2017-07-29 14:14:20

hello all,
so, let's say I programmed something like remake of mc, hovever fully accessible for blind players. You can move in the generated world full of forests, mountains, rivers, ponds, cut down trees in forest block by block and build a house of your dreams, not limited by anything or anyone, build large bridges between your buildings or tunnel under them, all in accurate 3d space, where you are builder. You can also craft your tools like sword and go out to fight some enemyes, or simply kill few anymals to get food, of course if you are not vegetarian. big_smile

Something from this is reality, something near future, that is not important now hovever. I am interested in fact, how is mc licensed. i want to make more people able to play Blindcraft, not only me as a dev, especially if there will be multiplayer mode, what I don't know yet. So, my question is if I write to the licence and info about the game, that it is inspired from Mojang minecraft and ideas in it are not mine, can I publish it? I am not using theyr code, not copying theyr sounds, I am not profitting from the game because it is free and all is created by me, what I am not sure about is if for example fact, that sword is crafted bi stick on b1 and for example stone on b2 and b3 is not licenced somehow, and also craftingtable in general. I want to make bc as reliable as possible, so I will not remove craftingtable and crafting principles from it, but here can be potential law conflict, can someone tell me please, how is this done and if there are some ways how to avoid it?

Thank you in advance.

Best regards

Rastislav

2017-07-29 14:43:13

As long as you are not using their code or sounds, and as long as you make the game a little bit different, then you should be fine.  There are already dozens of Minecraft rip offs that are essentially the same game with just a tiny change here and there, and they have not been shut down.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2017-07-29 14:52:22

Hi!
smile
Can I test it please?
I really want to play minecraft in an accesible form and I want to see what it is.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2017-07-29 15:14:03

Minecraft licensing is like Steam in that your license is tied to an account on minecraft.com. This is from my experience with Minecraft before I lost my vision. Since then I've heard that Microsoft acquired Minecraft so things may have changed.

If you want to write something similar, so long as you don't try to make a clone of Minecraft itself you should be good to go.

Good luck! Making something like Minecraft will not be easy!

2017-07-29 18:06:15

sounds nice

2017-07-29 20:16:29

Hello all,
thank you for your replies. Main difference between bc and mc is, that while mc is programmed in Java, bc have its code in fast c++, so it can not be confused or considered as a clon. About sounds, here is situation more complicated. Few people already told me I should to find my own sounds and include them in bc. I hovever don't want to do this, for two reasons. First, smaller is, that there are hundred of sounds and collecting of them for free would take much time. Second, much bigger reason is, that I am highly nostalgic for Minecraft, I love its sounds and music and playing with non original is not the right stuff for me.
I readed Minecraft licence and from it I understand, that distributing game content is illegal. Hovever, there is nothing about playing game content. So if I distribute only blindcraft.exe, which will automatically search computer for sounds from original Minecraft, I should to be safe. What are you thinking about this kind of solution? I will read Minecraft eula and other licence parts again, if I don't find some restriction about it, but I think there wasn't one. And if I find some problems, I can still contact Mojang itself for agreement, all can be allowed as I understand from eula. Theyr should to give me permission I think, all they will get from that are few new players for work of someone else, remember player must buy original first if he/she want to play Blindcraft. Only problem is how to contact Mojang? I haven't found any way, there is strange support system, I haven't solution for now.

Yeah, about betas, I can not provide them yet, inventory is in general reconstruction, so you can not build anything. big_smile
hovever when I get it working, I can record a small demo how things works, there is one already, but it is in Slovak language and from older bc version, which haven't all features that actual do have.

Anyway, Blindcraft have long way to go, basic characteristics are near, but Minecraft is very complex and remake of all that sighted persons have already will take a long time, but basic idea about building is at this time reality, and that is important for me, all other stuffs are just add-ons.

Greetings

Rastislav

2017-07-29 20:17:20

Hello Rastislav, I also want to test your game.

If you want to get in touch with me, e-mail me at [email protected].
We can also get in touch on Telegram.

2017-07-29 20:51:40

I could be wrong, but I believe that requiring that visually impaired people must first buy Minecraft to play your game will be a deal killer, unless you plan to make Blindcraft freeware. Otherwise you are traveling down the same road that Q9 eventually went.

Instead of being available as a stand alone game, in order to get and play Q9, you have to first have a licensed copy of JAWS, then you have to buy an add on package for it called Leasey. So instead of being a $30 game, it's now a $1,200 game!

2017-07-29 21:14:38

Hi,
@Orko: of course, you are true, hovever is bit difference $20 and $1200. Another fact is, that for example in my class all people do have mc, hovever only few as I know boot it, I think it will not be different in blind comunity. I am not urging anyone to use cracks, I just saying, that they are there, what is simply fact and can not be missed.
And bc itself will be free, that is also important to tell.

Best regards

Rastislav

2017-07-29 22:48:48

OK!

It would be like AudioQuake then. To play Audio Quake you first have to buy the original Quake game. After Quake is installed, you then apply the Audio Quake mod to it. Now you have an accessible version of the Quake first person shooter.

A year or two ago somebody was talking about doing what you're proposing, except that it would be a stand alone game, not requiring that you first buy the original Minecraft. They were calling it Audiocraft. I don't think it got anywhere.

Hopefully you'll have more success, it would be nice to get something out of the money I spent on Minecraft.

2017-07-30 03:52:16 (edited by magurp244 2017-07-30 06:04:16)

Ah, Audiocraft would be my handiwork. I had modified an open sourced minecraft clone with various accessibility features, it was meant more as a proof of concept rather than a full application as I don't have much experience with 3D applications or minecraft modding in general. Its still available in my repository [here] with source code included, although it could probably use some polishing with a more refined sonifier. I'd also tracked down an enhanced audio reverb mod for minecraft to look at, if that would help.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2017-07-30 09:44:53

Hi,
oh, audiocraft, I remember it from days when it was released. It was great idea, seeing with sound engine in Minecraft done perfect work in recognizing your surround, only what was not very well thought was building, probably for fact that Magurp did not modified general code, just added accessibility improvements on it, so he was very limited. Blindcraft is more accurate in this, because it is designated for 3d building without see, so you can make whatewer you want without scare you have holes in it. smile

Hovever I am saying, saying and nothing real here, so I will record a small recording in few days, yesterday I rewrited the inventory code, so it can be normally used now, great start. big_smile

Best regards

Rastislav

2017-07-30 09:54:52

Hey Magurp, I wanted to ask you some time ago, how did you managed to code im2s engine? Did Peter Meijer released some example python script, or it is your handy work? Audiocraft do have great im2s sound, which I am not able to produce, but I would like to have it in bc, can you please guide me a bit how to produce it? Bc is coded in combination of Python and c++, so I have advantages of both languages.
Thank you a lot, this stuff can help much blind minecraft players to search for resources in surround.

Greetings

Rastislav

2017-07-30 12:29:25

Hi.
Sounds really interesting.
Regarding the sounds, I don't think it's legal to use the original sounds.
Keep up the great job.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2017-07-30 16:08:11

I don't think there would be a problem as long as Blindcraft is distributed as a mod to Minecraft requiring that Blindcraft players first buy Minecraft to make Minecraft resources available to Blindcraft.

But if he started redistributing the Minecraft sounds, that would not be legal.

2017-07-31 03:51:49 (edited by magurp244 2017-07-31 03:53:05)

There are a few other Python scripts i've seen floating around based on his work, but I wrote all these based on the small C snippets Peter Meijer had released on his site [here] under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, which you may want to read over.

After translating I spent some time modifying them for rendering in memory. I have a few source code examples in my repository along with the Audiocraft source above, although i've just written a new one thats a bit more efficient by taking advantage of OpenAL stereo panning instead of building hrtf tables which you can find [here].

The process itself is a bit involved and generally consists of rendering the scene, preferably as a simulated or actual DepthMap, and capturing a texture from the framebuffer to pass off to the sonifier. Then the image data is loaded into a numpy array, manipulated and multipied with a Sine Waveform array. The Y axis of the array is then summed into a single 1D array, adjusted for volume, and loaded it into a ctypes array. From there its fed into an OpenAL buffer and loaded for playback.

I had modified the textures in Audiocraft so they were all grey'ish, made the background fog black, and cut the rendering distance to around 20 for the immediate area to simulate a depthmap, where close objects were bright and got darker as they were further away. The current sonifier for Audiocraft processes a 64 by 64 region, so I did a double pass render with the first pass drawing the scene to a 64 by 64 region which I captured from the framebuffer for processing, then reset the view area to 640 by 480 to re-render. The Stereo output sonifier is also rather process intensive and sonifying larger regions would increase the load exponentially, i'd ended up using a generator and returning control to the mainloop and processing the data incrementally to keep the program from stalling whenever the sonifier was run.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2017-08-01 18:25:07

Hi all,
well, I have recorded second Blindcraft demo, now in english and upload ended few minutes ago, so I will post it here. Let me know what you are thinking about it please, I will be happy to hear your opinions.

And sorry for my english, this is my first english recording I ever created, so few things aren't did very well like saying mining instead of digging, because I wasn't able to remember right word or my announcement I am turned to two thousand seventy degrees. big_smile

Hope you will understand it, so here is the link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0IeyG … sp=sharing

Best regards

Rastislav

2017-08-01 18:28:29 (edited by Rastislav Kish 2017-08-01 18:29:28)

Thank you Magurp for help, I will look in the codes and find out what can I do. I have more ideas how to use this engine, not only in this form, hovever that do have time. smile

Thank you again in advance.

Greetings

Rastislav

2017-08-02 00:26:08

Hi.
How to play audio craft?
I can not find a readme!

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2017-08-02 01:18:20 (edited by magurp244 2017-08-02 01:18:40)

The instructions are in a file called "Document.txt", which, yeah, probably should be called Readme. For reference here's a rundown of the instructions:

How to Play

W: forward
S: back
A: strafe left
D: strafe right
Mouse: look around
Space: jump
Tab: toggle flying mode

Selecting type of block to create:
1: brick
2: grass
3: sand
Mouse left-click or Shift: remove block
Mouse right-click or Enter: create block

Arrow Keys or Mouse to look Up, Down, Left, and Right.

Vertical position is represented by a clicking tone, the higher the
pitch, the higher your looking, capped at straight up. The lower the
pitch, the lower your looking, capped at straight down. 

Looking left or right is represented by a clicking tone that acts 
as a compass. The higher the pitch the closer your facing to "north", 
the lower the pitch the closer your facing to "south".

E: Render a snapshot of the screen into sound

Q: Play a sound representing the type of block centered on the screen,
volume equals distance, the closer the louder.

Z: Play a voice identifying the type of block centered on the screen.

Press ESCAPE to quit.
-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2017-08-02 08:35:02

Hello. I heard the demo and it is fantastic. I also would like to try this concept.

2017-08-02 09:40:21

Thanks alot, I will play it for sure!

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2017-08-02 10:46:46

Hi.
I've just heard the demo, and wow it sounds great. I understand it all what you're explaining. Have you made it all from scratch, or have you made plugins to the original Mindcraft game? Keep up the great job man.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2017-08-02 23:31:04

Hi all,
thanks for your reviews and support, it's good to know that further development does have sense. smile
Blindcraft is made completely from scratch, it does not using any Minecraft api if something like that exists. I needed full controll of game to make full accessibility, for example in generation process, as I sayd in other topic Blindcraft is zoning all what it generates, like trees in forest, dunes on desert or mountains at mountains biom. I will continue in development and possibly record another recording, when there will be animals, mobs and health to show you how does survival mode works.
Yeah and playing is very funny for me, I have get lost in desert successfully today and get bugged in the ground because of mistake in code, so that is another motivation for me. big_smile

Best regards

Rastislav

2017-08-03 12:20:22

Hi all, well, rastislav. If i could donate i would donated to you for sure. I would like to try this concept, also i want to be a beta tester if possible. I guess if there will be a multiplayer worlds we will have our own private servers? If yes, that will be super super cool! good luck, dude!