That'll probably take LESS time than it will for you to find replacement vanilla blocks for the ones tfp will remove.

...spent a full day on the elevator mod, then another day importing the new blocks, then binged 13 reasons, so no new progress...

It's not immaterial ... If Joel adds a block, it is automatically available to all people. If you and maybe 1000 others decide to put their blocks in, we may end up in a situation where every prefabber goes her/his own way (fragmentation of the community). This would not only negatively affect the visuals due to the different styles and qualities of the custom blocks, but could also endanger the stability and performance of the game. I know differences in style and performance already exist for vanilla-based prefabs but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to add fuel to the flames.

The past has shown that vanilla-based prefabs can be converted in such a way that at least their appearance and functionality is roughly conserved. There were exceptions but they were rare. In general, TFPs have a growing interest in keeping most of their stuff convertible.

We don't know what will happen to custom blocks when A18 hits. Yours may be safe, I dunno. Custom blocks seem like a black box hosting an unknown risk and could easily turn out to be Pandora's Box when it comes to compatibility with future alphas. From my point of view as prefabber who doesn't have any experience with unity I have to rely on your word and pray that you are right. Or I have to invest time (that otherwise could have been used to build new prefabs) to learn unity. The bottom line is using mods is asking for more trouble than necessary, especially in alpha phase. That should be common sense anyway.

Pille, I revoke what I have said. Firstly I have to digest it. Thats quite some approach to gaming. I accept your opinion.

Useless starting a debate here, similar as to being a vegetarian or not. Hence, my opinion does not add any benefit.
In short my view is not that black or white.
Is modding curse or blessing or both?
Do we agree upon modding helped the game becoming successful!

Nevertheless I appreciate taking your time and sharing your elaborated view.

Thanks for not starting a discussion. I didn't want to waste your time with my comment. If I did I am really sorry.


Now, lets return to the actually topic ... Yeah very nice furniture. Adding them was't hard for you, right? I am wondering how much effort is involved in adding new 'interactive' blocks like traps (i.e. stuff similar to a blade trape).

[Guppycur]

If Joel adds a new prefab it's available to all people. If you add one, people have to download it. The quality from prefabbers differ greatly, and in fact every argument you make against custom blocks applies to user made prefabs.

There is no difference.

...for the record, I don't take anything online seriously so I'm just having fun.

As far as block differences with traps and what not, a model is a model is a model, the xml controls what it does. You may have to set up a model differently in unity to allow it electrical hookup, or to walk (entity), or to be held (items), but that's all trivial. XML handles the rest.

...lying a little bit, entities are not yet natively importable by 7days, but only because the bone names don't match theirs, so it could be done.

[Pille]

If Joel adds a new prefab it's available to all people. If you add one, people have to download it. The quality from prefabbers differ greatly, and in fact every argument you make against custom blocks applies to user made prefabs.

There is no difference.

Agree to disagree.

...for the record, I don't take anything online seriously so I'm just having fun.

As far as block differences with traps and what not, a model is a model is a model, the xml controls what it does. You may have to set up a model differently in unity to allow it electrical hookup, or to walk (entity), or to be held (items), but that's all trivial. XML handles the rest.

...lying a little bit, entities are not yet natively importable by 7days, but only because the bone names don't match theirs, so it could be done.

Interesting but also astonishing that we don't have new traps (to my knowledge) in modded prefabs / prefabs that belong to famous mods.

[Guppycur]

I had them in medieval mod... rope/pully version of the blade trap, um, spikes from the ground, and a fire trap. But we broke a lot of ground on that mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WW...&index=32&t=0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cy9...&index=63&t=0s

...bottom line is that mod wouldn't have been a nice as it was (for an a16 mod) w/o custom blocks:

https://youtu.be/u0dpxL3FkqA?list=PL...pBfQcan1LGLkN9

New textures helps too:

https://youtu.be/QS01-lZCLb4?list=PL...an1LGLkN9&t=65

...the buildings were done in 99% vanilla blocks, but the decor (and doors) were custom to give it a more authentic feel. The whole thing was a learning curve for me as well.

[Laz Man]

Perhaps pille is a purist....which is not necessarily a bad thing. 😎

[Guppycur]

Not at all; as I said earlier, it impresses me the things you guys can do with ordinary blocks. I get how that would be a "thrill". <shrug>

[Pille]

I had them in medieval mod... rope/pully version of the blade trap, um, spikes from the ground, and a fire trap. But we broke a lot of ground on that mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WW...&index=32&t=0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cy9...&index=63&t=0s

...bottom line is that mod wouldn't have been a nice as it was (for an a16 mod) w/o custom blocks:

https://youtu.be/u0dpxL3FkqA?list=PL...pBfQcan1LGLkN9

New textures helps too:

https://youtu.be/QS01-lZCLb4?list=PL...an1LGLkN9&t=65

...the buildings were done in 99% vanilla blocks, but the decor (and doors) were custom to give it a more authentic feel. The whole thing was a learning curve for me as well.

It was a great mod. One of the very few I liked even though she (yeah mods are female, like ships) stayed in a work in progress state... So why was she never developed further? Ofc the custom blocks are to blame!

[Guppycur]

Lol actually a17, as much as it helped modding, ruined two key pieces for it... 1, the textures are no longer in an atlas so we can't access them, so that means no replacing them with medieval textures. 2, the animations got REALLY screwed up for entities, and they slide around a bunch.

...that, and StompyNZ (the main programmer for the mod) is taking a break. That mod did WAAAAY too much to keep up with alpha to alpha, so we're going to wait until closer to gold, if not gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YCG...n&index=2&t=0s

[Guppycur]

...so, back on topic. Did some work, lost some work, it's been a ride...

I didn't know that if I used custom blocks and saved them in the in-game editor, then brought them to pille's editor and save, that I'd lose the blocks because I didn't have a mods checkbox checked, so lesson learned... thanks to Pille for helping me through that. =) I had a recent backup so I wasn't too worried though.



...this is the kind of thing I'm going for but I've a long way to go to make it look cool, but basically buildings side by side with a unique look...

[PeterB]

Yeah, same idea. Long avenues like the meat district in New York with buildings side by side. But no skyscrapers. 4-5 levels max.

[Guppycur]

Pretty much. I plan on dropping this in the middle of a town in a custom world.

[Laz Man]

I love these kinds of prefabs. Reminds me of something I created a while back. Definitely need to update this for A18.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showth...ents-by-Lazman

[Guppycur]

Yeh I loved that prefab back in the day, but RWG never really made it look like it belonged, which is why I'm loving the custom worlds and being able to not only set up the terrain exactly how I want, but the roads, prefabs, and biomes...