Westmarch Seminar III: Foliage

Fundamentals

The general foliage palette can be found at the Westmarch palette guide above each WIP settlement, at /warp fbwestmarches, and /warp westmarchguide.

Besides giving you the block palette itself, the palette guide already provides some information on all the different plant types, which categories they fall under, as well as additional block-specific explanations regarding their usage and placement.

Note that aspects of how to do foliage have already been covered in Seminar II.

Base Coverage

The main ground coverage consists of these four blocks: Small Fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass, Grass (There is a vanilla and a conquest version of this block. Only the conquest version works on layers so make sure to use that one!), and Timothy Grass. Common Meadow Grass is used to transition between foliage and paths.

The most important one of these is Small Fescue as it serves as the base grass type while the other three blocks are mixed in in patches. However, you cannot just place these patches randomly next to each other. In this regard, you need to think of the grass palette as a sort of gradient in that certain blocks will look better next to each other than others. For example, Timothy Grass should not be placed directly next to more lush grass blocks like Kentucky Bluegrass or Grass because the color does not tend to blend very well. Instead, you would use Small Fescue as a sort of transition block between the different blocks to lessen the contrast. All of this is heavily dependent on the blockstate, i.e. which specific version of each plant is shown at specific locations.

Here is a color-coded example of this:

Accent Blocks and Flowers

The main plants used for creating color accents are Sweet Grass, Wavy Hair Grass, as well as flowers such as Buttercups or Cow Parsley. Other accent plants should be used more rarely.

Sweet Grass, Wavy Hair Grass and Cow Parsley can be used in very small clusters to create additional interest. Flowers on the other hand should be placed individually so as not to make the foliage too busy in terms of colors. The main flower blocks are Buttercups and Black Knapweed. The use of any other accenting plants should be considered even more carefully and their usage even rarer. The palette guide provides additional information on where different accent blocks might appear.

Here are two examples of how you would add accent blocks to the previous example:

Overgrowth

Hurty plants such as the various Nettle blocks and Thistles are the main overgrowth used in the coverage. They are either placed as their own clusters or are mixed in with bushes.

Most commonly, overgrowth is represented by Green Meadow Fescue which should border/be mixed in with bush shapes and nettle patches. Green Meadow Fescue can also be used in patches of its own to signify dense areas of the main grass coverage as well as overgrown areas of fences and walls similar to bushes.

The most used blocks for making bushes are the Hawthorn Bush, Olive Tree Leaves, and Wild Shrubs. They are commonly used to create overgrowth on sections of fence or alongside walls. They can also be found in small clusters in large patches of grass where there is no management or activity by humans.

An important note: When creating overgrowth on a wall or fence or even beside a house, using weathered variants of blocks such as Old Wicker Fence or the mossy stone variant blocks will help blend the foliage overgrowth into those areas.

Here are two examples of how you would add overgrowth to the previous example:

Blocks used:

• Green Meadow Fescue
• Nettles
• Cow Parsley
• Wild Shrub
• Olive Tree Leaves
• Hawthorn Bush

Blocks used:

• Green Meadow Fescue
• Nettles
• Wild Overgrown Nettles
• Thistles

Fences

In-depth explanations for how to foliage fences can be found at the palette guide in the “Exterior” section.

Two important tools to get the most out of your fence or wall detailing are the tool cycler and the paint knife. Both tools allow you to change the layer on which plants sit.

Tool Cycler

Here is how you get a tool cycler:

1. Grab a stick from your inventory
2. While holding the stick in your hand, type: /tool cycler

You can now left-click plant blocks until you get to “layer”. Then you can right-click the plant to cycle its layer. You will notice that right-clicking a plant with the tool cycler will immediately move it to its lowest possible layer. This is especially useful if you place plants above a fence block and want to cycle it down as fast as possible. If you only want to adjust a plant's layer slightly, you should use the paint knife.

Paint Knife

You can simply search for a paint knife in your inventory. You can move plants up by right-clicking them or move them down by left-clicking them.

An important note: Placing a block next to a block that has been layered or in any other way modified by a cycling tool will reset the block to its original state. Thus, cycling your foliage should always be the final step. Make sure that you have placed everything you need to. Otherwise, you will waste lots of time recycling plants over and over again.

It is also important to mention that we will get new fence features once we update to 1.20. Wicker fences will be able to interact with layers properly, i.e. they will be able to be cycled down. This might require this section to be updated, so keep an eye out for an update to this section after the server moves to 1.20.

Walls

The detailing of walls behaves in much the same way as the detailing of fences but here are some additional things that should be kept in mind:

• As previously mentioned, you should consider the wall’s gradient. Partially collapsed parts or parts that use mossy stone blocks will generally be more overgrown. More pristine-looking parts will probably have less dense vegetation around it.
• Watch out for parts of walls that use stair blocks as those have usually been cycled. Placing other blocks next to them will reset that cycling. Make sure to recycle the stair blocks into their correct shape once you are done with your foliage.
• In certain spaces around buildings, the ground layering combined with the building’s walls and roof might make placing plants directly next to the building impossible. If that is the case, you can remove parts of the layering and replace them with dense foliage (mainly bushes) to give these areas some foliage while hiding the removed layers.

Conclusion

This concludes Seminar III. If you have any questions or want feedback on your foliage, you can let me, Wurst, or Luther know in-game or via DM on Discord.