Minecraft: Fade to Black Transition Using Resource Packs!
I've always been so fascinated by Minecraft server plugins and their ability to push the boundaries of what's possible in the game; some servers go even further with the use of custom resource packs. I find the most amazing thing about server resource packs are the creative techniques utilized to go beyond the limits of the game. Common examples of such techniques are custom GUIs, HUDs, shaders, entities using models, and cosmetics.
One technique that completely baffled my mind, was the Minecraft Championship's (MCC) fade to black transition effect. I had never seen such a smooth transition and was extremely curious about how they achieved it. I considered and attempted many different approaches: custom models, animated textures, potion effects, and shaders, but none came close to the same smooth transition.
I wondered if there was a way to do it with packets. Perhaps Minecraft already had some fade to black transition that I could trigger. I searched for the word "fade" on the Minecraft Protocol wiki, and instantly realized how it was done. Titles already have a built fade-in and fade-out feature, so utilizing my previous knowledge of custom GUIs using fonts. I was able to recreate the same smooth fade to black transition, and this is how I did it.
You are going to need your custom resource pack. If you don't already know how to make a custom resource pack you can find more information here.
You are only going to need two files to achieve this effect, a texture and font json. The font file will tell Minecraft to render a specific character with our custom texture. This is how we'll display a fully black image as a title.
The texture file ("black.png") will be a 256x256 fully black image placed somewhere in your pack's texture folder. I put mine in a subfolder named "font"
assets/minecraft/textures/font/black.png
Now for the font file. It's important to know that Minecraft text components allow you specify a font path, so the name of your font json file is important.
You DO NOT want to override minecraft's default font json. If you override the 'default.json' font by adding your custom black character, technical players will be able to exploit your transition and spam the chat with black boxes. We can avoid this problem by creating our own font file with a custom name as opposed to overriding an already existing one. I'm going to name mine "fade.json"
We're going to place the font file ("fade.json") in the font folder directly under the namespace, which is Minecraft in this case.
assets/minecraft/font/fade.json
The contents of the font json will be simple.
We're going to create a new bitmap type font using our black texture.
{ "providers": [ { "file": "font/black.png", "type": "bitmap" } ] }
Now we still have to specify our character. In theory, you can use any character you want because we control the context in which this font is used. BUT it's probably best to use a blank unicode character just to be safe.
I'm going to use this blank character "" the unicode is "\uE01F"
Note: Characters can be inserted directly or as their hex unicode value prefixed with "\u" You can learn more about how resource pack fonts work here
{ "providers": [ { "file": "font/black.png", "chars": [ "\uE01F" ], "type": "bitmap" } ] }
Lastly we need to set a height and ascent. The height value is important because if it's too small, our black character won't fill the screen of high resolution displays or people who play on small GUI scale. This will break the transition effect.
I'm using 1024 for the height. I did some tests and I think this value should be good enough.
You can try higher values if you're worried, but keep in mind I'm not sure what the limit is and going too high will likely cause problems.
As for the ascent value, I'd recommend using half the height. This will center our black character and assure it fully covers the screen.
{ "providers": [ { "file": "font/black.png", "chars": [ "\uE01F" ], "height": 1024, "ascent": 512, "type": "bitmap" } ] }
Now our fade transition is done, and you'll need to run the title command in order to trigger it.
The title text will be your chosen black character, and it's important that you remember to specify your font name.
/title @p title {"text":"","font":"minecraft:fade"}
You can change the duration of the fade by using the title timings command. Here's the command for a one second fade in, two second stay, and one second fade out.
/title @p times 20 40 20
Finally, thank you for reading. I hope you learned something new. I'm so surprised at how easy it was to acheieve. I find it interesting how simple solutions can sometimes take so much thought.
