Messages

1

Off Topic / "Stylish" browser extension steals your Internet history

« on: July 03, 2018, 02:14:22 AM »

Nobody had posted this yet and since I originally installed the Stylish browser add-on because of custom Blockland Forums styles and I know people here have used the add-on I figured I should let people know that the extension is now spyware.

https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extension-steals-your-internet-history/

Unfortunately, since January 2017, Stylish has been augmented with bonus spyware that records every single website that I and its 2 million other users visit. Stylish sends our complete browsing activity back to its servers, together with a unique identifier. This allows it’s new owner, SimilarWeb, to connect all of an individual’s actions into a single profile.

This is the extension.

• Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/
• Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish-custom-themes-for/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe

Here are some Blockland Forums styles released on Userstyles.org that Stylish uses: https://userstyles.org/styles/browse?search_terms=blockland%20forums

An alternative extension "Stylus".

• Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/
• Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne

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Modification Help / Re: Blender BLB Exporter [v2.0.0]

« on: January 26, 2018, 12:24:00 PM »

Sorry for the large bump, but when I attempt to install the zip file, it won't let me save it to a directory of my choice or save at all. I can only "open" it which doesn't do anything either. Can anyone help me?

So you're having issues downloading the ZIP file? Try a different browser? Try right clicking the link and selecting "Save Link As..." or similar?

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Modification Help / Re: Blender BLB Exporter [v2.0.0]

« on: December 05, 2017, 02:58:15 PM »

ty demian for officially releasing these fixes! glad to get them sorted out

Sorry it took me so long but serious thanks to you Conan for pointing out several issues.

Currently on the roadmap for the next months:

• More improvements to the README, including a short guide on actually using the exporter.
• Exporting DTS collision models utilizing Port's DTS exporter. I've had it working at some point but after some major changes the feature broke.

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Modification Help / Re: Blender BLB Exporter [v2.0.0]

« on: December 05, 2017, 02:49:09 PM »

Version 2.0.0 released

Download Latest Version · Full Change Log & Update Instructions

Major updates to the README. Fixed a lot of things I broke by not testing enough:

• Wrong BLB collision rotation if forward axis was not +Y in the export settings.
• Inverted/broken smooth shading: normals were written to the vertices in reversed order.
• Broken vertex colors: colors were written to the vertices in reversed order.
• Being able to modify grayed out properties that were supposed to be disabled in the export panel.
• Invalid decimal operation exception when attempting to calculate brick bounds but there were no visible meshes to calculate the axis-aligned bounding box from.
• Outdated link to Nick Smith's GitHub profile in the README.
• Typos in the README.
• Exception when attempting to export a brick and the following conditions were met:
  • Bricks to Export property was Multiple.
  • Bricks Defined by property was Layers.
  • Export Bricks in property was Scene.
  • The scene contained a layer with no objects.
• Exception when Export Scale property was not 100%.

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Environment Files / Re: Sunflare_Badspot

« on: August 07, 2017, 12:52:30 PM »

its like the baby head from teletubbies

Plugging my own poop: http://files.dataorb.net/blockland/addons/SunFlare_Teletubby.zip

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General Discussion / Re: abandoned ramp addon? "ramps unleashed"

« on: August 07, 2017, 12:47:16 PM »

I always wondered whered u go
tervetuloa takas

I didn't come back because

-- you never truly leave.

By spinning a dreadful monotonous task into an interesting programming problem I have managed to trick my brain into thinking this is a good way to spend the few free hours I have in my day so I guess I'll make the ramps into add-ons then*. I might also add a few extra/take requests once I get the pipeline working because why not. Servers gotta spend those datablocks somehow and I seem hell bent on making sure I get all of them. Might as well gobble up another 200. Do be aware that like with most of my add-ons, it'll be done when it's done. (Feel free to check the dates on the old threads linked in my doors release thread.)

*Provided I get the automatic UV fixing working.

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General Discussion / Re: older blockland user check-in.

« on: August 05, 2017, 04:07:38 AM »

Once you get into it you never leave. I haven't played the game in years but I do check the forums every now and then as well as do egoistical searches.

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General Discussion / Re: abandoned ramp addon? "ramps unleashed"

« on: August 04, 2017, 01:15:44 PM »

while searching for more ramp addons, but i could not seem to find an actual addon.
any idea who owns this or if the addon exists? or if possible, could someone make this into an addon?

Creator of said models chiming in. I originally made these in 2011 for fun because the shapes were simple and like you felt that there wasn't enough variety. I never made them into bricks because at the time I did not know how to create ramps and as far as I know no one else has utilized the models either probably because they lack UVs which is the difficult part in making ramps.

However since then I have released the Blender BLB Exporter which could be used to automatically create UVs for the ramps (that will look perfect after some manual tweaking which could also be automated) and export all of the bricks in one go. Port has also made a fancy new DTS exporter for Blender which could be used for exporting the DTS collision models though it does not seem to support batch exports so you'd have to individually export each brick. I really don't feel like putting in the time and effort to do this since I don't play the game anymore.

Demian was working on these a while ago. He became less active on the forums after he had to do his mandatory service in the army. You should shoot him a PM, though

Aye, 6 years is quite a while ago. My activity had already dropped a lot before my military service in 2014. Essentially real life just caught up, I feel my free time is better spent on improving my art, design, and programming skills in addition to working on any of the numerous projects of mine rather than creating content for a game I no longer play. Even so I have been infrequently checking the forums for about 5 years whereas I only played the game for roughly 3 years. That's the curse of Blockland (Forums?): once you really get into it you never truly leave.

Ps. A private message is actually a good way to reach me eventually, I tend to check the forums once a month or so.

Edit: I started working on adding batch DTS export capability to the BLB exporter so I guess that's gonna be released within a few weeks.

9

Creativity / Re: The new and improved 3D model topic!

« on: July 07, 2017, 01:05:14 PM »

Do ((22 / blender units) + 245) / 256, then project from view (bounds) while you are facing the face you want to apply the SIDE texture to and stretch the UV amount in that direction. (s, and lock with x or y)

Like, if you have a 2x wide thing that'd be 2 bu, which in the formula it translates to 1, because 2x studs wide is actually a perfect map in-game.

You can see the blender units by pressing N and enabling Edge Info: Length as such


End results:

The big one was stretched by 1.0107 and 1.0351 while the smol one was stretched by 1.0429 and 1.1718.

The closer the width is to 2 the closer to 1 the stretch is. Values more than 2 should return a stretch less than 1 while values smoller than 2 should return a stretch bigger than 1.

I held this in for a long time now as I keep saying I'll remake the brick tutorial but I am too lazy for that so just take this.

I might or might not just make a video about this if I am not a lazy forget like I am.

This also might or might not be optimal for DTS stuff. I made the formula up long ago for General's BLB converter. For DTS taking account of real sizes you might have to double your BU.. I don't recall how that part worked.

If you don't fancy doing the UVs and math manually you can achieve the same effect automagically with my Blender BLB Exporter: https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=304533.0
I can only guarantee expected functionality on rectangular faces where all corners are 90 degree angles but it produces kind of okay results for other faces too.

Here's a quick guide:

• Install the exporter.
• Assign a material with the name SIDE to the faces you want to have the brick side texture.
• Go to: File > Export > Blockland Brick (.blb)
• Make sure Calculate UVs and Store UVs are enabled and click Export BLB.
• The UVs are written to a new UV layer "TEX:SIDE" seen under Properties > Data (triangle) > UV Maps.
• For rendering you can create a new texture for the SIDE material and select the "TEX:SIDE" UV layer in Texture > Mapping > Map.

For the record: the plugin calculates UVs for all brick textures and not just the sides. See the readme for more information. I'm afraid I do not have an example .blend file for this yet.

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Modification Help / Re: How do I add collision to a brick?

« on: May 15, 2017, 11:04:53 PM »

In my BLB Exporter thread there is a link to an example brick that has DTS collision which is required if you want the collision to follow that diagonal bit correctly: https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=304534.msg9322793

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General Discussion / Re: Add-on Making Academy (Google Classroom details in OP, new poll)

« on: May 15, 2017, 01:33:00 PM »

Damn McTwist for linking this thread to me. So I'm very familiar with Blender, modeling for Blockland, and making bricks so technically I have the necessary skill set to teach others how to do those things and oddly enough I have enough free time in my schedule to dedicate to this. But I'm not really sure what I should do to be honest or whether I actually want to do this.

I could totally host a workshop on Blender fundamentals (for Blockland): mesh manipulation, materials, modifiers, DTS exporting, and getting items into the game. I've also made my fair share of bricks so I could do something related to those as well. (Using my exporter naturally.) I could just make a boring lecture but there's no reason to host pure lectures live, you ought to just make a video for that so I feel like a work-along workshop type of deal would be better. Thoughts? Ideas? Anyone interested?

12

Modification Help / Re: how do I UV map stuff properly

« on: May 13, 2017, 01:37:18 AM »

Thanks Zeblote, and thanks but no Demain, I'm not making rectangular cuboid bricks.
I've got everything about figured out, I think, aside from tgat I don't know if I need to set any special texture settings in Blender for the textures. Do I?

If you're exporting to BLB, no. Only the UV coordinates matter.

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Modification Help / Re: how do I UV map stuff properly

« on: May 11, 2017, 11:53:26 AM »

My BLB exporter will automatically calculate correct brick UVs (provided that the brick textures are used, read the README) for rectangular cuboid bricks: https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=304533.0
There's a preference in the export settings to save the UVs into Blender UV layers.

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Modification Help / Re: Blender BLB Exporter [v1.2.3]

« on: April 13, 2017, 03:18:00 AM »

Version 1.2.3 released

Download Latest Version · Full Change Log & Update Instructions

Main fixes: broken tri UVs and issue with bounds definition token and brick name. Brick name in bounds object now supports spaces.

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Modification Help / Re: Blender BLB Exporter [v1.2.2]

« on: April 13, 2017, 12:33:21 AM »

I will fix both issues as soon as I can.