To be fair, they look pretty good when there’s grass (obscuring most of 'em):
(but man, yeah, super repetitive once the grass LODs out of view)
So I have a couple of dumb questions. Can we actually mine the gems to make the gem torches? And how are we suppose to get spark to make the gem torches?
Not in game yet, i think.
I get blended by the torch when try to see anything in the dark.
Probably hold it over your head, or out to the side to see something.
Yes, agree.
The torch with fire take whole screen-hight.
Two seperate FOVs would be nice, one for handheld items and one for your view of the world.
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We’re currently fully reworking the Held Items scaling, placement and animations. The system allow us to define per item, the held position, in world posing, in storage posing, and in GUI posing. It’s nearly done - should be in a coming release.
This also takes into account the wide angle aspect ratio support for the 1st person view, GUI and HUD (which was mentioned in this Weekly Update).
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Does changing the Field of View improve things for you?
A) All the Visual Effects (VFX) will be replaced in the game. We’ve not changed any VFX in over a year. The updated torches will come with updated VFX.
B) See my post above about this. (Yes we know some are comically / stupidly large!)
C) All the fullscreen visual effects need a polish pass (see A).
D) Yes we can enable see-through leaves.
tl;dr
The reason the leaf blocks are currently not transparent are:
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There are many leaf blocks in the worlds and transparent blocks can’t be used in the occlusion system. (The occlusion system attempts to not render distant stuff, when near stuff hides it.)
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Many of the trees in Boundless contain many leaf blocks. If the leaf blocks are solid we only need to mesh the outside blocks in a tree. If the leaf blocks are transparent we need to mesh the outside and inside of the blocks in a tree. This greatly increases the number of blocks rendered, and …
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Rendering the leaf blocks with all the blended leaves is more expensive than a standard block.
Ultimately the leaf blocks are solid now because they were really expensive to render. We can consider offering an option of “Solid Leaf Blocks” (or a more generic option) for player with higher spec machines.
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Is the approach where you mesh just the exterior faces, but still use a transparent texture, feasible with the engine? (hollow trees)
This seems to be the approach taken by a lot of the MC shader packs; works decently well, but they can also get away with it due to the less complicated models/textures
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Yes this is possible. Rendering the outside shell of the tree is cheaper (but less visually dense) than rendering the whole volume.
I’ve made a note to look at this again. If exposing it as an option to players is simple we can try and do it.
But ultimately we changed the leaf styling because the Overdraw (basically wasting fillrate, basically wasting GPU performance) of all the leaf planes (often called Fins or Shells) was extremely expensive.
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Ahh. So even then, probably only an option for beefy cards
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Hmm, hybrid idea:
Mesh trees twice: leave a 1 block shell around the exterior of the tree transparent, while leaving the interior bits solid & able to occlude. Probably only applied for close LODs, too.
(might even be something that could be applied during world gen? a transparent leaf block that can be LOD’d back to the opaque version)
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I agree as well, the tools you are holding are soooo big in the screen, it would be better to have more view of what you are doing! 
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I am no fan of gleam torches at all.
Why not?
Well, I guess the purpose of a gleam torch is to spend more light on a higher distance but in same distribution like the normal torch. Just with a certain Color taint. Is my thought right?
So but what could be cooler for spending light and play with especially in the toolset of boundless? I tell you: lanterns! Think of oil lanterns you carry. The full and materials they are made of like iron or copper with glas or kristall could change intensity of lights and distance, the distribution should be as for torch I guess.
And for really far distances you could use oil lanterns too but with the function of nowadays torch lights. So, you have a very far light, but just within a cone before you. Also this can be influenced by materials.
And think of the possibilities you have in a decorative way if you could place the lamps in your house / cave so on. The “shadow games” you could create.
Also good for miners would be helmets with those lights, so they have both hands free for tools!
Well think of it and give me feedback…
But imo @yota , @James I’d rather carry and oil lantern instead of a gemtorch…
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I can relate to your idea of lamps. I think it would have a more technologically progressive appeal while not being too high or low tech. You must keep in mind the mysterious Oort cube which also glows. To me both items - be it shimmering Oort cube and the totem, seem to have a higher degree of valence or more options about further enhancements. The description which follows as “totem” implies it being an item of cultist value. Both items might be the first to be found in the game and seemingly are relics. Which actual use and former appliance yet is not clear to the player. But quite handy as a start.
Of course the oort cube can also glow, but for me it seems not appropriate for higher tiers of light spenders. It is more some magical, something that glows, because it contains so much power. Power to move a machine or activate spells.
Anyhow, even if you want to see the oort cube as a high tier light source, I’d rather like to see it carried like lantern then combined with a stick like a tool.
Lanterns definitely give lots of options to play with. Especially the different materials (iron, copper as house, glas / cristal as light guidance and different fuels like oil coal gas) make it possible to diverse the different tiers.
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that is a very nice idea!!! 
I assumed it was but still, just checking!
I’ve seen a couple of different gem blocks but I can’t seem to harvest them with the current iron tools