Seasons Mod by SilverSea

[SilverSea]

I've decided to start working on a Seasons Mod as my first mod. Crops will grow according to the seasons, trees will gain leaves, gain more leaves, turn warm colors and then lose their leaves. Water will freeze in winter and melt in spring. There will also be subseasons, early, mid, and late to soften the transition between the seasons. As this is my first mod I will probably be asking a lot of silly questions.

At first the mod will only work with default trees/crops but later I will probably make it work with the plant modpack and the farming mods.

Question #1
Does minetest keep track of the number of days that has passed?
Question #2
Is it possible to have two nodes/blocks inside of the same square/place?
ie a snowy stair node I could put on top of stairs.

Also thanks to LMD for advice and encouragement.

[Hume2]

For question #2: The node model, the hitbox and the selection box can exceed the node's 1×1×1 cube but still 1 XYZ coordinate means one node. Any two nodes can't have the same XYZ coordinates. Snowy stair could be made by a special type of snow that would cover the stairs bellow but still, it would occupy two nodes. One for stairs and one for the snow layer.

[Stix]

For question #2: The node model, the hitbox and the selection box can exceed the node's 1×1×1 cube but still 1 XYZ coordinate means one node. Any two nodes can't have the same XYZ coordinates. Snowy stair could be made by a special type of snow that would cover the stairs bellow but still, it would occupy two nodes. One for stairs and one for the snow layer.

Or replace the stair with a new "stair with snowfall" nodebox and texture set when snow falls on top (plus deleting the actual snow cover ofc).

There could be a problem with lag with all that node-swapping though, so that might not be the best idea, but i could be wrong.

[SilverSea]

For question #2: The node model, the hitbox and the selection box can exceed the node's 1×1×1 cube but still 1 XYZ coordinate means one node. Any two nodes can't have the same XYZ coordinates. Snowy stair could be made by a special type of snow that would cover the stairs bellow but still, it would occupy two nodes. One for stairs and one for the snow layer.

Ah okay, that's fine for the snow stuff since it's mostly so that the roofs of houses get snowy when it snows. Sometime I want to make a mod that adds seagrass though.

EDIT

Or replace the stair with a new "stair with snowfall" nodebox and texture set when snow falls on top (plus deleting the actual snow cover ofc).

There could be a problem with lag with all that node-swapping though, so that might not be the best idea, but i could be wrong.

I thought about doing that but I don't want to make a new texture for each and every stair and slab.

[Stix]

For question #2: The node model, the hitbox and the selection box can exceed the node's 1×1×1 cube but still 1 XYZ coordinate means one node. Any two nodes can't have the same XYZ coordinates. Snowy stair could be made by a special type of snow that would cover the stairs bellow but still, it would occupy two nodes. One for stairs and one for the snow layer.

Ah okay, that's fine for the snow stuff since it's mostly so that the roofs of houses get snowy when it snows. Sometime I want to make a mod that adds seagrass though.

Well 5.0.0 (next game/engine release) includes a new "rooted" drawtype for water-based plants like that, i suggest you check it out.

[SilverSea]

Well 5.0.0 (next game/engine release) includes a new "rooted" drawtype for water-based plants like that, i suggest you check it out.[/quote]

Facinating, that will be incredibly helpful when I make that sea plants mod.

btw I edited my last post.

[Stix]

Or replace the stair with a new "stair with snowfall" nodebox and texture set when snow falls on top (plus deleting the actual snow cover ofc).

There could be a problem with lag with all that node-swapping though, so that might not be the best idea, but i could be wrong.

I thought about doing that but I don't want to make a new texture for each and every stair and slab.

Couldn't you just use the default textures and have them overlayed specially?

[Astrobe]

For question #1, the answer is minetest.get_day_count(). If you decide that your year is 400 days, you can do something like season=math.floor(minetest.get_day_count()/100) and you get your season number.

For leaves/grass color changes, it would be nice if one could implement it as a very slow tile animation. I don't think it can work currently, because there seem to be no way to force the engine to start at a specific frame in the animation.

Alternatively, it seems that color palettes could be used for that to some extent, perhaps in conjunction with an LBM that sets the param2 of the nodes based on the season number. It still implies massive database writes though.

[TumeniNodes]

Seeing as there is no actual "mod" here,

This probably belongs over at "modding discussions" viewforum.php?f=47
or
"Post your mod request or ideas" viewtopic.php?f=47&t=2434

This has more or less been the section for new mods which are, ready to use/test, but still under development.
Right now, you are just hashing out ideas.

I will admit, there is quite a bit in this section from previous years, which have accumulated, which seem should have been started or moved to one of the above locations.
This is how the forums get out of hand, disorganized, and difficult for people to find info / mods / etc, or to even understand where content may belong. (which is in no way your fault)

But, when someone sees a new mod posted, they click to check it out, and find..., a discussion and no mod : /

[LMD]

TumeniNodes : This is the RIGHT place for it, it needs a seperate thread !
The topic is NOT MODS, but WIP mods. WIP. WIP.
"Also thanks to LMD for advice and encouragement."
You're welcome, but you really needn't write that ! YOU are ATM making this mod, and YOU are spending YOUR time to write this mod for this community. YOU are generous.
I'd start with the crops. During spring, they'd, using ABMs, grow very fast. Then, slower in summer. In autumn, they will start to grow backwards. And in winter, they'll die immediately(minetest.remove_node)

I guess that lua_api.txt will most of your questions, and yesterday, I just released a parser which generates beatiful HTML out of it : https://appgurueu.github.io/lua_api.html (LUA API HTML VERSION !!)

[twoelk]

I don't know how long you have been playing Minetest so hopefully I'm not listing too much stuff you allready know.

there once was the 4seasons mod by mauvebic based on stuff from madblocks. sadly the links don't work anymore just as the mod would probably be too old now.

Paramat's snowdrift is still present on some servers iirc and he also experimented with rain.
there have been other projects such as some focused on weather or snow, and some rainbow mods, not to forget lightning by sofar

ExeterDad used some nice seasonal themed texture packs on the Hometown server just as Sorcerykid experimented with yet another weather implementation on the Justtest2 server. just to name two servers that played with weather concepts. so you just might not need to reinvent every single wheel although there still are unsolved issues with most mods. there might also be some good solutions and interesting features discussed in the threads of said mods.
happy researching ;-P

so now lets hope for the one weather mod to bind them all
let it rain, let the wind blow
and good luck with a massiv task

[Andrey01]

Is this mod being developed now?

[kestral]

If so, or if anyone else considers making such a mod, you'll also want to look at the mymonths mod by Don: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13639&hilit=mymonths.
Besides months and weather, it changes the length of the day, and has trees whose leaves change throughout the year.

[ShallowDweller]

Question #2
Is it possible to have two nodes/blocks inside of the same square/place?
ie a snowy stair node I could put on top of stairs.

You mean like in the moresnow mod by Sokomine?
If so, you could list that one as a dependency for your mod.