I don't entirely know what to say, aside from that I'm quite shocked, so I won't say anything. Except for replying...
I'd be really interested in a 'How to build if you suddenly find you're in Thera' guide. Not so much because I'd ever be likely to build there, but more because I'd like to see how to set up rules to make builds coherent without being repetitive. My style is to build distinctive medium bases scattered about my worlds - if I could give each base on a given world a certain similarity but have it differ from world to world ... mmmm ....
It might be really useful as a guide for villages, which I just can't make look good.
I'll definitely attempt to cover how I try keeping things diverse but within a style, then. Without going into too much detail here and derailing into endless babbling, I would say an important thing to attempt is to have distinct features and sections in a build that can be kept the same, giving it a familiarity with what it is near, but all other features can be unique to it, within reason.
Hats off to you, this is unbelievable! The whole of it is put together brilliantly. Keep up the amazing work mate!
Thanks, it makes my day when I get comments like this! Some people seem only to gravitate to large, fancy buildings, and it's always nice to know that there are plenty who enjoy smaller-scale parts of builds too.
That's a really nice interior. I like the stone work around the doors and the carpet looks really good with that texture pack. Are those decorations on the desks just reskinned decorative heads?
They're spawned player heads, yup.
The stonework is a little different for me, I don't usually do fancy surrounds like that inside buildings. The rest of the interior of that building (the half I have furnished, rather) looks something like this...
High enough detail to see the beds I scatter around so I can skip to morning. It's also a dynmap, which means Whiteark is on a server now. I don't build there, it's just so I can have a high detail map, and though I probably won't open it for people to wander around, I may show a few around if I get some free time and if anyone is interested.
The map is courtesy of Beyond The Horizon (http://www.planetminecraft.com/server/beyond-the-horizon/), an under-construction roleplay RPG server that I am now the head lore writer of. Anyone is welcome to come online and see the two cities open to visitors. Both are originally my own concepts, both were originally in the same universe as Whiteark, and have their lore written by myself. Both of them are also now on PlanetMinecraft, so if you like Whiteark for its history and lore, they might also be worth a look.
Now something I actually built instead of just wrote for...
This is the Insanbric Academy of Worldly Learning, based in Whiteark, essentially a university dedicated to how 'those pesky outsiders' live. The actual lore is in the OP, under the 'East' section, but here are some pictures of the main building minus finishing touches.
Took longer to build than I would like to admit.
The sides of the wings.
The two top sections of roofing cover two open walkways. They'll probably be decked in flowers, seating, study areas, that sort of thing.
Underneath the shallow glass dome.
Anyone who has seen some of the pictures in the OP might notice the change of texture pack, and the shaders. Well, I found some shaders I can run, though only for a couple of minutes at a time before my PC starts to crack under the strain. Because SMP Revival looks pretty goofy with shaders, I'll be using Conquest from now on when taking screenshots with shaders.
My brother has better luck with running the shaders though, so he was able to take all these for me.
I haven't done that Thera Rowhouse guide yet, but it's next on my list. Coming soon and all that jazz.
That's another very impressive build. How do you plan something like that out? I see a number of striking architectural features there - the suspended roofs on the wings, the surmounted dome, the double stone column theme, the asymmetrical roofs, and the curving staircase boundaries. How do you get it all together? I have to do very symmetrical builds or I get mismatches and even miscounting.
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Well thanks! I'll try to explain the few methods I have for building on this scale, and the specific features. I doubt I'll do a very good job, but here goes...
Most, if not all, of the architectural features are borrowed and adapted from other buildings in Whiteark, an advantage of having one large build, a huge pool of potential features to use again. I keep certain ones that work well, but change them so as they aren't the same in each build.
Suspended roofs first made an appearance about half a year ago, on Whiteark's southern wall...
...as compared to the newer ones on the Academy. They were inspired partially be a building I saw a picture of some time ago, but I can't remember any detail, only that it had these style roofs. The image stuck with me, but it's my own take on the design.
The dome wasn't much more than a whim. I thought it might work, it didn't, so I tried a shallower one. Just an example of trial and error.
The stone columns are more recent - they first came to be in Thera, on these houses...
They came about as a result of having a limited amount of width for each house in Thera, and preferring three-wide gaps between pillars, which left a gap only one block wide in that top house, so I experimented. It went from there.
I first tried a curved staircase underneath the Socanta Windmill. It worked better than I expected, but it's been over a year later now that I've had to wait for another chance to use the design...
Below the stairs here is a simple, curved wall. It was the original design, but given that the stairs themselves stop at a level with the lowest block, I didn't want the lowest step-boundary to be wider than one block. That though, didn't look right, so I tried again. This too is another example of just plain trial and error, simply trying again until it fits - to be honest, a lot of everything is trial and error.
The sides are less interesting though.
As for asymmetrical roofs, some of those in Thera are quite heavily asymmetrical, but they're small so not really comparable, meaning this was pretty much completely new for me...
The right wing (the one below) was the original, so I'll cover this one. The left hand side of the roof, the less detailed, was the first side I built. I didn't want an entirely plain roof for obvious reasons, but neither did I want a cluttered one, seeing as the walkways would be above. So, simple sandstone runs up that side to divide the entire thing in half, and then to divide those from the front and rear sections - which have a slightly different wall and window design - to segment the differing architecture, give the impression that these are seperate sections.
The right hand side follows the same principle, but with the addition of that roof having bay windows, and so having to work around them. The same lines run over the roof to better divide it, but with a few extra to frame the windows.
The windows themselves are an old Whiteark tradition of having dormer roofs - given that most buildings share a wall with at least one other, window space can be at a premium, hence I've learned to put them in roofs, if the shape is right. In a building like this, it helps the look too. Practicality is the real reason for the windows. A lot of people prefer to build on an entirely fantasy basis, but the practical repercussions are too big to ignore in an attempted realistic build like this. Practicality has to come first.
As for planning how it all comes together? Well... there's not a lot I can say there actually, because I'm famous for never planning anything like how I should. I just don't think that far ahead - I had all those architectural aspects in mind when I decided to start building, but to get to the point that I can add those, is mostly me running on autopilot. The general shape was inspired by the palace's two front wings, but much more than that, I wasn't really thinking hard enough to commit my thoughts to memory.
One thing I almost always do though in properly large buildings like this, is the shell first, with the pillars, and add decorative aspects later. It does leave the build looking plain and cumbersome for a while, which can leave it a little difficult to visualise, but it works for me.
Miscalculations and mistakes though, I do that a lot, and I made quite a few while building this thing. For calculating larger lengths, like the length of the wings, I hop into MCEdit. If I didn't, I would always lose count, because that's another thing I'm known for doing. When I make mistakes on a large scale like that, like ending up one block out? That's one of the few times I use MCEdit as more than a ruler - built the whole thing, it's only fair to move it by a block or two if I screw up.
Overall to prevent that, I use the same divide and conquer building techniques, along the same basic idea: building larger is always easier if done in portions.
If done that way instead, it soon builds up.
Any more than that? I'd have to ask my unconscious mind - I just don't think these things through! I decide it's time to build, and I just... do. I can't really explain it.
Damn, can't believe you did that all by yourself. If you're still continuing it - goodluck! Hope to see some more
Thanks, I'm still going! Long way to go, but I was never good at sprints anyway. There will definitely be more, a lot more, but slight pause right now. I'm waiting to be able to get updated versions of either of the texture packs I use. Default looks... questionable, and 1.7.10 seems almost primitive now. Red sandstone! Granite! New doors! This is a good update for me, or, it will be when I can use it.
(or 'A Basic Guide to Building Variation Within a Style')
How fast reputations become soiled - only two centuries ago, this was the domain of the impossibly wealthy. The lavish elite, to whom were intended the most luxuriant of appointments, the highest echelons of comfort.
Now? Anyone can live in Thera. Within reason, of course - it's a strictly peasant-free zone, you needn't worry about their grubby, thieving paws. The streets are a little dustier, the houses bordering on elderly, but reputation? It's a funny thing. Fickle, really; one could expect Thera to take a nosedive in popularity based on it's newfound affordability, but no. It's as desirable a location now for the middling classes as it ever was for the one percent.
You're wealthy enough, surely? Not filth-ridden, peasant vermin?
Then Thera is open to you too. Let's get you settled in.
Part 1: The foundations of Thera architecture.
Thera has its own style, really. If you're interested in why it developed, you'll want to open this spoiler. If not, I'll see you in part two...
Anyone who has followed this thread for a while will probably know by now that when I started Whiteark, I was a terrible builder, awful even (and if you didn't know that, then there you go. You do now). Anything that might be 'good', I can only claim it because my skills at building have improved over time, and continue to do so. That's entirely my own effort, though: I'm stubborn as a mule. I kept building until I became better at putting what I envisioned into block form, and I - to this day - have never watched or read any kind of tutorial on how to build (sorry if this one is rubbish). I take inspiration from a few builds, from time to time, but just a general impression. Real architecture is a more common base - hooray for that which the Byzantines, Persians and Mughals built, as far as I care. Mostly though? What I build is entirely sparked and invented in my own head. This relates to Thera, because it's where I realised the scale of what had been built before it. It was the point at which I decided to make houses other than sandstone boxes. Older areas were the primordial soup - Thera is where Whiteark's architecture crawled onto land, planted its flag, and dared me to try chasing it into the sunset. So, back to Thera, and its style of terraced house which has been the base for so much since then. If you can build one of these, you've built the essence of this city, condensed into four walls and a roof.
Part 2: A simple home to call your own.
Time to get building.
This first house is an average size for the area: 13x16, with two floors each of 11x12x5, and a reasonably sized attic. Location is the desirable Celestine Street, chosen because it was convenient, nothing interesting.
-1- To start, I've marked out the boundaries:
These buildings can basically be stripped down into sections - they're modular: two floors (occasionally three), a roof, and a decorative facade at the front, often at the back too. Note the stone bricks in the floor? They're the start of our front facade. The facades usually consist of columns stuck out from the frame of the building, guarding windows. The most common size of gap between the pillars is three blocks, allowing for two windows, so that's what I've gone with here.
-2-
A basic door frame, with the door sat in the middle of a gap between columns. The window frames are taking their shape too: one block wide, and three tall, for the maximum light in a narrow and confined area. I've also done the same at the back, but because it's off the street, I'll be putting less decoration at that end; doesn't make much sense to spend your hard-earned numium on something few people will ever see.
I usually default to oak planks as flooring in simpler Thera houses, changing it later if the mood strikes me. Most common flooring-blocks work fine.
-3-
Let's start with the windows here. There are two major variants of frame I use: Pillar and Lip.
I'll go into the Lip style later, but first, Pillar, which is what I've used here. The frames hold glass panes as windows, three blocks high and one block wide. Because they sit on stairs, not square blocks, the standard blocks between them create an illusion of depth, and being a sort of recessed pillar, half a block long.
These fake pillars have stairs too, at the same level, but that's for the floor/ceiling layer decoration, which I'll come to shortly.
The columns serve mainly to create more depth, and break up the flat wall into sections. What they are made of, can be anything, as long as it fits the colour scheme used elsewhere. Those at the sides of houses are shared, because the buildings share two walls each, so I use a common design there, mainly plain stone bricks. Other columns can be more unique to each house - these use red sandstone, for example, because that block is the best thing since sliced bread.
The less decorative rear, with panes in place.
-4-
The second layer is the ceiling/floor. Blocks which are at the same level as it, which are on the outside, and don't have a column in front, will be visible on the outside - these ones are red sandstone.
The ceiling itself is simple: I use a log running through the middle to break up the plain wood (or more than one log in larger houses), and while these may look like birch planks, they're actually upturned stairs...
Rafters! Just an extra detail. Sometimes the small things make an impact.
-5-
This roof/ceiling layer is the 'middle', a point to break up the floors. It also gives some extra space to decorate without having to worry about the wooden floor showing outside, so run with it! Decorate that gap! What I've added here is fairly typical: a different block in the columns, something atop the poking-out stairs (usually another different block, or a fence/cobblestone wall), and fences at either side of each pillar.
These elements can be swapped and changed very easily, and are a good way to add variation between houses.
-6- Continuing the same pattern from the previous floor, keeping it the same can help avoid over-the-top decoration. No door required at this level, so another window always helps with natural light. Unless you're planning apartments on different floors, like the house next door... The same style also continued at the rear... This shot helps show the modularity of these houses, I think. Different sections, working together as a greater whole. Less fancy facades, but it's still visibly the same style because the basic patterns have been followed. -7- If it was hard to imagine the whole thing coming together before, this is the point at which it becomes recognisable: both floors essentially complete, facades and windows in place. I find that the top 'floor/ceiling' layer in each house can be a tad more decorative without it rendering the rest gaudy - it works underneath the roof where it fails elsewhere. -8- Only the roof left to do. These houses really can be fairly simple, but I digress: roof. That's even simpler. Different houses in terraces have the roof above their dividing walls raised and made of the same material as the major walls (in this case, sandstone). As shown in this shot, where the main roof material starts - on the edge of the front wall, not on the facade - the edge blocks should be one block higher. Like so... Essentially, you end up with something like this: While if you leave the inside hollow, and use upturned stairs (and the 3d models addition to Conquest), you get this rather cosy space: -9- Leaving the outer columns to be slightly taller, the inner ones end, capped by the edge of the roof, which here is in a fairly simply style. The top of the roof too should be of the same material, so that the roof material is basically divided into two large panels. Sectioning - it's useful for modularity. And that, in nine steps, is how to build in a basic Thera style. There are endless permutations of it, and the way of building differs hugely between areas in the city, but if that was fairly easy to get the hang on, then you've got the basics of Whiteark's architecture down. In part three, I'll be building another house, in the same basic fashion but with differing features, to attempt to show how I alter the details but keep the theme the same.
Part 3: Detail makes the difference.
So you have one house. That's all you need, after all, but what about some variation? Or in other words, how do I keep things looking different?
In Thera, it's fairly simple. Keep the basic shape, while the details can run wild.
As an example, I've built a second house next to our friend from Part Two, and I'll guide you through it...
-1- Looks pretty different, huh? It won't when it's finished - same basics. Same sections, same method, different execution. To start, this house is wider. It's the same length as the previous, 16 blocks, but this is 19 blocks wide instead of 13. Now, 19 doesn't allow for the same 'three blocks + pillars' style as the last house, but you can use any number, within reason. Odd numbers work best in my opinion - 1, 3, or 5. Here, I've used a double-column theme as the surround for the door frame, and the windows have a different colour (red in this case) in their central block, just to change things up a bit.
The upper section is what I call the Lip style of window framing: the glass panes instead sit on blocks, which have stairs in front of them. It's the older style, and I use it less now, but it still works fine in my opinion. Again, the rear follows the same theme, but more spartan in its decoration; no sideways quartz pillars, only white stained clay. Just the central columns, nothing fancy (apart from the prismarine blocks, but they're new, I couldn't resist!). -2- The Lip style of window framing does allow for more decoration on the ceiling layers, so it's a chance to just experiment and see what works. I often use fences in some way, as well as stairs, but a lot can work here. Iron bars pop up from time to time, as do item frames, and I've used things like ladders and anvils to decorate occasionally. Experimentation can work wonders when you've got a thin strip to fill. -3- This is a little different: a merger of the Pillar and Lip styles. Why have I left large gaps? Larger windows, but not one single flat pane of glass. I stuck them out onto the facade. It can easily be used as a base for windows which stick out - I often use bay windows as well. The Lip style gives you a base to work with. One problem it does throw up is that, if extending the window away from the wall, the material of the outside (in this case, quartz pillar) becomes visible. My solution, if replacing it with flooring means the flooring will be visible outside? Just throw a bookshelf or something over it - no-one will ever be any the wiser.
Building up that level results in this: It's quite markedly different from the house in Part Two, but still visibly the same style, because it follows basic rules. Set down rules, follow them, but change the details, and I find that variation comes by natural experimentation. Or maybe that's just because Whiteark is my testing ground for architecture. I don't know - give it a try! -4- Again, variation can come in the form of the roof. I'm not just talking about different roofing materials, though that works, but also simple decoration. Nothing over the top; it's Thera, not Paris, but enough to add variation. On the top, I've added upside-down stairs pointing away, a common decoration.
Of course, adding windows to the roof is always an option... Tunnel away into the roof where the window will go, add a small stack of sandstone on either side, and add a window sticking out, three blocks wide. Add a mini roof to it. It should look like this on the inside... ...and this on the outside... I've also added further decorative elements. Cascading slopes of sandstone over the windows. Arches over the facade. Extending the central pillars above the rest. Those are different features, but again, they follow the rules I set down, and the basic structure of the building is the same.
So, that's another house done, with some drastic variation from the previous one. If you compare them, the differences and similarities should stick themselves out.
For a little more inspiration, let's look at a couple of already-built houses elsewhere in Thera. This house on Well Street combines several previously shown elements, but has others I haven't explained. The door is recessed into the building by one block - the frame of the house keeps its basic shape though. The blocks between windows are stained clay - it adds a little colour which would otherwise be plain sandstone. One single bay window in the roof, five blocks wide, and a smaller three-wide window below it. Simple variations on the same theme. It's also on two streets. It can't be seen from the outside, but the rear of this is actually a separate house. A wall divides it down the centre, leaving it able to sit on both streets at once.
Yet it keeps to the same style. As does this house next to it... Same elements, different execution. The windows sit alone, with the dividing blocks on either side. This house being at the end of a row, has a roof to match. The facade extends around the side and back, but not using the same corner blocks.
So, that - I hope - was a useful guide to how I add variation to builds of the same style.
Time for me to congratulate Whiteark on another belated birthday (two days late). Daft lump of sandstone is two years old now. I wish I could have forewarned myself when I started, of what an out-of-control monstrosity it would become...
"Hey, me from two years ago! You know that village you just started? Keep going! In twenty-four months time, it'll cover a surface area larger than the capital of Malta!"
Something like that. It's funny to compare the then and now, really brings home how things have changed, so that's what I've done here. Grabbed some of my favourite screenshots of the past two years, and taken them again from the same spot. Whiteark through the (two) years.
Then and now...
30th October 2012
Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, there was a bridge, and it was named Whiteark. I still don't know why.
5th November 2012
The whole thing can be seen in the early shot. It was already the biggest place we'd ever made.
12th December 2012
The first two months were crucial. If so much hadn't been built then, I might've given up.
Also 12th December 2012
We built the Temple of Time (top left) on 12.12.12, just because of the date. Lore for the natives worshiping time sprung from that eventually. First large building we'd ever made, and the second-to-last major one I had any help with.
16th March 2013
Moving out into the wilderness. It's now fairly central. Also, a desert well.
18th March 2013
Brief cameo by a brother, here.
3rd April 2013
What once sat where the palace now exists.
10th April 2013
This old shot, with an unfinished palace, Vay's Tower looming in the background, and a mostly empty street stretching away while the sun sets, is probably my favourite Whiteark screenshot.
2nd May 2013
Once upon a time, when the palace itself was largely finished, everything to the horizon was bare sand and ocean.
2nd September 2013
The beginnings of Terlunite.
4th December 2013
The far-south, last major enclave to be built in.
28th January 2014
Building in water: I still don't have any mods or tools, so I still hate it.
29th January 2014
How a port sprang from bare sand...
31st January 2014
And here's the other end...
16th March 2014
It's nice when the sprawl eats the landscape. The buildings are Pac-Man, the sand is the dots.
25th March 2014
Port gets loads of pictures. Wish I'd taken more of everything else.
Also 25th March 2014
And finally, how no-one is ever truly alone for long.
I haven't built a whole lot since the last update to the thread, but there's enough worth showing. Here's a new addition to Thunder Bay: the Royal Blue Inn.
Basic design in my head was for a coaching inn, but with a Whiteark flavour to it. This was the result.
There's also this connected but unrelated and less-interesting building next to it.
Passageway leads to the courtyard...
I'm quite pleased with the carriage. It's fairly small, yet can seat eight in relative comfort. A win all round.
The kitchen is the only furnished room at the moment, but I think my skills are improving in that regard. Interiors are getting easier.
Atop the first set of stairs.
And, the stable.
I also started another area to the north of Thera, along the palace wall, this one clustered around a private, urban park, in the style of New York's Gramercy Park. There's little there currently, just three houses, two of which are fairly normal...
...but the third, is my own new personal place, free to run wild with the interior, and to keep all my various items (and cats) in.
Because it's mine, I may have put just a little more effort into it than others.
Again, I'm pleased with how interiors are turning out these days. I'm definitely getting better at them.
But that being said, I don't think the exterior is too bad either.
And finally, what will probably be my next major project, is altering the older areas of the city to bring them up to a more modern standard. The trick is keeping the feel of the place while making it better, but I've had a go, and I think it's working well so far.
Four large buildings have been torn down, and replaced...
An inn once stood here, opposite Whiteark's small southeastern gate. It was a three-storey tall, square featureless block with windows and a central chimney. Hideous, but I didn't know any better back then. Now, it's been replaced by a house and a garden. Nothing special, but much better than before.
Just up the street, was a large but horrible manor. That's gone, not missed in the slightest, and in its place is a marginally better warehouse.
Visible in a couple of earlier comparison shots of the Old Town, is a bland rectangular building made of stone bricks, with a bad roof and a building on top of it. I'd been trying to avoid including it in screenshots for a while, because of how embarrassingly terrible it was, and finally just decided to raze the old thing. This now sits in its former plot.
But, as has become a kind of minor tradition, I kept a few sections of the old building, but in a ruined state.
Where once there was a hotel that not even its mother (me) could love, now sits a far better tavern. All credit to my brothers, who actually worked together to build it without me. The first time either of them have done anything here for... a long time.
And finally, a few shots of what I've done so far to improve the river's shore along the Old Town.
All that's left for now really is to thank everyone for all the interest shown in the thirteen months that Whiteark's been on Minecraft Forum, and thanks to everyone who has directly or indirectly helped me out with various things. Thanks to the guys from Kotaku, Eurogamer, VG247, if any of you are reading this still, and to all the other sites that have run articles on this obsessive project of mine (I've found articles in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Arabic, what Google tells me is Malay, and those are just the ones I can remember... it's crazy).
Whiteark won't die. The symphony in sandstone is now in its third movement, but its progress is still the same. Slow, yet steady.
I love the history! It's fascinating to see how Whiteark developed. I also suspect part of the "veracity" ("vera-city"?) is how you rebuild and add on. That's actually how things work in the real world. Those little asymmetrical triangular parks in the "no-one is alone for long" screenshot are not the kind of thing that get planned in advance, but they are the kind of thing that get added on later. A world made by somebody in it looking at what's there is very different from one that's all planned out in advance.
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I love the history! It's fascinating to see how Whiteark developed. I also suspect part of the "veracity" ("vera-city"?) is how you rebuild and add on. That's actually how things work in the real world. Those little asymmetrical triangular parks in the "no-one is alone for long" screenshot are not the kind of thing that get planned in advance, but they are the kind of thing that get added on later. A world made by somebody in it looking at what's there is very different from one that's all planned out in advance.
There's no doubt part of it is simply that by the time I was getting good enough to put real coherent effort into building, I already had a large city. It's like starting with one as a template, but the difference is that I know its every detail. A city planner redeveloping the city they grew up in, respecting the history? It feels a bit like that.
But I definitely follow the real way of addition and subtraction, when it comes to building. I'm from Britain; there aren't many artificially laid out roads or towns. Centuries, in some cases even millennia, of natural evolution. Thanks for the roads, Romans! If only they knew we still use some of their routes nearly two-thousand years later.
I grew up in a fairly rural area, mostly unspoilt by modern planning, and some inspirations in particular are four very old, very historic towns local to me as a child, still with their traditional character largely intact: Guildford, Farnham, Alton and Odiham. They serve as occasional bases to follow when I get a little lost. Real-world examples are definitely far more of an inspiration for me than most cities in Minecraft.
Nothing much to report here, just that 2014's a wrap, and here's to 2015. Have a good new year, and whatever else you may or may not celebrate at this time of year.
My favourite screenshot this year above, new ones below.
About half of this new area was built in a single two-hour sitting while waiting to go to a doctor's appointment. Pretty good motivator, as it turns out.
The main feature is obviously this big thing. It was an experiment of sorts:
1) Can I make a larger building without it sharing any walls, only streets and alleyways surrounding it?
2) Can I build in the way a lot of people do?
By the second one, I mean in the sort of 'suspend architectural disbelief and squint' way. The less 'solid' way of building, if that makes any sense. I'd never tried it before, but decided to have a go at making the quartz corners curve up the roof, which I think has turned out ok.
Then there's this end, which I think looks like an old Spanish mission somewhere in Latin America, but I digress.
It's mainly a maze of narrow streets, like most of the city.
But not entirely.
A central feature is this lowered alley leading into a tunnel.
And another tower, because if there's one thing Whiteark needs more of, it's towers.
/sarcasm off
There's also a bit of work going on down in Terlunite and at the palace, but that's less interesting.
Things getting built at the head of the little stream. Pond now with plantlife.
Newer, far better, less abandoned sewers, which I started only a couple of days ago. This is very much a 'watch this space'.
I finally broke out the trowel and did some gardening at the rear of the palace. Then I stopped, but at least I did something with some of that blank grass.
And finally, a few more useless, more random, but prettier screenshots (Conquest really makes sunset something to savour).
Great stuff as always. I'm impressed how your palette continues to expand but the city continues to cohere. The gardens look nice, especially with the tower in the back. Maybe you should try some farms outside the walls.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Great stuff as always. I'm impressed how your palette continues to expand but the city continues to cohere. The gardens look nice, especially with the tower in the back. Maybe you should try some farms outside the walls.
Well, I'm always experimenting on themes. I suppose I can just tell if something doesn't look quite right, if I've built it? I don't know, I'm grabbing at straws at the best of times, explaining how I do anything.
It's good to know the gardens are ok; they're the first I've ever made, so this really is new territory. As for farms, that's not something I can do at the moment. Reason for that is simply: I plan on terraforming the surroundings at some point. Discovered World Painter not too long ago... well, I wish I'd found out about it sooner, because it's very similar to a tool I used to use back in Sim City 4 days to create entire regions, and I ended up pretty reasonable at it because I used it so much. I won't need to learn from scratch.
It'll be more difficult, having to work with the fact that I need to preserve a lot of terrain, and the city, but small-scale experiments have been a success, so I'll wheel out the steamroller at some point. After that? Entire kingdom, I dunno. Whimsical dreams!
...
On another note: I came into possession of a new monitor at Christmas. Major improvement. My old one's resolution was 1024x768, and now I'm up to 1920 X 1080. That's good for Minecraft, but even better, is that my old monitor was a CRT (yes, even in 2014) with faulty, muddy colours. I thought it was fine.
Well, I was wrong. It's almost as if I was colourblind before, I didn't realise Minecraft was supposed to look this vibrant. I assumed the muddiness was a design choice. Also, my brightness works properly now, whereas before I had to turn it up to 100%, and even then it was still fairly dark.
Put simply: looking at Minecraft is much more enjoyable now, and I didn't even know Whiteark looked like it does...
So, press F3 and it tells you how many in-game days have passed in a world, right? Want to guess how many I'm at now? Get within 100 and win a prize!
4870. Thirteen in-game years. What is this insanity.
Well, there hasn't been much time to do an awful lot in Minecraft for a while, but in terms of what I have been doing when I am building Whiteark, lately? Terraforming. I finally stopped pushing it back to a later date and just did it. Because Whiteark already existed instead of being a new creation, it was a lot of trouble just getting it to this point, but I wrangled it into submission eventually.
There was a lot of 'world' in Whiteark's world. Another, far smaller town, and a couple of tiny villages scattered around, but mostly empty, unaltered space. That's all gone now, and hence the world size has dropped from 154mb to only 80. What I have kept, aside from the city itself, is the rest of the desert it sits in, so that I have somewhere else to expand to, the ocean, and a large extreme hills biome directly to the west. I liked these hills from the moment I first saw them, and I enjoy building on undulating terrain, but the transition to grass was silly, seeing as this is supposed to be a vast desert land. So, now christened the Broken Hills, they've been seeing some alteration from WorldPainter and MCEdit, but not much to really alter the shape of the natural hills.
This is early work, very much in progress, but should give an idea of what I'm going for.
I made an arch with WorldPainter! I did something mildly technical, successfully!
The vantage point here is within Whiteark's boundaries, but also within the hills. This is the general sort of terrain I'm dealing with.
What's on the other side of the wall needs some more love. Wildlife around the pond, decoration of some kind for the bare desert.
The road from western Whiteark to the site of a village and some extensive ruins I'm planning. Ignore the trees - I haven't gotten around to replacing them yet.
That's what I've been altering. But, while I was able to get the hang of WorldPainter after about thirty seconds, I spent some time familiarising myself with it before altering the hills. I did that by creating a tiny island chain in the ocean, about a mile southwest of Whiteark's most southwesterly point. This is also a work in progress, but is coming along quickly. When it's finished, in the fairly near future? I'll put it up for download.
The northern point of the island chain. Lore behind the place is that it was once a single island, but millennia of rough seas have taken their toll and smashed most of it apart. Only the stronger parts now stand, the largest of which is this northern isle. It would be essentially worthless, if it didn't contain the kingdom's largest INSERT ORE HERE mine. Even with that to its name, not many people bother with the place, given its tiny living space and roaring winds, lending it an air of forlorn overgrowth and dilapidation.
Yeah, it's not very developed, but I'll think of some more.
A muddy, overgrown trail, with a few scattered huts and one stone building which is slowly falling down and has a leaking roof. Or, downtown on Main Street. It's the same thing here.
The stone inn, though, is a little more notable simply because it's one of only a handful of buildings in Whiteark's world built in a completely different style to Whiteark itself. The city is largely Insanbrii people, whereas this inn was built by Cashmeri hands in their native style. They were the original culture I created when I first started playing Minecraft, it's a long story. But I'll explain it one day.
The entrance to the mine.
Much of that isle is host to a bluff, which will be heavily forested, but there's also a tower atop it, a replacement for this one, which befell a rather inevitable fate.
The southern end of the isle is much more harshly damaged.
In contrast to its larger and more hospitable neighbour, the southern isle has no trees, only scarce amounts of grass, little potable water and no notable resources. But, it still captures the interest of some.
"Ancient Insanbric ruins? Here, on an island? But archaeological consensus is that the Insanbrii had no way of crossing expanses of water before contact with the Murl! How can this be?"
It's an arguing point in the taverns of Whiteark which might never be solved. Not that most actually care.
I'll be starting a thread soon specifically dedicated to charting the progress of terraforming the world outside of the city, because it's a pretty big area, and this thread is convoluted enough as it is. Keep an eye out for it if that interests you.
But I've also been building a few things in Whiteark itself.
Back to Thunder Bay...
I'm pretty damn proud of the Canal Management Building. An experiment with a vague vision I had in my head, that turned out far better than I thought it would. It's not often that I use quartz, but perhaps I'll start incorporating it here and there.
The spawned player heads which have the texture of quartz but will never change, they work wonders here.
It also has a new design of interior walls.
More canal work going on. Having to route through the hills is a tricky prospect, so it's on hold until I figure that out.
Port things. Carts and stuff, a stable, and a funny building. Based on the fact that, realistically, people would use carts, I've had to create far wider streets around this part of the port than I ever have before, and they'll probably predominate in the future centre of the city.
Also a 'skip-to-day' bed. Ignore that.
About a mile to the east, at Refuge Lake, just a simple stable. Rickety, but quaint.
And this is the design for the eastern wall.
Something a little different here. There was a slither of swamp by the southeast, outside of the city walls, which nearly turned the part of Whiteark to the south of the river into an island. Now, hopefully everyone can agree that default swamps are pretty terrible, but I can't just change the idea of having swampland to the southeast of the city. So, I'm making it better instead.
This is also where I developed Whiteark's forest layouts. Lots of tall grass, bushes, tall and short ferns, and orange tulips. Lilacs and orchids are less common, and found mainly around water. In short, green, orange, pink and blue.
And that's about it. Other than, thank you WorldPainter for existing. I love you for making my job easier, even if you did break Whiteark, complaining about 'Oooh, I'm not really designed for use on pre-existing worlds!' and forced me to restore it from a backup.
No really, I am. http://kotaku.com/huge-minecraft-desert-city-was-built-by-one-player-over-1610065915/all
I don't entirely know what to say, aside from that I'm quite shocked, so I won't say anything. Except for replying...
I'll definitely attempt to cover how I try keeping things diverse but within a style, then. Without going into too much detail here and derailing into endless babbling, I would say an important thing to attempt is to have distinct features and sections in a build that can be kept the same, giving it a familiarity with what it is near, but all other features can be unique to it, within reason.
I'll get a full guide out some time soon, anyway.
I use SMP Revival. http://smptextures.com/revival/
I saw it on Kotaku too. Difference is, my head pretty much exploded when that happened. Thanks!
Thanks also!
Thanks, it makes my day when I get comments like this! Some people seem only to gravitate to large, fancy buildings, and it's always nice to know that there are plenty who enjoy smaller-scale parts of builds too.
They're spawned player heads, yup.
The stonework is a little different for me, I don't usually do fancy surrounds like that inside buildings. The rest of the interior of that building (the half I have furnished, rather) looks something like this...
Upstairs.
Manager's office
Oh and, a quick preview of my latest new build...
To start with, there is now a 3-D map of Whiteark, available here, and in the OP: http://robulus.draydns.de:8123/?worldname=Whiteark&mapname=surface&zoom=5&x=-1157.81575844032&y=64&z=195.23306736013888
High enough detail to see the beds I scatter around so I can skip to morning. It's also a dynmap, which means Whiteark is on a server now. I don't build there, it's just so I can have a high detail map, and though I probably won't open it for people to wander around, I may show a few around if I get some free time and if anyone is interested.
The map is courtesy of Beyond The Horizon (http://www.planetminecraft.com/server/beyond-the-horizon/), an under-construction roleplay RPG server that I am now the head lore writer of. Anyone is welcome to come online and see the two cities open to visitors. Both are originally my own concepts, both were originally in the same universe as Whiteark, and have their lore written by myself. Both of them are also now on PlanetMinecraft, so if you like Whiteark for its history and lore, they might also be worth a look.
http://www.planetminecraft.com/project/darnoon---beyond-the-horizon/
http://www.planetminecraft.com/project/salnoon---beyond-the-horizon/
Now something I actually built instead of just wrote for...
This is the Insanbric Academy of Worldly Learning, based in Whiteark, essentially a university dedicated to how 'those pesky outsiders' live. The actual lore is in the OP, under the 'East' section, but here are some pictures of the main building minus finishing touches.
Took longer to build than I would like to admit.
The sides of the wings.
The two top sections of roofing cover two open walkways. They'll probably be decked in flowers, seating, study areas, that sort of thing.
Underneath the shallow glass dome.
Anyone who has seen some of the pictures in the OP might notice the change of texture pack, and the shaders. Well, I found some shaders I can run, though only for a couple of minutes at a time before my PC starts to crack under the strain. Because SMP Revival looks pretty goofy with shaders, I'll be using Conquest from now on when taking screenshots with shaders.
My brother has better luck with running the shaders though, so he was able to take all these for me.
I haven't done that Thera Rowhouse guide yet, but it's next on my list. Coming soon and all that jazz.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Most, if not all, of the architectural features are borrowed and adapted from other buildings in Whiteark, an advantage of having one large build, a huge pool of potential features to use again. I keep certain ones that work well, but change them so as they aren't the same in each build.
Suspended roofs first made an appearance about half a year ago, on Whiteark's southern wall...
...as compared to the newer ones on the Academy. They were inspired partially be a building I saw a picture of some time ago, but I can't remember any detail, only that it had these style roofs. The image stuck with me, but it's my own take on the design.
The dome wasn't much more than a whim. I thought it might work, it didn't, so I tried a shallower one. Just an example of trial and error.
The stone columns are more recent - they first came to be in Thera, on these houses...
They came about as a result of having a limited amount of width for each house in Thera, and preferring three-wide gaps between pillars, which left a gap only one block wide in that top house, so I experimented. It went from there.
I first tried a curved staircase underneath the Socanta Windmill. It worked better than I expected, but it's been over a year later now that I've had to wait for another chance to use the design...
Below the stairs here is a simple, curved wall. It was the original design, but given that the stairs themselves stop at a level with the lowest block, I didn't want the lowest step-boundary to be wider than one block. That though, didn't look right, so I tried again. This too is another example of just plain trial and error, simply trying again until it fits - to be honest, a lot of everything is trial and error.
The sides are less interesting though.
As for asymmetrical roofs, some of those in Thera are quite heavily asymmetrical, but they're small so not really comparable, meaning this was pretty much completely new for me...
The right wing (the one below) was the original, so I'll cover this one. The left hand side of the roof, the less detailed, was the first side I built. I didn't want an entirely plain roof for obvious reasons, but neither did I want a cluttered one, seeing as the walkways would be above. So, simple sandstone runs up that side to divide the entire thing in half, and then to divide those from the front and rear sections - which have a slightly different wall and window design - to segment the differing architecture, give the impression that these are seperate sections.
The right hand side follows the same principle, but with the addition of that roof having bay windows, and so having to work around them. The same lines run over the roof to better divide it, but with a few extra to frame the windows.
The windows themselves are an old Whiteark tradition of having dormer roofs - given that most buildings share a wall with at least one other, window space can be at a premium, hence I've learned to put them in roofs, if the shape is right. In a building like this, it helps the look too. Practicality is the real reason for the windows. A lot of people prefer to build on an entirely fantasy basis, but the practical repercussions are too big to ignore in an attempted realistic build like this. Practicality has to come first.
As for planning how it all comes together? Well... there's not a lot I can say there actually, because I'm famous for never planning anything like how I should. I just don't think that far ahead - I had all those architectural aspects in mind when I decided to start building, but to get to the point that I can add those, is mostly me running on autopilot. The general shape was inspired by the palace's two front wings, but much more than that, I wasn't really thinking hard enough to commit my thoughts to memory.
One thing I almost always do though in properly large buildings like this, is the shell first, with the pillars, and add decorative aspects later. It does leave the build looking plain and cumbersome for a while, which can leave it a little difficult to visualise, but it works for me.
Miscalculations and mistakes though, I do that a lot, and I made quite a few while building this thing. For calculating larger lengths, like the length of the wings, I hop into MCEdit. If I didn't, I would always lose count, because that's another thing I'm known for doing. When I make mistakes on a large scale like that, like ending up one block out? That's one of the few times I use MCEdit as more than a ruler - built the whole thing, it's only fair to move it by a block or two if I screw up.
Overall to prevent that, I use the same divide and conquer building techniques, along the same basic idea: building larger is always easier if done in portions.
If done that way instead, it soon builds up.
Any more than that? I'd have to ask my unconscious mind - I just don't think these things through! I decide it's time to build, and I just... do. I can't really explain it.
Thanks, I'm still going! Long way to go, but I was never good at sprints anyway. There will definitely be more, a lot more, but slight pause right now. I'm waiting to be able to get updated versions of either of the texture packs I use. Default looks... questionable, and 1.7.10 seems almost primitive now. Red sandstone! Granite! New doors! This is a good update for me, or, it will be when I can use it.
How fast reputations become soiled - only two centuries ago, this was the domain of the impossibly wealthy. The lavish elite, to whom were intended the most luxuriant of appointments, the highest echelons of comfort.
Now? Anyone can live in Thera. Within reason, of course - it's a strictly peasant-free zone, you needn't worry about their grubby, thieving paws. The streets are a little dustier, the houses bordering on elderly, but reputation? It's a funny thing. Fickle, really; one could expect Thera to take a nosedive in popularity based on it's newfound affordability, but no. It's as desirable a location now for the middling classes as it ever was for the one percent.
You're wealthy enough, surely? Not filth-ridden, peasant vermin?
Then Thera is open to you too. Let's get you settled in.
Part 1: The foundations of Thera architecture.
Thera has its own style, really. If you're interested in why it developed, you'll want to open this spoiler. If not, I'll see you in part two...
Part 2: A simple home to call your own.
Time to get building.
This first house is an average size for the area: 13x16, with two floors each of 11x12x5, and a reasonably sized attic. Location is the desirable Celestine Street, chosen because it was convenient, nothing interesting.
These buildings can basically be stripped down into sections - they're modular: two floors (occasionally three), a roof, and a decorative facade at the front, often at the back too. Note the stone bricks in the floor? They're the start of our front facade. The facades usually consist of columns stuck out from the frame of the building, guarding windows. The most common size of gap between the pillars is three blocks, allowing for two windows, so that's what I've gone with here.
-2-
A basic door frame, with the door sat in the middle of a gap between columns. The window frames are taking their shape too: one block wide, and three tall, for the maximum light in a narrow and confined area. I've also done the same at the back, but because it's off the street, I'll be putting less decoration at that end; doesn't make much sense to spend your hard-earned numium on something few people will ever see.
I usually default to oak planks as flooring in simpler Thera houses, changing it later if the mood strikes me. Most common flooring-blocks work fine.
-3-
Let's start with the windows here. There are two major variants of frame I use: Pillar and Lip.
I'll go into the Lip style later, but first, Pillar, which is what I've used here. The frames hold glass panes as windows, three blocks high and one block wide. Because they sit on stairs, not square blocks, the standard blocks between them create an illusion of depth, and being a sort of recessed pillar, half a block long.
These fake pillars have stairs too, at the same level, but that's for the floor/ceiling layer decoration, which I'll come to shortly.
The columns serve mainly to create more depth, and break up the flat wall into sections. What they are made of, can be anything, as long as it fits the colour scheme used elsewhere. Those at the sides of houses are shared, because the buildings share two walls each, so I use a common design there, mainly plain stone bricks. Other columns can be more unique to each house - these use red sandstone, for example, because that block is the best thing since sliced bread.
The less decorative rear, with panes in place.
-4-
The second layer is the ceiling/floor. Blocks which are at the same level as it, which are on the outside, and don't have a column in front, will be visible on the outside - these ones are red sandstone.
The ceiling itself is simple: I use a log running through the middle to break up the plain wood (or more than one log in larger houses), and while these may look like birch planks, they're actually upturned stairs...
Rafters! Just an extra detail. Sometimes the small things make an impact.
-5-
This roof/ceiling layer is the 'middle', a point to break up the floors. It also gives some extra space to decorate without having to worry about the wooden floor showing outside, so run with it! Decorate that gap! What I've added here is fairly typical: a different block in the columns, something atop the poking-out stairs (usually another different block, or a fence/cobblestone wall), and fences at either side of each pillar.
These elements can be swapped and changed very easily, and are a good way to add variation between houses.
-6- Continuing the same pattern from the previous floor, keeping it the same can help avoid over-the-top decoration. No door required at this level, so another window always helps with natural light. Unless you're planning apartments on different floors, like the house next door... The same style also continued at the rear... This shot helps show the modularity of these houses, I think. Different sections, working together as a greater whole. Less fancy facades, but it's still visibly the same style because the basic patterns have been followed.
-7- If it was hard to imagine the whole thing coming together before, this is the point at which it becomes recognisable: both floors essentially complete, facades and windows in place. I find that the top 'floor/ceiling' layer in each house can be a tad more decorative without it rendering the rest gaudy - it works underneath the roof where it fails elsewhere.
-8- Only the roof left to do. These houses really can be fairly simple, but I digress: roof. That's even simpler. Different houses in terraces have the roof above their dividing walls raised and made of the same material as the major walls (in this case, sandstone). As shown in this shot, where the main roof material starts - on the edge of the front wall, not on the facade - the edge blocks should be one block higher. Like so... Essentially, you end up with something like this: While if you leave the inside hollow, and use upturned stairs (and the 3d models addition to Conquest), you get this rather cosy space:
-9- Leaving the outer columns to be slightly taller, the inner ones end, capped by the edge of the roof, which here is in a fairly simply style. The top of the roof too should be of the same material, so that the roof material is basically divided into two large panels. Sectioning - it's useful for modularity. And that, in nine steps, is how to build in a basic Thera style. There are endless permutations of it, and the way of building differs hugely between areas in the city, but if that was fairly easy to get the hang on, then you've got the basics of Whiteark's architecture down. In part three, I'll be building another house, in the same basic fashion but with differing features, to attempt to show how I alter the details but keep the theme the same.
The upper section is what I call the Lip style of window framing: the glass panes instead sit on blocks, which have stairs in front of them. It's the older style, and I use it less now, but it still works fine in my opinion. Again, the rear follows the same theme, but more spartan in its decoration; no sideways quartz pillars, only white stained clay. Just the central columns, nothing fancy (apart from the prismarine blocks, but they're new, I couldn't resist!).
-2- The Lip style of window framing does allow for more decoration on the ceiling layers, so it's a chance to just experiment and see what works. I often use fences in some way, as well as stairs, but a lot can work here. Iron bars pop up from time to time, as do item frames, and I've used things like ladders and anvils to decorate occasionally. Experimentation can work wonders when you've got a thin strip to fill.
-3- This is a little different: a merger of the Pillar and Lip styles. Why have I left large gaps? Larger windows, but not one single flat pane of glass. I stuck them out onto the facade. It can easily be used as a base for windows which stick out - I often use bay windows as well. The Lip style gives you a base to work with. One problem it does throw up is that, if extending the window away from the wall, the material of the outside (in this case, quartz pillar) becomes visible. My solution, if replacing it with flooring means the flooring will be visible outside? Just throw a bookshelf or something over it - no-one will ever be any the wiser.
Building up that level results in this: It's quite markedly different from the house in Part Two, but still visibly the same style, because it follows basic rules. Set down rules, follow them, but change the details, and I find that variation comes by natural experimentation. Or maybe that's just because Whiteark is my testing ground for architecture. I don't know - give it a try!
-4- Again, variation can come in the form of the roof. I'm not just talking about different roofing materials, though that works, but also simple decoration. Nothing over the top; it's Thera, not Paris, but enough to add variation. On the top, I've added upside-down stairs pointing away, a common decoration.
Of course, adding windows to the roof is always an option... Tunnel away into the roof where the window will go, add a small stack of sandstone on either side, and add a window sticking out, three blocks wide. Add a mini roof to it. It should look like this on the inside... ...and this on the outside... I've also added further decorative elements. Cascading slopes of sandstone over the windows. Arches over the facade. Extending the central pillars above the rest. Those are different features, but again, they follow the rules I set down, and the basic structure of the building is the same.
So, that's another house done, with some drastic variation from the previous one. If you compare them, the differences and similarities should stick themselves out.
For a little more inspiration, let's look at a couple of already-built houses elsewhere in Thera. This house on Well Street combines several previously shown elements, but has others I haven't explained. The door is recessed into the building by one block - the frame of the house keeps its basic shape though. The blocks between windows are stained clay - it adds a little colour which would otherwise be plain sandstone. One single bay window in the roof, five blocks wide, and a smaller three-wide window below it. Simple variations on the same theme. It's also on two streets. It can't be seen from the outside, but the rear of this is actually a separate house. A wall divides it down the centre, leaving it able to sit on both streets at once.
Yet it keeps to the same style. As does this house next to it... Same elements, different execution. The windows sit alone, with the dividing blocks on either side. This house being at the end of a row, has a roof to match. The facade extends around the side and back, but not using the same corner blocks.
So, that - I hope - was a useful guide to how I add variation to builds of the same style.
"Hey, me from two years ago! You know that village you just started? Keep going! In twenty-four months time, it'll cover a surface area larger than the capital of Malta!"
Something like that. It's funny to compare the then and now, really brings home how things have changed, so that's what I've done here. Grabbed some of my favourite screenshots of the past two years, and taken them again from the same spot. Whiteark through the (two) years.
Then and now...
Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, there was a bridge, and it was named Whiteark. I still don't know why.
5th November 2012
The whole thing can be seen in the early shot. It was already the biggest place we'd ever made.
12th December 2012
The first two months were crucial. If so much hadn't been built then, I might've given up.
Also 12th December 2012
We built the Temple of Time (top left) on 12.12.12, just because of the date. Lore for the natives worshiping time sprung from that eventually. First large building we'd ever made, and the second-to-last major one I had any help with.
16th March 2013
Moving out into the wilderness. It's now fairly central. Also, a desert well.
18th March 2013
Brief cameo by a brother, here.
3rd April 2013
What once sat where the palace now exists.
10th April 2013
This old shot, with an unfinished palace, Vay's Tower looming in the background, and a mostly empty street stretching away while the sun sets, is probably my favourite Whiteark screenshot.
2nd May 2013
Once upon a time, when the palace itself was largely finished, everything to the horizon was bare sand and ocean.
2nd September 2013
The beginnings of Terlunite.
4th December 2013
The far-south, last major enclave to be built in.
28th January 2014
Building in water: I still don't have any mods or tools, so I still hate it.
29th January 2014
How a port sprang from bare sand...
31st January 2014
And here's the other end...
16th March 2014
It's nice when the sprawl eats the landscape. The buildings are Pac-Man, the sand is the dots.
25th March 2014
Port gets loads of pictures. Wish I'd taken more of everything else.
Also 25th March 2014
And finally, how no-one is ever truly alone for long.
I haven't built a whole lot since the last update to the thread, but there's enough worth showing. Here's a new addition to Thunder Bay: the Royal Blue Inn.
Basic design in my head was for a coaching inn, but with a Whiteark flavour to it. This was the result.
There's also this connected but unrelated and less-interesting building next to it.
Passageway leads to the courtyard...
I'm quite pleased with the carriage. It's fairly small, yet can seat eight in relative comfort. A win all round.
The kitchen is the only furnished room at the moment, but I think my skills are improving in that regard. Interiors are getting easier.
Atop the first set of stairs.
And, the stable.
I also started another area to the north of Thera, along the palace wall, this one clustered around a private, urban park, in the style of New York's Gramercy Park. There's little there currently, just three houses, two of which are fairly normal...
...but the third, is my own new personal place, free to run wild with the interior, and to keep all my various items (and cats) in.
Again, I'm pleased with how interiors are turning out these days. I'm definitely getting better at them.
But that being said, I don't think the exterior is too bad either.
And finally, what will probably be my next major project, is altering the older areas of the city to bring them up to a more modern standard. The trick is keeping the feel of the place while making it better, but I've had a go, and I think it's working well so far.
An inn once stood here, opposite Whiteark's small southeastern gate. It was a three-storey tall, square featureless block with windows and a central chimney. Hideous, but I didn't know any better back then. Now, it's been replaced by a house and a garden. Nothing special, but much better than before.
Just up the street, was a large but horrible manor. That's gone, not missed in the slightest, and in its place is a marginally better warehouse.
Visible in a couple of earlier comparison shots of the Old Town, is a bland rectangular building made of stone bricks, with a bad roof and a building on top of it. I'd been trying to avoid including it in screenshots for a while, because of how embarrassingly terrible it was, and finally just decided to raze the old thing. This now sits in its former plot.
But, as has become a kind of minor tradition, I kept a few sections of the old building, but in a ruined state.
Where once there was a hotel that not even its mother (me) could love, now sits a far better tavern. All credit to my brothers, who actually worked together to build it without me. The first time either of them have done anything here for... a long time.
And finally, a few shots of what I've done so far to improve the river's shore along the Old Town.
All that's left for now really is to thank everyone for all the interest shown in the thirteen months that Whiteark's been on Minecraft Forum, and thanks to everyone who has directly or indirectly helped me out with various things. Thanks to the guys from Kotaku, Eurogamer, VG247, if any of you are reading this still, and to all the other sites that have run articles on this obsessive project of mine (I've found articles in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Arabic, what Google tells me is Malay, and those are just the ones I can remember... it's crazy).
Whiteark won't die. The symphony in sandstone is now in its third movement, but its progress is still the same. Slow, yet steady.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
There's no doubt part of it is simply that by the time I was getting good enough to put real coherent effort into building, I already had a large city. It's like starting with one as a template, but the difference is that I know its every detail. A city planner redeveloping the city they grew up in, respecting the history? It feels a bit like that.
But I definitely follow the real way of addition and subtraction, when it comes to building. I'm from Britain; there aren't many artificially laid out roads or towns. Centuries, in some cases even millennia, of natural evolution. Thanks for the roads, Romans! If only they knew we still use some of their routes nearly two-thousand years later.
I grew up in a fairly rural area, mostly unspoilt by modern planning, and some inspirations in particular are four very old, very historic towns local to me as a child, still with their traditional character largely intact: Guildford, Farnham, Alton and Odiham. They serve as occasional bases to follow when I get a little lost. Real-world examples are definitely far more of an inspiration for me than most cities in Minecraft.
I never did like planning.
Nothing much to report here, just that 2014's a wrap, and here's to 2015. Have a good new year, and whatever else you may or may not celebrate at this time of year.
My favourite screenshot this year above, new ones below.
About half of this new area was built in a single two-hour sitting while waiting to go to a doctor's appointment. Pretty good motivator, as it turns out.
The main feature is obviously this big thing. It was an experiment of sorts:
1) Can I make a larger building without it sharing any walls, only streets and alleyways surrounding it?
2) Can I build in the way a lot of people do?
By the second one, I mean in the sort of 'suspend architectural disbelief and squint' way. The less 'solid' way of building, if that makes any sense. I'd never tried it before, but decided to have a go at making the quartz corners curve up the roof, which I think has turned out ok.
Then there's this end, which I think looks like an old Spanish mission somewhere in Latin America, but I digress.
It's mainly a maze of narrow streets, like most of the city.
But not entirely.
A central feature is this lowered alley leading into a tunnel.
And another tower, because if there's one thing Whiteark needs more of, it's towers.
/sarcasm off
There's also a bit of work going on down in Terlunite and at the palace, but that's less interesting.
Newer, far better, less abandoned sewers, which I started only a couple of days ago. This is very much a 'watch this space'.
I finally broke out the trowel and did some gardening at the rear of the palace. Then I stopped, but at least I did something with some of that blank grass.
And finally, a few more useless, more random, but prettier screenshots (Conquest really makes sunset something to savour).
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Thanks, I try my best!
Well, I'm always experimenting on themes. I suppose I can just tell if something doesn't look quite right, if I've built it? I don't know, I'm grabbing at straws at the best of times, explaining how I do anything.
It's good to know the gardens are ok; they're the first I've ever made, so this really is new territory. As for farms, that's not something I can do at the moment. Reason for that is simply: I plan on terraforming the surroundings at some point. Discovered World Painter not too long ago... well, I wish I'd found out about it sooner, because it's very similar to a tool I used to use back in Sim City 4 days to create entire regions, and I ended up pretty reasonable at it because I used it so much. I won't need to learn from scratch.
It'll be more difficult, having to work with the fact that I need to preserve a lot of terrain, and the city, but small-scale experiments have been a success, so I'll wheel out the steamroller at some point. After that? Entire kingdom, I dunno. Whimsical dreams!
...
On another note: I came into possession of a new monitor at Christmas. Major improvement. My old one's resolution was 1024x768, and now I'm up to 1920 X 1080. That's good for Minecraft, but even better, is that my old monitor was a CRT (yes, even in 2014) with faulty, muddy colours. I thought it was fine.
Well, I was wrong. It's almost as if I was colourblind before, I didn't realise Minecraft was supposed to look this vibrant. I assumed the muddiness was a design choice. Also, my brightness works properly now, whereas before I had to turn it up to 100%, and even then it was still fairly dark.
Put simply: looking at Minecraft is much more enjoyable now, and I didn't even know Whiteark looked like it does...
Well, there hasn't been much time to do an awful lot in Minecraft for a while, but in terms of what I have been doing when I am building Whiteark, lately? Terraforming. I finally stopped pushing it back to a later date and just did it. Because Whiteark already existed instead of being a new creation, it was a lot of trouble just getting it to this point, but I wrangled it into submission eventually.
There was a lot of 'world' in Whiteark's world. Another, far smaller town, and a couple of tiny villages scattered around, but mostly empty, unaltered space. That's all gone now, and hence the world size has dropped from 154mb to only 80. What I have kept, aside from the city itself, is the rest of the desert it sits in, so that I have somewhere else to expand to, the ocean, and a large extreme hills biome directly to the west. I liked these hills from the moment I first saw them, and I enjoy building on undulating terrain, but the transition to grass was silly, seeing as this is supposed to be a vast desert land. So, now christened the Broken Hills, they've been seeing some alteration from WorldPainter and MCEdit, but not much to really alter the shape of the natural hills.
This is early work, very much in progress, but should give an idea of what I'm going for.
I made an arch with WorldPainter! I did something mildly technical, successfully!
The vantage point here is within Whiteark's boundaries, but also within the hills. This is the general sort of terrain I'm dealing with.
What's on the other side of the wall needs some more love. Wildlife around the pond, decoration of some kind for the bare desert.
The road from western Whiteark to the site of a village and some extensive ruins I'm planning. Ignore the trees - I haven't gotten around to replacing them yet.
That's what I've been altering. But, while I was able to get the hang of WorldPainter after about thirty seconds, I spent some time familiarising myself with it before altering the hills. I did that by creating a tiny island chain in the ocean, about a mile southwest of Whiteark's most southwesterly point. This is also a work in progress, but is coming along quickly. When it's finished, in the fairly near future? I'll put it up for download.
The northern point of the island chain. Lore behind the place is that it was once a single island, but millennia of rough seas have taken their toll and smashed most of it apart. Only the stronger parts now stand, the largest of which is this northern isle. It would be essentially worthless, if it didn't contain the kingdom's largest INSERT ORE HERE mine. Even with that to its name, not many people bother with the place, given its tiny living space and roaring winds, lending it an air of forlorn overgrowth and dilapidation.
Yeah, it's not very developed, but I'll think of some more.
A muddy, overgrown trail, with a few scattered huts and one stone building which is slowly falling down and has a leaking roof. Or, downtown on Main Street. It's the same thing here.
The stone inn, though, is a little more notable simply because it's one of only a handful of buildings in Whiteark's world built in a completely different style to Whiteark itself. The city is largely Insanbrii people, whereas this inn was built by Cashmeri hands in their native style. They were the original culture I created when I first started playing Minecraft, it's a long story. But I'll explain it one day.
The entrance to the mine.
Much of that isle is host to a bluff, which will be heavily forested, but there's also a tower atop it, a replacement for this one, which befell a rather inevitable fate.
The southern end of the isle is much more harshly damaged.
In contrast to its larger and more hospitable neighbour, the southern isle has no trees, only scarce amounts of grass, little potable water and no notable resources. But, it still captures the interest of some.
"Ancient Insanbric ruins? Here, on an island? But archaeological consensus is that the Insanbrii had no way of crossing expanses of water before contact with the Murl! How can this be?"
It's an arguing point in the taverns of Whiteark which might never be solved. Not that most actually care.
I'll be starting a thread soon specifically dedicated to charting the progress of terraforming the world outside of the city, because it's a pretty big area, and this thread is convoluted enough as it is. Keep an eye out for it if that interests you.
But I've also been building a few things in Whiteark itself.
I'm pretty damn proud of the Canal Management Building. An experiment with a vague vision I had in my head, that turned out far better than I thought it would. It's not often that I use quartz, but perhaps I'll start incorporating it here and there.
The spawned player heads which have the texture of quartz but will never change, they work wonders here.
It also has a new design of interior walls.
More canal work going on. Having to route through the hills is a tricky prospect, so it's on hold until I figure that out.
Port things. Carts and stuff, a stable, and a funny building. Based on the fact that, realistically, people would use carts, I've had to create far wider streets around this part of the port than I ever have before, and they'll probably predominate in the future centre of the city.
Also a 'skip-to-day' bed. Ignore that.
About a mile to the east, at Refuge Lake, just a simple stable. Rickety, but quaint.
And this is the design for the eastern wall.
Something a little different here. There was a slither of swamp by the southeast, outside of the city walls, which nearly turned the part of Whiteark to the south of the river into an island. Now, hopefully everyone can agree that default swamps are pretty terrible, but I can't just change the idea of having swampland to the southeast of the city. So, I'm making it better instead.
This is also where I developed Whiteark's forest layouts. Lots of tall grass, bushes, tall and short ferns, and orange tulips. Lilacs and orchids are less common, and found mainly around water. In short, green, orange, pink and blue.
And that's about it. Other than, thank you WorldPainter for existing. I love you for making my job easier, even if you did break Whiteark, complaining about 'Oooh, I'm not really designed for use on pre-existing worlds!' and forced me to restore it from a backup.
Twice.
This is great! I found Whiteark in some news article about minecraft cities, and I have loved it ever since then!
Holy CRAP! Nice build. That is a lot of work for one person with a load of mods and editors let alone in vanilla creative. Congrats man.