Opening statement
So recently I have gotten some remarks from staff members that there are some people - Adventurers - out there who show really good building skills or a very high level of activity. And I check the open applications, and can't find anything about them. Now here's the deal: We need EVERY single helping hand! Designers are (almost) literally screaming for more Artists. So if you want to really get involved in the building aspect of MCME, do apply! And even if you're building skills may not yet be at Artist level, the Designers and I will gladly give you tips on how you can improve and learn and eventually get promoted!
Submit your application here: Artist
Or lets put it like this: Only those who are already Artist shall be allowed to read any further.
Submit your application here: Artist
Or lets put it like this: Only those who are already Artist shall be allowed to read any further.
Whats Up?Project Progress
Andrast
Belfalas - Ironmere
Belfalas - Marda Calderon
Lamedon - yet unnamed village
Valley of Erui - Marble Hill
Andrast (In Progress) - Lead: @jacenpeter
One might think Andrast never ends... Once more jacen has begun a new section to the north and there's still some way to go! Furthermore he has completed a very big snowy area now, which looks just so majestic that I wanna grab my hiking gear and climb one of these mountains (but then I realised its 1am and raining).
Belfalas (In Progress) - Lead: @Thijs1801
With only some shoreline terraforming left in the main part of Belfalas, work focus is now quickly moving northwards. @BeatHeav3N's village Ironmere recently got embedded in the newly created terrain, and surrounding locations like mineshafts, some farmland and a lovely little pond were added when the ground has barely set.
In the east, near Linhir, an all new village has found into existance and supplies the surrounding areas with a lot of crops. All around these two villages Eriol has worked wonders and brought ahead the terrain a huge step!
Lamedon (In Progress) - Lead: @_LukIn the east, near Linhir, an all new village has found into existance and supplies the surrounding areas with a lot of crops. All around these two villages Eriol has worked wonders and brought ahead the terrain a huge step!
Also the Lamedon team has not been as lazy as me in the past two weeks! They have finished voxelling a very beautiful flower-covered valley into the White Mountains, and have added to it a small village with a big stone quarry. Furthermore they decided to give all the actual mountains between Lamedon and Aldburg a facelift, whence it currently is covered in sand. Whoever's working there, @Mr_Smithz, @_Luk, @Fireinferno13, please delight me with either some plans or a short talk so we can make sure we get proper mountains if you already decide to spend some time on them!
Mordor Terrain (In Progress) - Lead: @Tyranystrasz
So, Mordor will not start for a while, but still I need to update you on what dear mister Tyran is doing currently!
Tyran has been working on the terrain for Mordor quite a while now, but not ingame (hence you might not see him online very often) but in an external program called WorldMachine. I know all the "world" terms are confusing (WorldEdit - WorldPainter - WorldMachine), but while the base map we currently use was created with the Minecraft-specific program WorldPainter, Tyran is now using WorldMachine, a very advanced (and expensive) program which is designed to create terrain for literally anything, not only games, and thereby offers a lot more options which, if you know how to handle the program, makes it a lot more efficient to create very realistic terrain shapes. As you might know, Tolfalas was Tyran's first try on using WorldMachine for MCME, and as it was a big success, he goes for Mordor now.
So, the terrain is pretty much done now, although we're still reviewing it and considering one or the other improvement. Check out the matching thread if you want to stay updated about this: Mordor Terrain
Tyran has been working on the terrain for Mordor quite a while now, but not ingame (hence you might not see him online very often) but in an external program called WorldMachine. I know all the "world" terms are confusing (WorldEdit - WorldPainter - WorldMachine), but while the base map we currently use was created with the Minecraft-specific program WorldPainter, Tyran is now using WorldMachine, a very advanced (and expensive) program which is designed to create terrain for literally anything, not only games, and thereby offers a lot more options which, if you know how to handle the program, makes it a lot more efficient to create very realistic terrain shapes. As you might know, Tolfalas was Tyran's first try on using WorldMachine for MCME, and as it was a big success, he goes for Mordor now.
So, the terrain is pretty much done now, although we're still reviewing it and considering one or the other improvement. Check out the matching thread if you want to stay updated about this: Mordor Terrain
Moria (In Progress) - Lead: @Despot666 & @Finrod_AmandilI can not handle it anymore. Nope, I give up. Well okay, at least for now. I have completely lost track of progress in Moria. The way Despot is putting it it sounds like nothing is achieved, but from what I have explored today, Moria probably already has more finished halls than old Moria ever had. And the quality, oh my frikkin, I CAN NOT HANDLE IT anymore! I wanna be a dwarf right now and move in!
Srsly I hope for next week my mind can somehow grasp this masterpiece and maybe even bring it into a form that you can understand as well. Until then, go into gamemode 3 and fly around a bit between the halls, you won't regret it.
As for what I can still grasp barely: Progress in the Chamber of Light, after the rather small by player count, but nevertheless very successful Build Day of last week, has been fairly good, I've met a lot of very eager builders which is totally awesome! Special shoutout to mister @BeatHeav3N who has contributed especially much, and thus I offered him to be a co-leader for the Chamber of Light. We'll try to supply the Adventurers with plots as soon as possible again, until then don't hesitate to ask if you want to build a house, we surely can find a spot where we spontanously still can fit one in.
Oh and here's some impressions from the Build Day:
Chamber of Light Build Day Timelapse
Tolfalas (In Progress) - Lead: @TyranystraszSrsly I hope for next week my mind can somehow grasp this masterpiece and maybe even bring it into a form that you can understand as well. Until then, go into gamemode 3 and fly around a bit between the halls, you won't regret it.
As for what I can still grasp barely: Progress in the Chamber of Light, after the rather small by player count, but nevertheless very successful Build Day of last week, has been fairly good, I've met a lot of very eager builders which is totally awesome! Special shoutout to mister @BeatHeav3N who has contributed especially much, and thus I offered him to be a co-leader for the Chamber of Light. We'll try to supply the Adventurers with plots as soon as possible again, until then don't hesitate to ask if you want to build a house, we surely can find a spot where we spontanously still can fit one in.
Oh and here's some impressions from the Build Day:
Chamber of Light Build Day Timelapse
Once more no progress, Tyran is busy with Mordor 
Valley of Erui (In Progress) - Lead: @Mandos
The work in Marble Hill, the town at the mouth of the river Erui which lives off selling marble, is winding up and I dare say it looks quite lovely! Also the work on the rest of the valley is progressing steadily up the valley, and sand is again getting less and less!
Texture Development
This week Eriol and I have investigated in something that has blown our minds - multiple times... We have done research about the topic of the so-called blockstates. Some blocks in Minecraft appear in different variants, for example glass panes which enter a different blockstate depending on to which sides they connect to another block. For every single blockstate you can create an own texture, that is what Despot already used in Moria.
We have now spread our wings a bit further and have studied all possible states of every single block in Minecraft. As an effect we found out that there potentially are 100 or even more blocks we can use additional to the ones we have in the creative inventory (which is probably somewhere between 200 and 300), so we might be able to open up a large amount of newly available blocks!
Now blockstates are rather tricky sometimes, and currently Eriol is trying out which ones we can use safely, here's a few examples of what we found so far:
Now as you read above this might need us to do some replacement work on the map. For that reason I started a project to track down which textures are used in which locations; I prepared a file for the Eriador pack already to write that down, and I hope I can count on everyone's help, especially any Artist, Guide and Adventurer who finds himself not busy with anything. I still have to write a Guide on how to log the things, but basically it is going to a location, looking what textures there are, and noting that down. It's a lot of work, but if many people can help, it should be possible, and it makes it a lot easier to clean up our resource packs, find out which textures are barely used, and then how many free blocks we still have.
Now I guess some of you might find all this talking rather boring, so here's a graphical teaser of what wonders Eriol is working on:
(using a blockmodel created by @NEEPcrafter!)
We have now spread our wings a bit further and have studied all possible states of every single block in Minecraft. As an effect we found out that there potentially are 100 or even more blocks we can use additional to the ones we have in the creative inventory (which is probably somewhere between 200 and 300), so we might be able to open up a large amount of newly available blocks!
Now blockstates are rather tricky sometimes, and currently Eriol is trying out which ones we can use safely, here's a few examples of what we found so far:
- Mushroom blocks: 26 additional blocks
- Leaves: 18 additional blocks; but on the map we see a rather random share of multiple blockstates, we first have to make sure every blockstate is stable, and then we'd need to replace about 50% of all leaves on the map including Mirkwood, but Eriol might also make a plugin that can help with such things. (Just think about it, maybe Lothlórien will soon have actual leaves instead of wool blocks )
- Double Slabs: 13 additional blocks: If you stack two slabs ontop of each other they usually look just the same as if you'd use the proper full block. But we might be able to replace all double slabs with their proper full block, and instead use the double slabs for something else!
- Saplings: 6 additional blocks: Seems like every sapling has two blockstates, which means twice as many saplings available for individual textures!
Now as you read above this might need us to do some replacement work on the map. For that reason I started a project to track down which textures are used in which locations; I prepared a file for the Eriador pack already to write that down, and I hope I can count on everyone's help, especially any Artist, Guide and Adventurer who finds himself not busy with anything. I still have to write a Guide on how to log the things, but basically it is going to a location, looking what textures there are, and noting that down. It's a lot of work, but if many people can help, it should be possible, and it makes it a lot easier to clean up our resource packs, find out which textures are barely used, and then how many free blocks we still have.
Now I guess some of you might find all this talking rather boring, so here's a graphical teaser of what wonders Eriol is working on:
(using a blockmodel created by @NEEPcrafter!)
Plugin Development
Animation Plugin (In Progress) - Dev: @Ivan1pl
No progress I'd have heard of.
Plotbuild, Architect & Minigames (Implemented) - Devs: @Eriol_Eandur & @Ivan1pl
Unfortunately q still has not got round to install the new versions of Eriol's plugins who fix a lot of bugs, we hope that's gonna happen soon.
Connected to the texture news above, Eriol is considering to create an all new Inventory GUI for us so that all these blocks we need to get via /get commands, and especially all blocks that might be used in the future, but don't appear in the default menu do actually appear. Because if we have a ton of blocks only few people know how to get to they will only be barely used.
Rank UpdatesNo progress I'd have heard of.
Unfortunately q still has not got round to install the new versions of Eriol's plugins who fix a lot of bugs, we hope that's gonna happen soon.
Connected to the texture news above, Eriol is considering to create an all new Inventory GUI for us so that all these blocks we need to get via /get commands, and especially all blocks that might be used in the future, but don't appear in the default menu do actually appear. Because if we have a ton of blocks only few people know how to get to they will only be barely used.
None last week.
Media of the week
Tyran gave his Mordor files to Darki, who then loaded them up in Minecraft and used the Journeymap Mod to render it all. Oh boy, that's gonna be our Mordor map guys! Just look at how detailed the terrain is :O
Upcoming
Themed Build
Themed Builds are weekly build events that serve to show off your building skills and/or help you to gain the skills required to get promoted to the Artist rank! All instructions on how to participate can be found in the thread linked below.
Theme: Wellinghall (The home of Treebeard)
Resource Pack: Rohan
Link: #35/16 - Wellinghall
Sometimes all the new discoveries we make and imagine their potentials I struggle keeping up with everything, as I'm currently again feeling a bit like that, take this quote:
Like our Planetminecraft page daily to help promoting MCME!
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