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Item Stacking in Hytale

AgentB8

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Why Hello There!
One question that's been bugging me for quite a while now is this: How are items stacked? And no, I don't mean in the inventory, I mean physically putting one object on top of another object in the Hytale world. This really wasn't much of a question up until recently, since it seemed obvious that it wasn't possible. But with the new postcards sent out in the past couple months, something seemed a bit strange... So I decided to do some research and pull out old media from the blog posts to try and figure out what exactly is happening. At the end of it all, I still don't have a definitive answer, but at least I have enough substance to make a blog post of my own about it! ;)

Dropping Items
Even the basic function of dropping items has scarcely been featured in anything the Hytale team has given us. From what I've found, we never get to see the player actually drop anything, but we do see how items already on the ground look like. First of all, we have to keep in mind that some of the images and clip screenshots from the official website are now from over a year ago, meaning things could easily have been changed. That being said, from what we have now, it's safe to guess that dropping items causes them to float on the ground, disappearing after some time. This is the system that Minecraft uses, along with other similar games. We can see this working in a couple clips, the one here being meat on the ground:
TrorkMeat.PNG
Now, in the actual clip, you can see the item hovering. Another example (which I'm way too lazy to get the exact frame for) is in the first gameplay clip where a skeleton dies, and its mace floats the exact same way, full size and upright. At least based on my research, these are the only two examples of dropping items we have so far. I'll move onto something else for now, but we're coming back to this.

Throwing Items
Something unique from Minecraft that we've seen is that players can actually throw items, which interact with blocks and stay on the ground. Two examples are shown so far, one being a simple rock, and the other being... Manure. Screenshots of the rock throwing are shown below:
Rock1.PNG Rock2.PNG
It's important to point out that the post this clip was in references the items as "throwable objects", alluding to the possibility that only some items can actually be thrown. Regardless, I'm going to pursue this one because it still shows a very important thing, which is helpful anyways. Obviously, we see the stone bounce off of blocks using simulated physics. The important part here though, is that you can see the rock snap into a position after it stops the physics simulation (I tried to capture this in the second image). That makes me thing there's a mechanic built in now that can automatically anchor an object with a random rotation into a solid block. And that, my friends, is where the evidence lies.

Stacking Items
okay, so this is what I've been building up to all this time. Several of the postcards the team has released on Twitter showcase an interesting feature in the background, and sometimes even the focus of the shot. Of course, I'm stalking about stacked objects! In the clip showing off the sounds, we can see a lot of stacked books in the house. Here are three examples:
Books1.PNG
Books2.PNG Stack1.PNG
The first image only shows books stacked, whereas the second and third have potions on top of the books. Additionally, I would like to point out that the books in the stack are most certainly NOT the same rotation, position, or even shape! And even if they were, you can clearly tell that the feature isn't limited to the same type of object. Stacking potions on top of books is one thing, but in the third image there's even a mushroom on top of a vase! And it doesn't stop there, look at this EXTREME example of stacking in the most recent postcard:
Gold.jpeg
Everything from gold, to books, to armor, to... dead bodies? Oh, and you can STAND on it! This photo all but proves that we're now able to stack all kinds of items on top of each other! But that doesn't answer the question of: HOW? Well that's where the previous evidence comes in. I'm guessing that the old item dropping system is still here. You probably have a completely different key or other system for entering a "mode" to place items down on the ground as a actual objects. Just like the throwing mechanic, there are probably only a select number of types of items that can be placed down (although who knows?). We're likely going to be able to select which item to place down next, then select the general area to place it. Then the game uses a randomizer to set a position and rotation in the grid area you selected (as long as something is below it). Then it becomes a physical object with a hitbox that mobs can walk over, and probably break to collect. While this seems like an alternative method of storing items to chests, I think it's mostly for decoration (since that would be a lot less effective).

Conclusion
So, based on everything we've seen, I'm making the assumption that this feature was only added recently (after they figured out how to do it with throwable items), and that's why we're only seeing it now. I'm very excited to see exactly how they do it, whether it really is a placing "mode" or key, or something different entirely! Of course, as always, we just need to wait until either they release something new about it, or just wait for the game itself to release to test it out ourselves. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this post, have a great day!
I wouldn't suggest waiting for another one anytime soon though...
 

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Antnest8

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This was a great read! So nice to read other people posts! Also, I don't know if this would give any information for stacking objects, but to my knowledge we have seen 5 instances of objects hovering over the ground. 1. Meat near Trork 2. Skeleton Fight
3. Feeding Mice
4. Feeding Fens Stalkers
5. Chicken Egg in the Background!
1618015215836.png
 

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Antnest8

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Attachments have been acting weird lately
 

Reyrey

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Cool
 

Zodak

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Being able to drop/place items like you described would be great for detailing builds.
 

BrAlMeSo_Mc

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oof, in minecraft you can throw snowballs
-BrAlMeSo_Mc
 

red death

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the daeth of a guy in hytale Screenshot 2021-04-09 151816.png
 

red death

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ya good idea
 
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