(mis)adventures of Martin in Writing, Podcasting, and more
Project statuses
Minecraft
At request of my son, I had resumed working on PinkertonCraft, my Minecraft mod. Although almost all (99%) of the original game textures are complete, I don’t want to release till I complete the art for the mods my sons use. Most of those are complete but a few are quite large. In fact, one mod called Divine RPG has almost 4 times as many textures as the original game. I have used most of my time since August working on it and am about 70% done with that.
One thing I noticed with a lot of mods (and even “vanilla” Minecraft) is that many textures are the same except for the color. For example, all the “rugs” in the Divine RPG mod were just the same bland texture in a different color. Mods are especially bad about this. Divine RPG has many “dimensions” but in the original art set, they were all the same texture but in different colors. I have strived to avoid repeating textures in such a manner unless it made since (i.e. colored wool or glass). So for each of the dimensions, I tried to give them as unique a look as possible. I apply the same principle to the “mobs” (i.e. monsters). If the game has 7 “golems” then I want them all to actually look different and be distinct.
(Click the pictures to see how they look different now)
Arena
I had made a lot of progress before I switched back over to the Minecraft project. I have completed 102 of 184 set files. I should note that like many other resource file packs, Arena is chock full of unused files or files that were started and then switched to another format. I can think of 5 SET files off the top of my head that aren’t actually used. They are all ground files that Bethesda switched to IMG files (that I have already completed). A lot of the remaining SET files are less linear and more organic. Because they are base on 64×64 pixels, they require more creative approaches. I will start planning out how to handle them soon.
Website
I have been wanting to finish the website. Currently, the only thing linked are pictures. I need to add a Minecraft category and add to all the other categories. My goal is to have the site fleshed out in time to coincide with the release of PinkertonCraft (hopefully in October).