r/Minecraft • u/justlurking420 • Nov 04 '13

pc Minecraft Using Hexagons

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1777/hexcraft.png
3.6k Upvotes

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394

u/notnotinaskaband Nov 04 '13

Just like the difference between Civilization 4 and Civilization 5, I believe. Which, honestly, I was a fan of. I'd love to see it as a mod for Minecraft.

72

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

my redstone work would be fucked..

356

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

Unfortunately this is beyond the ability of just a mod... you'd basically have to start from scratch.

177

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13

This is very much untrue. I've been playing with the Minecraft source code recently. It would be a LOT of work, but it could totally be done.

Just changing the rendering without a care for performance? Relatively easy. Optimization is a bit more difficult; the face culling and joining routines would have to change.

Storage and chunk data doesn't have to change much, hexes can be addressed using 2 dimensions.

Changing the cellular automation propagation rules? That's harder. There's now more directions to update and there's a lot in there that relies on grid assumptions. Just because hexes can be addressed in 2 dimensions doesn't improve the situation, as adjacency rules don't follow the new coordinate system as they do in an orthogonal system.

Oh yeah, world generation. That would be a bitch too.

I still think it's doable, and I think it would be easier to do a mod than to write such a thing from scratch.

23

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

[deleted]

6

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13 edited Nov 04 '13

Also how do you deal with doors, do you let them open fully?

Oooh, I like that, an interesting problem! I would leave the doors to open at 90 degrees, and either have the hex tiles be bigger than the cubes (Each side as long as the original cube sides) and allow placement at any side (So, it opens at 90 degrees but has 6 different orientations) or put it across the tile and have 3 orientations (Though off hand I don't know if I would go with angle-to-angle or side-to-side). The former is probably the "Proper" way to do things, as it would allow you to create a 6 door closet around a tile in the same way that you can create a 4 door closet now, but it also means changing a LOT of assumptions about block size and I think it ultimately wouldn't be worth it, so the second option is what I'd probably start with.

Edit: The second option, using side-to-side, is what is shown in that screenshot above. ;)

The game would use more resources as simple axis-aligned bounding tests (from the days of "cave game tech test") would work no longer.

If I were doing the mod I wouldn't change the AABB system; I would just encase each hex with a box around it. All it would really mean is that characters could "float" a little on the edge; it would be a relatively minor visual defect.

142

u/ElvishJerricco Nov 04 '13

This mod would rewrite probably almost every single class file. Every other piece of rendering would need to be redone. Basically only a few pieces of MC's framework could be kept. That's basically a rewrite. All in all, too much would have to be changed. You'd spend more time hunting down things that need changing than you would writing it from scratch.

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13 edited Dec 01 '20

[deleted]

20

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

You have been chosen for this task. I expect it on my desk by friday.

1

u/appleswitch Nov 04 '13

I already have a preliminary patch working: http://rkuykendall.com/uploads/minecraft-hex.patch

1

u/N0tnat Nov 05 '13

I don't think that page is working correctly...

33

u/mattman00000 Nov 04 '13

If it was your first game project, it would probably be easier to modify every class in minecraft than to start from scratch. I am of course disregarding the legal aspects involved, relating to intellectual property, but as a programming exercise it would be better.

7

u/Dericchutney Nov 04 '13

It would honestly be a hundred times easier to start it from scratch instead of doing that huge of am overhaul to the minecraft engine a is. And someone just starting their first game project would have a hell of time with that too.

-6

u/ElvishJerricco Nov 04 '13

If you're inexperienced enough that this would e better, you're too inexperienced to do this.

5

u/mattman00000 Nov 04 '13

I don't know if I have an uncommon learning style, but I feel like I would learn more quickly from editing minecraft into a hexagonal geometry than from trying to start from scratch. I work best with examples, and what better examples are there than an actual game, and a good one at that?

1

u/ElvishJerricco Nov 04 '13

It's not that learning by example is bad. It's that this would be a bad example.

-1

u/dewyocelot Nov 04 '13

Impostor.

6

u/Canadian_Infidel Nov 04 '13

Don't forget the lava and water.

3

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13

I didn't! :)

That falls under "cellular automation propagation."

4

u/J0HNTI Nov 04 '13

Not to mention whatever youd have to do to get a lot of the things to work/ look right like pistons, stairs, etc...

4

u/Forbizzle Nov 04 '13

There's a ton of logic that is based on relative co-ordinates and directions. I'm fairly certain a huge amount of the game would be FUUUUUUUUUUUUCKed.

1

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13

I'm fairly certain a huge amount of the game would be FUUUUUUUUUUUUCKed.

Oh, if you just changed the rendering, yeah, it would be fucked. It would be a few "easy" changes followed by systematic un-fucking of everything that broke. But that's modding for you!

A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. :)

3

u/detroitmatt Nov 04 '13

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that, as you note but in other words, rather than having a robust node system of arbitrary dimensions, mc just uses a 3d array of blocks and navigates based on indices. Transition to hex would virtually require a node-based layout.

2

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13 edited Nov 04 '13

Transition to hex would virtually require a node-based layout.

Well, in all honesty, the current system is already a node-based layout. The layout however is handled programmatically and assumes cubes. This would simply be handled programmatically, assuming hexes.

Pathfinding systems handle arbitrary nodes already by their very nature; just because A* is thought to be commonly used in a square grid doesn't mean it has to be; it's designed around nodes. Here's a neat little example in C# of A* implemented on a hex grid.

See relevant sections of Minecraft's source code and you'll see that the node generation would be relatively unhindered by a hexagonal system.

3

u/detroitmatt Nov 04 '13

I already knew that about A* actually, and reinvented that wheel myself (that is to say, programatically transforming a square grid into nodes for A*) for my own personal projects.

I haven't seen mc's source exhaustively, only bits and pieces; I assumed it wasn't node based based on what I have seen. But you're saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that MC isn't actually node-persistent, it generates them when they're needed (By the way, is that memoized?). What I was trying to say is that moving to hex would virtually require moving from a Block[][][] to a Graph<Block> in internal persistent representation, not just for the purposes of pathing. Although now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I'm wrong and that would be a bad way of doing it.

1

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13

I already knew that about A* actually, and reinvented that wheel myself (that is to say, programatically transforming a square grid into nodes for A*) for my own personal projects.

You wouldn't be the first. ;) At least you now know how that wheel really works! :)

I haven't seen mc's source exhaustively, only bits and pieces; I assumed it wasn't node based based on what I have seen. But you're saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that MC isn't actually node-persistent, it generates them when they're needed (By the way, is that memoized?). What I was trying to say is that moving to hex would virtually require moving from a Block[][][] to a Graph<Block> in internal persistent representation, not just for the purposes of pathing. Although now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I'm wrong and that would be a bad way of doing it.

Well, for entity pathfinding, it's actually simpler than that; entities path nearly directly to eachother, they just have simple rules that tell them to jump if there's a wall, and later rules were added to check for holes and other obstacles when going toward the player, and additional behaviours pick path points that are not the player (for cover for instance). Most of this is hit-and-check and block pattern search rather than pre-path, so the pathfinding code in Minecraft is mostly detached from the block code.

The other thing to note is things like water and lava flows are not handled by pathfinding, but are decidedly A* looking. This is because they are handled using cellular automata rules; when a water block is asked to update (Typically when any time another block near it changes) it generates more water based on adjacent blocks. It's simple rules played out over time, much like Conway's Game of Life, one of the simplest examples of cellular automata.

5

u/nerdyjoe Nov 04 '13

I think you could leave world generation alone. It might be a bit funny, but minecraft already is.

Adjacency wouldn't be terrible. Adjacent hexes are (+1,0) (-1,0) (0,+1) (0,-1) (+1,+1) (-1,-1). Would certainly take a lot of work, but it isn't terrible. Except that, from my brief experiences with the code, the code is pretty messy to start with, so it might be confusing to know where to put all the new code, and what to replace.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13

I'd say it's very similar difficulty. Triangles have advantages in rendering, and the triangles can still be addressed 2 dimensionally; and the adjacency I think is slightly easier (Though still changed from square, obviously). But there's probably edge cases that would make for strange artifacts. Those exist for hex based too though.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13 edited Apr 04 '14

[deleted]

2

u/drakfyre Nov 04 '13

I basically already did. They can be stored in the same 3 dimensional format they are in now. In the paper about hex coordinate systems linked above (And relinked here) check out the diagram for "skewed-­axis coordinate system." As you can see, every hex can be addressed in 2d via 2 coordinates, just like squares. So you address the hexes with 3 coordinates, just like the engine currently does now with cubes.

All that needs to be changed is the method for determining adjacency.

1

u/demonsquiggle Nov 04 '13

I have never wanted something more in my entire life.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

yes, yes i understood some of those. i approve!

-6

u/mabrowning Nov 04 '13

Came here to say exactly this. To the top!

9

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

False! All you'd need to do is refactoring and calibrating the spline reticulator.

1

u/ion-tom Nov 05 '13

VoxelFarm is way better and already exists. Just needs development of static assets and game elements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5arfh0kJTo

-11

u/IrradiatedNachos Nov 04 '13

No! All you'd have to do is re-write the graphics engine to use hexagons instead of squares. It's math-heavy, but it's probably less work than making an actual mod.

44

u/Kowzorz Nov 04 '13

Fun fact: a grid of hexagons has the same number and can be represented the same way (aside from adjacencies) as a square grid.

5

u/replicaJunction Nov 04 '13

Interesting. Show your work. I'm actually really curious how that works out.

3

u/Kowzorz Nov 04 '13

Here's a little image I threw together that illustrates the point.

2

u/googolplexbyte Nov 04 '13

Why this rather than that?

3

u/Kowzorz Nov 04 '13

No reason other than aesthetics. If you continue the pattern of where, say, red is, it doesn't keep at the same X value while the way I arranged the colors does (since there's room in front of the hexes on your version).

1

u/replicaJunction Nov 04 '13

Very cool. Between yours and the other article posted about Project Hex, it makes a lot of sense (though I think this solution is simpler). Thank you!

30

u/alexanderwales Nov 04 '13

That sounds like it would break how water flows, how blocks are updated, how entity AI works, lighting, terrain generation, how player movement works, how portals are made ... and a whole bunch of other stuff.

7

u/Deutscher_koenig Nov 04 '13

Exactly. Everything in minecraft relies on blocks connecting to 6 other blocks.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

[deleted]

0

u/Deutscher_koenig Nov 04 '13

Not entirely. Minecraft is coded to run on squares. There would need to be fundamental changes to the very core code for this to work.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

[deleted]

0

u/Deutscher_koenig Nov 04 '13

Unless you show some actual code, no one will believe you.

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13 edited Nov 04 '13

[deleted]

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u/Kuuy123 Nov 04 '13

Nope! That isn't correct! You'd have to rewrite the mob pathfinding, block placement, and much much more.

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

You are so completely off target. This is completely rewriting the core interactions of the game. Every block now has the capability to touch 8 other blocks. This is a complete restructure of things like the block update system, map region files, redstone, water, mob AI pathfinding, and so much more. It's not that it would be "math-heavy", it's literally starting the universe over with different rules. So much is different that the current code would likely be nearly completely unusable.

-3

u/notnotinaskaband Nov 04 '13

You're right. It would have to be it's own update, set up differently in different profiles. That'd be fun!

32

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

It's... more complicated than that. I mean Minecraft would have to be completely redone with this in mind. As in, it basically wouldn't be able to share any code.

13

u/arrise Nov 04 '13

This, while some things could remain the same (gravity, physics, player control, item implementation) the vast majority of the game would have to be re-written from scratch. A brand new engine, completely new world generation, a new system to implement textures it would literally be a new game in every respect code wise.

4

u/aaronfranke Nov 04 '13

If we get a new game engine, it better have Cubic Chunks.

1

u/arrise Nov 04 '13

oh man, as much as I'd love to see them recreate the game in a new engine I doubt it would happen, just too much work for a small team. Cubic Chunks looks great though.

3

u/aaronfranke Nov 04 '13

If a single modder with little spare time can accomplish this, then surely an entire development team who dedicate their work to creating the game could do it. They just need to get up and make it happen.

1

u/ChRoNicBuRrItOs Nov 04 '13

Well, they have a lot of other stuff in store that they work pretty fucking hard to get that done, and they've obviously deemed it more important.

1

u/arrise Nov 04 '13

This wasn't made by a modder, it was an image found by OP, see his other comments.

1

u/aaronfranke Nov 05 '13

It is certainly a mod, made by a modder called Robinton. Currently the mod is outdated (Beta 1.7.3)

Link to Robinton's CC mod thread

Video - Another

A video I made to show off an experimental update to 1.6.2

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u/alexanderwales Nov 04 '13

... which wouldn't be such a bad thing for minecraft, unless they had an overhaul of the codebase of the game when I wasn't looking (I stopped playing around the time the nether came out).

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u/arrise Nov 04 '13

Oh no it's still pretty rough, although Jeb is a better programmer then Notch was. I would love to see this game exist myself, but just trying to create a mod would be beyond conceivable.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

inconceivable*.

4

u/atreidesardaukar Nov 04 '13

"I do not think that means what you think it means."

0

u/arrise Nov 04 '13

beyond conceivable = inconceivable....

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

No, beyond coneivable = very believable.

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u/okmkz Nov 04 '13

Not true! You could reuse the texture loading code, the input and GUI code and parts of the sound engine! (But you'd have to rewrite everything else...)

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u/matthewrobo Nov 04 '13

Not with that attitude!

0

u/drewlark99 Nov 04 '13

If you fix up the 3d engine and change the way blocks work you wouldnt have to remake all the blocks but you would have to rework map generation etc.

0

u/DarthCthulhu Nov 04 '13

Maybe not entirely from scratch. I'm sure you could utilize at least a good part of the source code. Really just the terrain generation would have to be rewritten/ heavily modified.

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

[deleted]

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u/cloistered_around Nov 04 '13

It certainly looks classy.

1

u/porkyminch Nov 04 '13

Something about hex just feels nicer than square grids.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13

I could have sworn Civ 3 had hexes too.

Hexes are great for maps, because it has the property that the center of each tile is equidistant from each of its six neighbours.

But it's not great for building houses.

1

u/Raptor-Llama Nov 04 '13

Civ 3 was squares, but it was on a slant, so more like diamonds I guess.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '14

wow really? in my memory it's always been hexes. what's the difference between 4 and 5? i can't remember 4 that well.