Dreambuilder is my attempt to give the player pretty much everything they'll ever want to build with, and all the tools they should ever need to actually get the job done. Of course, needs change, but this game should be a pretty good start!
This game is in use on my Creative server and on my Survival server, which also have extra mods installed for their specific needs (admin stuff mostly). They should give you a pretty good idea nonetheless. Expect lag, as they're both significantly-developed multiplayer servers, after all.
What's it got?
- The complete Plantlife Modpack along with More Trees add a huge amount of variation to your landscape (as a result, they will add mapgen lag, but you can configure the tradeoff between performance and lag). Active spawning of Horsetail ferns is disabled by default.
- This game includes RealBadAngel's Unified Inventory mod, which overrides minetest_game's default inventory to give you a much more powerful user interface, with crafting guide, bags, and much more.
- The default hotbar HUD holds 16 items instead of 8, taken from the top two rows of your inventory. You can use /hotbar ## to change the number of slots (range of 1 to 32). Your setting is retained across restarts.
- The default lavacooling code has been supplanted by better, safer code from my Gloop Blocks mod. That mod also provides stone/cobble --> mossy stone/cobble transformation in the presence of water.
- An extensive selection of administration tools for single-player and server use are included, such as areas, maptools, worldedit, xban, and more.
- A few textures here and there are different from their defaults.
- By way of Technic, all locked chests use a padlock in their recipes instead of a steel ingot.
Most other locked items work this way, too. - The mapgen won't spawn apples on default trees, nor will they appear on a sapling-grown default tree. Only the *real* apple trees supplied by the More Trees mod will bear apples (both at mapgen time and sapling-grown). While on that subject, apples now use a 3d model instead of the plantlike version.
- A whole boatload of other mods have been added, which is where most of the content actually comes from. To be a little more specific, as of Feb. 2021, this game has a total of 209 mods (counting all of the various sub-mods that themselves are normally as part of some modpack, such as Mesecons, Home Decor, Roads, etc.) and supplies over 3000 items in the inventory/craft guide, and tens of thousands of unique items in total (counting everything that isn't displayed in the inventory)!
- A rudimentary user interface theming capability! See below for details.
Spoiler
- Ambience (TenPlus1; https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/ambience)
- Arrowboards (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/arrowboards/)
- Bakedclay (TenPlus1; https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/bakedclay)
- Basic materials (https://github.com/mt-mods/basic_materials)
- Basic signs (https://github.com/mt-mods/basic_signs)
- Bedrock (Calinou; https://github.com/Calinou/bedrock)
- Bees (bas080; TenPlus1's fork; https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/bees)
- Biome lib (https://github.com/mt-mods/biome_lib)
- Blox (my fork; https://gitlab.com/VanessaE/blox)
- Bobblocks (RabbiBob; no traps or mesecons support; https://github.com/minetest-mods/BobBlocks)
- Bonemeal (TenPlus1; https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/bonemeal)
- Caverealms lite (Ezhh; https://github.com/Ezhh/caverealms_lite)
- Cblocks (TenPlus1; https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/cblocks)
- Coloredwood (https://github.com/mt-mods/coloredwood)
- Cottages (Sokomine; https://github.com/Sokomine/cottages)
- Currency (DanDuncombe; https://github.com/mt-mods/currency)
- Datastorage (RealBadAngel; https://github.com/minetest-technic/datastorage)
- Digidisplay (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/digidisplay/)
- Digilines (Jeija; https://github.com/minetest-mods/digilines)
- Digistuff (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/digistuff/)
- Display blocks (jojoa1997; cheapie's "redo" fork, https://cheapiesystems.com/git/display_blocks_redo/)
- Dreambuilder hotbar (https://github.com/mt-mods/dreambuilder_hotbar)
- Extra stairsplus (deezl)
- Facade (Tumeninodes; https://github.com/TumeniNodes/facade)
- Farming (TenPlus1's "redo" fork; https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/farming)
- Framedglass (RealBadAngel; https://github.com/minetest-mods/framedglass)
- Function delayer (HybridDog; https://github.com/HybridDog/function_delayer)
- Gardening (philipbenr; viewtopic.php?t=6575)
- Gloopblocks (Nekogloop; https://github.com/mt-mods/gloopblocks)
- Glooptest (Nekogloop; https://github.com/GloopMaster/glooptest; no treasure chests)
- Ilights (DanDuncombe; https://github.com/mt-mods/ilights)
- Invsaw (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/invsaw/)
- Item drop (PilzAdam; https://github.com/minetest-mods/item_drop)
- Jumping (Jeija; https://github.com/minetest-mods/jumping)
- Led marquee (https://github.com/mt-mods/led_marquee)
- Locks (Sokomine; https://github.com/Sokomine/locks)
- Maptools (Calinou; https://github.com/minetest-mods/maptools)
- Memorandum (Mossmanikin; https://github.com/Mossmanikin/memorandum)
- Moreblocks (Calinou; https://github.com/minetest-mods/moreblocks)
- Moreores (Calinou; https://github.com/minetest-mods/moreores)
- Moretrees (https://github.com/mt-mods/moretrees)
- Mymillwork (DonBatman; laza83's smooth meshes fork; https://github.com/laza83/mymillwork)
- New campfire (googol; my fork; https://gitlab.com/VanessaE/new_campfire)
- Nixie tubes (https://github.com/mt-mods/nixie_tubes)
- Pipeworks (https://github.com/mt-mods/pipeworks)
- Plasticbox (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/plasticbox/)
- Prefab redo (DanDuncombe; cheapie's "redo" fork; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/prefab_redo/)
- Quartz (4Evergreen4; https://github.com/minetest-mods/quartz)
- Replacer (Sokomine; CWz's fork; https://github.com/ChaosWormz/replacer )
- Rgblightstone (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/rgblightstone/)
- Signs lib (https://github.com/mt-mods/signs_lib)
- Simple streetlights (https://github.com/mt-mods/simple_streetlights)
- Solidcolor (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/solidcolor/)
- Stained glass (doyousketch2; https://github.com/minetest-mods/stained_glass)
- Steel (Zeg9; https://github.com/mt-mods/steel)
- Street signs (https://github.com/mt-mods/street_signs)
- Titanium (Aqua; HybridDog's fork; https://github.com/HybridDog/titanium)
- Travelnet (Sokomine; https://github.com/Sokomine/travelnet)
- Ufos (Zeg9; https://github.com/Zeg9/minetest-ufos/)
- Unifiedbricks (wowiamdiamonds; https://github.com/minetest-mods/unifiedbricks)
- Unifieddyes (https://github.com/mt-mods/unifieddyes)
- Unified inventory (RealBadAngel; https://github.com/minetest-mods/unified_inventory)
- Unifiedmesecons (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/unifiedmesecons/)
- Windmill (Sokomine; https://github.com/Sokomine/windmill)
- Castle-Modpack (philipbenr; minus the orbs; https://github.com/minetest-mods/castle)
- Cool trees modpack (runsy; https://github.com/runsy/cool_trees/)
- Homedecor modpack (https://github.com/mt-mods/homedecor_modpack)
- Home Workshop modpack (https://github.com/mt-mods/home_workshop_modpack)
- Mesecons modpack (Jeija; https://github.com/minetest-mods/mesecons)
- Plantlife modpack (https://github.com/mt-mods/plantlife_modpack)
- Roads modpack (cheapie; https://cheapiesystems.com/git/roads/)
- Technic modpack (RealBadAngel; https://github.com/minetest-mods/technic)
- Worldedit modpack (Uberi; https://github.com/Uberi/Minetest-WorldEdit)
- beds
- binoculars
- boats
- bucket
- butterflies
- carts
- creative
- default
- doors
- dungeon_loot
- dye
- env_sounds
- fire
- fireflies
- flowers
- game_commands
- give_initial_stuff
- map
- player_api
- screwdriver
- sfinv
- spawn
- stairs
- vessels
- walls
- weather
- wool
- xpanes
This game, as previously mentioned, replaces the standard inventory with Unified Inventory, which almost defies description here. Unified Inventory includes waypoints, a crafting guide, set/go home buttons, set day/set night buttons, a full creative inventory on the right if you're playing in that mode - and you only have to click/tap the item once to get the it, instead of multiple clicks/drag and drop, a trash slot, a clear all inventory button, a search feature for the inventory, and more. Basically, you just need to use it a few times and you'll find yourself wondering how you ever got along with the standard inventory!
The Table Saw
This game uses the More Blocks mod, which comes with Sokomine's Stairsplus, with its table saw component. This mod replaces the traditional method of creating stairs, slabs, and the like: rather that crafting a stairs block by placing several of the material into your crafting grid, you must first craft a table saw, place that on the ground, and then use that to shape the material you had in mind. It can create dozens of shapes, including the standard stairs and slabs. Give it a try and see for yourself!
Land Ownership
This game uses ShadowNinja's areas mod for land protection, and also has cheapie's areasprotector, which supplies simple protection blocks, using areas as the backend. For more info on the areas mod, visit the forum thread for it. cheapie's mod can be found on her git repository. Of course, these mods are only useful if you're running a multi-player server.
Dreambuilder has user-installable themes!
To get a new theme going, just download and install a Dreambuilder theme mod, enable it in your world config like you would any other random mod, then go into the main menu's "Settings" page, then click "All Settings", and set dreambuilder_theme to the technical name of the theme you want to use. Or you can just put dreambuilder_theme = technical name in your minetest.conf.
If you don't change that setting, Dreambuilder will continue to use the default light theme regardless of what others you've installed. This way, it's possible to install as many themes as you want, and just select one by this config setting.
The official theme collection can be found at:
https://github.com/mt-mods/dreambuilder-themes
There are only two there at the moment: the "light" one, and a "high contrast" one. The latter one is meant to look like the "high contrast" themes you see in some desktop environments or window managers. It's kinda ugly 😛, but it's there as a sort of proof-of-concept, to show how different things can look (originally it was a debugging aid, but I decided to keep it).
The two themes in that repository have technical names of dbtheme_light and dbtheme_high_contrast, respectively.
Note that while colors usually update as soon as you start the game after changing your theme, due to how Minetest handles caching of images, filenames are usually remembered from one session to another, so you may have to dig and re-place some nodes here and there if they look wrong.
Contributors: if you want to extend the theme to additional nodes or to images/items not yet covered by the existing code, look in the dreambuilder_extras folder for the customizer script. This script makes in-line changes to the code in a number of mods to allow them to work with the theme and it is there that upgrades/changes must be made. In addition to any code updates you needed to add, if you also need to add new images, submit those as part of at least the "light" theme in the repository above.
I do things this way so that whenever I make a new stable release (or just random git updates), I always start from unmodified, clean, upstream versions of all of Dreambuilder's mods, and a clean, up-to-date version of its light theme, thus avoiding having a bunch of custom forks that I'd have to maintain individually, which will just confuse me. 😛
Of course, if it's your own mod that you're adding theming to, you can just make the proper changes to your mod using your usual development process, push your changes upstream, and then eventually they'll be brought into Dreambuilder during my usual update process. You don't need to bother with the above script at all, unless of course it's already making in-line changes to your mod, but your updates make those changes redundant.
If you just want to design a new theme without adding anything new, you can do so by simply copying one of the existing themes and modifying it. Once you have it to your liking, either submit it as a Merge Request against the themes repository above, or publish it yourself if you prefer.
For now, if a theme is missing a particular image, Minetest will employ its usual "dummy" image feature and insert a randomly-colored square to take its place.
Screen settings
Dreambuilder does not require anything special, however you should make sure you've set the GUI scaling and font size in Minetest to something that is appropriate for your screen. High resolution monitors may need the scaling to be turned down and font size to be turned up, otherwise GUI elements may be distorted or inaccurately positioned and spaced.
For example: a scaling of 0.57 and font size of 26 is about right for a 31 inch "4k" (16:9) screen, while a 20 inch 1600x1200 (4:3) screen does fine with the default scaling of 1.0 and a font size of 18.
Dependencies:
This game requires Minetest 5.4.0 or later.
Hardware requirements:
This game defines a very large number of items and produces a well-detailed landscape, and so it requires a significant amount of resources. At least a 2 GHz dual core CPU and 4 GB free RAM are required for good performance. If you use my HDX texture pack, you'll need a LOT more RAM.
This game is NOT recommended for use on mobile devices (though some newer devices, say from mid-2018 or later, may work okay).
Downloads:
Get it as a ZIP: https://github.com/mt-mods/dreambuilder ... master.zip
... or browse the git repository: https://github.com/mt-mods/dreambuilder_game
Install:
If you downloaded the zip, just extract it and rename the resultant directory to "dreambuilder_game", if necessary. If you're using the git repository, just clone it and keep the name as-is.
Move it to your Minetest games directory. When you start Minetest, you'll notice a little red "house" icon at the bottom of the main menu. Click that to select Dreambuilder, then create or select a world as you see fit.
Depending on the conditions of the world, this game may take as much as 2 minutes to start, during which time you may see the hotbar and hand, but all-grey window content where the world should be. Just wait it out, it will eventually start.
License:
Each of the base mods in this game retains the standard licenses their original authors assigned, even if the license file is missing from the archive. For all of my Dreambuilder-specific changes and their related assets, LGPL 3.0 for code, CC-by-SA 4.0 for media and such.
Open Source Software
This game is open source, or at least as much so as I have control over.