The Minecraft Hue Project

March 13, 2013 8:03 AM

The Minecraft Hue Project; It’s hard to find a compelling use case for the Philips Hue. But Jim Rutherford and his son hacked the wireless LED lightbulbs to be in sync with the day/night cycle in Minecraft. It creates an immersive setup and is actually useful as creepers start appearing at nighttime. (Via TechCrunch)
posted by R. Mutt (32 comments total)

Man, as soon as I heard the Minecraft music I flinched and thought "I need to get to shelter ASAP."
posted by drezdn at 8:12 AM on March 13 [7 favorites]

You know when a project as cool as this is publicized, someone will utter the ignorant diss, "Some people have too much time on their hands." But I love Rutherford's response on YouTube:

Shoknifeman 3 days ago
Some people have WAY too much time on their hands

Jim Rutherford 2 days ago
Funny - I never seem to have enough time to do the things I love!

posted by Celsius1414 at 8:16 AM on March 13 [22 favorites]

Cooooooooooool!
posted by brundlefly at 8:17 AM on March 13

I watched my nephew play minecraft at the weekend, and frankly speaking, I can't see how he derives any pleasure from it at all. It looked so tedious and dull. Maybe its better in MMO form.
posted by marienbad at 8:38 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

This guy rules, this guy rules, this guy rules.
posted by Greg Nog at 8:41 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

marienbad, perhaps your nephew's preferences differ from yours.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:46 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

I didn't really grok what they were doing until the time lapse. That's pretty neat. I don't think I've ever seen a gaming environment seep into meatspace like that before. Bravo.
posted by Tevin at 8:47 AM on March 13

That's neat. My son was telling me he wants to make his room look like a Minecraft shelter just last night. We need to do this.
posted by mph at 8:49 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

I watched my nephew play minecraft at the weekend, and frankly speaking, I can't see how he derives any pleasure from it at all. It looked so tedious and dull. Maybe its better in MMO form.

This might help.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:53 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

mph, if he's really committed he could just live in a dirt hole with a box for storage. That's all a True Steve really needs to survive.
posted by Tevin at 8:56 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]

Does it actually sync with Minecraft? Or are you just eyeballing the time?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:58 AM on March 13

OH boy. My 10 year old is obsessed with Minecraft and requested a Minecraft themed bedroom in our new house. I have a feeling this is going to be a huge part of it.
posted by hollygoheavy at 9:12 AM on March 13

I thought: "Oh cool oh cool, oh shiiit cool." Until I saw he was playing Creative.
posted by DoubleLune at 9:32 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

Okay.. I'm sold. The scariest nights of my life have been spent playing minecraft in a totally dark room when the sun goes down and the monsters start making noises...
posted by saucysault at 9:52 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Shoknifeman 3 days ago
Some people have WAY too much time on their hands

billyfleetwood said it best: "Yeah, I hate it when a person's creative urges aren't completely and utterly consumed by the hectic schedule of wage-slavery and passive media consumption."
posted by komara at 10:01 AM on March 13 [22 favorites]

billyfleetwood said it best: "Yeah, I hate it when a person's creative urges aren't completely and utterly consumed by the hectic schedule of wage-slavery and passive media consumption."

Perfect.

My first thought when somebody writes it is to add "...says somebody on the Internet" onto the end. :)
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:09 AM on March 13

Okay.. I'm sold. The scariest nights of my life have been spent playing minecraft in a totally dark room when the sun goes down and the monsters start making noises...

I introduced my brother to Minecraft with some cave exploration. I was near a dark cavern. A sound cue played: the high ascending slide up a string, like a finger going up a spine. My brother jumped. His eyes bulged and his smile vanished. I wish I'd taken a picture.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:15 AM on March 13

I introduced my brother to Minecraft with some cave exploration. I was near a dark cavern. A sound cue played: the high ascending slide up a string, like a finger going up a spine. My brother jumped. His eyes bulged and his smile vanished. I wish I'd taken a picture.

There are a lot of things I could point to as being the secret of Minecraft's success, but the sound design is definitely one of them. The random cavern sounds are just creepy.

I also finally realized the other day, after playing Minecraft for literally years, that the sound of an item being picked up is popping bubble wrap. Irresistible!

It seems to me that the lighting thing is kind of a cheat, since you're often underground and normally don't know whether or not it'll be dark outside when you come back up (unless you made a watch). But then again, they're playing Creative mode. Fah!
posted by neckro23 at 11:32 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

One of the brilliant things Minecraft will do is play a spooky sound if you're just looking in the direction of a nearby dark (= dangerous) cavern, even if it's underground or behind a rock wall and you can't actually see it. It's like procedurally-generated foreshadowing.

To say nothing of the noises you will hear if something dangerous actually spawns in that dark cavern...
posted by straight at 11:47 AM on March 13

The Endermen only heighten the tension. If your tunnels are too high, you could turn around and find some hideous monster right behind you.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:54 AM on March 13

I love the geek hierarchy going on this thread. Non-players mock people who play minecraft. Survival mode players mock people who play in creative mode. Not sure who the creative mode people are going to mock though.
posted by Joh at 12:04 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Not sure who the creative mode people are going to mock though.

Bronies, I think, but I'll have to check the handbook.
posted by komara at 12:07 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]

Not sure who the creative mode people are going to mock though.

MeFites?
posted by Malor at 12:13 PM on March 13

Oh, and it looks like the iPad app isn't actually connecting to the Minecraft server, it's just doing its own thing, in sync with what Minecraft should be doing on your PC. It would be slightly cooler if it actually logged in and read the world time directly, or else if Minecraft were modded slightly to 'call out' with its internal time on a regular basis.

Also, kind of a shame he wrote it for the iPad, because that'll make it harder to port. Of course, porting may not be what he intends, he may want to sell it.

Yeah, after a little thought, it seems tome that a little plugin, in Java, added to the Minecraft source code, would be the way to go. The machine could just connect to and drive the lights directly.

You might even be able to get that mod accepted by the devs.
posted by Malor at 12:17 PM on March 13

Some sort of Hue Developers Conference on Friday in Eindhoven. Go crazy!
posted by R. Mutt at 12:59 PM on March 13

I watched my nephew play minecraft at the weekend, and frankly speaking, I can't see how he derives any pleasure from it at all. It looked so tedious and dull.

Watching someone else working at a focused task in Minecraft probably would look that way; I've undertaken a couple of large scale Minecraft projects that entailed a hell of a lot of digging, smelting, stacking blocks, repetitive stuff. But it was all with purpose; that type of play is all about the satisfaction gained by achieving whatever task your imagination has come up with, which is quite different than achieving the task that a game developer has laid out for you (collect coins, shoot all the bad guys, kill the level boss, whatever).

This sums it up perfectly. And now I need to go find out how much that lightbulb system costs.
posted by usonian at 2:09 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]

I watched my nephew play minecraft at the weekend, and frankly speaking, I can't see how he derives any pleasure from it at all. It looked so tedious and dull. Maybe its better in MMO form.

You could try asking him. If I start talking to my six year old nephew about it, he literally will not stop.
posted by empath at 2:21 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Minecraft is one of those things I don't get, but I've only played the free creative mode. It's cool looking at what other people build, but building them myself seems tedious. I should probably play Survival mode.

I'm glad it's so successful though, since its an independent game that encourages creativity.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:42 PM on March 13

>Not sure who the creative mode people are going to mock though.

Bronies, I think, but I'll have to check the handbook.

So, themselves?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:50 PM on March 13

Bronies, I think

Specifically, those who play the FTB Bronie pack.
posted by bonehead at 8:30 AM on March 14

I didn't really get Minecraft and had no real interest in buying it. I generally only buy PC games on steep discount.

Then my 10 yo son bought it for himself. I bought my copy 2 days later. It's hard to describe, but it can create very compelling experiences. I spent a lot of time playing for a week or so. I play less now, but that's because I can't play on my server when my son and his friends are on as they stay in creative as op and do things like /nuke which kill me in survival.
posted by jclarkin at 10:02 AM on March 14

Empath --

I often have to tell my son that I don't want to hear about it. He and his friends are completely obsessed.
posted by jclarkin at 10:03 AM on March 14