Rendering text in the world

[ConsumerJunk]

Hello, I'm working on a mod that displays the name of a shulkerbox in 3d text above the block. I've been stuck at this part for the last 3 days, and have gotten quite a few false starts. I've looked at renderLivingLabel, but in the sources it includes GameRenderer.drawNameplate, which can't be resolved. I've also looked into the Tessellator, but the key methods that I've seen used seem to not exist anymore. In addition I've looked through the GitHub's of mods that display text in-game (Healthbar mods, minimap mods). All of this to say, I've tried multiple approaches but haven't quite gotten where I need to. (TL;DR: I've tried a lot of things, and a lot of things haven't worked)

So that (finally) brings me to the question: How should I go about rendering billboard text? One idea I had is to create a client-side entity with no physics or appearance, only a rendered name. If anyone things this is another false start, or has a different approach they've used to seen used, I'd love to hear. Thank you

 

(I've mocked up the effect I'm going for using an armorstand. Ironically this is similar to the entity approach I mentioned ealier)

(Also here is the code that will call the name rendering. It doesn't seem particularly pertinent, but if it helps it's here)
EventSubscriver.java

	@SubscribeEvent
	public void onPlayerEvent(EntityEvent e) {
		if(Minecraft.getInstance().player == null) {
			return;
		}

		player = Minecraft.getInstance().player;
		world = Minecraft.getInstance().world;

		if(!hasMoved(player)) return;
		BlockPos bp = getCurrentBlock();
		BlockState bs = world.getBlockState(bp);
		if (bs.getMaterial() == Material.SHULKER) {
			TileEntity te = world.getTileEntity(bp);
			ShulkerBoxTileEntity sbte = (ShulkerBoxTileEntity)te;
			System.out.println(sbte.getDisplayName().getFormattedText());
			sb = sbte;
			hovering = true;
		} else hovering = false;

	}

	private BlockPos getCurrentBlock() {
		int maxdistance = 3;
		Vec3d vec = player.getPositionVector();
		Vec3d vec3 = new Vec3d(vec.x,vec.y+player.getEyeHeight(),vec.z);
		Vec3d vec3a = player.getLook(1.0F);
		Vec3d vec3b = vec3.add(vec3a.getX() * maxdistance, vec3a.getY()*  maxdistance, vec3a.getZ()*  maxdistance);
		BlockRayTraceResult brtr = world.rayTraceBlocks(new RayTraceContext(vec3, vec3b,RayTraceContext.BlockMode.OUTLINE,  RayTraceContext.FluidMode.ANY, player));
		return brtr.getPos();

	}

	private double x,y,z,p,w;

	private boolean hasMoved(PlayerEntity player) {
		double newX = player.getPosX();
		double newY = player.getPosY();
		double newZ = player.getPosZ();
		double newP = player.rotationPitch;
		double newW = player.rotationYaw;

		if(x != newX || y != newY || z != newZ || p != newP || w != newW) {
			x = newX; y = newY; z = newZ; p = newP; w = newW;
			return true;
		}
		return false;
	}

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by ConsumerJunk
While I'm developing for 1.15.2, I plan on updating before release, so the [1.15.2] does little other than detract responses

[Novârch]

I'd take a look at EntityRenderer#renderName.

[ConsumerJunk]

I've taken a look at it before, but after you mentioned it I decided to give it another go. I found EntityRenderer#renderName, but I'm having some issues figuring out what the matrixStackIn is. I can make an empty one, but can't see a way to add a MatrixStack.Entry to it. I assume that's where the location would be

[Dzuchun]

4 hours ago, ConsumerJunk said:

but I'm having some issues figuring out what the matrixStackIn is.

It's a several matrix objects that forming a stack. Each matrix defines some translation (movement) and rotation within all 3 axes.

Stack form is very useful, because it allows you to divide massive and unreadable math into more easy-to-understand operations.

You should not create empty matrix stack, it makes no sense. In any render method matrixStack is passed or you can perform same operations with GL* methods(not sure). All you need to do is .push(), then translate and rotate where you need to and .pop() in the end. push-pop may be done inside as well.

 

As Novârch said, EntityRenderer:renderName shows perfect example of rendering text in world.