Dynamic Surroundings Rebirth 1.4.0

Highlights

A complete dynamic weather system, new in 1.4.0. Rain and snow now have an intensity that rises, peaks and fades, and that one number drives everything else: the rain you see, the sound, the fog, the sky, the wet ground, and the traces the weather leaves behind. It is built in three layers: how hard it rains, what that intensity drives, and what you actually see and hear.

How hard it rains

• One intensity per rain event, rolled when the rain starts and then shaped by your biome, its climate and the season, so a rainforest reaches heavy rain far more often than a plains does.
• Rain events rise, peak and fade on their own curve instead of switching on and off.
• One master switch turns the whole system off and gives you vanilla rain and snow back.

What the intensity drives

• About twenty response channels, each with its own curve, so every effect follows the weather the way it should: the rain sound rises the way hearing does, the fog closes in the way humidity does, the sky and clouds darken as the storm grows.
• Traces accumulate on their own timescale: the ground stays wet after the rain eases, drips keep falling for a while after it stops, and a thin fog lingers behind.

What you see and hear

• Rain: the rain itself, splashes where it lands, and ground that stays wet.

• Wind: the weather carries a wind with a direction and a speed, and both change as the storm goes on. Rain leans with it, and the wind sound rises and falls with the same gusts.

• Sound: the volume of the rain follows the intensity; thunder, including distant rumbles during a storm; wind that rises with the rain.

• Material rain sounds: rain on glass, metal and wood sounds different.

• Fog: rain fog; fog that lingers after rain; morning fog, whose type changes with the season's sub-phase, with no fog on a midsummer morning; biome fog that can carry the biome's own colour; haze that thickens with altitude; and fog at the bedrock layer.

• Sky and clouds: the world darkens as the storm builds, and the sun and stars fade.

• Sky events: the weather between the rain. An overcast day, with no rain falling; and clouds that slowly clear.

• Drips from eaves: when it rains, water drips from the edges of roofs and other blocks. There are three rhythms: single drops, bursts, and a steady run. Calm rain mostly gives single drops with the occasional burst; the heavier the rain, the closer the drops come to a continuous curtain of water. Drops fall and land with their own sounds. After the rain stops they keep falling for a while, then stop.

• Water on plants: rain forms beads along the upper edges of leaves and grass, then slides. Most beads run all the way down to the ground; a few rest at the tip for a moment and then fall whole. A single plant holds up to six at a time, more in heavier rain.

• Icicles: while it snows, icicles grow out of the edges under roofs. They come in five sizes and three shapes, and the longer and harder it snows the faster they grow. A full-grown icicle occasionally lets go on its own, shatters on the ground, and a new one grows elsewhere under the eaves. The same eave always grows its icicles in the same spots and shapes. When the snow stops they melt: each one shrinks back toward the roof edge while meltwater drips from the tip.

• Snow on plants: while it snows, snow settles on grass and flowers. As the snowfall goes on it builds from a single dot to a small clump to a thin sheet that covers the plant without hiding it. Ground you have just walked into shows the snow it should have. When the snow stops the cover melts away at its own pace, and rain arriving on top of it clears the whole lot at once.

• Morning dew: dew forms in the early morning. It starts around half past three, is thickest just before sunrise, holds through dawn, and is gone by mid-morning. Each plant carries one to three beads, and how many plants carry any depends on the biome: wet, dense swamps are covered, deserts and frost get none. Beads occasionally slide down a leaf and rarely fall whole.

• Desert sandstorms: sandstorms and a yellow cast to the screen in deserts.

• Nether dust rain: dust rain in the Nether.

• Cost: the plants that can hold snow, dew or rain are scanned within a configurable range, and the scan is cheaper at distance and while you stand still.

• Debug command: the new /dsprecip lock <0 to 1.0> command locks the precipitation intensity, which is handy for testing and previews.

• This is a test release. The weather system is large and new; expect rough edges. If something looks wrong, please report it with your log so it can be fixed before the stable release.

Bug Fixes

• Added compatibility with Distant Horizons.
• Added compatibility with Iris and Oculus: shader packs are detected, and an option turns off the plant-attached weather layers while a pack makes plants sway, so those particles no longer hang motionless next to moving foliage.
• Added compatibility with Particle Rain, Simple Clouds and Better Clouds: DSR works out who is drawing the rain and the clouds and stands down instead of adding a second layer of each. Rain can also be drawn on top of Particle Rain if you prefer.
• Added a warning for BadOptimizations: its cached data can make DSR's biome and sound data look stale after an update, and the log now tells you to clear it.
• Added compatibility with the Sounds mod: footsteps keep the right material, and no longer go quiet, where that mod replaces the vanilla sound event.
• Recognised Embeddium, Sodium and Serene Seasons, so seasons drive the snow, fog and ambience without false mod-conflict warnings.

Other

• New "Weather System" config group, with complete English and Chinese translations.
• New diagnostics: an overlay for the weather state, and a watchdog that reports when another mod has taken over a rendering step DSR was using.
• 1.4.0 is a test build: the stable release will follow once the weather system has had more field testing.