We are on the road to release! This week I finally finished the first version of the mod and have pushed an official version of my mod out to the world. It’s taken me a while, but I finally have this simple butterfly mod out in the wild.
Forge
A mod development kit for Minecraft.
Cats: The Butterfly’s Natural Enemy
I wanted to have some interaction between butterflies and vanilla entities to make them feel like part of the Minecraft world. An easy way to have an entity interact is to make butterflies the target of a predator. Our furry friends seemed like the best candidate for this.
Chrysalis: Completing the Cycle
We finally implement the chrysalis and complete the life cycle of the butterfly. Butterflies lay eggs. Eggs hatch into caterpillars. Caterpillars create a chrysalis. Butterflies hatch out of a chrysalis. The circle of life is complete.
Multi-Directional Caterpillars
Caterpillars will always spawn on top of a leaf block. We want to give a bit more variety in our caterpillar behaviour. So we modify caterpillars so that they can crawl on any side of a leaf block.
Cleaning Out the Butterflies Backlog
During any development it’s inevitable that you introduce bugs or leave minor tasks behind. The Butterflies Mod is no exception. We have a list of small details that are incomplete, as well as some bugs we’ve picked up on while testing. This week we try to clear out that list.
Modelling and Animating Caterpillars
Everyone knows that butterflies come from caterpillars. The next stage in the life cycle is for butterfly eggs to hatch into caterpillars. So we will add caterpillars to our mod that will hatch from the eggs we created last time.
Laying Butterfly Eggs in Leaves
Butterflies lay eggs that eventually become caterpillars. Caterpillars then feed on leaves until they are fat enough to become a chrysalis. Finally, they morph into a butterfly before breaking out of the chrysalis. The next step for our mod is to implement butterfly eggs.
Bottling Butterflies in a Jar
Butterfly nets can only hold one butterfly at a time, and we can’t do anything with them once caught. We will add a new way to interact with them: moving them to jars so they can be put on display.
How to Upgrade a Forge Mod
Minecraft version 1.20.1 has been out for a while now, and a stable version of Forge has been released for it. So it’s time to update our mod to run in the latest version of Minecraft.
Butterfly Nets: Gotta Catch ‘Em All
I mentioned in my last article that I wanted to add a collectible element to my butterfly mod. In order to do that we need a way to catch said butterflies. So the next step is to implement a butterfly net.