Update 0.4.8: Vegetation, farming and volumetric clouds

Hi folks,

this update is a preparation for the upcoming world generation update - it introduces lots of new plants and trees, vegetables and fruits, farming and plant growth as well as volumetric clouds!

In total, this update introduces more than 60 new trees (including saplings and young versions), more than 30 plants and crops (without taking the various growth stages into account) and 11 rocks and dead tree trunks. This update also introduces more than 10 new edible fruits and vegetables as well as two new smelting furnaces (which are reworked versions of the furnaces from the Java version).




Various plants can be cultivated now: Similar to how it worked in the Java version, you can get a seedling from crops by using the sickle, which can then be planted on arable land (which can be prepared with a hoe).

Apart from the new content, this update also introduces a first version of volumetric clouds: Unlike a flat sky texture, they're actual "fluffy" 3D elements in the world. While you can't directly interact with them, it's still possible to have tall mountains or skyscrapers which soar above the clouds.
While the clouds are rendered very efficiently, they still have a small impact on performance, so if your machine is already struggling with the new version, it may be necessary to disable them - this can be done in the graphics settings.

Clouds already change depending on the weather. For instance, if you type "weather overcast" into console, you will see how the clouds will become bigger and more dense.

One note about the cloud altitude: The clouds may appear to be at a relatively low altitude currently, but actually the spawn point in the demo world is already at a relatively high elevation. This will change with the 2nd part of the world gen update.




We also took this opportunity to rework the vegetation shader - there is now a much better wind effect on trees and a better shader for snow. This also applies to plants and other elements like boulders or tree trunks.

Some of the new plants and trees will already spawn in the demo world, but if you want to check them all out, you can use the new creative mode vegetation placement tool: To do that, enable the creative mode by opening the console (press ~) and type "gm 1" (without quot. marks), then press F6 to enable the placement tool. Open your inventory to select one of the new plants, and hold C to bring up a radial menu with various settings.

The new content will provide a good foundation for the upcoming 2nd part of the world generation update. We've prepared two screenshots which will give you an idea of the how the upcoming forests will look like, for example:






As always, this update also fixes various issues, bugs and introduces some other improvements under the hood: For instance, terrain modifications will work considerably faster now. Please find the full changelog below.

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The next update will be the 2nd part of the world generation: It will enable you to create randomly generated worlds, it will contain various islands and more diverse landscapes (forests etc), and it will also introduce flowing water - this also means the islands will no longer be surrounded by gravel, instead there will be actual oceans. Feel free to check out the development status on our Trello Roadmap :)


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Changelog 2022-06-22 (0.4.8):

• Volumetric clouds
  
• First implementation of farming (use the hoe to prepare arable land, and use the sickle to collect seedlings from crops)
  
• New cultivable plants: tomato, chili, potato, watermelon, lettuce, corn, carrot, hemp
  
• New trees: acacia (x2), appletree, araucaria, birch, cactus (x4), cypress, hickory, london-plane (x2), palm, red maple, spruces (x6), weeping beech, willow oak
  
• New saplings, young versions and dead versions of almost all trees
  
• New saplings and different growth stages for all cultivable plants
  
• New plants: cotton, henbane, hogweed, monstera (x2), dandelion (x3), fern (x7), aloe vera, flowers (x7), ivy (x3), bushes (x5)
  
• New world objects: 9 new rocks, 2 tree trunks
  
• New food: bell pepper, carrot, chili, cookie, corncob, gingerroot, lettuce, pear, potato, tomato, watermelon
  
• New objects: Smelting furnace and big smelting furnace
  
• New creative mode tool: Vegetation placement (F6)
  
• New wind and snow shaders for vegetation
  
• Plant growth duration can be changed in the game settings
  
• Blocks with unit size which are placed in the grid can now be rendered more performantly
  
• New "Copy block" key: Adds a copy of the block in the world you're currently looking at to your inventory, or equips it if it already exists
  
• Pressing 1-5 while hovering an item in inventory moves it to the according slot in the hotbar
  
• Pressing the mouse wheel button while hovering an item in inventory equips the item
  
• It's now possible to set up a custom "JavaTextures.txt" file containing custom texture replacement definitions for Java blueprints
  
• Item count in crafting menu can now be entered directly by clicking on the count label
  
• Added "skyrotation" console command to change the sky orientation (affects direction where the sun rises and sets)
  
• Sleeping (skipping nights) now speeds up ore smelting and plant growth accordingly
  
• Added setting ("View adjustment") to enable optional cinematic black bars at the top and bottom of the HUD
  
• Added setting ("Misc") to change blueprint rotation pivot behaviour (toggle between center of object or center of area )
  
• Multiplayer: New "lock" and "unlock" input command (also available via Scheduler) to prevent players from connecting (may be useful during restarts, for example)
  
• Multiplayer: Added permissions "info_shownametag" and "info_nametagalwaysvisible"
  
• Multiplayer: Permission "forbidden_items" now supports "#inherit" entry to inherit all forbidden items from the parent permission
  
• Added "edit shape" command to retroactively change the shape of a block in the world
  
• Added "printkeybindings" console command to create a text file containing all current key bindings
  
• Update to Unity 2022.1
  
• Terrain modifications (creative mode terrain tools) are considerably faster now
  
• Improved rendering of distant trees
  
• Reduced "tiling" on distant terrain textures
  
• Greatly improved performance when trying to place lots of elements in a row
  
• Count label when placing multiple elements in a row is now visible through walls
  
• Texture IDs are now visible for window frames in crafting menu
  
• When deconstructing construction elements with a sledgehammer, the original element size is taken into account when spawning the item
  
• Glass pane size is now reset again after snapping to window frames
  
• In P2P or LAN games it's no longer possible to kick or ban the host
  
• If a view distance greater than the max value in options is set, changing graphics settings no longer override this value
  
• Changed appearance of the planet when player is in orbit (Y > 5000)
  
• Pressing enter in chat no longer interferes with building tools
  
• Blueprints will now only be reloaded if the game detects any changes in the blueprints folder
  
• Changed color of header labels in settings menu (increases visibility)
  
• Increased precision of rock collision shapes (for large-scaled rocks)
  
• Fixed bug which prevented you from cutting down trees in multiplayer
  
• Fixed sandstone materials not being selectable in crafting menu
  
• Fixed minor precision issues when placing a block right after rotating it
  
• Fixed wrong texture alignment on blocks in inventory
  
• Fixed texture sometimes getting stretched on arc block shapes
  
• Fixed pivot / snapping issues on overlapping blocks (game sometimes couldn't decide which block to snap to)
  
• Fixed blocks in hands not always updating properly after exchanging them with another stack of blocks in inventory
  
• Fixed crash when placing lots of elements in a row (need feedback)
  
• Hopefully fixed bug causing sudden data loss, i.e. missing construction elements etc (need feedback)
  
• Fixed issue which caused the game to use more than 2 directions when placing elements in a row (despite different setting)
  
• Fixed black borders on panorama screenshots (use "panorama" console command)
  
• Using console commands no longer resets the game window size (when playing in windowed mode)
  
• Fixed "blueprints" console command
  
• Fixed "cleanup items" console command
  
• Fixed blocks being removed from inventory even though they could not be placed
  
• Fixed issue with dedicated server if it was launched from the Steam client
  
• Fixed error when game could not initialize an audio input device
  
• Fixed error when changing paint roller color