Setup troubles

[skeddles]

Hi, this project looks really cool! I found it through your youtube video.

I had a few issues trying to get it setup.

1. doesn't work on windows - no problem, but should be mentioned in the readme. I got it running fine with WSL after figuring it out.

2. serve script would be nice - I know you say you use an addon for vscode, but for other devs it might be nice to include http-server, which can be launched with a script like "server": "http-server . -p 5500"

3. i couldn't figure out how to get it to launch in english, both dev and prod seem to be in german (maybe build should just build the js file for all the locales?)

4. the requisite for the webp module isnt listed anywhere, took me a little to figure out how to install it. maybe theres a version that works with npm? also seems strange that the packer is a separate package, is there a reason it cant just be combined into the main package?

I did eventually get it working (Aside from the language), but this might make it easier for others to contribute.

I was thinking of making you some custom textures so you aren't stuck with minecraft's.

Here was my initial attempt:

It's inspired by the barebones texture pack, which is based off the simple art style of minecraft's launcher. I though this art style would work especially well for minicraft, since there's far less detail/noise (especially single pixels) which don't read well at low resolution, and make far off blocks very noisy (though if you rendered blocks farther than ~16 blocks away with flat colors, that would also help a lot). This style also is much more compressible if that matters to you, it brought the webp down from 3.75kb to 958b.

If you like this style I can finish it and push my changes, but if you'd like to take it in a different direction I can do that too.

[L3P3]

WOW! Thank you so much for this feedback. I was already planning a video on "how to set it up and work with minicraft". I am sorry that my english video went through the roof before I was able to do that. ☹️

1. I am sure it is possible to work on minicraft under Windows, I have not tried that out though. I develop only in code-server hosted on Linux.
2. For development, just open the app-dev.html, there is no building required at all, so no webpack-like server required either. As I use live server (and there are similar tools integrated into more and more IDEs), I don't plan to include a serve script as this is out of scope for me and I am a minimalist.
3. The dev environment is in german by default, as I was the only one working on it so far. xD I will change the default dev language to english soon!
4. I was not sure where to put the texture tool to, so I did it this way. If you have a better idea, feel free to propose it (with reasons please).
5. I love these textures! I plan to do a texture selection menu soon, so your textures should really be included then. There will be a way to upload your own textures, so please do that then, I will ping you.
6. Using solid colors for blocks further away than a distance is a good idea, I already have a branch for experiments like these, I am thinking about/working on raytracer tweaks/hacks a lot.

Thank you really and please don't get frustrated too early by me being hesitant with changing things that work well for me. 🙂

[L3P3]

If you are looking for things to do, you could give lui a try, which is concept-wise very close to react and used for the interface. 😏
Where I could use most support is really content (like textures, wiki, tutorials etc) and also if you are good with HTML/CSS and you see ways to improve markup/css without making it much more complicated/bigger, I would also be happy to hear from you.

[skeddles]

some of the woes i encountered when trying to run it on windows:

• path needs to be in quotes otherwise it gets confused by the .
• the directory creation commands dont work, would be better to use the fs module

I would just move packer.js to the root and include pngjs as a dev dependency of the main project, and just add a package.json script for running it. or even better, just integrate it into build.js and automatically compile the textures every time, that would make it simpler to run.

[L3P3]

I dont understand the first point with path.

[L3P3]

Hello, I am currently implementing texturepack selection. Could you give me your original texture file? Please upload your /tools/textures/blocks.png here:
https://l3p3.de/svr/minicraft/textures.html

PS I updated some stuff, for example the development default language...

[L3P3]

Added dev server command but I think its a bit silly. 🤔

2a552f9

[L3P3]

@skeddles

[L3P3]

@skeddles are you still with us?

[L3P3]

@skeddles