Hello, I've been an aspiring modder for at least a month now, learning the ropes concept-by-concept.

 

Long story short, I've encountered this problem: I did the number-crunching and realized that, even with metadata-ing blocks, we can only load about 200-250 texture files if we assign all the block IDs to have one texture index per block's metadata value (4096/256 = 16, 16 x 16 = 256, less if we consider current vanilla Block/Item ID allocations). I know that MCForge is touted as having "Infinite Terrain/Sprite Indexes", but we're still limited by the ID arrays unless we go in the source code and mess with it. I don't want to do that, and would prefer a solution that doesn't make me have to do it.

 

The reason I'm having this problem is, to be truthful, I have a project in mind that uses more than 1,000 texture files, which is far and beyond the current capacity of the Block ID array. The blocks in mind will have no logic to them and are only intended for display. If anyone have any ideas to help me with this problem, it'd be greatly appreciated. I'm sure there's a possible solution and that I just haven't found it yet.

Hello,

I don't know if it is a good idea to use so many textures in any project. Say in OpenGL, there is only a finite number of texture units, which are used to sample texture data from memory. That means, in any given time only so many textures can be used by graphics card simultaneously, and any reassignment of them will change the state of graphics card, requiring synchronization/more cpu usage. In general, it is more efficient to use a small amount of big textures, than it is to use many small textures(see texture atlases)

Ah, that makes sense, thanks for that piece of info. 

 

Unfortunately, that wouldn't solve the primary issue, though that would help deal with a secondary one down the line. The real problem still stands in that eventually there's simply not enough Block ID array space to work with, not without going over Forge's head and modifying the array itself.

Redpower2 created by Eloraam has A LOT more than that, if you aren't familiar with the mod you really should before you set out to do something so massive, also it sounds like quite a huge leap as your first big modding project, maybe you should start simpler?

 

In any case, in RP2 there is this saw which can cut any block into pieces, these can be set out into the world or cut into other pieces.

And you can do this for ANY kind of vanilla block + all the normal RP2 blocks!

Creating 43 different unique blocks for EACH normal block!!!

 

And then when you consider how many different blocks you can cut into these 43 different ways, the amount of BlockID's used should skyrocket! but no.. Eloraam uses only 1 block ID for ALL the 43*(number of cut able blocks)! One single bId for several hundreds of blocks. and also her mod is compatible with all other forge mods, so shes not ruining any base classes doing so, meaning it is possible for anyone to do it without modifying forge's base classes.

Interesting, I'll definitely look into Redpower2, thanks very much for the reference!

You need to look into tile entities. They let you attach an unlimited amount of information to a block.

I see, I see. That helps me know where I can look while I'm fishing around for ideas. Thanks a bunch!

Also ya might wanna check this thread below where it just recieved an expert answer

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php/topic,5514.0.html