Rendering pipes

[scrouthtv]

I am currently writing a mod and I want to add a "heat pipe", simliar to Thermal Dynamics Ducts, Mekanism pipes, BuildCraft pipes or EnderIO conduits (see attachments).

 

From what I can tell is that there is a new BlockState system using json files since 1.13 or 1.12. As I'm using 1.14 I could take advantage of this system and define the pipes similar to how redstone wire is defined in the new assets folder.

 

Older forum posts I found 

 

suggest using a custom TileEntity or overwriting the Class rendering the block.

 

Which one would be the better suited for the newest version? I'm also thinking about the performance of either variant, if I'd take advantage of the new BlockState system there isn't anything additional going on in the Rendering Engine?

 

But that are just my thoughts, I'd be interested in hearing more ideas, what would be the best approach.

 

Thanks in advance ~

[GenElectrovise]

I wouldn't say you'd need a custom TileEntity per se?

Have you reviewed the documentation on Models? https://mcforge.readthedocs.io/en/1.14.x/models/files/#model-files

Blockbench can help with making the models, though you'll still need to code them together yourself. IProperties could help you here -- for example you could have a bunch of BooleanProperty s in your block, one for each side of the pipe. If the "up" property is true (i.e. there is a pipe above this one), the BlockState json can detect that (if you define it) and change the model accordingly. I think these are called sub-models, but don't quote me on that.

 

Although it isn't quite what you're looking for, here is an example of a complex model and here is its blockstate. It only has one state, but I think it serves as a fine demonstration mostly ?

[Alpvax]

Look into multipart blockstate json files on the minecraft wiki, they do (almost) everything forge blockstates used to do (forge blockstates no longer exist).

[TheGreyGhost]

Howdy

multipart blockstates are probably your best bet.

Here's a working example of something very similar (a 3D web which joins itself to adjacent solid blocks)

https://github.com/TheGreyGhost/MinecraftByExample/tree/master/src/main/java/minecraftbyexample/mbe03_block_variants

 

-TGG