Copyright © 2013-2015 Curt Hill Sounds, Resource Packs, JSON What more would you want?

Copyright © 2013-2015 Curt Hill

Sounds, Resource Packs, JSON

What more would you want?

Introduction

• A resource pack allows replacement of a series of textures, sounds or music to be installed instead of the standard Minecraft versions

• In order to add new sounds we will put them in a resource pack– Then figure out how to use them

• We will need JSON as well– That is where we will start


What is JSON?• JavaScript Object Notation• A language for data interchange

– Derived from JavaScript (ECMA standard)– Alternative to XML in that respect

• Both easy for people to read and easy for machines to parse

• Consists of sequences and attribute-value pairs

• It is an open standard


Simple Types• Does not have many• Number

– A floating point type

• String– Enclosed in double quotes– Uses UNICODE characters

• Boolean– May be true or false

• null– Indicates an empty value


Structured Types• Only two structuring types• Object

– Similar to a group, record, or struct, depending on language

– Unordered, comma separated list of name value pairs enclosed in braces { }

– The key is separated from the value by a colon

• Array– An ordered, comma separated list of

values enclosed in brackets [ ]


Commentary

• White space may be interspersed for readability without changing meaning

• Hardly any programming language lacks these features– Most have a JSON interface

• Keys are merely strings– Enclosed in double quotes


Example• A simple object to contain a name:

{ “first”:”Bill”, “lastname”: “Smith” }• An array of names inside an object:{ “employees” : [{“first”:”Bill”, “last”:“Sam” },{“first”:”John”, “last”:“Doe” },{“first”:”Curt”, “last”:“Hill” }] }

• We will see two examples in resource packs


BSON

• Binary JSON also exists• This is a binary encoded

serialization of JSON objects• These should be more compact

and faster to parse• This we will not use in this class


Resource Packs

• A resource pack is a zip file containing a directory tree

• Various parts of this tree contain the resources that Minecraft will replace its native resources

• We need to look at several parts of this tree– Starting at the root


The root directory

• Contains three things:• An assets directory• The pack.mcdata file

– The first of our two JSON files in this presentation

• A pack.png file– For display


pack.mcdata

• A JSON file that identifies the resource pack

• There may be several things in it, but the required information is the name and format of the pack

• See the next slide for an example


Required Example


{ "pack": { "description": "Curt's Minecraft Resources", "pack_format": 1 }}

Other things

• There may be other things in this file as well

• The template resource pack contains numerous language types


Directory Structure


Moving Down

• The assets directory is rooted in the top level directory

• It only contains the minecraft directory

• Inside the minecraft directory are several resource directories

• There is also the sounds.json file


Minecraft directory

• Contains as many of the following subdirectories as you want to use:– icons– music– records– sounds– textures

• Today we are only interested in sounds


Sounds Directory• May contain 15 or more subdirectories• Again, these depend on what you

want to replace• These include:

– Damage– Dig– Fire– Mob– Music– Step– Among others


Example: Step Directory

• This contains the noise made when an entity steps on a particular type of block

• Usually there are several alternatives so the exact same noise is not used for every step

• In the template there are 4 cloth, 6 grass, 4 gravel etc.


Built ins and not

• Most of the sounds are built-in– Their presence in the correct directory is

all that is needed

• Should you add something another file is needed: sound.json

• Yet another JSON file that gives additional control information to the game

• Sounds that are not standard need an entry in this file


The sounds.json file

• First recall that this file is in the assets/minecraft directory

• It has one or more entries that give a name to a sound and then describe its location– Possibly other things as well


Minimal Example File


{ "lightblock": { "category": "neutral", "sounds": [ "step/lightblock" ] }, "step.lightblock": { "category": "neutral", "sounds": [ "step/lightblock" ] }}

Commentary

• This file gave two names for the same file– This is done in two entries

• First entry is the name– This identifies an object

• The object may contain two or more entries– Only two were shown: category and

sounds


Object entries

• Category determines the volume controls

• Several options here:– ambient– weather– player– neutral– block– record– Among others


Volume Controls


Testing

• Once we have established a named sound in:– The resource pack– sounds.json

• We should be able to use it• In the client we should be able to

type:/playsound soundname @p– The sound should play or the console

record the error


Playing


Played


Commentary

• The screen said it was played, but what he really means is that he tried to play it

• The console will have a complaint if it tried to play it but could not find it

• Later we will consider the Java code to play it

• Before that we continue with the resource pack


Template Pack

• A template resource pack is at:http://hypixel.net/threads/official-resource-pack-template.7540/

• This is the basis of what I have used

• Download and extract it to a directory– Not your minecraft directory

• Then modify it to suit Copyright © 2013-2015 Curt Hill

http://hypixel.net/threads/official-resource-pack-template.7540/

http://hypixel.net/threads/official-resource-pack-template.7540/

Modification

• Modify the pack.mcdata and pack.png– Only the name of the resource pack

• Create and edit the new sounds• Add these new sounds to whichever

directory seems appropriate • Create and add the sounds.json file to

the minecraft directory• Rezip it and copy to the correct

directory


Rezip• There are several zip utilities• The built-in in Windows Explorer is

the easiest• Enter the top level directory• Select all of these

– assets directory– pack.mcdata– pack.png

• Right click and choose Send to compressed file

• Rename it to your own name


Getting Minecraft to use it

• The resource file needs to be in a particular directory

• This can be easily found by clicking the options and resource buttons

• Then click on Open Resource Pack folder– This will open a Windows Explorer in

the right directory


Selected Resource Packs


Finding location


Selection

• Once Minecraft knows it is available it should be in the left column

• Move to right column• Make it first• Now it should be available when

you play• Next we consider sounds and

playing them at appropriate times


Sounds• We have already seen the Block

method setStepSound• It takes as a parameter a

Block.SoundType class• Up to now we have used one of the

constant sounds:– soundTypeAnvil, soundTypeCloth,

soundTypeGlass, soundTypeGrass, soundTypeGravel, soundTypeMetal, soundTypeSand, etc.

• Now we want more


Block.SoundType• A class in its own right• Has three properties:

– float frequency– String soundName– float volume

• The constructor takes all three – Name, frequency, volume


Constructor Again

• The frequency is more like playback speed 1.0F means normal– Less than one means slow it down– More than one speeds it up

• The volume should be between 0-1– Moderated by sliders

• The name is the name in sounds.json• This is usually used inside the

setStepSound or similar method


Ways to play sound

• Blocks contain the setStepSound– Strangely, there is no setDigSound

method

• The other way is playSound– This is a method in Entity


setStepSound

• We have seen this using a constant sound

• Here is the example using a new sound:setStepSound( new Block.SoundType ("lightblock",1.0F,1.0F));

• The lightblock is in the sounds.json file


playSound

• This one is somewhat different• It is a member of Entity• The signature is:void playSound(String name, float freq, float vol);– Where

• Freq is the playback speed • Vol is the volume


Where?• The playSound method may be

used in anything with access to an Entity

• In particular this is usually in event handlers:– onEntityWalking– onEntityCollidedWithBlock

• These both have a parameter that gives the entity that did the action


Finally

• Now we know about using sounds– Putting them in resource packs– Construction JSON files that describe

• Time for the demo


Documents

Copyright © 2013-2015 Curt Hill Sounds, Resource Packs, JSON What more would you want?