Block Change Request: Timber Frame Improvements

[Emoticone11]

Request: Timber Frame Improvements

Request Type: General Addition

Try to describe all workarounds and associated issues that make it necessary to add this block in your eyes.
Since an update to plaster and daub blocks is in the works, I think it would be an appropriate time to update our timber frame sets as well.

I would suggest the following changes/additions. #5 is possibly the most impactful in terms of outdating existing timber builds, so I would really appreciate some community feedback here! I was myself initially quite resistant to the idea of additional variants, but my position has loosened somewhat due to a combination of factors. Still, I want to make sure that builders feel that the additions would be worth the update work they would necessitate.

1. Updating the timber textures to look more like flat, sturdy beams rather than the current textures which appear almost circular due to the highly exaggerated shading. Such as the following examples:



2. Adding close-studding in the remaining infill variants for block parity (although the close-studding should not be as common in the other variants for stylistic reasons).

3. Adding redundant blockstates to the blocks, with no CTM connection between them, in order to allow people to use the cycler tool to control whether two instances of the same timber frame block connect. I've already spoken with Mike about this and it seems possible in theory, but would still need to be implemented.

4. Adding a generic overlay block (similar to dappled moss) to represent patches of wattle showing through daub.

5 (??). New timber shapes:

5.1. An NxM version of the "open" timber frame variant, like the following:

I will have to verify this in practice, but it might be possible to simply extend the existing horizontal CTM variant with this functionality, since (a) it should be possible to use the classic 48-tile CTM method to prevent vertical connections for single-width instances, (b) it's pretty rare for two horizontal rows of this block to be used next to each other, and (c) we would be able to prevent instances from connecting via suggestion 3.

5.2. 2x2 and 3x3 version of the "cross" timber frame variant, as a CTM extension of the current block.

5.3. 2x1, 1x2, 2x2, and 3x3 versions of the "left" and "right" timber frame variants. This would be a new block, so as to not mess with existing uses of the diagonal beams in those configurations.

Note that these additions would effectively realize the previous request here:

https://forum.westeroscraft.com/threads/block-change-request-borderless-diagonal-timber-beams.3317/

Although with the minor difference that the blocks would not be borderless, so in the example house in that thread there would be a timber border around all of the 2x2 diagonal beams. I don't believe that the original suggestion would be feasible anymore due to changes in the overlay CTM method with the new mod.

File(s) attached

 

[Thamus_Knoward]

I'm totally on board with you for all changes except for #5. Most timber frame/ daub & wattle houses I've seen use very similar, small almost square timber frame "units". the "squares" never seem to exceed the size of 1 square meter. Hence, I don't think the NxM open version, or 3x3 and 2x2 cross versions you depict above are realistic. As for the diagonal frames, the 1x2 and 2x2 versions would still have the timber frame on all sides of the "square" even though there is a diagonal cutting through.

On top of that, the large 48-tile CTM are more difficult to create and maintain than the simple vertical/ horizontal CTMs, which in this case are just as effective!

 

[Emoticone11]

I was thinking that the 2x2 versions would be useful for depicting slightly larger regions between beams (but not so much as to appear structurally unsound), which has already been used to good effect on the server:

As well as accomplishing something similar to the test eag_inc made here:

Granted, I don't think a new block would fully replace these instances, since people often use this to add elements of a gradient into a facade (with the better plaster/daub textures, there may be less of a need to do this), as well as to use different window types.

I do agree that 2x3 or larger shapes would be less realistic though.

As far as the difficulty of creating the 48-tile CTM, I think we would really only need to create a small subset of the tiles corresponding to the specific configurations we want to allow, the rest of them would just be duplicates.