Scales that actually show up • Handbook Blog

Apoli 1.87.1 and Origins 1.39.0. Last release shipped the scale system. This one makes it work.

The scale system was hooked into the wrong methods

Two mistakes, both the same shape: a mixin on a method that the classes we cared about override.

Entity.getDimensions(Pose) is where the hitbox comes from — except LivingEntity overrides it and never calls up. Every player and every mob therefore kept its vanilla hitbox no matter what the scale said. And LivingEntityRenderer.scale, where the model was being resized, is overridden by PlayerRenderer without a super call, so players were never resized on screen either.

So the whole thing looked inert: /apoli:scale set @s apoli:base 2 reported success, the value was stored, and nothing about the world changed.

Now the hitbox is scaled in LivingEntity.getDimensions (and Player.getDimensions on 1.20.1, where the override chain is different again), and the model is scaled in EntityRenderDispatcher.render — one place, above every renderer, so it covers players, mobs, armour stands, item frames and anything a mod adds. The entity’s shadow scales with it.

Held items moved too. They used to be scaled only in the first-person hand renderer, which is why apoli:held_item and apoli:base interacted so strangely — one of them applied in first person and neither applied in third. Both views now go through ItemRenderer, and apoli:held_item is no longer built from apoli:base: in third person the item is drawn inside the model and already follows it, so held_item is the extra multiplier on top of that, in both views.

Everyone can see it

A scale set by command or by apoli:scale is sent to every player tracking the entity, and again when a player joins, respawns or changes dimension. Respawning keeps the size you had. The ticks animation is sent as its start, end and easing rather than as a value per tick, so a four-second shrink costs one packet and every client eases through it in step.

And it costs less than it did

An entity whose size is settled does no work at all. The per-tick hook now returns immediately unless there is an animation in flight, and a scaled entity with no apoli:scale power keeps its resolved values until something actually changes them — granting the power, revoking it, suppressing it, or a /reload. Only expression-driven scales are recomputed every tick, because only they can change on their own.

`interval` takes an expression

apoli:action_over_time can now work out its own interval:

{
  "type": "apoli:action_over_time",
  "interval": "20 + min(enchantment[origins:water_protection, armor, sum], 8) * 6",
  "condition": { "type": "apoli:in_rain" },
  "entity_action": { "type": "apoli:damage", "amount": 2, "damage_type": "origins:hurt_by_water" }
}

The gap is measured from the last firing and recomputed when the action runs, so it tracks whatever you put in it. The first hit also lands on the tick the condition becomes true instead of up to one interval later — an expression interval checks the condition every tick, which is the trade you are making. A plain number still samples once per interval and costs exactly what it did before.

Custom projectiles were rendering upside down

A apoli:custom_model_render in geometry mode on a custom projectile drew the model inverted and mirrored, hanging below the projectile.

Entity models are authored in a flipped space — Y points down — and LivingEntityRenderer sets that up with scale(-1, -1, 1) before any render layer runs. A projectile is not a living entity, so its renderer builds that space itself, and it was missing the flip. It has it now, and the same .geo.json looks identical on a player and on a projectile.

Water Protection is a delay now

It used to reduce water damage and, at a combined level of 8, stop it outright. Both of those are gone. origins:hurt_by_water bypasses armour, shields and enchantments, so the hit is always 2 — what Water Protection changes is how often it lands: +6 ticks per combined level, up to 8 levels, from one hit a second bare to one every 3.4 seconds in a full set.

Immunity moved somewhere you can see coming: Conduit Power. Stand in the range of a conduit, or drink one in, and water and rain stop hurting.

The whole mechanic is one power file now — no cooldown resource, no second power to carry the timer, no origins:enchantment condition. It is also more responsive than the old version in both directions: stepping into the rain hurts immediately, and taking armour off shortens the gap on the next hit rather than the next cycle.

The scale system was hooked into the wrong methods#

Everyone can see it#

And it costs less than it did#

interval takes an expression#