Not sure what these creatures are in Minecraft, but IRL they look a lot like the Hawaiian Bob-tailed Squid and the air plant Tillandsia bulbosa. I can’t imagine why!
Volvox Globatoria
A short entry today, due to other responsibilities. Here’s Volvox Globatoria, a World In Progress.
Inspiration from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvox
These are mother colonies with daughter colonies inside. Sometimes even granddaughter colonies!
Here’s a challenge — the Minecraft version would look much more realistic if there were different shades of green. There is such a thing as green glass, also green clay. I don’t see those options in MC Edit, because they are a fairly new addition to Minecraft. But maybe there is a way to use the numerical codes for these kinds of blocks?
“Blender” — amazing free software
A friend of mine is studying Game Design in college. When I asked him what he was up to this week, he said he was building a door in a blender.
Or something like that. After asking more questions I found out that he is learning to use some software called Blender. It is FREE and PROFESSIONAL LEVEL — people actually make games with it. Hard to believe? Well, check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_%28software%29
Blender is a professional free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender’s features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing. Alongside the modeling features it also has an integrated game engine.
I watched a few of the tutorial videos. This is some very very very deep software (I mean, it will do a billion and one things). But there were also some tutorial videos that were more approachable — they were mini-projects. “How to make a landscape” “how to make a fuzzy stuffed bear” “how to make a planet bursting into pieces”. For some reason these reminded me of the old Bob Ross painting shows on TV…
…which gives you an idea how old I am, since he passed on to the land of Happy Happy Trees back in 1995. Anyway, the Bob Ross classes were formulaic (here’s how to paint a tree, here’s how to paint a mountain) — not “real” oil painting. But they got you elbow-deep into the paint, and you could continue learning from there.
Here are two of the Blender tutorial vids I watched this evening. This one is on how to build an island…
and this next one is an inspirational video on the creative process itself — encouraging you to just get out there and try stuff, and not worry if people criticize it…because, they will. So don’t let that stop you.
“I guarantee you, no matter how good you get in your art, or how correct you think you might be in your art, there is ALWAYS going to be somebody who says that it’s not the way it should be. Because for those people, they think art should conform to a certain thing.”
Thank you to my friend the Padawan Learner in Computer Graphics. Best of luck in your Jedi training, and thanks for telling me about Blender!
Help from Youtube # 1
I have a hard time with tutorial videos because they usually go over things too fast.
…but what if I just watch a ton of videos and see what I can pick up from each one? Rather than trying to understand a single one 100%.
So here is the first of a series of MC Edit tutorial videos. The author of this video said that he mostly uses MC Edit to copy and paste, to speed up the building process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5prqSiiWF4
About half-way through the vid, he demonstrated the “clone tool” — and got it to make something very similar to my disk steps!!!
When you set up the clone tool, there’s a place you can enter numbers. These determine where you place the clone of the second object relative to the first one, and how many of them do you want to make.
It doesn’t look like you could use this setting to make a spiral staircase, but certainly a “normal” one.
Thank you Lildudeoncampus for a helpful video!
MC Edit is frustrating
I love how MC Edit lets me build geodesic domes. The same general technique lets you make oval shapes, lens shapes, and even disks.
However, I still haven’t mastered how to place things. Usually I just slap it down and say “close enough”. I make sure to save a backup of the world in case the new structure is really ugly.
Last night I tried to make a staircase out of disk-shaped platforms (rather than rectangular steps). I was able to place the center of each disk, more or less. But I couldn’t get the up / down location. The way I understand to do it is to use the mousewheel. So I placed a step, moved the mousewheel one click, placed another step…
In MC Edit it looked pretty good. The steps are circled in red.
But here’s how it looked in Minecraft. Not what I intended at all.
I suppose I could make traditional steps linking the disk-shaped platforms. But the platforms aren’t an equal distance from each other. I find that aesthetically offensive.
I think I’ll go back to the previous version of this world (with out the MC Edit edits) and try again. This time I’ll view the platforms from all different angles before I hit “save”.
OH HOW I WISH SOMEONE WOULD MAKE A PROGRAM WHERE YOU COULD ACTUALLY TYPE IN COORDINATE NUMBERS!!!
Something like this — where the centers of the disks would be at these points
The disk starts out on the ground level, and with each new disk it goes up one (like normal steps) and over one.
There would have to be some sort of “translation of origin” thing going on, because I’m doing everything in relation to a point 0,0,0 and the actual Minecraft coordinates are
I really don’t want to work with numbers like 343, 188, 201 — I would prefer 6, 0, 0.
So the coordinates would need to be changed from X,Y, Z to X-prime, Y-prime and Z-prime.
Meanwhile, Zeeprime might be a good name for the alien civilization that is trying to build these disk-shaped steps. Note they are taking a path from a verdant, jungle area over to a rocky area that is full of caves.
Clearly the Zeeprimes need a more advanced technology. Unless they have, like, REALLY LONG LEGS and can easily get up stairs that are spaced like that. Really long legs and a lousy sense of aesthetics. Ugh.
Gorgeous, inspiring art
I’ve been collecting pictures of buildings and landscapes that seem like they ought to be in a Minecraft world. I was just visiting the blog io9 and read about this artist today.
The World Where Everything’s an Iceberg: 90% Is Under the Surface
Created by artist Gediminas Pranckevicius, these are only a few of his excellent digital paintings. (Seriously, go check out some of his character concepts, they’re excellent.) But they all seem to play on the same theme, and could very well depict one world. A hidden one.
Here is the artist’s website. You will be amazed.
Notch and the Saber Toothed Tiger
What if you bought a tiny, adorable kitten
And it grew and grew, getting harder and harder to handle, adding more and more stress to your life…
…and finally it started to attack you?
What would you do? I know in that situation I would research the options, and then (sadly) turn the creature over to an organization that was able to handle it. Maybe a zoo or a museum.
After hearing the news yesterday about Notch selling Mojang to Microsoft, I was very upset — and as I often do when I’m upset, I stayed up late reading about it. I’m sure that I still don’t understand the story very well, but I certainly feel differently than I did when I first got the news.
One of the things I read was Notch’s statement here
It’s worth reading in its entirety. My heart went out to him. Notch’s statement concludes “It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity”.
One of the things Notch mentions that influenced his decision was the following video. It tells the story of another game designer, Phil Fish. The video talks about how, although Fish was sort of a mixed bag as a person (and who of us isn’t?), the internet attacked him, chewed him up and spit him out in little pieces. It turned him into a symbol, then attacked the symbol.
This video is a sad but fascinating commentary on internet culture. I can see why Notch was moved by it. It also makes me hope that I never, never, never achieve internet fame.
By the way, if you’re wondering what is that that strange looking cat in the middle — it is a Pallas’ cat, described here:
http://www.factzoo.com/mammals/pallas-cat-manul-thickest-fur-wild-mountain.html
Minecraft’s company was just sold to Microsoft
https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/
Yes, the deal is real. Mojang is being bought by Microsoft.
The article continues…
It was reassuring to see how many of your opinions mirrored those of the Mojangstas when we heard the news. Change is scary, and this is a big change for all of us. It’s going to be good though. Everything is going to be OK. <3
Please remember that the future of Minecraft and you – the community – are extremely important to everyone involved. If you take one thing away from this post, let it be that.
One of the cool things about Minecraft is that the program is open-source, which means that you are legally allowed to modify it (though not to sell your modifications).
Would Microsoft allow this to continue???
Will this affect the Minecraft editing programs, such as WorldPainter, Avanti and MC Edit?
I have a bad feeling about this.
My Favorite Minecraft Video
Screencap from my favorite Minecraft vid
And here’s the video!
“I had a dream last night…I built a universe”
No more Lego scientist ladies???
I was disappointed to read that the Lego company does not intend to continue its Lady Scientist series, or even, to make any more of the original set. This set sold out in about two weeks. Here’s the article where I read the sad news!
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/09/12/hey-lego-bring-back-the-women-scientists/
That’s such a shame. I was really looking forward to a Lego entomologist, botanist, or ornithologist. The Lego company is really missing out by not continuing this series. A lot of adults enjoyed playing with them too!
Picture found here
So how does this tie into Minecraft, you might ask? Well…to me, Minecraft is like a form of digital Legos (except you don’t step on them in your bare feet on the way to the bathroom at 3 am).
Minecraft has kept the broad appeal that Legos used to have. If you want pink and purple and pastel colors, there’s now stained glass panels and colored clay. If you want to blow things up (or get blown up) there’s lots of ways to do that. You can built fortresses — or cute homes with a fence and flowers in front — or magnificent cathedrals — or geodesic domes. You can farm, and raise animals. You can make complicated things with circuits. And if you like banging your head on the keyboard while learning new editing software — there are hours and hours of fun for you!
So — great job, Notch for inventing Minecraft! and props to the folks at Mojang, who keep adding cool features! And thanks to all you out there who write the editing programs, develop mods, create new “skins” for characters, run servers, build adventure maps, make videos — so that Minecraft can appeal to such a broad spectrum of people.
