I've been playing lots of maps recently, and lots of them have spectacular buildings. I try and make my houses unique, but they end up square blobs. Can anyone give me some tips on how to build cool houses?
First off, squares are basic and we don't want basic. Drop all ideas of simple squares and rectangles from your designs. Go with irregular shapes like L, T, crosses, or even circles. You can start with something like an L shape. Then add onto it without filling in everything and making a big square. Make the second floor a different pattern than the first. You can try putting balconies and other areas outside the main first floor floorplan. You don't have to make each floor cover the previous floor's plan, and if you make towers, they don't all have to be the same height. The roofs don't have to be symmetrical or perfectly aligned as well. Use different slabs and blocks to add unique touches everywhere. Change it up as you like.
-wool for walls, spruce/dark oak logs, and oak roof
also, for good blocks, if your doing cottage-like houses, i reccomend get two base blocks, for example cobble and stone brick, a good frame block, usually logs, and a good wall block, like wood.
Also, can i see a picture of your houses, i want to see where you need improvement
I used to be like you. The way I got good at building was by copying real-life houses. I would find houses in my town in real life the I liked and try to build them in Minecraft. Now I'm on to Renaissance cities, as you can see in my profile picture! (disclaimer: I didn't design the building with the sandstone) Three years ago, my houses were big chunky boxes of horizontal birch plank and spruce log lines (I thought it looked cool), with a trapezoid-shaped oak plank roof. They looked TERRIBLE! But you can improve, like I did!
I made trapezoid-shaped roofs because I was intimidated by tall roofs. Don't be. Tall roofs can look great.
Also for sloped roofs, make sure you use stairs, and overhang the stair blocks 1 block over the walls of the building. Either that, or make a parapet wall or a cornice (Google Image those if you don't know what they are). If you make an overhang (eave), also place upside-down stair blocks underneath to make the eave look smooth instead of choppy.
When I first started playing Minecraft, I built a cobblestone cube with dark oak planks as a flat roof on top. It was immediately called ugly by my faction mate on the server... Pretty understandably!
Now , 4 months later I've moved on to better, more detailed builds. The key to building is detail - if it's too plain and flat it usually doesn't look very good. Start by doing some research, look at pictures of other Minecraft builds and (this is important) look at photos of real buildings. It helps to pick one theme and stick to it for several buildings, that way you can experiment with variations of the same techniques and try using the same block palette different ways. Plus you can compare your finished results and see what techniques you like best to use in the future!
Experiment with different types of buildings. Start by making a few houses, make each one different. For example a 1 story house, a 2 story house, an L-shaped house, a house with a small tower attached... and so on. When you are comfortable building houses, make something larger or something with a different shape - like a big clocktower, a police station, a stables, a fancy bank. These specialized buildings give you a chance to try new colors and work with new blocks.
When you make a building, it helps to have depth. Minecraft is by nature very flat with all the blocks, but just building a flat wall doesn't look the best. So make a frame for your building that is 1 block in front of its wall out of a complementary block color (for example, a spruce log frame for a stone brick wall). Make the frame before making the walls so you can plan out the shape of the building and then just fill in the walls. When you make a roof, give it a 1 block overhang so it isn't flat against the walls. You can experiment with interesting roof shapes - build pointy ones, sloped ones, etc. Roofs are something it helps to look at reference images and other Minecraft builds for.
Lastly, details really help make a build special! You can add detail by putting small things on the exterior such as fence rows on walls (as a decoration), flower boxes outside windows, chimneys, designs on walls, and whatever you can think of. Use blocks creatively. Also, I love to decorate interiors because they make builds come alive. In an interior you can add a fireplace, a living room with a couch (stair blocks) and carpet, a kitchen (hoppers/cauldrons make good sinks, and furnaces with a trapdoor on top are good stoves), bathroom, bedroom, study, and more. You can decorate interiors however you want and they're a lot of fun to make.
I hope these tips are helpful! I attached a few screenshots of my builds as examples. Good luck and have fun building
I actually don't think wall depth is that much important. It is more of a style thing. It definitely works great for some styles, but there are plenty of real-life walls which are just as flat as they are in Minecraft. I use depth for more many buildings, like the ones in my profile picture, but also for many buildings I find they can look great with flat walls. I attached some examples from an old-fashion town I'm building.
ATTACHMENTS
Flat building examples
Windows are sunken, but general detail is flat
Work in Progress
Medieval/Tudor
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Please excuse my username, I made it back when I was an awkward Anime dork. I am not anymore, thank you.
It really depends on what you define as "cool". To most, cool is either a small, medieval house or a large modern one. To me, cool is defined as buildings more in the realm of art deco and brutalism, i.e. buildings made between 1930-1970. What you really need to do is just practice. Take advice from the people above/below me. I'm not a qualified person to give building advice.
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I post pretty rarely nowadays. Gosh, I wish this place weren't so... empty...
1. Don't only use stairs to make roofs, it's a very boring way to make
roofs. Spice things up, maybe use full blocks instead of stairs. Add
variation in your roof, mix full blocks and stairs together.
Example:
Using full blocks sometimes looks okay, but not in all styles because it can also look choppy and low-resolution. For steep roofs, you can put a full block with a stair on top of it, or for shallow roofs use slabs.
2. Walls made out of full blocks are ugly. Add some stairs in it to make it look like some bricks fell off over the years. A big building may even have 2 layers of wall. One layer as the actual wall, and one next to it for extra detail. (Often called "Adding depth" by plot reviewers, I hate that term but it does look good.)
Again, this sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. Above I gave some examples of how flat walls can work. Many buildings in real life have flat walls and look good. It all depends on style. As for the crumbling wall look, think about whether you want your building to look new/well maintained or old. I am building a town that is in an old architecture style, but I want it to look prosperous and fancy so I'm not using weathered looks like such.
3. Use multiple colors. People often make the mistake of making houses out of wood and stone only. Use stained clay! Wool! Anything really. Learn which colors fit together.
Again, it's about style. Also, BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT WOOL! It looks great for flooring and sometimes as stucco filling for medieval walls, but lots of wool does NOT look good!
4. If you're building a city, try connecting the houses. Build them as close to each other as possible. This will give a much better look and feel.
BY GOD YES. THANK YOU! I can't stand towns where the buildings are surrounded on all sides by streets. They need to have sides and backs, people!! Towns look great when the buildings are connected in rows, as has been the tradition for centuries.
I've been playing lots of maps recently, and lots of them have spectacular buildings. I try and make my houses unique, but they end up square blobs. Can anyone give me some tips on how to build cool houses?
Hey guys
I've been playing lots of maps recently, and lots of them have spectacular buildings. I try and make my houses unique, but they end up square blobs. Can anyone give me some tips on how to build cool houses?
First off, squares are basic and we don't want basic. Drop all ideas of simple squares and rectangles from your designs. Go with irregular shapes like L, T, crosses, or even circles. You can start with something like an L shape. Then add onto it without filling in everything and making a big square. Make the second floor a different pattern than the first. You can try putting balconies and other areas outside the main first floor floorplan. You don't have to make each floor cover the previous floor's plan, and if you make towers, they don't all have to be the same height. The roofs don't have to be symmetrical or perfectly aligned as well. Use different slabs and blocks to add unique touches everywhere. Change it up as you like.
Nice ideas! Thanks a heap! Have you got any good blocks that go together well?
I would say
-Dark Oak (planks logs and fences stairs)
-Birch wood (planks)
-Glass panes
-Bookshelf
-I personally use sea lantern's
-Stone Brick (blocks,stairs)
but really you have to test stuff out and see what looks nice
a few good block combinations are
-spruce, dark oak, oak logs, and stone bricks
-wool for walls, spruce/dark oak logs, and oak roof
also, for good blocks, if your doing cottage-like houses, i reccomend get two base blocks, for example cobble and stone brick, a good frame block, usually logs, and a good wall block, like wood.
Also, can i see a picture of your houses, i want to see where you need improvement
I have nothing here, go look somewhere else.
Alright, I'll see what I can do
I used to be like you. The way I got good at building was by copying real-life houses. I would find houses in my town in real life the I liked and try to build them in Minecraft. Now I'm on to Renaissance cities, as you can see in my profile picture! (disclaimer: I didn't design the building with the sandstone) Three years ago, my houses were big chunky boxes of horizontal birch plank and spruce log lines (I thought it looked cool), with a trapezoid-shaped oak plank roof. They looked TERRIBLE! But you can improve, like I did!
I made trapezoid-shaped roofs because I was intimidated by tall roofs. Don't be. Tall roofs can look great.
Also for sloped roofs, make sure you use stairs, and overhang the stair blocks 1 block over the walls of the building. Either that, or make a parapet wall or a cornice (Google Image those if you don't know what they are). If you make an overhang (eave), also place upside-down stair blocks underneath to make the eave look smooth instead of choppy.
Please- Don't Grief.
When I first started playing Minecraft, I built a cobblestone cube with dark oak planks as a flat roof on top. It was immediately called ugly by my faction mate on the server... Pretty understandably!
Now , 4 months later I've moved on to better, more detailed builds. The key to building is detail - if it's too plain and flat it usually doesn't look very good. Start by doing some research, look at pictures of other Minecraft builds and (this is important) look at photos of real buildings. It helps to pick one theme and stick to it for several buildings, that way you can experiment with variations of the same techniques and try using the same block palette different ways. Plus you can compare your finished results and see what techniques you like best to use in the future!
Experiment with different types of buildings. Start by making a few houses, make each one different. For example a 1 story house, a 2 story house, an L-shaped house, a house with a small tower attached... and so on. When you are comfortable building houses, make something larger or something with a different shape - like a big clocktower, a police station, a stables, a fancy bank. These specialized buildings give you a chance to try new colors and work with new blocks.
When you make a building, it helps to have depth. Minecraft is by nature very flat with all the blocks, but just building a flat wall doesn't look the best. So make a frame for your building that is 1 block in front of its wall out of a complementary block color (for example, a spruce log frame for a stone brick wall). Make the frame before making the walls so you can plan out the shape of the building and then just fill in the walls. When you make a roof, give it a 1 block overhang so it isn't flat against the walls. You can experiment with interesting roof shapes - build pointy ones, sloped ones, etc. Roofs are something it helps to look at reference images and other Minecraft builds for.
Lastly, details really help make a build special! You can add detail by putting small things on the exterior such as fence rows on walls (as a decoration), flower boxes outside windows, chimneys, designs on walls, and whatever you can think of. Use blocks creatively. Also, I love to decorate interiors because they make builds come alive. In an interior you can add a fireplace, a living room with a couch (stair blocks) and carpet, a kitchen (hoppers/cauldrons make good sinks, and furnaces with a trapdoor on top are good stoves), bathroom, bedroom, study, and more. You can decorate interiors however you want and they're a lot of fun to make.
I hope these tips are helpful! I attached a few screenshots of my builds as examples. Good luck and have fun building
I actually don't think wall depth is that much important. It is more of a style thing. It definitely works great for some styles, but there are plenty of real-life walls which are just as flat as they are in Minecraft. I use depth for more many buildings, like the ones in my profile picture, but also for many buildings I find they can look great with flat walls. I attached some examples from an old-fashion town I'm building.
Please- Don't Grief.
Thanks for all your help guys!
Hi guys please reply on this but how do you make a topic on this?
It really depends on what you define as "cool". To most, cool is either a small, medieval house or a large modern one. To me, cool is defined as buildings more in the realm of art deco and brutalism, i.e. buildings made between 1930-1970. What you really need to do is just practice. Take advice from the people above/below me. I'm not a qualified person to give building advice.
I post pretty rarely nowadays. Gosh, I wish this place weren't so... empty...
Using full blocks sometimes looks okay, but not in all styles because it can also look choppy and low-resolution. For steep roofs, you can put a full block with a stair on top of it, or for shallow roofs use slabs.
Again, this sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. Above I gave some examples of how flat walls can work. Many buildings in real life have flat walls and look good. It all depends on style. As for the crumbling wall look, think about whether you want your building to look new/well maintained or old. I am building a town that is in an old architecture style, but I want it to look prosperous and fancy so I'm not using weathered looks like such.
Again, it's about style. Also, BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT WOOL! It looks great for flooring and sometimes as stucco filling for medieval walls, but lots of wool does NOT look good!
Please- Don't Grief.
Try and add detail to the outside of the house. It makes it look realistic.
Girly Trash is the name
It depends what and where you are building. Ie in a mesa acacia and dark oak look great, but not quartz. Underwater, prismarines great.
Das IX. #HigherBuildLimit
Check out Grian, a Minecraft Youtuber. He makes video tutorials on building.
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Thanks a lot guys, I've improved my building style!