02. Getting Started
MiEx is written in Java and so requires Java 8 or newer to be installed on your pc. It is recommended to install the latest version of Java, which is typically available as the JDK (Java Development Kit). It can be downloaded from here: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/. If you want to download Java 8 instead, then you can find that here: https://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp.
Once installed, you can download the MiEx.jar file from the releases page (found under "Assets" for the release). The MiEx.jar file will by default create some files and folder in the same place as where it's located, so it's typically a good idea to create a folder somewhere (like in your Documents folder) where you place the MiEx.jar file inside of.
Running MiEx should be as simple as double clicking the MiEx.jar file. You might need to right click the jar file and choose "Open With" and then Java. If this doesn't work, then most likely it is an issue with the file associations on your computer. Running the installer for Java (found above) should fix this issue and you should be able to run MiEx by double clicking it.
When MiEx launches for the first time, it is going to create a few files. It will create a folder called resources which is where you can place your resource packs. Inside of the resources folder is also a file called manifest.json which contains a list of "built-in files" that MiEx had set up. These built-in files are some default files that MiEx needs to export out worlds. Whenever you launch MiEx, it will check the GitHub repository here for new versions of the files and install them automatically. This allows us to provide some updates without you needing to manually update MiEx. New versions of the MiEx.jar file aren't automatically installed. For that, you'll get a banner to notify you of new versions and you can manually download it then.
MiEx also creates a log.txt file which contains a log of what MiEx does. If something goes wrong, this log typically will tell you what went wrong. When creating a GitHub issue for something, it is useful to also provide the log file.
Next to creating these files, it will also install the base_resource_pack. Some of the files from it are built-in files, but most of them are the default Minecraft Java Edition resource pack. MiEx does this by searching for a Minecraft Java Edition install on your computer and then extracting the files from there.
MiEx's user interface is meant to be relatively simple. Most of the complexity is hidden in the resource packs, since you typically set up the resource packs once, but you use the user interface many times.
At the top you have the "Toolbar", on the right hand side you have the "Resource Pack Manager", and in the centre you have the "Viewport". In the Toolbar there is also a button called "Advanced Settings", which swaps the Resource Pack Manager for the Advanced Settings Panel.
At the bottom you have the progress bar which also functions as a tooltip display.
The toolbar is divided up into a few sections. The "World" section contains some buttons: "Load" opens up the World Browser, letting you open up a world. "Load From Export" lets you select a previous export and then it'll open up the world from there including its export settings. "Load Settings From Export" lets you select a previous export and then it'll load in the export settings without changing which world is opened up. "Pause Loading" will temporarily unload the world, allowing you to safely open it up in Minecraft or Hytale, make edits, and then you can un-pause the world to load it back in again. Next to that, you also have a dropdown which lets you select the dimension to load in.
The "Selection" section let's you specify the bounding box of the export region. The coordinates of the bounding box are inclusive, meaning that it the blocks specified by "Min" and "Max" are also exported out. "Origin" is the block position that should be placed at (0,0,0) in the exported out world. This lets you offset the entire world. If the "auto" checkbox is enabled, then it'll automatically set the origin based on your export region. The "Chunk Size" setting lets you change the size of the "Export Chunks" and it is specified in terms of Minecraft chunks (16x16 blocks).
The "Zoom" section contains buttons to zoom in and out in the Viewport, together with a teleport button. The TP button will open up a dialog where you can specify a coordinate to teleport the Viewport to, or select a player to teleport the Viewport to.
The "Edit FG" button lets you enter or leave the "Edit FG"-state. When enabled, you can click on the export chunks in your export region to change whether they are tagged as "FG" (foreground) or not. This is mainly an organisational thing.
The "Advanced Settings" button turns on or off the Advanced Settings Panel.
The "Export" button opens up a file dialog to let you specify where you want to export out the world to and when you then hit "Save" in the file dialog, it will start exporting the world out. If you had used "Load From Export", then a second button will show up called "Re-export". Pressing this button will immediately start exporting the world out, overriding the export file that you had selected using "Load From Export".
The Resource Pack Manager has three parts: A "Presets" button, the "Resource Pack Selector", and a "Tools" button.
The "Presets" button lets you save your currently active resource packs and export settings out into a preset, which you can then load in later on using the same button. This is useful if you constantly need to export out worlds using the same settings.
The "Resource Pack Selector" has two panels, an "Available" panel and an "Active" panel. The Available panel contains all available resource packs that aren't already active. You can press the "+" button to enable them. The Active panel contains all resource packs that are currently active. You can press the "-" button to disable them and the arrow buttons to change the order of the active resource packs. Resource packs higher up in the Active panel override resource packs lower in the panel. The base_resource_pack is a special resource pack that contains a bunch of default files and so is always active and cannot be disabled. It also indicates what version of Minecraft Java Edition it contains the default resource pack of.
The "Tools" button provides a menu with a bunch of different tools:
This will reload the currently active resource packs. Resource packs are reloaded whenever the list of active resource packs changes, but if you ended up quickly changing a file in a resource pack or you added in a new resource pack to the resources folder, then this tool will load all of that in.
This will update the base_resource_pack to a different version of Minecraft Java Edition. It will provide a dialog where you can choose which version to use. The dialog shows you a list of all versions that MiEx was able to find installed on your computer. If a new version of Minecraft has come out, then you can use this tool to update the base_resource_pack to that version, so that MiEx can export out any new blocks added in that version.
This will update the base_resource_pack_hytale. If a new version of Hytale has come out, then you can use this tool to update the base_resource_pack_hytale to that version, so that MiEx can export out any new blocks added in that version.
This will update the built-in files found on the GitHub repository here, to the latest version. MiEx will typically do this when you launch it, but if you want to explicitly do it, then you can do so via this tool.
This will provide you with a dialog where you can select example resource packs, found on the GitHub repository here, for MiEx to download and install. This can also be used to update them, if needed.
This allows you to select a "mods" folder and MiEx will then extract the built-in resource packs from all .jar files found in that mods folder into a single resource pack. This can be used for Java Edition mod packs. Nowadays, MiEx will automatically do this for you whenever you open up a modded world, so this tool shouldn't be needed, but it might be useful in a few cases.
This opens up the Atlas Creator tool, which you can use to create atlases from resource packs. Typically, each texture is its own file which means that you can have hundreds of textures in a resource pack. Each texture would require its own material and so a single export could also contain over a hundred materials if the world has enough different blocks. Atlases are large textures that group together these textures. This way, MiEx can use these atlas textures instead, significantly reducing the number of materials used and therefore making the export less "heavy" in your animation software.
This opens up the PBR Generator tool, which provides a system for batch processing textures. It allows you to generate PBR textures from non-PBR resource packs, convert resource packs from one PBR format to another, or to change the look at textures themselves.
This opens up the Environment Settings Editor. While most settings on how MiEx behaves are set up via files like miex_config.json in resource packs, some settings are global and not dependent on your active resource packs. These settings can be specified either via command line arguments when launching MiEx, or as environment variables. Those environment variables can be set on your computer itself, or placed in a miex.env file. The Environment Settings Editor lets you easily create and edit the miex.env file.
The Viewport gives you a top-down view of the world. You can drag with your right mouse button to move around in the world and use your scroll wheel to zoom in and out. You can make and change export selections by dragging with your left mouse button. If the "Edit FG" button is enabled, then clicking with your left mouse button on an export chunk will toggle whether it is a foreground chunk or not. The grid of export chunks is shown as a grid with grey lines.