JAVA EDITION: SNAPSHOT 20W18A

Redstoners this is a snapshot for you to pay attention to!  Check out the new look and ways it interacts with our Minecraft world.

• Redstone wire changes
  
  
• The target block now conducts redstone signals
  

REDSTONE WIRE

The blockstate, rendering and behavior of redstone wire are more in line with each other. Redstone will provide power to blocks on all sides it shows a visual connection to, and not do so on those sides without a visual connection.

• A single redstone wire is now represented as a cross.
  
  
• A wire on top of a block, which is redirected from below, will power the sides it is redirected to now. E.g. a fence gate above the redirecting wire will be powered.
  
  
• Wires that redirect upwards to wires on non-conductive blocks used to only be redirected visually. Now this redirection applies to their behavior as well.
  
  
• A wire that is redirected to go over a block will now always provide power to the block. This is most noticeable when the wire has signal strength 1.
  

Comparison between 1.15.2 and snapshot 20w18a.

• Added a enable-status option to the server.properties file which if set to false will suppress replies to status requests from clients. This makes the server appear offline in the multiplayer screen
  
  
• Added control over how much entity data a server sends to clients
  
  
• Advancement system changes
  

ENTITY BROADCASTING

It is now possible to control at what range the server sends data about entities to clients.

• Added an entity-broadcast-range-percentage server property controlling how close entities need to be before being sent to clients. Higher values means entities are visible further away from players but cause more network traffic. Specifies percentage of default value, so for example 50 specifies half of the default range.
  

ADVANCEMENTS

• Added player check to every trigger (except impossible)
  
  
• Entity checks in triggers can now use loot table condition syntax
  

EXTENDED ENTITY CHECKS

Entity checks in triggers can now use loot table condition syntax.

Old notation:

{
“trigger”: “minecraft:player_killed_entity”,
“conditions”: {
“entity”: {
“type”: “minecraft:blaze”
}
}
}

is now equivalent to:

{
“trigger”: “minecraft:player_killed_entity”,
“conditions”: {
“entity”: [
{
“condition”: “minecraft:entity_properties”,
“predicate”: {
“type”: “minecraft:blaze”
},
“entity”: “this”
}
]
}
}

Note 1: Like in loot tables, all conditions in top level array must be met for whole condition to trigger.

Note 2: To access new functionality, top level element must be JSON array. JSON object are interpreted as old notation.

Full list of extended triggers:

• New field player in every trigger
  
  
• bred_animals – parent, partner, child
  
  
• channeled_lightning – victims
  
  
• cured_zombie_villager – zombie, villager
  
  
• fishing_rod_hooked – entity
  
  
• killed_by_crossbow – victims
  
  
• player_killed_entity – entity
  
  
• entity_killed_player – entity
  
  
• player_hurt_entity – entity
  
  
• summoned_entity – entity
  
  
• tame_animal – entity
  
  
• target_hit – projectile
  
  
• villager_trade – villager​
  

MISCELLANEOUS TRIGGER CHANGES

• Due to addition of player, existing contents of location, slept_in_bed, hero_of_the_village, voluntary_exile can now be placed in location field instead of top-level object. Old syntax is still supported, but depreciated.
  

• MC-11211 – Unable to perform many right click actions when targeting the top face of blocks placed at y=255
  
  
• MC-111381 – Rendering rotations for shulkers are set in onInitialSpawn method
  
  
• MC-143904 – Adding a non-rail block to the “rails” block tag will crash the game when placing a minecart on it
  
  
• MC-147255 – Beds in the overworld will explode if in a nether wastes biome
  
  
• MC-162385 – The background of the title text does not fade with the text
  
  
• MC-166269 – Wet wolves become black for an instant after shaking off water
  
  
• MC-166296 – Mobs picking up and equipping items does not play the equipping sound
  
  
• MC-170840 – Broken spawn rates in soul sand valleys and warped forests
  
  
• MC-170944 – /locatebiome messages do not fit for all biome names
  
  
• MC-171523 – Inconsistent strings for warped and crimson wall signs
  
  
• MC-172172 – Adult piglins spin around while following the player
  
  
• MC-172253 – Equip sound doesn’t play when Piglins equip items
  
  
• MC-173067 – NullPointerException when a structure containing a campfire is placed during world generation
  
  
• MC-173198 – Target blocks are transparent and do not transfer redstone signals
  
  
• MC-173385 – New Nether lighting system doesn’t affect fluids, entity-like blocks (chests, etc.) and entities
  
  
• MC-173747 – Armor enchantment glint doesn’t render
  
  
• MC-174573 – Nether vines can drop multiple copies with fortune (free duplication)
  
  
• MC-174593 – Inconsistent pluralisation in “fell off a scaffolding”
  
  
• MC-174811 – Zombified piglins are able to spawn on top of nether wart blocks
  
  
• MC-175107 – It’s possible to get Bad Omen VI in Survival mode
  
  
• MC-175740 – Game crashes when dispenser is used on non-beehive block in #beehives tag
  
  
• MC-175741 – Game crashes when a cat attempts to sleep in a non-bed in the #beds tag
  
  
• MC-176028 – Striders can spawn in stacks of three or more
  
  
• MC-176032 – Striders can float
  
  
• MC-176054 – Baby strider passengers float / passenger offset is too high
  
  
• MC-176135 – Striders riding other entities are not cold
  
  
• MC-176203 – Striders with Levitation walking on Lava don’t levitate
  
  
• MC-176459 – Baby striders can spawn with saddles
  
  
• MC-176468 – Adult striders can spawn with saddles
  
  
• MC-177105 – Piglins, hoglins, zoglins and villagers look at their target’s feet instead of its head
  
  
• MC-177127 – Unnecessary exclamation point in subtitle “End Portal opens!”
  
  
• MC-177173 – Baby Zoglin age status value is not stored in the NBT tag.
  
  
• MC-177561 – Compasses used on the top of lodestone at y=255 do not break when the lodestone is destroyed
  
  
• MC-177771 – “death.attack.fireworks.item” displays raw translation string (is untranslated)
  
  
• MC-177790 – Piglin Banners are named block.minecraft.banner.piglin.[]
  
  
• MC-177794 – Globe Banner Pattern is not required to add the globe to a banner
  
  
• MC-177816 – Failed to access/delete level should be “world”
  
  
• MC-177911 – Cave generator doesn’t cut through blackstone
  
  
• MC-177951 – Game crashes when fire starters are used on a non-campfire in the #campfires tag
  
  
• MC-177976 – Baby piglins can pick up soul campfires
  
  
• MC-178013 – Zombified Piglins riding striders can despawn, leaving saddled striders
  
  
• MC-178129 – Entity conversion subtitles use inconsistent tenses
  
  
• MC-178336 – The message “You have no home bed or respawn anchor, or it was obstructed” doesn’t make it clear that your respawn anchor might have been depleted
  
  
• MC-178817 – “Chain Blocks” don’t have a “waterlogged” state
  
  
• MC-178943 – Piglins/hoglins spawned in bastion remnants can outrun players
  
  
• MC-178949 – Bastion Remnants cannot be generated in in superflat worlds
  
  
• MC-179839 – Chat text renders behind the armor bar
  
  
• MC-179841 – Game crashes when you optimize your world
  
  
• MC-179845 – Rain falls through any blocks in some spots
  
  
• MC-179847 – Hoglins and Piglins spin around
  
  
• MC-179850 – There is no difference between Entity Distance 100% and 500%
  
  
• MC-179858 – Maps show stone-like pattern despite it not being there
  
  
• MC-179863 – Setting attribute minecraft:generic.max_health value to 0 or lower causes an infinite death loop after dying
  
  
• MC-179866 – In some spots, it is raining even if it should be snowing
  
  
• MC-179868 – Crash when going to a previous page of writable books
  
  
• MC-179883 – Raw JSON text duplicates components in “extra” in entity names
  
  
• MC-179886 – Play button overlay doesn’t appear in worldsave selection GUI
  
  
• MC-179905 – Caption of game rule screen is missing
  
  
• MC-179952 – Height map data doesn’t get converted
  
  
• MC-179954 – Keybindings are not correctly inserted into the demo info box text
  
  
• MC-180030 – Adult hoglins zombified into an adult zoglin deals the same damage as a baby
  
  
• MC-180100 – Rain particles appear black under certain conditions
  
  
• MC-180110 – Underline and strikethrough in JSON text don’t always render correctly
  
  
• MC-180125 – Incorrect font spacing on non-BMP characters
  
  
• MC-180135 – Empty chat messages are not displayed
  
  
• MC-180138 – Long messages in chat no longer have hanging indention
  
  
• MC-180246 – The “r” in “Game rules” is not capitalized
  
  
• MC-180248 – The “g” in “Upgrade gear” is not capitalized
  
  
• MC-180299 – “Elytra” in “Disable Elytra movement check” is inconsistently capitalized
  
  
• MC-180353 – Chat background renders in front of the Debug Menu but chat text renders behind it
  
  
• MC-181296 – Panorama has wrong overlay when using Programmer Art
  

Xbox Insider Release Notes – Beta Ring (2005.200418-0000)



Hey Beta ring users! Today’s Xbox Insider Release Notes highlight the latest fixes, known issues, and features coming to your console. Starting at 2 p.m. PT today, users will receive the latest 2005 Xbox One system update (build: RS_XBOX_RELEASE_2005\19041.2388.200418-0000). Keep reading for more details.
[b]System Update Details:[/b]

• OS version released: RS_XBOX_RELEASE_2005\19041.2388.200418-0000
  
  
• Available: 2 p.m. PT – April 22, 2020
  
  
• Mandatory: 3 a.m. PT – April 23, 2020
  

[b]Fixes for Beta[/b]

We’ve heard your feedback, and we’re happy to announce the following fixes have been implemented for this 2005 build:

[b]System[/b]

• Various updates to properly reflect local languages across the console.
  

[b]Known Issues for Beta[/b]

We understand some issues have been listed in previous Xbox Insider Release Notes. These issues aren’t being ignored, but it will take Xbox engineers more time to find a solution. We appreciate your patience at this time!

[b]Audio[/b]

• Users who have Dolby Atmos enabled and console display settings set to 120hz with 36 bits per pixel (12-bit) are experiencing loss of Dolby Atmos audio in some situations.
  • Workaround: Disable 120hz or set Video Fidelity to 30 bits per pixel (10-bit) or lower.
    

[b]Game DVR [/b]

• Some users have reported that their clips are not recording the full length requested. This is being reported for 4K clips and non-4K clips. We are aware and investigating.
  

[b]Guide[/b]

• Some users are reporting that they are not seeing Gamerpics or Profile information in the Friends tab.  We are aware of the issue and investigating.
  
  
• We’ve received reports that the Friends tab is not showing the correct status of online/offline friends.
  

[b]My Games & Apps[/b]

• Users have reported seeing black tiles instead of game artwork when browsing their collection.
  • Note: We are still investigating the issue, please report the issue again from the console if you have done so with a prior update and are still seeing this behavior.
    
  
  
• Some titles in collection may appear with a “trial” tag incorrectly in collection.
  

[b]Store[/b]

• Users have reported the game artwork in the Game Pass section is not sized/displayed correctly. We are aware and investigating.
  

[b]Profile Color[/b]

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.
  

Are you not seeing your issue listed above? Make sure to use Report a problem to keep us informed of your issue. We may not be able to respond to everyone, but the data we’ll gather is crucial to finding a resolution. Learn more about feedback and how each ring is differentiated in the following links: For more information regarding the Xbox Insider Program follow us on Twitter and join the community subreddit for support and updates. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information regarding your Xbox One Update Preview ring!

Video: Optimizing game server performance for The Division 2

In this GDC 2020 virtual talk Ubisoft’s David Lind walks you through the challenges faced and solutions found to optimize game server performance in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

Lind’s talk was both accessible and deeply technical, filled with useful anecdotes and practical examples of how to improve your own work using parallelization and multithreading.

If you didn’t have a chance to catch it live earlier this year, good news; you can now watch Lind’s talk any time you like over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. 

Report: Work-from-home issues to blame as Nintendo axes June Direct

Nintendo has reportedly reached out to its partners to say it no longer plans to hold one of its Nintendo Direct announcement sprees during the month of June.

Nintendo tends to hold a Direct right around the time that E3 is typically being held. That was to be the case this year despite E3 itself being called off, but according to VentureBeat Nintendo has halted plans to do so in 2020 due to its own COVID-19 complications.

VentureBeat speculates in its own reporting that difficulties in swapping over to remote work in a country that prioritizes the value of face-to-face dealings is likely to blame, and that Nintendo noted in its previous Direct from March that “release dates and other information … are subject to change” due to COVID-19.

Core And American McGee Launch Art Contest

Core, the game engine we covered just yesterday, have teamed up with designer American McGee to launch a new Alice in Wonderland themed contest Through the Looking Glass.

Quote:What beauty or horrors await Alice in her adventures? This is the question you must answer as you create a game-ready environment to fit this theme. We have gathered concept art from Alice Asylum to inspire your work.

All entries must be created in Core, our new, free to use game and world creation platform, powered by Unreal, that gives you all the tools you need to turn your vision into reality. To learn more about Core, visit coregames.com or read “Art Directing the Multiverse” by Dan Fessler, Core’s art director.

The contest ends May 31st, 2020 and has several prizes available, including:

[/url]

If you are looking for guidance on how to create art using Core, be sure [url=https://docs.coregames.com/tutorials/modeling_basics/]to start with this tutorial for the basics.  They also launched a new learning portal available here.  You can learn more about the contest in the video below.



Art GameDev News 3D

Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Release Candidate now available

Daniel

April 30th, 2020

The Blazor WebAssembly Release Candidate is here! This release contains all of the features and improvements that we expect to release for the upcoming Blazor WebAssembly release. There are no more breaking changes planned at this point. Please give the Blazor WebAssembly Release Candidate a try and let us know what you think!

Here’s what’s new in this release:

• Custom boot resource loading
  
  
• API reference docs
  

Get started

To get started with Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Release Candidate, install the latest .NET Core 3.1 SDK.

Quote:NOTE: Version 3.1.201 or later of the .NET Core SDK is required to use this Blazor WebAssembly release! Make sure you have the correct .NET Core SDK version by running

Code:

dotnet --version

from a command prompt.

Once you have the appropriate .NET Core SDK installed, run the following command to install the updated Blazor WebAssembly template:


If you’re on Windows using Visual Studio, we recommend installing the latest preview of Visual Studio 2019 16.6. For this preview, you should still install the template from the command-line as described above to ensure that the Blazor WebAssembly template shows up correctly in Visual Studio and on the command-line.

That’s it! You can find additional docs and samples on https://blazor.net.

Upgrade an existing project

To upgrade an existing Blazor WebAssembly app from 3.2.0 Preview 5 to the 3.2.0 Release Candidate:

• Update all Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.* package references to version 3.2.0-rc1.20223.4.
  
  
• Update any Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.Runtime package references to version 3.2.0-rc1.20222.2 (having a reference to this package is uncommon).
  
  
• Update all System.Net.Http.Json package references to 3.2.0-rc1.20217.1
  

You’re all set!

Custom boot resource loading

When a Blazor WebAssembly app loads in the browser, it first downloads all of the required boot resources from the server, including the .NET runtime, the bootstrapping JavaScript code, locale specific data, and the .NET assemblies that make up the app. You can now customize how these boot resources are loading using the API. You can use this API to make any needed modifications to how these specific outbound requests are constructed. For example, you might want to load some of the resources from an external CDN. Although Microsoft does not currently host the Blazor framework files on any specific public Content Delivery Network (CDN), you are free to add them to your own CDN if you wish. For example, if you have published the _framework\wasm files to a CDN within the base URL https://mycdn.example.com/blazorwebassembly/3.2.0-rc1/, then you could configure your application to use those resources as follows:


If you want to customize more than just the URLs that are being used, then your function can call fetch directly and return the result. For example:

API reference docs

API reference docs for the Blazor WebAssembly namespaces () are now available in the .NET API browser as part of the ASP.NET Core 3.1 API docs.

Known issues

• When publishing a ASP.NET Core hosted Blazor WebAssembly app using Visual Studio, satellite assemblies from the client application do not get copied to the publish folder.
  
  This issue will be addressed in the upcoming release. To workaround this issue, publish the app from the command line using
  Code:

  dotnet publish
  .
  

Feedback

This is our last planned preview release of Blazor WebAssembly 3.2! We need your help to make sure that we’ve addressed any remaining blocking issues for the upcoming release. Please give it a try and let us know what you think by filing issues on GitHub.

We hope you enjoy the Blazor WebAssembly Release Candidate and thanks for trying out Blazor!

Apple updates COVID-19 screening app with updated symptoms, mask tips

By Mike Peterson
Friday, May 01, 2020, 12:59 pm PT (03:59 pm ET)

Apple on Friday updated its COVID-19 screening app with new information about coronavirus symptoms and tips related to face masks.

Apple’s informational COVID-19 screening app was released in March.

The Cupertino tech giant launched its COVID-19 tool in late March, giving iPhone users another way to stay informed during the coronavirus pandemic. In April, Apple added links to state-level guidance and tips for personal self-care.

On May 1, Apple issued a new version of the app with updated symptom information and recommendations from the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance.

According to the CDC, new symptoms that could be signs of COVID-19 include chills, shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and loss of smell or taste.

The app has also been updated with tips related to cloth masks, including creating a mask, when and how to properly wear a mask, and how to sanitize it.

Alongside the app update, Apple also added the new information and tips to its COVID-19 webpage.

The COVID-19 app, which was developed in collaboration the CDC, FEMA and Coronavirus Task Force, is available as a free download on the App Store.

Using mergerfs to increase your virtual storage

What happens if you have multiple disks or partitions that you’d like to use for a media project and you don’t want to lose any of your existing data, but you’d like to have everything located or mounted under one drive. That’s where mergerfs can come to your rescue!

mergerfs is a union filesystem geared towards simplifying storage and management of files across numerous commodity storage devices.

You will need to grab the latest RPM from their github page here. The releases for Fedora have fc and the version number in the name. For example here is the version for Fedora 31:

mergerfs-2.29.0-1.fc31.x86_64.rpm

Installing and configuring mergerfs

Install the mergerfs package that you’ve downloaded using sudo:


You will now be able to mount multiple disks as one drive. This comes in handy if you have a media server and you’d like all of your media files to show up under one location. If you upload new files to your system, you can copy them to your mergerfs directory and mergerfs will automatically copy them to which ever drive has enough free space available.

Here is an example to make it easier to understand:


In this example there are two disks mounted as disk1 and disk2. Both drives have a Videos directory with existing files.

Now we’re going to mount those drives using mergerfs to make them appear as one larger drive.


The mergerfs man page is quite extensive and complex so we’ll break down the options that were specified.

• defaults: This will use the default settings unless specified.
  
  
• allow_other: allows users besides sudo or root to see the filesystem.
  
  
• use_ino: Causes mergerfs to supply file/directory inodes rather than libfuse. While not a default it is recommended it be enabled so that linked files share the same inode value.
  
  
• category.create=mfs: Spreads files out across your drives based on available space.
  
  
• moveonenospc=true: If enabled, if writing fails, a scan will be done looking for the drive with the most free space.
  
  
• minfreespace=1M: The minimum space value used.
  
  
• disk1: First hard drive.
  
  
• disk2: Second hard drive.
  
  
• /media: The directory folder where the drives are mounted.
  

Here is what it looks like:


You can see that the mergerfs mount now shows a total capacity of 66M which is the combined total of the two hard drives.

Continuing with the example:

There is a 30Mb video called Baby’s second Xmas.mkv. Let’s copy it to the /media folder which is the mergerfs mount.


Here is the end result:


You can see from the disk space utilization that mergerfs automatically copied the file to disk2 because disk1 did not have enough free space.

Here is a breakdown of all of the files:


When you copy files to your mergerfs mount, it will always copy the files to the hard disk that has enough free space. If none of the drives in the pool have enough free space, then you won’t be able to copy them.

Pokémon Sword And Shield’s Rebel Clash TCG Expansion Launches Today





Today sees the launch of a brand new expansion in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, with Sword & Shield – Rebel Clash now available around the world.

Available in the usual booster packs, theme decks, Elite Trainer Boxes and special collections, the new expansion includes more Galarian Pokémon as well as new Pokémon VMAX cards that showcase Pokémon in their Gigantamax forms – just like in Pokémon Sword and Shield on Switch.

You’ll find the following key cards within the new set:

• 16 Pokémon V and 14 full-art Pokémon V, such as Toxtricity V, Dubwool V, and Boltund V
  
  
• Seven Pokémon VMAX including Toxtricity VMAX, Copperajah VMAX, Dragapult VMAX, and the final Evolutions of the first partner Pokémon of Galar
  
  
• Over 15 Trainer cards and four full-art Supporter cards
  
  
• Four new Special Energy cards
  

The Pokémon Company International tells us that it’s working hard with its distribution and retail partners to ensure stock is available, but warns that current global circumstances mean that “product availability may be limited”.

Do you collect Pokémon cards? Will you be tracking down these latest additions? Tell us below.

Dreams On PS4 Gets Free Demo And A Great Deal On The Full Game

If you've been curious about Media Molecule's community-driven game creation kit, Dreams, you now have the chance to try it out for free. A trial of Dreams is now available for download on PS4, with any progress you make carrying over if you decide to purchase it.

As expected, the trial for Dreams will be limited. You won't be able to play every game hosted by its players, but rather a subset selected by Media Molecule that show off some of the game's capabilities. You'll also have access to some creation tools, which allow you to get a basic feel for the suite of options open to you and give you a blank slate to experiment with.

Art's Dream, the single-player adventure within Dreams, will also be limited. Media Molecule says you'll have access to a slice of the campaign, which shows off some of the creation tools while also letting you play through in-house creations for inspiration.

Continue Reading at GameSpot