Hello everyone! This is my first tutorial; I hope you like it. I didn't post this in the tutorials section cause it's not related to mapping or modding. Not sure where it should go o_o.
This is what you should be creating after reading the tutorial. This tutorial is not exact, however; it doesn’t give precise measurements and instructions, so your blimp doesn’t have to look just like this. As a matter of fact, the blimp is besides the point; the main point of this tutorial is understanding curvature.
Based on how much you know about building, the tutorial is divided into three parts: part 1: circles, part 2: spheres, and part 3: the blimp itself. You can skip ahead or read any of them, but this tutorial should be helpful for any building level, even for the newbies.
So, let’s go!
PART ONE: CIRCLES
On every server I’ve been on, I’m sad to see builds like these:
I’m even more sad to hear that they’re supposed to be round. Making round things out of cubes is tricky for sure, but it’s not an art; there’s only one way to do it right. And unlike art, it’s also something everyone can learn.
This part of the tutorial is for people who are completely unfamiliar with curves, or maybe those who want to review. We’re going to start with the simplest curved shape: a circle.
Step One
To start out with a circle, we must make some axes. These essentially define the radius, diametre, and centre of our circle.
Depending on what you’re working with, you may want to make a circle with an even or odd diametre. The above pic has an odd diametre and a centre one block large; an even-diametre circle has a 4-block centre, and, because of this, radius lines 2 blocks thick.
Neither kind of circle is any better; it all depends on the constraints of whatever you’re building.
Step Two
When we’re making a circle out of squares, it’s essential to think in respect to the squares’ symmetry. Unlike circles, squares are not symmetric from all sides, and have only x and y axes (even though minecraft blocks are actually cubes, we are only interested in one surface of them since we are making a circle, a 2D object).
Because of this, minecraft circles are symmetric on 4 sides. We now build the parts furthest out on the x and y axes, which we will now refer to as extrema. How big these segments are is a little arbitrary, but you can tell right away if they’re wrong: if they’re too big, the circle will look more like a square; too small, a diamond. Also, the bigger the circle, the bigger the extrema. In the picture below, we see the extrema shown in blue.
Step Three
Now, we fill in a path between each of the extrema, closing the loop. Simple, right? Unfortunately not, it turns out. A lot of people get this far, only to do something like this:
Usually when I see a diamond, I know that a diamond was not what the builder intended; they just couldn’t get the right circle shape. The actual circle shape is closer to this:
But why?
Here’s an explanation:
Now first, let’s try to make another circle. This time, let’s make a square with side lengths the same as the diametre of our circle, which we will then inscribe within.
Once again, we’ll add axes, but this time we’ll also make diagonals. Squares, it turns out, are also bilaterally symmetric along their diagonals.
This square has an odd side length, but even ones work too.
And once again, we’ll add extrema.
And now for the hard part. How do you connect them? We know that the connecting points will be smaller than just two lines (those would form a square) but larger than just a diagonal line (this is the shortest possible distance between the extrema).
The actual circle will look about like this:
The largest segments (pink) are closest to the extrema, and the smallest ones (purple) are closest to the diagonal. The coloured section itself is symmetrical across the diagonal; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a circle.
To understand why this is, we’ll have to think about the fact that this circle is in X and Y.
What am I doing? Hopefully not calculus…
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing! But you don’t need calculus to see what I’m trying to say. Basically, I’m taking rectangles that I’m extending from the X axis to approximate the area of the circle…sort of like minecraft.
But we’re not done yet. We can extend rectangles from the y-axis on this semicircle as well.
What’s happening? Near the x-extrema, the rectangles extended from the x-axis are changing very little. Near the y-extrema, the rectangles from the y-axis are also changing very little. Along the diagonals, however, both are changing.
If we approximate these rectangles using square units, then we get large, flat points near the x- and y- extrema and rapidly changing thicknesses near the diagonals. Soooo….
When you make circles out of little rectangular bits, the rectangles are largest when their sides are perpendicular to the radius, and smallest when their sides are at 45-degree angles from the radius. We can see this clearly in the labeled circle; we can also see that the segments should always get smaller as they get closer to the diagonal, and larger closer to the extrema, from this pic:
Which is obviously wrong. (There are rectangles two blocks long near the diagonal, and one block long farther away.) The main rule of spheres is always that the rectangles shrink getting closer to the diagonals, and then get larger closer to the extrema. Once you’ve gotten this concept, then everything else should become easy for you. This is the most important part of curvature in minecraft, and with this knowledge making round things should no longer be mainly about trial and error.
Hopefully you’ve read the explanation, and are good to go. Just to practice, here are some small circles at different sizes:
And some larger ones:
And that’s it for circles. Practice with any radius dimensions, just to get used to it; pretty soon it’ll be second nature.
PART TWO: SPHERES
Now we’re working in three dimensions, so we can look at the x, y and, z axes (and our sphere should be symmetrical from these axes as well).
The first important part of the sphere is that it should be the same from now matter which axis you’re looking at it. The second important part is that if you were to take a cross-section one block thick along any axis, you would have a circle.
(pardon the poorly drawn 3-dimensions, but I think you can get the point)
So basically, what we’re doing with a sphere is creating circular slices at every part. This is a little hard to envision in concept, but I think it will be clearer once we start working on the sphere. Now let’s begin!
Step One
Once again, let’s make our axes and centre, this time in the air. Since it’s 3D, the sphere will take up space as well as area.
Step Two
Now, let’s make a circle around those axes. If you don’t know how to do this, look back to Part 1.
This circle is basically one of our extrema; it delineates the furthest horizontal points, or equator, along your sphere. It also happens to be one of the circular slices — the largest one, in fact.
Step Three
Now to extend the sphere up. A lot of people get this step wrong, even after making an already good guideline, by contracting the sphere by one block on all sides and extending it up each time.
There are so many things wrong with this; not only does it disregard the idea that it should be symmetrical from all axes (you’re just extending it in one direction), but, as we can see below, one-pixel shrinkage removes its roundness, making it no longer made up of circular slices.
Even worse, if we look at it from the side:
We see our old nemesis, the diamond.
Instead, what we need to do is continue the symmetry. Make two more circles: one for each axis.
These are yet more circular slices, and what we’ll see is they actually meet up.
Step Four
Now we can add the smaller circular slices. Basically, the circles parallel to a specific one of our lapis equators will go from small to large to small again, their radius guided by the size of the equator perpendicular to them. Here are some slices on one side.
Step Five
Now make those slices on all six sides; the result should look something like this.
Looks like we’re getting closer, but there’s still a gap.
Step 6
It turns out we can make yet another circular slice, shown here in purple.
It does overlap with other slices, but that’s not a problem; it’s what should be happening. Every cross section of this sphere should be a circle, and that’s what we’re seeing right now.
Step 7
We can now replicate that shell all around, and Tada!
Eventually your circular slices will overlap to the point of just being part of other slices; you don’t have to work on it anymore at that point. However, we could draw the slices along the entire sphere if we wanted.
And here is our completed sphere, in a wonderful shade of ultramarine.
Regular old spheres, however, even in such a fetching colour, are just boring. It’s time to make something real…which brings us to:
PART THREE: THE BLIMP
So, here’s what we’re basically going to be making (photo from wikipedia):
The blimp is challenging for a few reasons. First, it’s not perfectly spherical; it’s squished. Second, it’s not even symmetric in two axes because of its teardrop shape at the end. But the principles of curves should still help us here.
Step One
We’ll begin with the biggest part of the blimp: the balloon.
We’ll start the way we do any sphere. First make the one and only axis of symmetry, the line going straight through the blimp.
Step Two
Now, start doing the curvature around the front. This will be a lot more blunt than the shape in the back.
Step Three
Do the same in the back. This time, though, it’s a lot sharper; the extrema for this shape can be only one block large.
Step Four
Aaaand finish.
This will be one of the slices of our blimp. Even this follows the rules of circles we described earlier: being a closed, round object, the segments get smaller towards the diagonals (turquoise) and larger towards the extrema (red).
Now colour the whole thing with what you want for the balloon (this will be the exterior). I am making mine white.
Step Five
Since the balloon will be basically this shape revolved around the axis of symmetry in the middle, let’s make another copy of the blimp-slice rotated 90 degrees. It’s easier to once again start from the front and back and fill in the space in the middle, instead of going all the way around and having to precisely measure the longer middle segments.
Look! There's already a little circular slice in the front.
Step 6
Now, we can start filling in some more circular slices. Since the blimp is revolved around the access of symmetry, every cross section along this axis will be circular.
Step 7
Even when the curvature of the blimp changes, we can still fill in cross sections (though this time not connected to each other.
We will do them down the whole ship; this will make it a lot easier.
With this next one I got the circle a bit wrong, realized it, and then fixed it. Even with precise rules, making round shapes can still come down to what just looks right.
In the middle, the blimp is the thickest, and then it gets smaller again. We use the same circles on the blimp-slices of the same thicknesses.
And then, we finish.
These slices are useful because they mark various points for slices in other axes, as will soon become apparent. We make the slices in the middle section on the middle, the slices on the front in the front, and (you guessed it) the slices on the back in the back of each of their respective sections because they respectively can mark the middle, front, and back of the spheres. Okay, that was confusing. Let’s see…
Step 8
Now we start making slices along the sides. Here’s just one slice:
We use both the section of the equator and the section of the sideways slices as extrema for this shape, which looks a lot like an ellipse. Eventually the slices will be blimp-shaped.
We then make the slice on 4 sides.
Step 9
Now, we start on the next slice. As you can see, I am starting from each of the sideways slices…
…and meeting in the central sideways slice.
Once again, it’s a lot easier to make a nice and even shape this way.
I do the same thing with the other sides, starting at the edges and meeting in the middle.
Step 10
Now, we add another slice using the same methods…
…And repeat it around.
We’re almost there.
Step 11
Add another shell, and we’re done with the front (since we made circular slices there at the beginning).
Step 12
And another slice (the only gaps are at the end now).
And another…
And…well, this last one was easy.
IS IT? Oh yes! We’re done with the shape of the balloon!
Step 13
Now for the easy part; let’s start to add fins at the back. We take out the block in the upper-right corner of the fin to show that it’s slightly rounded.
Step 14
Repeat the fins all around.
Step 15
And colour them however you want.
Step 16
Now we’re going to colour the balloon itself. If you want to do the Goodyear colouring, read the spoiler; if not, then just do your own thing. :tongue.gif:
So, the Goodyear blimp happens to have a challenging item: diagonal yellow stripes. Usually, when we’re making diagonals, we take a diagonal plane and intersect it with our object:
This works fine with a square. But with a round object, the diagonals only hit some points, looking like this:
Oops… This is because the diagonal blocks don’t actually touch each other, so they don’t connect all points (like a straight line would). What we can do to fix this is sort of hacky, sort of ugly, but it ends up working in the end. Fill in the two blocks closest to where the diagonal lines would be:
And repeat..
Now, we’re going to fill in the area between the lines with blue, like the regular Goodyear blimps. I’m using the /fill command from worldedit to make this a lot easier.
Now I add a G (because I don’t have enough room for a full Goodyear logo). This G is anti-aliased with turquoise blocks to make it look smoother. Anti-aliasing is a pixel-art technique; if you want to learn about it, this tutorial is helpful.
Sooo, that’s it for colouring. We're almost done!
Step 17
Ok, now for the final part: the gondola. The gondola is always very small in proportion to the airship, so this one’s going to be tiny. Once again, we start by sketching the outline.
Step 18
We then add slices along the extrema..
Step 19
And finish. I skipped some steps, didn’t I? Well, not really. With shapes like this, it’s actually easier to eyeball it than it is to make precise calculations.
Step 20
And finally, add windows!
And we’re done! Wuhu!
So that’s it for my tutorial, and I hope you found it useful. Please comment and vote in the poll.
GREAT tutorial, diamonds for you mister!
The steps were very clear and you explained the mathematical part with the circles and you had lots of pictures. It's obvious it took a long time for you to finish this guide :ohmy.gif:
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Reward at end of spoilers,maybe it's cake..or bacon..? You know you have to look :>
Wow! I read the entire tutorial and as an airship maker myself, I can honestly say that this is the best tutorial I've ever seen on the subject. It is very clear and concise and I loved how your blimp isn't a perfect ellipsoid but rather, a teardrop. As of now, my zeppelins are all ellipsoids but after viewing this tutorial, I may attempt to improve them. Thanks!
The tutorial is good, but it was not implemented well...
I honestly hate it when I get comments like this. Why wasn't it implemented well? If you took the effort to come in, criticize it, and check off the 'UR DOIN IT RONG' option on the poll, then you should take the effort to tell me what's wrong.
Thanks for the comments, everybody (Ironsword I appreciate that :tongue.gif:).
Tell me, did anyone try the tutorial? If so, how did it work for you?
I tried it. I made a reasonably good looking miniature zeppelin with your technique (61 meters long, 11 in diameter.) However, when I tried remaking the Hindenburg, (again) it proved difficult. It was 245 meters long and 41 in diameter. When I tried to use your method, I constructed the framework successfully, but was unable to fill the quarters in convincingly. If you could post a tutorial on making large, imperfect ellipsoids look good, I would REALLY appreciate it! :smile.gif: P.S. Here's my reference picture for the profile view of the Hindenburg to show its shape.
I used this tutorial and everything went fine, but then when I booted up my game a second time, I found that it was heading towards the Earth in a rather massive ball of flames, while Steve screamed "Oh, the humanity!" and generally acted a fool.
Did you leave out a step where you use helium instead of hydrogen or are to assume that we're supposed to use helium?
Thank you.
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Statistics show that people who tell others they need to get a new computer are twice as likely to use "gay" as a negative descriptor and will most likely never see genitals in real life, at least while not in prison.
So I actually started building a much larger build, and I realized (like Oswald said) that connecting the "ribs" with rounded cross-sections isn't as automatic as it is with smaller things. This shouldn't be a problem until you get up into the 100+ length range, but basically you need to adjust each segment on the ribs as you are going, with the knowledge that it's going to go into some kind of cross-section. I may make a tutorial on this, though it's a bit more complicated and a lot more random-seeming.
Smilomaniac: the circle and spheres were just to explain the concepts. The main tutorial, as you can see, is in fact about an elongated teardrop shape.
Yngwie96: did you use my tutorial for that? Not bad, but you need to remember that all the empty spaces ARE in fact filled in with circles. Also, expanding a circle expands the extrema.
Braystreet: Thankfully physics are off in this server :tongue.gif:
And everyone else, thanks for the feedback. I hope to make more tutorials like this. :smile.gif:
This is what you should be creating after reading the tutorial. This tutorial is not exact, however; it doesn’t give precise measurements and instructions, so your blimp doesn’t have to look just like this. As a matter of fact, the blimp is besides the point; the main point of this tutorial is understanding curvature.
Based on how much you know about building, the tutorial is divided into three parts: part 1: circles, part 2: spheres, and part 3: the blimp itself. You can skip ahead or read any of them, but this tutorial should be helpful for any building level, even for the newbies.
So, let’s go!
PART ONE: CIRCLES
On every server I’ve been on, I’m sad to see builds like these:
I’m even more sad to hear that they’re supposed to be round. Making round things out of cubes is tricky for sure, but it’s not an art; there’s only one way to do it right. And unlike art, it’s also something everyone can learn.
This part of the tutorial is for people who are completely unfamiliar with curves, or maybe those who want to review. We’re going to start with the simplest curved shape: a circle.
Step One
To start out with a circle, we must make some axes. These essentially define the radius, diametre, and centre of our circle.
Depending on what you’re working with, you may want to make a circle with an even or odd diametre. The above pic has an odd diametre and a centre one block large; an even-diametre circle has a 4-block centre, and, because of this, radius lines 2 blocks thick.
Neither kind of circle is any better; it all depends on the constraints of whatever you’re building.
Step Two
When we’re making a circle out of squares, it’s essential to think in respect to the squares’ symmetry. Unlike circles, squares are not symmetric from all sides, and have only x and y axes (even though minecraft blocks are actually cubes, we are only interested in one surface of them since we are making a circle, a 2D object).
Because of this, minecraft circles are symmetric on 4 sides. We now build the parts furthest out on the x and y axes, which we will now refer to as extrema. How big these segments are is a little arbitrary, but you can tell right away if they’re wrong: if they’re too big, the circle will look more like a square; too small, a diamond. Also, the bigger the circle, the bigger the extrema. In the picture below, we see the extrema shown in blue.
Step Three
Now, we fill in a path between each of the extrema, closing the loop. Simple, right? Unfortunately not, it turns out. A lot of people get this far, only to do something like this:
Usually when I see a diamond, I know that a diamond was not what the builder intended; they just couldn’t get the right circle shape. The actual circle shape is closer to this:
But why?
Here’s an explanation:
Now first, let’s try to make another circle. This time, let’s make a square with side lengths the same as the diametre of our circle, which we will then inscribe within.
Once again, we’ll add axes, but this time we’ll also make diagonals. Squares, it turns out, are also bilaterally symmetric along their diagonals.
This square has an odd side length, but even ones work too.
And once again, we’ll add extrema.
And now for the hard part. How do you connect them? We know that the connecting points will be smaller than just two lines (those would form a square) but larger than just a diagonal line (this is the shortest possible distance between the extrema).
The actual circle will look about like this:
The largest segments (pink) are closest to the extrema, and the smallest ones (purple) are closest to the diagonal. The coloured section itself is symmetrical across the diagonal; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a circle.
To understand why this is, we’ll have to think about the fact that this circle is in X and Y.
What am I doing? Hopefully not calculus…
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing! But you don’t need calculus to see what I’m trying to say. Basically, I’m taking rectangles that I’m extending from the X axis to approximate the area of the circle…sort of like minecraft.
But we’re not done yet. We can extend rectangles from the y-axis on this semicircle as well.
What’s happening? Near the x-extrema, the rectangles extended from the x-axis are changing very little. Near the y-extrema, the rectangles from the y-axis are also changing very little. Along the diagonals, however, both are changing.
If we approximate these rectangles using square units, then we get large, flat points near the x- and y- extrema and rapidly changing thicknesses near the diagonals. Soooo….
When you make circles out of little rectangular bits, the rectangles are largest when their sides are perpendicular to the radius, and smallest when their sides are at 45-degree angles from the radius. We can see this clearly in the labeled circle; we can also see that the segments should always get smaller as they get closer to the diagonal, and larger closer to the extrema, from this pic:
Which is obviously wrong. (There are rectangles two blocks long near the diagonal, and one block long farther away.) The main rule of spheres is always that the rectangles shrink getting closer to the diagonals, and then get larger closer to the extrema. Once you’ve gotten this concept, then everything else should become easy for you. This is the most important part of curvature in minecraft, and with this knowledge making round things should no longer be mainly about trial and error.
Hopefully you’ve read the explanation, and are good to go. Just to practice, here are some small circles at different sizes:
And some larger ones:
And that’s it for circles. Practice with any radius dimensions, just to get used to it; pretty soon it’ll be second nature.
PART TWO: SPHERES
Now we’re working in three dimensions, so we can look at the x, y and, z axes (and our sphere should be symmetrical from these axes as well).
The first important part of the sphere is that it should be the same from now matter which axis you’re looking at it. The second important part is that if you were to take a cross-section one block thick along any axis, you would have a circle.
(pardon the poorly drawn 3-dimensions, but I think you can get the point)
So basically, what we’re doing with a sphere is creating circular slices at every part. This is a little hard to envision in concept, but I think it will be clearer once we start working on the sphere. Now let’s begin!
Step One
Once again, let’s make our axes and centre, this time in the air. Since it’s 3D, the sphere will take up space as well as area.
Step Two
Now, let’s make a circle around those axes. If you don’t know how to do this, look back to Part 1.
This circle is basically one of our extrema; it delineates the furthest horizontal points, or equator, along your sphere. It also happens to be one of the circular slices — the largest one, in fact.
Step Three
Now to extend the sphere up. A lot of people get this step wrong, even after making an already good guideline, by contracting the sphere by one block on all sides and extending it up each time.
There are so many things wrong with this; not only does it disregard the idea that it should be symmetrical from all axes (you’re just extending it in one direction), but, as we can see below, one-pixel shrinkage removes its roundness, making it no longer made up of circular slices.
Even worse, if we look at it from the side:
We see our old nemesis, the diamond.
Instead, what we need to do is continue the symmetry. Make two more circles: one for each axis.
These are yet more circular slices, and what we’ll see is they actually meet up.
Step Four
Now we can add the smaller circular slices. Basically, the circles parallel to a specific one of our lapis equators will go from small to large to small again, their radius guided by the size of the equator perpendicular to them. Here are some slices on one side.
Step Five
Now make those slices on all six sides; the result should look something like this.
Looks like we’re getting closer, but there’s still a gap.
Step 6
It turns out we can make yet another circular slice, shown here in purple.
It does overlap with other slices, but that’s not a problem; it’s what should be happening. Every cross section of this sphere should be a circle, and that’s what we’re seeing right now.
Step 7
We can now replicate that shell all around, and Tada!
Eventually your circular slices will overlap to the point of just being part of other slices; you don’t have to work on it anymore at that point. However, we could draw the slices along the entire sphere if we wanted.
And here is our completed sphere, in a wonderful shade of ultramarine.
Regular old spheres, however, even in such a fetching colour, are just boring. It’s time to make something real…which brings us to:
PART THREE: THE BLIMP
So, here’s what we’re basically going to be making (photo from wikipedia):
The blimp is challenging for a few reasons. First, it’s not perfectly spherical; it’s squished. Second, it’s not even symmetric in two axes because of its teardrop shape at the end. But the principles of curves should still help us here.
Step One
We’ll begin with the biggest part of the blimp: the balloon.
We’ll start the way we do any sphere. First make the one and only axis of symmetry, the line going straight through the blimp.
Step Two
Now, start doing the curvature around the front. This will be a lot more blunt than the shape in the back.
Step Three
Do the same in the back. This time, though, it’s a lot sharper; the extrema for this shape can be only one block large.
Step Four
Aaaand finish.
This will be one of the slices of our blimp. Even this follows the rules of circles we described earlier: being a closed, round object, the segments get smaller towards the diagonals (turquoise) and larger towards the extrema (red).
Now colour the whole thing with what you want for the balloon (this will be the exterior). I am making mine white.
Step Five
Since the balloon will be basically this shape revolved around the axis of symmetry in the middle, let’s make another copy of the blimp-slice rotated 90 degrees. It’s easier to once again start from the front and back and fill in the space in the middle, instead of going all the way around and having to precisely measure the longer middle segments.
Look! There's already a little circular slice in the front.
Step 6
Now, we can start filling in some more circular slices. Since the blimp is revolved around the access of symmetry, every cross section along this axis will be circular.
Step 7
Even when the curvature of the blimp changes, we can still fill in cross sections (though this time not connected to each other.
We will do them down the whole ship; this will make it a lot easier.
With this next one I got the circle a bit wrong, realized it, and then fixed it. Even with precise rules, making round shapes can still come down to what just looks right.
In the middle, the blimp is the thickest, and then it gets smaller again. We use the same circles on the blimp-slices of the same thicknesses.
And then, we finish.
These slices are useful because they mark various points for slices in other axes, as will soon become apparent. We make the slices in the middle section on the middle, the slices on the front in the front, and (you guessed it) the slices on the back in the back of each of their respective sections because they respectively can mark the middle, front, and back of the spheres. Okay, that was confusing. Let’s see…
Step 8
Now we start making slices along the sides. Here’s just one slice:
We use both the section of the equator and the section of the sideways slices as extrema for this shape, which looks a lot like an ellipse. Eventually the slices will be blimp-shaped.
We then make the slice on 4 sides.
Step 9
Now, we start on the next slice. As you can see, I am starting from each of the sideways slices…
…and meeting in the central sideways slice.
Once again, it’s a lot easier to make a nice and even shape this way.
I do the same thing with the other sides, starting at the edges and meeting in the middle.
Step 10
Now, we add another slice using the same methods…
…And repeat it around.
We’re almost there.
Step 11
Add another shell, and we’re done with the front (since we made circular slices there at the beginning).
Step 12
And another slice (the only gaps are at the end now).
And another…
And…well, this last one was easy.
IS IT? Oh yes! We’re done with the shape of the balloon!
Step 13
Now for the easy part; let’s start to add fins at the back. We take out the block in the upper-right corner of the fin to show that it’s slightly rounded.
Step 14
Repeat the fins all around.
Step 15
And colour them however you want.
Step 16
Now we’re going to colour the balloon itself. If you want to do the Goodyear colouring, read the spoiler; if not, then just do your own thing. :tongue.gif:
So, the Goodyear blimp happens to have a challenging item: diagonal yellow stripes. Usually, when we’re making diagonals, we take a diagonal plane and intersect it with our object:
This works fine with a square. But with a round object, the diagonals only hit some points, looking like this:
Oops… This is because the diagonal blocks don’t actually touch each other, so they don’t connect all points (like a straight line would). What we can do to fix this is sort of hacky, sort of ugly, but it ends up working in the end. Fill in the two blocks closest to where the diagonal lines would be:
And repeat..
Now, we’re going to fill in the area between the lines with blue, like the regular Goodyear blimps. I’m using the /fill command from worldedit to make this a lot easier.
Now I add a G (because I don’t have enough room for a full Goodyear logo). This G is anti-aliased with turquoise blocks to make it look smoother. Anti-aliasing is a pixel-art technique; if you want to learn about it, this tutorial is helpful.
Sooo, that’s it for colouring. We're almost done!
Step 17
Ok, now for the final part: the gondola. The gondola is always very small in proportion to the airship, so this one’s going to be tiny. Once again, we start by sketching the outline.
Step 18
We then add slices along the extrema..
Step 19
And finish. I skipped some steps, didn’t I? Well, not really. With shapes like this, it’s actually easier to eyeball it than it is to make precise calculations.
Step 20
And finally, add windows!
And we’re done! Wuhu!
So that’s it for my tutorial, and I hope you found it useful. Please comment and vote in the poll.
Thanks!
The steps were very clear and you explained the mathematical part with the circles and you had lots of pictures. It's obvious it took a long time for you to finish this guide :ohmy.gif:
Proud C Guard of The Killion Detention Center
I honestly hate it when I get comments like this. Why wasn't it implemented well? If you took the effort to come in, criticize it, and check off the 'UR DOIN IT RONG' option on the poll, then you should take the effort to tell me what's wrong.
:Diamond:'s for you!
lol, goin in my sig
Tell me, did anyone try the tutorial? If so, how did it work for you?
I tried it. I made a reasonably good looking miniature zeppelin with your technique (61 meters long, 11 in diameter.) However, when I tried remaking the Hindenburg, (again) it proved difficult. It was 245 meters long and 41 in diameter. When I tried to use your method, I constructed the framework successfully, but was unable to fill the quarters in convincingly. If you could post a tutorial on making large, imperfect ellipsoids look good, I would REALLY appreciate it! :smile.gif: P.S. Here's my reference picture for the profile view of the Hindenburg to show its shape.
Not made by me.
Did you leave out a step where you use helium instead of hydrogen or are to assume that we're supposed to use helium?
Thank you.
However... and this might make you sad, this link solves everyones sphere issues:
http://www.plotz.co.uk/plotz.php
Making elongated spheres or 3d ellipses though, that's something people could use a tutorial for.
I wish I saw this before I made my ship .......
Smilomaniac: the circle and spheres were just to explain the concepts. The main tutorial, as you can see, is in fact about an elongated teardrop shape.
Yngwie96: did you use my tutorial for that? Not bad, but you need to remember that all the empty spaces ARE in fact filled in with circles. Also, expanding a circle expands the extrema.
Braystreet: Thankfully physics are off in this server :tongue.gif:
And everyone else, thanks for the feedback. I hope to make more tutorials like this. :smile.gif: