Cubic Chunks: Reduced lag, infinite height, and more [The #1 Suggestion Thread of all time!][Updated! 6/14]
Poll: Which parts of this system do you like?
Ended May 15, 2014
Poll: Which parts of this system do you NOT like?
Ended May 15, 2014
Poll: Do you support this system's implementation overall? (If yes, if
Ended May 15, 2014
I think it' safe to say at this point that Astronut7 is just a failed troll who can't even come up with new arguments, and just repeats old ones that were completely destroyed multiple times at this point and already has proven to be as liar and demagogue.
No skylight at night - false (it stays the same), no skylight underground - false (zero is not no and the whole reason why it's there) and so on...
It's just getting boring.
"Skylight"--if a block is open to the sky, skylight is at level 15, although partially transparent blocks will decrease this value. The further away a block is horizontally from a block that's open to the sky, the further this value decreases.
"Open to the sky" means no opaque blocks between a block and y-level 256.
"Skylightsubtracted"--this is a value which changes when the time does. It cycles around from 0 to 15 and back again. It's at 15 during nighttime, and 0 during the daytime.
"Sunlight" is "Skylight" minus "Skylightsubtracted" Thus "Sunlight" at night is at level zero. 15 [SkyLight] - 15 [SkyLightSubtracted] = 0 [Sunlight]
"Block light" is the value given to a block when it is illuminated by any other light source in the game.
"Total block light" is the greatest value between the choices of "Block Light" and "Sunlight."
Barteks2x already explained this. Sunlight levels at nighttime are zero. Skylight levels, on the other hand, aren't dependent on the day/night cycle at all.
Now, straightdigger, if you consider me to be a troll, then the best course of action is to simply ignore my existence. Haven't you heard the saying "don't feed the troll?" It's not as if I've called you a liar, a demagogue, a populist, or a troll at any point in this conversation--names which are sure to incite the average internet user into an emotional response. If you stop replying to my posts, then I will stop replying to yours.
I'd say that initially demonstrating to Mojang a solution that uses as much of their native lighting system as is possible is the friendliest and most likely way to get them to consider a new dialog on the issue. A completely different lighting system approach can then be introduced and demonstrated afterwards if desired.
As to the bugs and other issues you mentioned currently existing in Tall Worlds mod; it's just a matter of time before those are worked out, fans have been clamoring for an alpha or beta since forever so they finally got it so yeah it isn't fully ready yet.
*The original Cubic Chunks Mod by default generated essentially vanilla terrain and even auto converted vanilla worlds while you played, or you could use the related World Save Converter tool (open source) to do it all at once or even to convert it back to vanilla. And block physics worked just fine in it at all heights and depths as they eventually will with Tall Worlds Mod. - The point being that Mojang has already seen a demonstration of an essentially fully functional Cubic Chunks Mod with the original mod, and the one big complaint they had after that was the silly lighting issue, which Cuchaz has now solved. As such; once Mojang is fully aware that this has been solved they (at least Jeb) should then have seen more than enough demonstrations, though Robinton's source wasn't open so they might want to wait until Cuchaz's mod reaches parity with the original so that they can "use" it...
And another bit of Cubic history btw; Despite notches knee-jerk reaction to cubic chunks Jeb was impressed and inspired by the Cubic Chunks Mod enough to develop his Anvil solution in secret from even notch at the time. It was a nerfed down solution that uses quasi-cubic chunks but allowed him to not have to figure out the lighting issues for a full implementation. This is how Minecrafts height finally jumped from 128 to 256 without any performance loss when prior linear-chunks heights mods would always slow computers down drastically when pushing to 256. This was a direct effect of the demonstration performed by Robinton with his Mod, Jeb even gave Robinton a shout out in the Mojang blog for that release of Minecraft. So what Cuchaz is doing right now is a very important current continuation of this process, especially considering how much Minecraft's code has changed since the original cubic chunks mod days.
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
- Dungeon Generator for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
- QuickSAVE-QuickLOAD for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
Well, it was kind of an intellectual exercise to try and prove that grass is green to someone who states that it's purple, I live in much more stressful conditions then a meaningless internet argument, it was actually a way to get my mind off things. But since you become boring then I will probably indeed ignore you, that what my last post was actually about. Also even subtracted skylight at night is not zero, it's something like four, please learn the game before you start trolling in it's forum, shameful display.
If subtractedskylight was 4 at night, then the sunlight levels would be 11, and hostile mobs would be unable to spawn. It's stated in the Minecraft Wiki that the moon provides sunlight levels of 4, however that information is out of date. You can clearly detect sunlight [or daylight] levels with a daylight sensor.
The redstone output of a daylight sensor is zero at night, and 15 during the day. The moon no longer provides light in Minecraft.
..Well, now, isn't that interesting. It looks as if the lighting system in Minecraft is messed up. I just created a little platform above the ground at night time. I switched smooth lighting off, and then I could clearly see the ground underneath the platform get darker by 15 levels. There were no other light sources nearby. It's almost as if the game is using something similar to the Super Secret Settings filters to switch between day and night.
Take a look at the below image, and test it out for yourself if you feel so inclined.
First, learn how to read, second, it's a typical demagogic technique - to swap terms. There isn't such a thing as sunlight it's called skylight (and yes I was mistaken at this term, I never told I can't be, but I only was wrong about the name, everything else was still right). Guess DAYlight sensor is hardcoded to not work at NIGHT.
I told you already that actual skylight does not change, and you are just proving my point here. Subtracted skylight is only used in calculations, it's not the property of blocks and based on actual skylight level and the time of day. What you see is lightmap at work, google it or read my explanation to Unclevertitle.
I have no problem with Cuchaz and TallWorlds continuing with this lighting system. If it's necessary in order to convince Mojang, then it's necessary to convince Mojang. But that doesn't mean that sunlight is necessary to play Minecraft. What I'd like to do is create my own mod with a cubic chunks system and create an LP showcasing my "Biome Light" idea. I'm fairly sure I could cobble together a small demonstration of the idea using MCEdit, WorldPainter, command blocks, texture packs, and NBTExplorer. But as to modifying the code of the game itself--I'm still following the basic tutorials at this point.
How about this? Cuchaz continues to work on the lighting in the TallWorlds mod, whilst I see if I can get my Biome Light idea off the ground. Then, when both are completed, we convince Mojang that 1) Minecraft's current system can still work, and 2) Minecraft can function just as easily without sunlight. Then they should have no objections whatsoever to implementing cubic chunks, even if they decide to significantly alter the way sunlight works in Minecraft. Again.
Thanks for the history lesson, by the way. Very interesting read. Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I am fully supportive of cubic chunks, TallWorlds, and the work that you have all put into it. I just don't see why Cuchaz needed to go to so much effort just to ensure that the primitive lighting system remained the same. It's a primitive lighting system. If it looked something like Sonic Ether's Unbelieveable Shaders mod, then I could understand the opposition to removing it. But as it is...with a mod like Cubic Chunks, I would have thought you'd want to spend effort on improving sunlight. Not simply trying to mimic vanilla Minecraft's lighting system. Outside of being an "interesting technical challenge," it's just not worth the hassle.
No system is more primitive than any system, stop with the demagogy already.
And sure, make it work, you'll see how bad it is yourself and argument will be ended.
You're right. =) The current system does use a tree (lots of trees actually). Keeping all those trees takes up waaaaaay too much memory though, so I'm working on a better implementation that uses raw arrays and binary search instead. It should hopefully cut down memory usage by about 10x or more. Maybe even 100x in the best cases.
Even logn time operations on n=16mil would be too slow for me. The trees (now arrays) actually store a sparse representation of block opacity. ie, an entry is only added to the data structure when the opacity changes over a y-sweep of the full height. This is essentially run-length encoding. The ideal use case has lots of sky above lots of stone, so the data structure will have just one entry in it. Well... 0 entries actually, since I optimized specifically for that common case. So, imagine a more complicated landscape with a few ledges, caves etc, and the size of the data structure grows to about 8? ish? The composition of a typical Minecraft world makes the sparse representation really really compact. log(~8) is much much faster than log(16e6).
@ Astronut7»
Let me demonstrate why you are wrong. This is an epic landscape from Cuchaz's mod how it looks now and how it will if the skylight will be replaced with biome light as you are suggesting (assuming it will actually be working without any mistakes), anyone can actually see it if they'll use night vision potion.
@straightdigger
No. Using a night vision potion will not get the same effect. A night vision potion creates the appearance of bright, even lighting across the entire terrain, ignoring not just sunlight, but light from torches, glowstone, redstone lanterns, beacon blocks, and various other block light sources.
For an accurate representation of what Biome lighting would look like, simply travel to the Nether, or the End, or wander through a cave underground, or play minecraft at nighttime. Attached are two pictures of the same landscape, with no sunlight in either one, before and after drinking a night vision potion.
@roderik1990. Yep. Overhangs would not cast shadows, because there would be no sunlight. Essentially, instead of thinking of Minecraft as a flat plane exposed to the sun, think of Minecraft as being a cube encased in bedrock on all sides--like the Nether is on consoles. In fact, think of Minecraft as being a world comprised of caves of various sizes-some small, and some so massive they have their own weather systems. You can't get out of the caves to "the surface" because there is none. You can't get sunlight, because there is no sun. You're trapped in the caves with no way out--and that is basically the entire idea of a "Cave Game."
Oh, wait, overhangs would still cast shadows, sorry. If you have a glowstone block within 15 blocks of the overhang, then yes, that overhang is going to cast a shadow. It's just that the shadow is probably not going to extend all the way to the ground. I did say that I also wanted some stronger light sources.
Basically, the entire problem here is that every other light source in Minecraft is a volumetric light source. Sunlight in Minecraft is a directed light source. Having a directed light source in a game with a practically infinite volume, random terrain generation, and a limited render distance is not the best idea to have in the first place.
It's really quite simple: if a directed light source is such a wonderful idea for Minecraft, then why not have sunlight coming from the horizon at dawn and dusk? Think about that one for a minute.
No, it is an accurate representation. At least for the day time (and night will just be darker), because nether and end have ambient light lesser then 15, so it don't block out block light completely. Also there isn't a single block light source on those mountains if you haven't noticed. Also night time still have skylight! ALL 15 LEVELS OF IT! You have proven it yourself! Stop lying, and stop with the demagogy already *facepalm*
So you are admitting that you want to make a complete mess out of minecraft and ruin it for everyone, right? Builders, redstoners, map makers, explores, people who want to build little cozy houses on the hill on the edge of the ocean, just millions of people who are used to the game as it is and don't want it to change into some mess of caves? Who cares! I want my mess NOW!!!!1111
Look, with how many millions of blocks down there will be plenty of space for what you described to satisfy miners even if ground level will be indeed in the middle (which I doubt, it will probably be somewhere like 2/3 way up), so why would you want to ruin it for everyone else?
Just rip it clean out, like there were no surface ever. Just to create conditions for your absurd lighting nonsystem to be functional. I told you we should get rid of blocks, that's a way simpler way to kill the game.
But what if you want tall structures and the ability to find them? Like massive keeps, but not stealthy flying islands? I meant like Factions servers PVP, in case that wasn't clear.
Dull. Flat. Uniform. Take your pick. You call it the "vast majority of Minecraft", but how much of your play time do you honestly spend in the other dimensions? How much can you stand before you begin to miss the overworld? Night is part of a cycle that creates contrast to day. You know what else creates contrast? Shadows. I would have thought straightdigger's screenshots were sufficient to get the point across, but I guess not.
It's like you're trying to revert Minecraft's lighting to the dark ages of video gaming where everything was static lit and there were no dynamic shadows. It'd be one thing if you wanted an option under performance to disable it, but for some reason you seem want it scrapped entirely out of Minecraft's code for everyone. You even go so far as to undermine Cuchaz when he seems to have the brilliance to actually pull it off. It's like he's frickin' Galileo Galilei or something.
Because it looks horrible, glitchy, and immersion breaking. You take one step up and suddenly the entire sky goes dark out of the blue (pun not intended.) It's like the shadows are self-aware and reacting to your presence. Those other comparisons don't even come close to how jarring that is, or how often it would occur. They would be valid comparisons if the darkness didn't react to unloaded changes, but at least made an effort to remember how things were, instead of being Schrödinger's shadows. This is the less naive implementation I mentioned.
Mostly moved on. May check back a few times a year.
"1,266 FPS...
What's your normal FPS? "
I tend to use VSync with my monitor, limiting it at 144 fps. However, with no limit (it must be in fullscreen though, idk why, some hardware incompatibility or something) I tend to average around 200 fps.
Sorry for bad quoting! I seriously messed up! XD
I usually average around 120 - 200 FPS, so still a lot, but nowhere near 1,266 FPS.
Began playing during Alpha 1.2.6.
Crazy right!? This is probably the biggest reason I support the cubic chunks mod! It almost entirely reduces the graphical load and just makes the game seem more stable and expandable. Hopefully it will also allow for some really incredible terrain generation as well!
The solution to coping with sunlight is obvious:
Make the sky statically fixed to the player's position, so no matter what chunk you are in, the sky doesn't break, and the sun and moon are always visible. IRL, you could be on the tallest mountain, and the sun wouldn't get much bigger, thanks to Eintsten and his theory of relativity. So, it would just look natural. I'm sure Jeb would approve of that.
The alternative would be a fixed sky, and above that would just be "space".
But can you see the sun and moon by looking through a solid mountain? What does relativity say about that?
Mostly moved on. May check back a few times a year.
Actually, in minecraft, yes you can if you have a low chunk render distance when the sun or moon is setting
I don't think you understand just how easy it is to resolve that problem simply by drawing sky objects first, so any solid mountain doesn't have a sun shining through it.
If the mountain is actually loaded...
And the problem isn't that you can see the sun when you shouldn't. The problem is how to determine light levels when blocks above you are not always loaded.
Cubic chunks discord server