Blocks with 'nametags'

I've been trying to display HUDs like name tags over blocks. I've tried mobs, but haven't been able to get them to work just right. I can't get the name tag to show up permanently so I could hide the mob in the block, and I can't get the name tag to show up when the mob is invisible. If someone has a fix to one of the already suggested ideas, or a method of their own, I would appreciate to hear about it. Thanks.

 

@ShadowDisruptor Holograms? You need to spawn a horse with a weird negative age and make it ride a wither skull, there are plenty of tutorials about that, just use google.

 

It looks like that's a bit overkill. Is it possible to have a mobs name tag show 24/7, like a player name tag?

 

@ShadowDisruptor The horse will show 24/7 (Well, that if the player stays that long)

 

Well, yes, that was another thing I realized. It only sets it up for the online players, and if someone else joins, then they don't see this. These would be used dynamically, not for something static like a hub. Making the mobs tag stay up 24/7 would be the best solution, and I don't see the point of going to a more difficult solution if there's one that could be done 10x easier and more efficiently.

 

@ShadowDisruptor Mind explaining what you want to achieve?

 

Basically, I am having different 'buildings' based on where a player places them. Since I want to do this 100% non-modded, I need to resort to the name tags to show the type of building and it's current health / status. (Buildings would be wool blocks, or if it's possible to change the text on above a player head, that could work too.)

 

@ShadowDisruptor If with above a player head you mean an actual player, you can use TagAPI, however, that would flicker the player for a moment when the tag changes and will change/break their skin

If you mean an actual skull block then I don't think you can have the nametag to show with the mob being invisible, I have heard you can achieve this with NMS by overriding something in the mobs, but I'm not entirely sure since I have never done this myself.

 

It doesn't have to be invisible. As long as the name tag showed 24/7, I could put it inside the block.

 

@ShadowDisruptor Then use a mob? Anyway, I think having mobs enclosed in blocks will turn the nametag gray-ish

 

The nametag only shows if you look at it, that's been the issue. That's why I was asking how to make it show 24/7...

 

@ShadowDisruptor LivingEntity#setCustomNameVisible(boolean)

 

Tried it, hasn't changed anything.

 

@ShadowDisruptor I'm pretty sure that works, are you sure you have the right entity?

 

I'm using the LivingEntity class, but I don't see why it would be in the methods if it didn't work.

EDIT: Thread on related topic.
https://bukkit.org/threads/setcustomnamevisible-help.324763/

 

@ShadowDisruptor It works fine with the mobs I've tested in 1.7, if you have 1.8 then I can't help you.

 

@Konato_K I want to try adding similar effects into my own plugin, and so far, your idea for the witherskull and horse thing seems good...however, I noticed that on your server (yeah, I play there frequently), all the holograms are floating 1 block over the ground. Is there a way to get that hologram to be only 1 block above without that greying out problem? Thanks!

 

@AlphaRLee You can place them wherever you want, one block above ground, two, three hundrer, the graying out problem it's because there are blocks where the horse is, graying out it's nametag (the horse it's a giant horse, something really weird, but it seems to work)

 

I was using 1.8. After testing with 1.7.10, I have gotten the same exact results.

 

@ShadowDisruptor Are you using a 1.8 client? That may be the issue

 

That was te issue. Thanks for continuing the support through this.