I dunno. I was able to see the Resources under the desert I am in. Including Sand+Ore gravel blocks. Saw Coal, Potassium, Lead, Iron, and gravel which shows up as Sand+Resource. Though a note on the Sand+XYZ, they're very very translucent. Was hard to see them at first.
To me, neither are ideal, heh
Uncommenting the section in blocks.xml shows where all the ore & gravel/sand+X are, but you can't mine them for resources.
The way it's done in the blocks.xml section is by extending attributes/properties of other blocks, like the concrete pyramid, to replace the ore & sand/gravel blocks. The reason the gravel/sand is hard to see is they replaced those w glass blocks.
Result is it's pretty good to see where resources are, but to mine them you need to 'turn it off'.
The hack I did doesn't fully replace the ore/gravel/sand blocks, it changes their shape & color, but they're still mineable for their default resources.
Also, imo, the colors are easier to differrintiate than the shapes.
Couple reasons I targetted just the gravel/sand+X blocks were that the fewer blocks being drawn the lower the impact; and, as far as I know, all the pure ore blocks are always surrounded by their respective gravel or sand + X blocks. So the 'voids' within those gravel/sand bunches are the ore blocks.
Additionally, since the gravel+X or the sand+X blocks are those that poke out to the surface, you could choose to run it and then play as 'normal', but with a huge "helper" (or cheat) enabled. Fugly? OP'd? Absolutely.
What I actually was striving for was very suble tints to the surface gravel/sand+X blocks. Unfortunately, I didn't come anywhere close.
There's a dev program that lets you see them.
Could you point me to that dev program Lucky? I'd really like to see what they did even if I might not be able to see how.
Edit: think I misread your post Lucky; the pic looks like what you see if you uncomment the section in blocks.xml. Is that what you meant by "dev program"?
---
Red = Iron, Blue = Lead, White = Potassium, dark brownish black = Coal, Yellow = Oil
EDIT: I went ahead and made this into a modlet:
https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?108847-MakeGravelSandPlusOreBlocksVisibleMineable
This adds in the sand+X, including Oil;
Code:
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreGravelPlusIron']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="540"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreGravelPlusLead']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="537"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreGravelPlusCoal']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="552"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreGravelPlusPotassium']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="535"/>
</append>
<!-- The 5 gravel+X below are for the Desert biome. Using txName_Concrete_yellow, 536 for Oil color -->
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreSandPlusIron']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="540"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreSandPlusLead']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="537"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreSandPlusCoal']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="552"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreSandPlusPotassium']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="535"/>
</append>
<append xpath="/blocks/block[@name='terrOreSandPlusOil']">
<property name="Shape" value="New"/>
<property name="Mesh" value="opaque"/>
<property name="Model" value="Pole1m"/>
<property name="Texture" value="536"/>
</append>