side shading enhancement

[kuraiskrap]

would it be possible to add a dye for the side of blocks VS the top?
it adds alot of detail to a image (images from a WIP camera from someone else)

with and without side shading

[jensjeflensje]

In this library, this concept is mostly handled by using built-in Minecraft light levels to darken/lighten certain sides. This seems to work pretty well, as the Minecraft client (of course) uses the same concept. Why do you think this would be better, and in which scenarios compared to the current (light level-based) approach?

[kuraiskrap]

to me, adding the side shading allows the shape of blocks to be seen, instead of everything being the same color
gives it more of a 3D look,

take the first image
you can see the shape of the tree clearer from the sides being darkened
you can see the layers of the ground aswell

hard to do a 1:1 comparison as i need to remove plugins due to incompatibilities in the test server
and edit code to make a comparison between camera systems more directly, i just used photos i had before i knew yours existed

also sorry im basicly spamming with suggestions to change the code

this photo wasnt taken by me but shows shading well for seeing ground layers

[jensjeflensje]

From your example image I understand what you mean, but the shading on that one is very much exaggerated compared to the shading the vanilla Minecraft client does. I think it's worth testing to see if it actually makes images look better, but I'm trying to stay as close to the Minecraft client's renderer style as possible.

[kuraiskrap]

thats fair, the levels of shading could probably be toned down
the main limitation is the maparts limited colors to choose from

i might try and see if i can implement it on my fork like the clearwater

[kuraiskrap]

example shading from my fork, i dont find its two weird compared to vannila rendering on the stone
the grass sides should be brown, so i may add a exception for that do to how common grass blocks are
sidenote, while i was there i set the minimum light level to 1, light level 0 seemed to cause issues

[ConnorBP]

From your example image I understand what you mean, but the shading on that one is very much exaggerated compared to the shading the vanilla Minecraft client does. I think it's worth testing to see if it actually makes images look better, but I'm trying to stay as close to the Minecraft client's renderer style as possible.

depending on the sun angle the definition between blocks can come out very flat since they have no texture mapping applied. I believe that a subtle addition of side shading as an optional dye could be nice for a clearer retro style render.

[ConnorBP]

example shading from my fork, i dont find its two weird compared to vannila rendering on the stone the grass sides should be brown, so i may add a exception for that do to how common grass blocks are sidenote, while i was there i set the minimum light level to 1, light level 0 seemed to cause issues

this image example has me realize, dirt blocks have a fairly significant dirt color section. I wonder how quick we could make a simple gradient lookup for certain block types based on the decimal portion of the hit's y coordinate... if the hit lands at a y of say 64.45 that would mean it is 45 percent up the blockface. This kind of thing could easily improve the visual fidelity of the images, and create greater color separation (which is really the main goal for making simplistic imagery look good) of grassy scenes in particular. Perhaps I make a feature suggestion issue for this type of addition?