Minetest 5.6.0 has been released with dynamic shadows, improvements to mod management, a clearer player registration process, and more!
Last year, we decided on a roadmap of goals to focus on. This release has made good progress on these goals, especially regarding graphics and user interfaces (UIs).
You can download Minetest from our website. Also check out the full changelog.
Graphics
Mod Configuration (“Select Mods”)
Improved login/register UI
Scripting API
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Graphics
IrrlichtMt
A big focus in 5.6.0 was improving our graphics and input code. Minetest uses a 3D rendering library called Irrlicht. Irrlicht is quite outdated and is no longer being updated, so in 5.5.0 we created a fork called IrrlichtMt. This has allowed us to fix many bugs that we couldn’t before. We have also been removing unused code and replacing what we can with other libraries. Our goal is to completely remove Irrlicht, using SDL2 and OpenGL directly.
Dynamic Shadows
Minetest also now supports dynamic shadows based on the sun and moon position. Nodes, players and entities will all cast shadows, and shadows can be colored by semi-transparent things such as water or glass. Work for this feature was actually started in 5.5.0, but didn’t make that release for various reasons.
In order to enable dynamic shadows, a mod or game must opt-in to it. You can use the Enable Shadows mod to allow them to be enabled in any game but be aware this may not work as expected.