5 ms·

Minecraft Environmental Lighting Experiment

80 points by rutherfj 14y ago

A demonstration of an iPad app that interfaces with the Phillips Hue LED lightbulbs to provide environmental lighting synced with the Minecraft day/night cycle.

ndejager 14y ago
This is actually pretty impressive. There's lots of practical applications for this as well.
flakeskstyle 14y ago
What dads do with their kids... Love it!
sp332 14y ago
I don't think there's an official SDK, but the Hue is easy to control with a JSON API. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/in-living-color-ars-reviews-the-hacker-approved-philips-hue-leds/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/in-living-color-ars-r... (under the section "Taking Control").
- rutherfj 14y ago
  Correct - there is no official SDK, but a quick search at Github will give you quite a few projects using a variety of languages to choose from.
zenogais 14y ago
Pretty awesome.
biolime 14y ago
That is very cool! I hadn't yet heard about the Hue but you've got me interested in it now. Great article!
btipling 14y ago
This will probably break any red stone repeater clocks you have set up. Any kind of messing with time in the game will break them and you have to replace the repeater to fix them, which isn't fun if you've built anything more complex than a blinking light.
- LordIllidan 14y ago
  He isn't messing with time in the game - he built a separate iPad app that allows the user to calibrate the time manually to that of the minecraft server.
  - nwh 14y ago
    Couldn't the iPad app also emulate a client connected to the server, and only ask for the current time?
    - rutherfj 14y ago
      That is my next plan!
      - AndyKelley 14y ago
        Possibly useful: https://github.com/superjoe30/node-minecraft-protocol/ https://github.com/superjoe30/node-minecraft-protocol/ Or even https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer/ https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer/
    - Skywing 14y ago
      Even easier, you could just write a minecraft server plugin that puts its current server time somewhere for the app to read from. It could be anywhere, really - the plugin could run a webserver, the plugin could put it in a txt file visible online somewhere, etc. Now all the iOS app has to do is cat the time and sync automatically.
- ndejager 14y ago
  As far as I can tell this doesn't interact with time in the game.
qdot76367 14y ago
This kind of idea is something philips has been working on for years, with Hue being the newest in a line of lighting control systems. Years ago, they were peddling the amBX line, which was a set of lights, desk vibrators, and fans (yes, as in like, desk fans that blow in your face) that would create an immersive environment for games. Of course, very few games picked it up (we worked on it a bit for Second Life, and I did some silly things with it, super mario bros, and alcohol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q). amBX ended up being mostly a failure, despite having fuck off HUGE booths on the gdc expo floor for at least 3 years running (Who else remembers the huge black blob? Great as a "meet me near [large obvious thing]" place. :) ). Philips ended up either spinning or selling off amBX. It's still around as a set of crappy LED lights that burn out quickly (?!) and have crap for contrast and color depth. There's open source drivers out there if you look (including my half-done-maybe-still-works libambx). Hue seems to be working out a bit better from what I'm hearing thus far. Might pick one up myself soon.
- alirov 14y ago
  I got a secondhand amBX system (just the lights) off of Craigslist a few months ago for cheap and it's been pretty cool. The Windows drivers were a pain to deal with but I got everything up and running in Ubuntu and it works much better. Interesting issue is that when the power is plugged in for the first time (or the power is reset), the drivers in Ubuntu don't properly link to the device. The lights just flash continuously or don't turn on at all. I have to restart into Windows with the amBX plugged in which I guess does some sort of initialization to them. From there, if I restart back into Ubuntu, everything functions normally. No issues with burn out so far. There's something pleasing about lighting up my room at night in bright colors. And it gets even better when used as music visualizations!
  - qdot76367 14y ago
    Hmm, ok, I was seeing the exact same rebooting issue. Didn't realize it was an initialization issue on powerup. Just curious, what drivers/programs are you using to control it on ubuntu?
Whitespace 14y ago
My eyes teared up reading this; what a great dad!
- rutherfj 14y ago
  Building up "brownie points" before he turns into a teenager!
andrewingram 14y ago
I like the idea, would work well for multiplayer where you can't freeze time just by hitting escape.
whatupdave 14y ago
This is really cool. It would definitely add to the immersion of the game.
- rutherfj 14y ago
  And really good if you like to go underground at night and mine. Then you know when the sun rises!
Draco6slayer 14y ago
Wasn't there a Kickstarter project floating around earlier that was supposed to have the exact same functionality as this 'Phillips Hue'? Or are they the same?
- prawn 14y ago
  Different to Hue. I'd just written a comment about LIFX when you posted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347 LIFX is led by an Australian guy. Their email updates have covered their design process, prototyping in China and so on and they're getting close to delivering the first preorders. There's a tech blog about how it will all work here: http://lifxtech.blogspot.com.au/ http://lifxtech.blogspot.com.au/
  - Draco6slayer 14y ago
    So the chief difference there is price and the WiFi interaction between the bulbs? Is everything else the same between the two products, then? Or does LIFX offer any additional advantage?
    - prawn 14y ago
      Haven't looked into Hue much or used it and obviously haven't used LIFX so someone else might need to chime in. Hue needing a base station seems a bit annoying to me so that is a pretty key difference. Very keen for the LIFX bulbs to arrive so I can experiment and see what they do. It was a very popular Kickstarter foray, so I'm hoping that a strong community forms from those customers to build all the fun stuff you'd hope to see like music- and game-related applications.
- tlrobinson 14y ago
  LIFX: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347
prawn 14y ago
LIFX will be another option for these sorts of projects. It's a Kickstarter project that exploded in popularity and is set to deliver in the next couple of months. http://lifx.co/ http://lifx.co/ I paid about $90-100 for two globes which makes it a bit cheaper than Hue. I think LIFX also does away with a base station and has some sort of mesh networking between bulbs?
njharman 14y ago
wtf do hue bulbs have in them for $90 a bulb.
- rutherfj 14y ago
  They are way too expensive IMHO. If I did not have the idea to hack this together with Minecraft, I never would have purchased them.
  - rutherfj 14y ago
    For $199 you get 3 bulbs and the wireless "hub". Additional bulbs to expand your collection are $59.
  - d23 14y ago
    I always wanted to do something like this with an Arduino but never got around to it. When I saw the Hue I was pretty excited, until I saw the price tag. $200 for 3 bulbs? I'll pass for now. I'm assuming it's only a matter of time before they become reasonably priced.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  They're not quite that expensive, but they're powerful and efficient LED bulbs that will last pretty much forever, and you can wirelessly control them.
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    They are still rather ridiculously expensive for what they are. Granted, they are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, but the margins on them must be eye-poppingly large.
Symmetry 14y ago
Oh man, I'm proud that these products are finally coming out. I was somewhat involved in the later parts of the standardization process, and this is actually the first time I've seen something I've worked on come to mass market. Looking forward to seeing devices with Ember chips come out.
postscapes1 14y ago
LIFX gets all the love these days but there are actually quite a few other projects along the same lines. Visualight: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leifp/visualight http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leifp/visualight is another crowdfunded project and is Open Hardware. Spark Socket: http://www.sparkdevices.com/ http://www.sparkdevices.com/ takes a slightly different approach and you probably can guess, puts the intelligence in the socket separate from the bulb. Bluetooth bulb: http://www.blueclickhome.com http://www.blueclickhome.com Greentech 6LoWPAN based system: http://www.greenwavereality.com/solutions/connected-lighting-solution/ http://www.greenwavereality.com/solutions/connected-lighting... Light by Moore's Cloud: http://moorescloud.com/ http://moorescloud.com/ - A larger ambient display.
mcmire 14y ago
This game. Who'd've thought that this game could be used to do so much?

80 points by rutherfj 14y ago

A demonstration of an iPad app that interfaces with the Phillips Hue LED lightbulbs to provide environmental lighting synced with the Minecraft day/night cycle.

ndejager 14y ago

This is actually pretty impressive. There's lots of practical applications for this as well.

flakeskstyle 14y ago

What dads do with their kids... Love it!

sp332 14y ago

I don't think there's an official SDK, but the Hue is easy to control with a JSON API. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/in-living-color-ars-reviews-the-hacker-approved-philips-hue-leds/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/in-living-color-ars-r... (under the section "Taking Control").

rutherfj 14y ago
Correct - there is no official SDK, but a quick search at Github will give you quite a few projects using a variety of languages to choose from.

zenogais 14y ago

Pretty awesome.

biolime 14y ago

That is very cool! I hadn't yet heard about the Hue but you've got me interested in it now. Great article!

btipling 14y ago

This will probably break any red stone repeater clocks you have set up. Any kind of messing with time in the game will break them and you have to replace the repeater to fix them, which isn't fun if you've built anything more complex than a blinking light.

LordIllidan 14y ago
He isn't messing with time in the game - he built a separate iPad app that allows the user to calibrate the time manually to that of the minecraft server.
- nwh 14y ago
  Couldn't the iPad app also emulate a client connected to the server, and only ask for the current time?
  - rutherfj 14y ago
    That is my next plan!
    - AndyKelley 14y ago
      Possibly useful: https://github.com/superjoe30/node-minecraft-protocol/ https://github.com/superjoe30/node-minecraft-protocol/ Or even https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer/ https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer/
  - Skywing 14y ago
    Even easier, you could just write a minecraft server plugin that puts its current server time somewhere for the app to read from. It could be anywhere, really - the plugin could run a webserver, the plugin could put it in a txt file visible online somewhere, etc. Now all the iOS app has to do is cat the time and sync automatically.
ndejager 14y ago
As far as I can tell this doesn't interact with time in the game.

qdot76367 14y ago

This kind of idea is something philips has been working on for years, with Hue being the newest in a line of lighting control systems. Years ago, they were peddling the amBX line, which was a set of lights, desk vibrators, and fans (yes, as in like, desk fans that blow in your face) that would create an immersive environment for games. Of course, very few games picked it up (we worked on it a bit for Second Life, and I did some silly things with it, super mario bros, and alcohol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q). amBX ended up being mostly a failure, despite having fuck off HUGE booths on the gdc expo floor for at least 3 years running (Who else remembers the huge black blob? Great as a "meet me near [large obvious thing]" place. :) ). Philips ended up either spinning or selling off amBX. It's still around as a set of crappy LED lights that burn out quickly (?!) and have crap for contrast and color depth. There's open source drivers out there if you look (including my half-done-maybe-still-works libambx). Hue seems to be working out a bit better from what I'm hearing thus far. Might pick one up myself soon.

alirov 14y ago
I got a secondhand amBX system (just the lights) off of Craigslist a few months ago for cheap and it's been pretty cool. The Windows drivers were a pain to deal with but I got everything up and running in Ubuntu and it works much better. Interesting issue is that when the power is plugged in for the first time (or the power is reset), the drivers in Ubuntu don't properly link to the device. The lights just flash continuously or don't turn on at all. I have to restart into Windows with the amBX plugged in which I guess does some sort of initialization to them. From there, if I restart back into Ubuntu, everything functions normally. No issues with burn out so far. There's something pleasing about lighting up my room at night in bright colors. And it gets even better when used as music visualizations!
- qdot76367 14y ago
  Hmm, ok, I was seeing the exact same rebooting issue. Didn't realize it was an initialization issue on powerup. Just curious, what drivers/programs are you using to control it on ubuntu?

Whitespace 14y ago

My eyes teared up reading this; what a great dad!

rutherfj 14y ago
Building up "brownie points" before he turns into a teenager!

andrewingram 14y ago

I like the idea, would work well for multiplayer where you can't freeze time just by hitting escape.

whatupdave 14y ago

This is really cool. It would definitely add to the immersion of the game.

rutherfj 14y ago
And really good if you like to go underground at night and mine. Then you know when the sun rises!

Draco6slayer 14y ago

Wasn't there a Kickstarter project floating around earlier that was supposed to have the exact same functionality as this 'Phillips Hue'? Or are they the same?

prawn 14y ago
Different to Hue. I'd just written a comment about LIFX when you posted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347 LIFX is led by an Australian guy. Their email updates have covered their design process, prototyping in China and so on and they're getting close to delivering the first preorders. There's a tech blog about how it will all work here: http://lifxtech.blogspot.com.au/ http://lifxtech.blogspot.com.au/
- Draco6slayer 14y ago
  So the chief difference there is price and the WiFi interaction between the bulbs? Is everything else the same between the two products, then? Or does LIFX offer any additional advantage?
  - prawn 14y ago
    Haven't looked into Hue much or used it and obviously haven't used LIFX so someone else might need to chime in. Hue needing a base station seems a bit annoying to me so that is a pretty key difference. Very keen for the LIFX bulbs to arrive so I can experiment and see what they do. It was a very popular Kickstarter foray, so I'm hoping that a strong community forms from those customers to build all the fun stuff you'd hope to see like music- and game-related applications.
tlrobinson 14y ago
LIFX: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347

prawn 14y ago

LIFX will be another option for these sorts of projects. It's a Kickstarter project that exploded in popularity and is set to deliver in the next couple of months. http://lifx.co/ http://lifx.co/ I paid about $90-100 for two globes which makes it a bit cheaper than Hue. I think LIFX also does away with a base station and has some sort of mesh networking between bulbs?

njharman 14y ago

wtf do hue bulbs have in them for $90 a bulb.

rutherfj 14y ago
They are way too expensive IMHO. If I did not have the idea to hack this together with Minecraft, I never would have purchased them.
- rutherfj 14y ago
  For $199 you get 3 bulbs and the wireless "hub". Additional bulbs to expand your collection are $59.
- d23 14y ago
  I always wanted to do something like this with an Arduino but never got around to it. When I saw the Hue I was pretty excited, until I saw the price tag. $200 for 3 bulbs? I'll pass for now. I'm assuming it's only a matter of time before they become reasonably priced.
Symmetry 14y ago
They're not quite that expensive, but they're powerful and efficient LED bulbs that will last pretty much forever, and you can wirelessly control them.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  They are still rather ridiculously expensive for what they are. Granted, they are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, but the margins on them must be eye-poppingly large.

Symmetry 14y ago

Oh man, I'm proud that these products are finally coming out. I was somewhat involved in the later parts of the standardization process, and this is actually the first time I've seen something I've worked on come to mass market. Looking forward to seeing devices with Ember chips come out.

postscapes1 14y ago

LIFX gets all the love these days but there are actually quite a few other projects along the same lines. Visualight: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leifp/visualight http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leifp/visualight is another crowdfunded project and is Open Hardware. Spark Socket: http://www.sparkdevices.com/ http://www.sparkdevices.com/ takes a slightly different approach and you probably can guess, puts the intelligence in the socket separate from the bulb. Bluetooth bulb: http://www.blueclickhome.com http://www.blueclickhome.com Greentech 6LoWPAN based system: http://www.greenwavereality.com/solutions/connected-lighting-solution/ http://www.greenwavereality.com/solutions/connected-lighting... Light by Moore's Cloud: http://moorescloud.com/ http://moorescloud.com/ - A larger ambient display.

mcmire 14y ago

This game. Who'd've thought that this game could be used to do so much?