Megistus, Vermillion, Overjay, RadiumBlue and all the interest and kind compliments and support from others, both regular visitors and casual acquaintances, you are all amazing. Seriously, guys, I've just been looking back through the thread and am only now beginning to realize what a cool bunch you all are!
Megistus, Vermillion, Overjay...I am totally blown away by all the work you've put in by way of supporting textures...so much!!! And they are all of amazing quality. Thank you so much for keeping the interest going in the old pack and for all your efforts. I'd totally missed the 'chisel' contribution, Vermillion, that is a vast mod! Megistus, the Thaumcraft project looks awesome! After a winter of mucking about with FTB and wishing I had time to support Chisel and Thaumcraft...lo and behold you two pull off multiple miracles.
Anyways, thank you one and all.
When I see such dedication and support I wish I could do more, but I'm not sure I can match the scale of the above efforts now, however I have been hard at work the past week or two when able and at last I've got some pics to show off new stuff building up in the GSv.18 update. Just uploading and arranging in an Imgur album at the mo. I just wanted to pass on my thanks first to everyone before I go around showing off my own meager contributions.
Hang on in there...
Here's one pic to wet your appetite while I figure out how to make Imgur albums and use the forum editor again!
Right click and open the image in a new tab, or drag the pic to the desktop, if you want to look at things in more detail. There's probably about 25 out of 44 different textures on view in this pic. Just my little experiment with randomness in .json files.
My my, the old man returns....hmmm i mean me not you, or do i? I forget I'm old like you you see. Keeping up so far? I doubt it, excuse this rambling old fart.
Now where was I?
AH YES....errrrm, so how the devil are you good sir long time no see/speak?
Are you going to be tackling the wonders of 1.9 and all the things Mojang likes to change just for shits and giggles??
They tease us with this big Ice cream of updated Minecrafty goodness with lashings of chocolate sprinkles but unbeknownst to us beneath the surface lurks danger, headaches and the hellish sounds of "WHY WONT THIS WORK CURSE YOU MOJANG!!"
I love 1.9 its a PEACH!:p <---please read in your head with FULL sarcasm mode activated
*waves* *dribbles a bit* heh it happens..................
It's a shame my old laptop can barely run anything higher than 16x nowadays, so I haven't really been playing minecraft much though I could always "borrow" my brother's new desktop....
I'm not gonna lie, the old card catalog bookshelves always struck me as rather dull. Especially when I wanted to build a library. These new shelves, though. These are gorgeous.
The Auld Grump - The Shottle Bob - We Sell Bottles, With Things In Them.
Glad it meets with approval. I'm looking forward to seeing what you eventually do with them as they do lend themselves very well to 'shop' decor, etc. Many thanks, Auld Grump.
My my, the old man returns....hmmm i mean me not you, or do i? I forget I'm old like you you see. Keeping up so far? I doubt it, excuse this rambling old fart.
Now where was I?
AH YES....errrrm, so how the devil are you good sir long time no see/speak?
Are you going to be tackling the wonders of 1.9 and all the things Mojang likes to change just for shits and giggles??
They tease us with this big Ice cream of updated Minecrafty goodness with lashings of chocolate sprinkles but unbeknownst to us beneath the surface lurks danger, headaches and the hellish sounds of "WHY WONT THIS WORK CURSE YOU MOJANG!!"
I love 1.9 its a PEACH!:p <---please read in your head with FULL sarcasm mode activated
*waves* *dribbles a bit* heh it happens..................
I sense a little madness setting in. My 'doolally' senses are tingling again!
I'm wholeheartedly with you on the frustration theme. Probably perfectly good reasons why they change stuff, but for poor texture artists with a lot of detail to contend with, changes on top of new things on top of mysterious new ways of writing instructions to display textures...just gets a bit much!
My reaction every time I examine a new Mojang update:
If my guis weren't so over the top detailed it wouldn't be so bad when they change placement of item boxes and stuff around, but they've changed so much this time....why?!! New boats? Great! Lets just change the old design too...that'll really help things whiz along!
Don't get me wrong, change is always a good thing and I do love how the boats work...and just how stable they are, but again all the extra detail that HD textures require does mean hefty amounts of work for each thing.....and don't get me started on the clock and compass! Well the changes to the clock and compass at least made me get off my bottom and actually make a new compass and better clock at last.
We'll have to share a bottle of whiskey sometime and commiserate like old-timers do.
It's a shame my old laptop can barely run anything higher than 16x nowadays, so I haven't really been playing minecraft much though I could always "borrow" my brother's new desktop....
Anyway yeah, love the bookshelves.
Just swap your laptop with your brother's desktop, then move all his furniture around in his room. In his confusion he'll probably not notice he's now got an old laptop! Then again...
I'm not gonna lie, the old card catalog bookshelves always struck me as rather dull. Especially when I wanted to build a library. These new shelves, though. These are gorgeous.
The funny thing is I completely agree with you. There is so much still in my pack from a different Minecraft age, and so little time to improve on things that I don't like it's easy for folk to assume they are there because I obstinately think they are the bee's knees.
Most of the time I feel like I'm working on trying to put a raging fire out while Mojang throws more wood on the pile...you just end up trying to deal with the biggest flare ups first!
Holy cow, I love the random bookshelves. That's a lot of variety Glimmar, now I'm excited to actually use bookshelves again for once.
4 or 5 days work trying different things and then working on lots of variety.
It's easy to go on and on, but you have to stop somewhere and I've probably gone over the top for just one old texture. However, it's one of those decorative blocks that can really make a difference to how 'believable' an interior feels, especially for this theme. And it's all too easy to see repetitive patterns with bookshelves without enough variety. I wasted a lot of time too trying to divide the different types of shelves into groups and assign them unsuccessfully to various wooden double slabs for greater placement control.
I think they turned out ok in the end just sticking with the one bookshelf block.
The funny thing is I completely agree with you. There is so much still in my pack from a different Minecraft age, and so little time to improve on things that I don't like it's easy for folk to assume they are there because I obstinately think they are the bee's knees.
Most of the time I feel like I'm working on trying to put a raging fire out while Mojang throws more wood on the pile...you just end up trying to deal with the biggest flare ups first!
Oh, I have exactly the same problem with my own pack. Well, mostly the same. You can actually occasionally be bothered to work on yours, which gives you a significant advantage.
It's still active, I swear. Just noticeably so.
I just wish they could find a way to add wood to the pile without periodically un-chopping the wood that's already been taken care of, especially since, assuming we're willing to stretch the metaphor well beyond reasonable limits, that's technically violating the laws of thermodynamics or something. Though I think I recall reading something about scientists successfully managing to unscramble an egg under laboratory conditions a couple years back. I'm sure that research has plenty of real-world applications. What we really need is a way to un-burn toast.
Oh, I have exactly the same problem with my own pack. Well, mostly the same. You can actually occasionally be bothered to work on yours, which gives you a significant advantage.
It's still active, I swear. Just noticeably so.
The weird thing is, I can't really say what it is that spurs me on to start updating. Once I start though, the compulsion to tinker increases, along with a corresponding series of 'looks' from my 'significant other half'. It's a balancing act...until I tip over the edge, then the reality of everyday life hits me in the face! And no, I don't mean my wife!
Click the 'spoiler' to see what I've been working on. It might make a bit more sense of the WIP pics in the Imgur album above:
Glimmar's Steampunk v.18 for Minecraft 1.8.x
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes and additions listed in no particular logical order :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ginormous new 'GS Sounds 1' separate add-on pack. Not completed yet, but still containing a huge collection of sounds and music arranged as soundscape files for the in-game jukebox records. When played the atmosphere of the game is greatly enhanced...take my word for it!
New 'Redstone Dust Pipes' separate add-on pack - fixed normal redstone dust brass pipes textures. Great credit and thanks to Norzeteus of 'Norzeteus Space' who allowed me to use his .json magic to re-enable my old pipes. See separate add-on pack download.
Fixed pack being listed as not compatible with Minecraft 1.9 when selected in the MC texture pack folder.
All new collection of wax cylinder records for the mechanical jukebox.
26 random endermites made up of grubs, maggots, beatles and all sorts of variations inbetween. Random endermites only visible with latest Optifine/MCPatcher mods and Minecraft version 1.8-
New sea-lantern.
New glass_blue stained glass - but only tinted stained glass now, instead we have a new black cast-iron bolted frame ideal for glass domes and especially appropriate for undersea re-inforced windows - in short they look the part for large undersea cities, ala 'Bioshock'! square panels bolt together and glass is tinted to give the illusion of thickness and etched dirt at the edges of the glass glows with light from inside and without.
New font for use with vanilla Minecraft.
New cauldron.
New 'bow' series - now a turn of the century 128x steam powered revolver with new sound effects! It currently fires red flighted bullet/darts, as bullets alone were difficult to find again. Subsequently added steam propellent mechanism.
New sound folder with 'thud' .ogg sound effects, originally there was also a gunshot sample, but the bow shares it's sound with the casting of the fishing rod so had to be changed to steam propellent version.
New 'dart' arrow item for revolver steam gun.
New 'projectile' entities for revolver steam gun.
New grass_path_top, grass_path_side.
New 64x bookshelf, 44 random bookshelves in all - ranging from bottles, jars, equipment, cupboards, drawers, books, tins, produce, material, etc. These work equally well in, lab, shop, workshop, storeroom or kitchen settings. Enough random variety to not be bothered by repeating textures.
New 'rounded' brass clock edit and separation into 64 item textures. Airships taken out as they were too distracting.
All new fancy brass compass separated into 32 item textures, inspired by traditional compasses and 20th century ship bridge controls.
Temporary edit to map_icons
Temporary edits to all missing gui textures
New widgets.png edit
Fixed various particles.png textures, along with temporary fixes for new particles.
Reverted back from the 1.8 'sold' particle to the brass '+' disc on the particles.png sheet.
New redstone dust: redstone_dust_dot, redstone_dust_line0, redstone_dust_line1, redstone_dust_overlay (sparkles!)
Fixed diorilite ctm which was way too pixelated at a distance. Also one of the 16 ctm andesite textures was displaced by one pixel.
Fixed andesite ctm which was too similar to stone.
New series of random diamond ore ctm, replacing old single animated diamond ore version. Animated version still works when carried as an item.
New series of random emerald ore ctm, replacing old single animated emerald ore version. Animated version still works when carried as an item.
Currently working on all new boat entities: boat acacia, boat_birch, boat_darkoak, boat_jungle, boat_oak, boat_spruce....pics to follow. All the base woodwork needs to be done first before I start adding fixtures, fittings, paint jobs. Some will have oars, some won't and these will appear to be propelled mechanically, so hopefully some nice variety rather than just simple wood type re-skins ("sigh", why did I pick this theme?).
Still much work to be done on these and the other boats. Haven't decided yet which boats will have oars and which boats will be 'oarless' but seemingly mechanically powered. Just wanted to give a little more WIP info for those interested to see how these particular textures build up. As I add fixtures and fittings I'll post more WIP pics.
Working on the new spruce boat meant I needed more spruce plank textures, so with some work I've made extra random spruce plank 'block' textures. As seen in the pics above these come minus the cast iron braces...just lots of heavy bolt/nail heads and a similarity of design to the spruce door and new spruce boat...which I'm still working on!
I love all of the things you presented! Diamond/Emerald ores were my wanted things for a long time since stone texture got changed. Do they actually gleam on light? (no pun intended )
The new clock is interesting, but I gotta say - comprehensible compass is a rare thing you can find in texture-packs, and I'm glad that there is one in my one-love texture-pack
Random bookshelves are very interesting. Cant wait to make something with those. Actually I thought about making a little addon to bind those to specific metadatas, for decorating specific rooms/builds (just like it is done in MonsterFish's _Conquest texture pack)
Pistol is gorgeous, cant say less. Also, I think that crystalline redstone dust is pretty ok for vanilla. But how does it blend with redstone machinery? With comparator and delay-thing (cant remember correct word )
I love all of the things you presented! Diamond/Emerald ores were my wanted things for a long time since stone texture got changed. Do they actually gleam on light? (no pun intended )
The new clock is interesting, but I gotta say - comprehensible compass is a rare thing you can find in texture-packs, and I'm glad that there is one in my one-love texture-pack
Random bookshelves are very interesting. Cant wait to make something with those. Actually I thought about making a little addon to bind those to specific metadatas, for decorating specific rooms/builds (just like it is done in MonsterFish's _Conquest texture pack)
Pistol is gorgeous, cant say less. Also, I think that crystalline redstone dust is pretty ok for vanilla. But how does it blend with redstone machinery? With comparator and delay-thing (cant remember correct word )
Glad you like, Overjay!
The new diamond/emerald ores don't have a gleam/glitter animation I'm afraid. I think having a number of random textures is more satisfying visually in the long term than one very nicely animated version. Side by side the same animated textures of natural fauna and flora kind of cancel out the magic created by a nice gleam! Currently the emerald ore is the same set of textures as diamond, just recoloured. At some time in the future I'll make a more 'emeraldy' emerald texture.
That compass took many an hour to get right. It won't be everyone's cup of tea for an instrument that points to the spawn point rather than a literal north, but you soon get the hang of it being a kind of virtual north. I just wanted something that felt like an old antique instrument that also had some mystery about it and shared a similar design to the new rounded clock. So although it was annoying that Mojang felt the need to split the compass and clock up into individual textures, it made me finish both instruments at long last.
I'd be interested to see what you come up with by way of metadata and binding certain types of bookshelves to types of room.
Glad you like the pistol. It's a shame it shares a sound sample with the fishing rod, or you'd have had a nice gun fire 'bang' instead of a gentle 'whoosh' noise. Then again it wouldn't have been converted into a 'steam' gun!
There's nothing special about the new redstone dust texture apart from it being my particular take on it. It's derived from the redstone ore texture and it does have an animated random 'twinkle' overlay that looks quite nice, but it doesn't fix as well to other blocks like the new 'add-on' pipes. Still if anyone didn't like the idea of copper/brass pipes they've at least got the option of the more traditional dust.
I'm just currently working on converting some of the carpet 'slabs' into nice old carpet/rug patterned ctm textures. I will post some pics soon.
Awesome work on this pack! I really like it. I did a showcase video on it, hope you enjoy it.
Check out my channel for reviews and playthroughs! Check me out on FB and Twitter: @BloodveinHD
Wow!
I thoroughly enjoyed it...absolutely enjoyed it...you have a great and humorously infectious style, Mr BloodveinHD!
Many thanks for the time and effort you put into making it and thank you, thank you, for using Optifine/MCPatcher to show off all the extra textures.
I shall definitely be putting this in my OP.
Megistus, Vermillion, Overjay, RadiumBlue and all the interest and kind compliments and support from others, both regular visitors and casual acquaintances, you are all amazing. Seriously, guys, I've just been looking back through the thread and am only now beginning to realize what a cool bunch you all are!
Megistus, Vermillion, Overjay...I am totally blown away by all the work you've put in by way of supporting textures...so much!!! And they are all of amazing quality. Thank you so much for keeping the interest going in the old pack and for all your efforts. I'd totally missed the 'chisel' contribution, Vermillion, that is a vast mod! Megistus, the Thaumcraft project looks awesome! After a winter of mucking about with FTB and wishing I had time to support Chisel and Thaumcraft...lo and behold you two pull off multiple miracles.
Anyways, thank you one and all.
When I see such dedication and support I wish I could do more, but I'm not sure I can match the scale of the above efforts now, however I have been hard at work the past week or two when able and at last I've got some pics to show off new stuff building up in the GSv.18 update. Just uploading and arranging in an Imgur album at the mo. I just wanted to pass on my thanks first to everyone before I go around showing off my own meager contributions.
Hang on in there...
Here's one pic to wet your appetite while I figure out how to make Imgur albums and use the forum editor again!
Right click and open the image in a new tab, or drag the pic to the desktop, if you want to look at things in more detail. There's probably about 25 out of 44 different textures on view in this pic. Just my little experiment with randomness in .json files.
44 new random bookshelves:
WOAH!
That is gorgeous!
Gimmee gimmee gimmee!
The Auld Grump - The Shottle Bob - We Sell Bottles, With Things In Them.
My my, the old man returns....hmmm i mean me not you, or do i? I forget I'm old like you you see. Keeping up so far? I doubt it, excuse this rambling old fart.
Now where was I?
AH YES....errrrm, so how the devil are you good sir long time no see/speak?
Are you going to be tackling the wonders of 1.9 and all the things Mojang likes to change just for shits and giggles??
They tease us with this big Ice cream of updated Minecrafty goodness with lashings of chocolate sprinkles but unbeknownst to us beneath the surface lurks danger, headaches and the hellish sounds of "WHY WONT THIS WORK CURSE YOU MOJANG!!"
I love 1.9 its a PEACH!:p <---please read in your head with FULL sarcasm mode activated
*waves* *dribbles a bit* heh it happens..................
Aah, those bookshelves look incredible!
It's a shame my old laptop can barely run anything higher than 16x nowadays, so I haven't really been playing minecraft much
though I could always "borrow" my brother's new desktop....Anyway yeah, love the bookshelves.
I'm not gonna lie, the old card catalog bookshelves always struck me as rather dull. Especially when I wanted to build a library. These new shelves, though. These are gorgeous.
Also check me out on:
WordPress, Etsy, and Spore.
Holy cow, I love the random bookshelves. That's a lot of variety Glimmar, now I'm excited to actually use bookshelves again for once.
Glad it meets with approval. I'm looking forward to seeing what you eventually do with them as they do lend themselves very well to 'shop' decor, etc. Many thanks, Auld Grump.
I sense a little madness setting in.
My 'doolally' senses are tingling again! 


I'm wholeheartedly with you on the frustration theme. Probably perfectly good reasons why they change stuff, but for poor texture artists with a lot of detail to contend with, changes on top of new things on top of mysterious new ways of writing instructions to display textures...just gets a bit much!
My reaction every time I examine a new Mojang update:
If my guis weren't so over the top detailed it wouldn't be so bad when they change placement of item boxes and stuff around, but they've changed so much this time....why?!! New boats? Great! Lets just change the old design too...that'll really help things whiz along!
Don't get me wrong, change is always a good thing and I do love how the boats work...and just how stable they are, but again all the extra detail that HD textures require does mean hefty amounts of work for each thing.....and don't get me started on the clock and compass! Well the changes to the clock and compass at least made me get off my bottom and actually make a new compass and better clock at last.
We'll have to share a bottle of whiskey sometime and commiserate like old-timers do.
Just swap your laptop with your brother's desktop, then move all his furniture around in his room. In his confusion he'll probably not notice he's now got an old laptop! Then again...
...and don't quote me on that!
The funny thing is I completely agree with you. There is so much still in my pack from a different Minecraft age, and so little time to improve on things that I don't like it's easy for folk to assume they are there because I obstinately think they are the bee's knees.

Most of the time I feel like I'm working on trying to put a raging fire out while Mojang throws more wood on the pile...you just end up trying to deal with the biggest flare ups first!
4 or 5 days work trying different things and then working on lots of variety.
It's easy to go on and on, but you have to stop somewhere and I've probably gone over the top for just one old texture. However, it's one of those decorative blocks that can really make a difference to how 'believable' an interior feels, especially for this theme. And it's all too easy to see repetitive patterns with bookshelves without enough variety. I wasted a lot of time too trying to divide the different types of shelves into groups and assign them unsuccessfully to various wooden double slabs for greater placement control.
I think they turned out ok in the end just sticking with the one bookshelf block.

Glad you like them.
Oh, I have exactly the same problem with my own pack. Well, mostly the same. You can actually occasionally be bothered to work on yours, which gives you a significant advantage.
It's still active, I swear. Just noticeably so.
I just wish they could find a way to add wood to the pile without periodically un-chopping the wood that's already been taken care of, especially since, assuming we're willing to stretch the metaphor well beyond reasonable limits, that's technically violating the laws of thermodynamics or something. Though I think I recall reading something about scientists successfully managing to unscramble an egg under laboratory conditions a couple years back. I'm sure that research has plenty of real-world applications. What we really need is a way to un-burn toast.
Also check me out on:
WordPress, Etsy, and Spore.
The weird thing is, I can't really say what it is that spurs me on to start updating. Once I start though, the compulsion to tinker increases, along with a corresponding series of 'looks' from my 'significant other half'. It's a balancing act...until I tip over the edge, then the reality of everyday life hits me in the face! And no, I don't mean my wife!
.....GSv.18 - WIP Pics and WIP Changelog
WIP Changelog:
Click the 'spoiler' to see what I've been working on. It might make a bit more sense of the WIP pics in the Imgur album above:
Glimmar's Steampunk v.18 for Minecraft 1.8.x
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes and additions listed in no particular logical order :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ginormous new 'GS Sounds 1' separate add-on pack. Not completed yet, but still containing a huge collection of sounds and music arranged as soundscape files for the in-game jukebox records. When played the atmosphere of the game is greatly enhanced...take my word for it!
New 'Redstone Dust Pipes' separate add-on pack - fixed normal redstone dust brass pipes textures. Great credit and thanks to Norzeteus of 'Norzeteus Space' who allowed me to use his .json magic to re-enable my old pipes. See separate add-on pack download.
Fixed pack being listed as not compatible with Minecraft 1.9 when selected in the MC texture pack folder.
All new collection of wax cylinder records for the mechanical jukebox.
26 random endermites made up of grubs, maggots, beatles and all sorts of variations inbetween. Random endermites only visible with latest Optifine/MCPatcher mods and Minecraft version 1.8-
New sea-lantern.
New glass_blue stained glass - but only tinted stained glass now, instead we have a new black cast-iron bolted frame ideal for glass domes and especially appropriate for undersea re-inforced windows - in short they look the part for large undersea cities, ala 'Bioshock'! square panels bolt together and glass is tinted to give the illusion of thickness and etched dirt at the edges of the glass glows with light from inside and without.
New font for use with vanilla Minecraft.
New cauldron.
New 'bow' series - now a turn of the century 128x steam powered revolver with new sound effects! It currently fires red flighted bullet/darts, as bullets alone were difficult to find again. Subsequently added steam propellent mechanism.
New sound folder with 'thud' .ogg sound effects, originally there was also a gunshot sample, but the bow shares it's sound with the casting of the fishing rod so had to be changed to steam propellent version.
New 'dart' arrow item for revolver steam gun.
New 'projectile' entities for revolver steam gun.
New grass_path_top, grass_path_side.
New 64x bookshelf, 44 random bookshelves in all - ranging from bottles, jars, equipment, cupboards, drawers, books, tins, produce, material, etc. These work equally well in, lab, shop, workshop, storeroom or kitchen settings. Enough random variety to not be bothered by repeating textures.
New 'rounded' brass clock edit and separation into 64 item textures. Airships taken out as they were too distracting.
All new fancy brass compass separated into 32 item textures, inspired by traditional compasses and 20th century ship bridge controls.
Temporary edit to map_icons
Temporary edits to all missing gui textures
New widgets.png edit
Fixed various particles.png textures, along with temporary fixes for new particles.
Reverted back from the 1.8 'sold' particle to the brass '+' disc on the particles.png sheet.
New redstone dust: redstone_dust_dot, redstone_dust_line0, redstone_dust_line1, redstone_dust_overlay (sparkles!)
Fixed diorilite ctm which was way too pixelated at a distance. Also one of the 16 ctm andesite textures was displaced by one pixel.
Fixed andesite ctm which was too similar to stone.
New series of random diamond ore ctm, replacing old single animated diamond ore version. Animated version still works when carried as an item.
New series of random emerald ore ctm, replacing old single animated emerald ore version. Animated version still works when carried as an item.
Currently working on all new boat entities: boat acacia, boat_birch, boat_darkoak, boat_jungle, boat_oak, boat_spruce....pics to follow. All the base woodwork needs to be done first before I start adding fixtures, fittings, paint jobs. Some will have oars, some won't and these will appear to be propelled mechanically, so hopefully some nice variety rather than just simple wood type re-skins ("sigh", why did I pick this theme?).
.....GSv.18 - WIP birch and spruce boats
Still much work to be done on these and the other boats. Haven't decided yet which boats will have oars and which boats will be 'oarless' but seemingly mechanically powered. Just wanted to give a little more WIP info for those interested to see how these particular textures build up. As I add fixtures and fittings I'll post more WIP pics.
.....GSv.18 WIP - New 'spruce_double_slab' Block
Working on the new spruce boat meant I needed more spruce plank textures, so with some work I've made extra random spruce plank 'block' textures. As seen in the pics above these come minus the cast iron braces...just lots of heavy bolt/nail heads and a similarity of design to the spruce door and new spruce boat...which I'm still working on!
Looks cool!
Thank you.
Impressive, as always! Love your style!
Many thanks!
Given your talent, my friend, I'm very honored to get a visit and a compliment such as that.
My reaction:
I love all of the things you presented! Diamond/Emerald ores were my wanted things for a long time since stone texture got changed. Do they actually gleam on light? (no pun intended
)
The new clock is interesting, but I gotta say - comprehensible compass is a rare thing you can find in texture-packs, and I'm glad that there is one in my one-love texture-pack
Random bookshelves are very interesting. Cant wait to make something with those. Actually I thought about making a little addon to bind those to specific metadatas, for decorating specific rooms/builds (just like it is done in MonsterFish's _Conquest texture pack)
Pistol is gorgeous, cant say less. Also, I think that crystalline redstone dust is pretty ok for vanilla. But how does it blend with redstone machinery? With comparator and delay-thing (cant remember correct word
)
Glad you like, Overjay!

It's a shame it shares a sound sample with the fishing rod, or you'd have had a nice gun fire 'bang' instead of a gentle 'whoosh' noise. Then again it wouldn't have been converted into a 'steam' gun! 

The new diamond/emerald ores don't have a gleam/glitter animation I'm afraid. I think having a number of random textures is more satisfying visually in the long term than one very nicely animated version. Side by side the same animated textures of natural fauna and flora kind of cancel out the magic created by a nice gleam! Currently the emerald ore is the same set of textures as diamond, just recoloured. At some time in the future I'll make a more 'emeraldy' emerald texture.
That compass took many an hour to get right. It won't be everyone's cup of tea for an instrument that points to the spawn point rather than a literal north, but you soon get the hang of it being a kind of virtual north. I just wanted something that felt like an old antique instrument that also had some mystery about it and shared a similar design to the new rounded clock. So although it was annoying that Mojang felt the need to split the compass and clock up into individual textures, it made me finish both instruments at long last.
I'd be interested to see what you come up with by way of metadata and binding certain types of bookshelves to types of room.
Glad you like the pistol.
There's nothing special about the new redstone dust texture apart from it being my particular take on it. It's derived from the redstone ore texture and it does have an animated random 'twinkle' overlay that looks quite nice, but it doesn't fix as well to other blocks like the new 'add-on' pipes. Still if anyone didn't like the idea of copper/brass pipes they've at least got the option of the more traditional dust.
I'm just currently working on converting some of the carpet 'slabs' into nice old carpet/rug patterned ctm textures. I will post some pics soon.