This seems to be the most useable, since Regional Weather/Bundle (using Climate API) will stop rendering weather effects whenever the player is under a block/roof.
However, the glaring issue here is lack of sounds. If the author is able/willing to do the coding, I would be happy to create some custom, royalty-free loops (Creative Commons Share Alike), if that would help. Let me know...I should get an email notification to replies here!
Best game? Yeah, probably. The weather seems bugged (doesn't seem to work at all and clouds randomly disappear and reappear, or suddenly change patterns) and some balancing issues but generally engaging and complete. I've played a few dozen hours so far, and what I mainly like, is lack of documentation.
It forces me to figure out most things by trial/error, which has been quite rewarding and engaging. No longer can I just search the web to discover the mechanics. Over-documentation is Minecraft & clones' fatal flaw.
The game has a very covert & satisfying way of uncovering itself as I go, making for a nice slow-paced progression, and truly unique first experience.
@shaft Yeah, spawning in buildings would be frustrating but also, I don't think this engine has a build height limit? People like to build crazy things, and as it is, you'd have to, if you wanted to farm the birds. Perhaps the Minetest API has a way to tell if a given position is enclosed? Or maybe fire a ray upward from the lead bird, depending on the performance cost.
Also, after re-reading my OP, I realized I meant to say they should change altitude AND direction....I edited it to reflect.
I think what improved performance the most, was reducing the swarm size. I thought I had gotten the right line but I misread the code....I'm a Python & C programmer. LUA is quite foreign to me. Going to adjust the correct line and see what happens.
I like it. I always have some ambient sound mod installed and its weird to hear birds but not see any at all. This fixes that well enough.
I made a couple tweaks to reduce the spawn rate of swarms. Too often, my skies would get unrealistically crowded, and so many moving shadows on the ground was distracting. Also, doubled the despawn distance, so they just fade nicely into the fog, instead of harshly popping off screen. This also improved performance.
What I'd like to see, is more variation in spawn altitude, and the ability for them to change altitude & direction, so they can actually fly around. I just don't know LUA well enough to contribute that much yet.
Also, just noticed a bug where birds can spawn with 0 (or near 0) velocity. They seem to eventually despawn anyway, but it is odd.
This seems to be the most useable, since Regional Weather/Bundle (using Climate API) will stop rendering weather effects whenever the player is under a block/roof.
However, the glaring issue here is lack of sounds. If the author is able/willing to do the coding, I would be happy to create some custom, royalty-free loops (Creative Commons Share Alike), if that would help. Let me know...I should get an email notification to replies here!
I installed the Regional Weather mod as recommended. It works well, overall, but one glaring bug:
Whenever the player is under a roof, the precipitation & sound effects stop, which shatters immersion.
There is a mod just called "Weather", which can render the precipitation correctly when indoors, but ironically, it lacks sound effect support.
Sadly, I do not yet know LUA well enough to bring the two together for a fix on either one.
Best game? Yeah, probably. The weather seems bugged (doesn't seem to work at all and clouds randomly disappear and reappear, or suddenly change patterns) and some balancing issues but generally engaging and complete. I've played a few dozen hours so far, and what I mainly like, is lack of documentation.
It forces me to figure out most things by trial/error, which has been quite rewarding and engaging. No longer can I just search the web to discover the mechanics. Over-documentation is Minecraft & clones' fatal flaw.
The game has a very covert & satisfying way of uncovering itself as I go, making for a nice slow-paced progression, and truly unique first experience.
@shaft Yeah, spawning in buildings would be frustrating but also, I don't think this engine has a build height limit? People like to build crazy things, and as it is, you'd have to, if you wanted to farm the birds. Perhaps the Minetest API has a way to tell if a given position is enclosed? Or maybe fire a ray upward from the lead bird, depending on the performance cost.
Also, after re-reading my OP, I realized I meant to say they should change altitude AND direction....I edited it to reflect.
I think what improved performance the most, was reducing the swarm size. I thought I had gotten the right line but I misread the code....I'm a Python & C programmer. LUA is quite foreign to me. Going to adjust the correct line and see what happens.
Cheers and thanks for a nice mod!
I like it. I always have some ambient sound mod installed and its weird to hear birds but not see any at all. This fixes that well enough.
I made a couple tweaks to reduce the spawn rate of swarms. Too often, my skies would get unrealistically crowded, and so many moving shadows on the ground was distracting. Also, doubled the despawn distance, so they just fade nicely into the fog, instead of harshly popping off screen. This also improved performance.
What I'd like to see, is more variation in spawn altitude, and the ability for them to change altitude & direction, so they can actually fly around. I just don't know LUA well enough to contribute that much yet.
Also, just noticed a bug where birds can spawn with 0 (or near 0) velocity. They seem to eventually despawn anyway, but it is odd.