Laser Light

Bright and dangerous to look at, yet spruces up a show

Ever wondered if your shows could look better? Why not add a laser, or two!

The laser light is a very complex block. It contains a special block entity that stores a bunch of data that you, the player, can customize!

The laser block by default displays a white medium-sized laser that moves diagonally back and forth, and is rotated to the block's direction. Note that this block will face away from you by default. If you right click on this block, a menu will appear with many controls. Note that these instructions and descriptions apply to the NeoForge menu, not the Forge menu. The Forge menu is described below past two images.

A capture of the screen in development with some fake WIP overlay sliders in the bottom corner for context

The top left corner has several buttons. The top pair control the height of the laser (in the case of the laser being horizontal in appearance, it will actually be the length outward from the block). The bottom pair of buttons control the vertical angle of the laser (up and down).

The 3 sliders below these buttons control the RGB colors (when the laser has custom colors enabled).

A little box to the left of the RGB sliders will display the currently selected color (it is directly controlled by the RGB colors so you don't have to close the menu to get a representation of the color that will be on the laser itself in-world).

On the right side of the screen, two buttons, 3 top sliders, a label in the middle, and then 2 more sliders. These sliders and buttons control functions of the laser instead of just visuals.

The top two buttons on the right side control custom color mode specific stuff. The left button toggles custom color mode on or off (reflected as being dark for on, and light for off). The same behavior is mirrored for the right-most button that controls random color mode (in random color mode, the RGB sliders do nothing, and instead, the RGB is randomized, but any colors you customized are saved to the world so you can enable them again whenever you want).

The sliders below these 2 buttons control Oscillation and a multiplier, along with laser size. The oscillation value can be small or great. The greater it is, the faster the movement will be. If it is 0, there will be no movement. The multiplier extends the block range in which the laser will smoothly move back in forth between (negative and positive counted). These 2 sliders (not counting the 3rd one) are for the horizontal angular movement.

The size slider changes the laser size as a whole. The max for now is 3. The minimum is 0.1~, (any smaller is unusable, and would require a spyglass to see correctly).

The label below these sliders shows the current light mode, which is currently unused and is always 0.

Below the label are two more sliders. These controls the vertical oscillation and vertical multiplier, respectively. These sliders have the same effect as the horizontal sliders, but for the vertical angle instead. Note that the vertical angle defined by the top left second pair of buttons is added onto by the vertical oscillation and multiplier. Setting the vertical oscillation to 0 will allow complete control of the vertical angle the laser will be at.

For now, RGB values can be 0 to 1, with a step of 0.1 (greater accuracy will be added later).

The screen will update and show the correct values per block when closed and reopened. Editing a laser block hasn't ever been easier. It also is completely translatable and the textures are customizable too (using resource packs, no hardcoded texture stuff).

The Forge version of this menu is completely different but functionally the same to the NeoForge version (sliders don't work the same across versions). Here are the two screens:

Take a note of the additional text for the Forge version.

Laser Light Forge Screen (Thingamajigs 1.7.1)

Laser Light NeoForge Screen (Thingamajigs 1.7.1)

^ To use the Forge screen, look at the top right first, it's the easiest part to explain.

However, this section is about to get very technical. If you don't care, just click on the image above to the left to get a nice overview of what the UI looks like before trying it in-game. Should be fairly simple to learn and experiment with to get the best result that you want out of the laser block. Moving on...

There are four buttons. The top two control the length of the beam (height is what it is called as it might be facing vertically up if you set it that way, and because originally the beam was a beacon beam pointing up exactly). The bottom two control the vertical angle. This is a special control in the fact that it effects other controls that are to the far right of these 4 buttons.

Next, look to the middle-left section. These buttons controls the RGB values (it seems they are RBG ordered by accident, oh well.. its not a bug, just an oversight, derp). This value is reflected in a box you can't see to the left of these buttons, and into a text readable format in the lower right corner of the screen (maybe supports the narrator, i think). Below the RGB buttons is some text. The first bit is permanent until a future update, but currently displays the light mode of the laser (there may be shows to play in a loop in the future....). Below the light mode text is the Horizontal and Vertical Oscillation labels. They will update whenever the oscillation is updated for either axis (excluding the third as that is reserved for special movements and calculations regarding the direction of the laser relative to the block).

Going up to the top right, you'll see 4 buttons. They are grouped together in pairs, top to bottom. The top turns ON a feature, and the bottom turns OFF a feature. The left pair control custom color mode (if this is off, only white will be displayed, if on, RGB values will effect the laser's color and enable other color modes). The right pair controls random color mode, which overrides your RGB values and uses random ones instead (your RGB values are saved and not replaced with random ones, just turn off random mode again to see your old RGB values still saved).

Below these buttons are 'left to right' pairs of buttons. These controls some advanced features of the laser light. Be warned, these can get out of hand pretty fast if you don't read carefully.

The 'Osc' and 'MM' buttons control Horizontal Oscillation and a multiplier for the horizontal oscillation. The multiplier is the amount of angle that will be traversed by the beam. The oscillation itself controls how fast it will move in the traversal (this is technically wrong but is the easiest way to explain this). These principles apply to the 'VOsc' and 'VMM' buttons as well, but for vertical up and down movement of the beam.

The 'Size' button controls the beam's size in total. This doesn't effect angular movement nor color, but does effect how crazy the beam is. The max value is 3.01, and the minimum is 0.01.

Most angular values only go up to 180 or 45. Experiment to see which ones suit you the best for your in-game DJ party needs. Set your 'Osc' and 'VOsc' to 0 to stop the beam from moving in their respective axis (the MM and VMM set to 0 also do this but have a different effect math-wise behind the scenes).

All the angular osc's and other things are reflected in text form in labels below these buttons in the middle to bottom right of the screen.

These are all the options currently in Thingamajigs 1.7.1 for the laser menu.

In Thingamajigs 1.7.2+, the laser light now supports up to 7 lasers at once. 2 buttons are in the menu. In the Forge version, they are at the bottom right. In the NeoForge version, there is one button below the left RGB sliders. These/this control(s) the amount of lasers the laser light will emit. Just like real life, the lasers can only all share the same color, otherwise they would mix. The real reason is due to complexity right now, perhaps in the future this will change. For now, the least amount of lasers support is 1, and the most amount of lasers supported is 7. If you try to go above 7, the laser in the Forge version will stay at 7, and in NeoForge, it will loop back to 1. Keep this in mind when clicking the button(s).

For NeoForge, you must exit the menu for the laser amount to change per 'second' click. The first click never registers, so you must click it again after reopening the laser menu to register a click change. If it is on 1 laser, click, then exit the menu, then click again, and it will be 2.

If this adds 2 lasers instead of just 1 laser, then when the laser menu is open, click the laser button and reopen the menu (without clicking again). It the laser is on 1 and it changes to 2 after reopening the menu, your click was registered and changed the value properly. This is a side-effect of using a single button for NeoForge instead of the Forge double button method. This was done due to technical limitations vs the Forge version's technical limitations regarding GUI creation and rendering.