We are almost at 1.17 and for some reason we still need to place torches to light up a cave. Why? Aren't we supposed to light up a space by just having a torch on our hand? Why this change hasn't been implemented yet?
If this change is too "OP", torches can just be simply nerfed by having a duration like any armor or weapon OR having to light them up again with a flint and steel.
Moreover, it would be fun to have a mining hat, the crafting recipe would be something like: five iron ingots with a torch in the middle.
How would a single torch held in your hand light up a huge cave? I mean like these (I haven't seen what is being added in 1.17):
Note that the darkest areas are pitch black, RGB(0,0,0), otherwise lighting closely matches vanilla on Bright (part of my own fixes), even lava doesn't light up that much around it (the range is only one block greater than a torch):
This is the same cave shown above after I lit it up:
Note that the light from torches on one side of this ravine does not reach the other side:
The darkness at the end of this ravine is due to render distance fog:
Also, these caves are literally impossible to explore without lighting them up since mobs spawn so frequently in such a large dark area - even with lighting I've killed over 600 mobs in a single cave:
Otherwise, a more significant issue is the fact that complete darkness is not actually completely dark, even on Moody (the Wiki says it is 5% of full brightness), which can be quite easy to see in depending on your monitor settings (I've seen so many videos and screenshots where they just run through dark caves/mines with no lighting at all).
Also, mods that add dynamic lighting, like Optifine, do not actually emit light, it is only a visual effect, so it wouldn't stop mobs from spawning (from mob spawners, as mobs otherwise already can't spawn close to a player) or have any other effects (e.g. crop growth); the main objection to actual lighting is lag, although the game could be optimized a lot and I don't think it is actually a big issue (if I didn't get lag spikes when placing/breaking torches on a computer from 2006 then it shouldn't cause lag on newer computers (except for MC-123584, an issue which has gotten much worse in newer versions and affects block updates in general).
How would a single torch held in your hand light up a huge cave?
I don't think that's what he is asking for...
Overall he's very vague on what he wants, but it sounds like he just wants to have the visual benefits of holding a torch in his hand while walking around a cave. That wouldn't really have any bearing on mob spawning anyway since mobs can't spawn within 24 blocks of a player, so any objections based on mob spawning are kind of irrelevant--you'd still need to place a torch to keep them at bay, which is perfectly reasonable IMO.
Sure, you can just alter your brightness settings to better see in dark caves, but there are two problems with that: firstly, it puts you in a situation where you may need to switch back-and-forth when you're underground or on the surface, which is inconvenient; and secondly, there is a certain RPG appeal to wandering through a dark cave by torchlight, and turning up your brightness does undercut that. I think mods have shown that dynamic lighting for visual appeal is perfectly possible and even desirable, and I don't really see any reason it shouldn't be incorporated. It'd be useful if you're just exploring at night or passing through an area that you don't really plan on coming back to.
If I just want to explore a cave without staying in a place mining or killing mobs, having to place and waste 500 torches is really boring and annoying. The moment I need to stay in a specific place I can just place the torch like I always do.
Sure, you can just alter your brightness settings to better see in dark caves, but there are two problems with that: firstly, it puts you in a situation where you may need to switch back-and-forth when you're underground or on the surface, which is inconvenient; and secondly, there is a certain RPG appeal to wandering through a dark cave by torchlight, and turning up your brightness does undercut that. I think mods have shown that dynamic lighting for visual appeal is perfectly possible and even desirable, and I don't really see any reason it shouldn't be incorporated. It'd be useful if you're just exploring at night or passing through an area that you don't really plan on coming back to.
You may have noticed that I mentioned how brightness is broken in the game and that in my screenshots the dark areas are truly, pitch black (e.g. paste this image into Paint or the like and use the color picker tool to check the color value of the darkest areas, which are pure black (replaced with white in this image), no matter what the brightness setting - even trying to edit options.txt doesn't work because I clamp the value to 0-1 and otherwise (0,0) in the lightmap is explicitly set to black). I personally think this is a game-breaking bug, reason enough to play on my own modded versions than the latest updates, cave update or not, and it certainly undermines the utility of being able to hold a torch in your hand (like I said, many players don't even bother using torches, and I've even seen them running around in the dark on Moody, so evidently they can still see well enough, which is also dependent on monitor settings; for example, I set the gamma in Windows' display calibration tool to as low as it can go, which according to the test image gives good gamma). Unfortunately, Mojang doesn't want to fix this either; "works as intended" - which is not at all how a gamma setting (as it is internally named) should work - it should only alter the brightness curve between 0% and 100% without affecting the min/max; of course, the "min" is not really 0%:
These are the block light (0 sky light, peak block light flicker brightness) brightness levels on Moody from my custom lightmap:
Here is a comparison of the full lightmap between vanilla and TMCW (max sky and block light):
This is part of my lightmap code, which adjusts light levels for a larger drop towards darkness on Bright, with the adjustment scaling with the gamma setting (it has no effect on Moody); the player can adjust the scaling with a new slider, "Gamma Offset", which defaults to 0.55, for the best visual change in the lower light levels (a light level of 0 is always black so without any adjustment there will be a larger difference between 0 and 1; that said, I fixed the vanilla bug where smooth lighting isn't applied between light level 0 and higher levels):
// Scales light levels so that levels 1-15 cover a wider range with lower levels being darker than vanilla
// (level 15 is the same). Scales with gamma setting; equivalent to (0.96 + 0.03) * scale - offset.
float offset = this.mc.gameSettings.gammaOffset * 0.2F * gamma;
float scale = (offset + 1.0F) * 0.96F;
offset = (offset + 1.0F) * 0.03F - offset;
// Multiplies values by scale and adds offset so range is expanded downwards (1 remains the same
// while lower values progressively decrease)
red = red * scale + offset;
green = green * scale + offset;
blue = blue * scale + offset;
// Sets a light level of (0,0) to total darkness, not applied when Night Vision is in effect or in
// the Nether/End
if (setBlackLevel) this.lightmapColors[0] = -16777216;
We are almost at 1.17 and for some reason we still need to place torches to light up a cave. Why? Aren't we supposed to light up a space by just having a torch on our hand? Why this change hasn't been implemented yet?
If this change is too "OP", torches can just be simply nerfed by having a duration like any armor or weapon OR having to light them up again with a flint and steel.
Moreover, it would be fun to have a mining hat, the crafting recipe would be something like: five iron ingots with a torch in the middle.
How would a single torch held in your hand light up a huge cave? I mean like these (I haven't seen what is being added in 1.17):
Note that the darkest areas are pitch black, RGB(0,0,0), otherwise lighting closely matches vanilla on Bright (part of my own fixes), even lava doesn't light up that much around it (the range is only one block greater than a torch):
This is the same cave shown above after I lit it up:
Note that the light from torches on one side of this ravine does not reach the other side:
The darkness at the end of this ravine is due to render distance fog:
Also, these caves are literally impossible to explore without lighting them up since mobs spawn so frequently in such a large dark area - even with lighting I've killed over 600 mobs in a single cave:
Otherwise, a more significant issue is the fact that complete darkness is not actually completely dark, even on Moody (the Wiki says it is 5% of full brightness), which can be quite easy to see in depending on your monitor settings (I've seen so many videos and screenshots where they just run through dark caves/mines with no lighting at all).
Also, mods that add dynamic lighting, like Optifine, do not actually emit light, it is only a visual effect, so it wouldn't stop mobs from spawning (from mob spawners, as mobs otherwise already can't spawn close to a player) or have any other effects (e.g. crop growth); the main objection to actual lighting is lag, although the game could be optimized a lot and I don't think it is actually a big issue (if I didn't get lag spikes when placing/breaking torches on a computer from 2006 then it shouldn't cause lag on newer computers (except for MC-123584, an issue which has gotten much worse in newer versions and affects block updates in general).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I don't think that's what he is asking for...
Overall he's very vague on what he wants, but it sounds like he just wants to have the visual benefits of holding a torch in his hand while walking around a cave. That wouldn't really have any bearing on mob spawning anyway since mobs can't spawn within 24 blocks of a player, so any objections based on mob spawning are kind of irrelevant--you'd still need to place a torch to keep them at bay, which is perfectly reasonable IMO.
Sure, you can just alter your brightness settings to better see in dark caves, but there are two problems with that: firstly, it puts you in a situation where you may need to switch back-and-forth when you're underground or on the surface, which is inconvenient; and secondly, there is a certain RPG appeal to wandering through a dark cave by torchlight, and turning up your brightness does undercut that. I think mods have shown that dynamic lighting for visual appeal is perfectly possible and even desirable, and I don't really see any reason it shouldn't be incorporated. It'd be useful if you're just exploring at night or passing through an area that you don't really plan on coming back to.
If I just want to explore a cave without staying in a place mining or killing mobs, having to place and waste 500 torches is really boring and annoying. The moment I need to stay in a specific place I can just place the torch like I always do.
You may have noticed that I mentioned how brightness is broken in the game and that in my screenshots the dark areas are truly, pitch black (e.g. paste this image into Paint or the like and use the color picker tool to check the color value of the darkest areas, which are pure black (replaced with white in this image), no matter what the brightness setting - even trying to edit options.txt doesn't work because I clamp the value to 0-1 and otherwise (0,0) in the lightmap is explicitly set to black). I personally think this is a game-breaking bug, reason enough to play on my own modded versions than the latest updates, cave update or not, and it certainly undermines the utility of being able to hold a torch in your hand (like I said, many players don't even bother using torches, and I've even seen them running around in the dark on Moody, so evidently they can still see well enough, which is also dependent on monitor settings; for example, I set the gamma in Windows' display calibration tool to as low as it can go, which according to the test image gives good gamma). Unfortunately, Mojang doesn't want to fix this either; "works as intended" - which is not at all how a gamma setting (as it is internally named) should work - it should only alter the brightness curve between 0% and 100% without affecting the min/max; of course, the "min" is not really 0%:
And on Bright - in both cases a light level of 0 is totally dark:
For comparison, this is vanilla on Moody and Bright (except for level 0 Moody is the same):
Here is a comparison of the full lightmap between vanilla and TMCW (max sky and block light):
This is part of my lightmap code, which adjusts light levels for a larger drop towards darkness on Bright, with the adjustment scaling with the gamma setting (it has no effect on Moody); the player can adjust the scaling with a new slider, "Gamma Offset", which defaults to 0.55, for the best visual change in the lower light levels (a light level of 0 is always black so without any adjustment there will be a larger difference between 0 and 1; that said, I fixed the vanilla bug where smooth lighting isn't applied between light level 0 and higher levels):
See also: https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/suggestions/2868193-a-light-level-of-0-should-be-totally-dark
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?