Sky: Get various colors used for sky from server

[sofar]

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/master/src/sky.cpp#L526

There are 9 hardcoded colors here that should be retrieved from the server.

The new sky packet could be expanded to include these color values. Clients that know where to look for these values can then use them. Old clients will be unaffected.

This doesn't seem to complex, other than there being lots of different colors. Some experimentation shows that toying around with these values yields good results quickly and mods should be able to use this. Together with the cloud stuff, this would make for a great atmospheric addition.

[paramat]

Very useful.

[raymoo]

So is the request to expand the sky packet and client code so that the server can tell clients what sky colors to use? I'm guessing anything like a mod API to change these for a player would be a separate feature?

[sofar]

So, I just looked at the network stuff and thinking about the api, we might as well just have a new get|set_skycolors(skycolorparamstable) API.

From sky.cpp I reckon that we need a table with 9 color pairs.

it seems packet wise, looking at server.cpp, we should just make a new Server::SetSkyColors() function and a new TOCLIENT_SKY_COLORS packet.

Then it's just a simple an straightforward api that is mostly passthrough to the client, and the client can cache the values and use them instead of the hardcoded colors.

[sofar]

Concept images:

[paramat]

Lovely.
Can the colours just be added to the existing set sky packet? after all that can already set the colour for a plain override sky. set sky seems to be the place for it, and obviously this should be per-player to cope with differing realms/planets in a world.
@bendeutsch may be interested or have insight.

[sofar]

Yes, expanding a packet and putting more data into it is always possible, I would be cautious of doing it to prevent conflicts and complex handling.