Saturday 31 May 2014

R.I.P. Mulkey

Main world, survival. Begun in 2010 in Alpha, I found a mountain with a hollow front and lava pouring down the front, round the back a single block waterfall coming out of the wall.. I decided it was a nice place to make a home! In 2012 after 2 years and developing my building style I began a mass re-generation scheme of my world, inside and outside. This is the story of my main world...

Mulkey the stubborn donkey, has passed on. This donkey is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-DONKEY!! 

Okay enough of the Monty Python..

I was taking Mulkey to my Multiplayer house shrine (Copy of one of the earliest houses I built on a multiplayer server.), and took him because I needed use of his inventory. To get there, you have to go across the bridge over the ocean, past the church and Mount DOOOOOOooooom, which is behind the mountains to the side of the church; then follow the minecart tracks by DOOOOOOooooom - all the way across the ocean to another chunk of land. I went there to finally update the basement floor to how it was on the server, and finally get rid of the cobblestone floor. (It was built a very, very long time ago.) It was night time so I leashed Mulkey to the fence outside and slept. When I awoke the sun was starting to rise and I headed to the gate.

That's when Mr creeper appeared from nowhere.

Sudden annoyance to the hole exasperated when I saw the saddle lying there. At first I though "Okay, I can do a roll-back", Mulkey can live, but when I looked to the last back up save it wasn't to be. Apparently I hadn't gotten round to that recent back up, and if I went back to the back-up at the work on Mount DOOOOOOooooom would be undone, especially the extensive transformation of the mountain under the back building into a tower base for said building. In short it was too much work and progression to undo. I would have to let Mulkey go. I built a quick grave at the MP copy house, and headed back, a few days later changing the sign on his stable to blank and putting his R.I.P. sign up with my other lost foul - "Taylor Swift" (Knew she was stubborn when she walked in/up to me) and "Pond" (Come along Pond!)


I called him Mulkey because, even though he was stubborn as a mule, he was in fact a donkey - so I merged the words. Many a time I would go up to him and ask for an "EEeeeeeeooooorrrrre!", but he never did, he just grunted at me!

He's not really dead y'know (Jim)
Well he is, but I mean that he exists on another copy of this world; and no I can't go back to that one as it's very outdated - even more than the back-up save. In some ways he'll live forever within that save! Maybe I'll visit him now again. (Found the save within the folder of another save. Re-named it World2 Mulkey 4 EVR!) I will travel and get another donkey, but not for a long while yet; and he won't ever replace Mulkey.

Meanwhile the roof is back on the front tower of  Mount DOOOOOOooooom. I was going for nether-brick stairs but it takes long enough to smelt them into bricks i make one nether brick block, let alone 6 of them for stairs. So I kept it as a nether-brick block roof. Have the back building roof to do now. I also restored the lava! It finally flows again after the work is done!.






In this next old pic when I was re-building the front tower, you'll notice in the middle of the bottom of the picture how the land drops of due to the chunk border:


So I built a wall on top of the border and made it an adjoining wall to the main exterior one, then changing the chunk border wall below to match. It only started off as building stairs up to this land from the sand bank below, but I got inspired!


From that daytime lava picture above, it's really starting to expand now - and that's not all! I have plans for this chunk border at the back!


The back of the tower needs intensively made more fanciful I know, but this chunk border round the back will become a tower too! I got the idea when I was wondering on the mountain to the side of the chunk and got the idea to build a tower on top of it, Which then turned into changing the whole chunk into a tower to hide the chunk border! I have already begun, and also raised the rest of the back of the exterior perimeter wall to meet the height of the rest of it.

So those are the plans, so much for a rest from this world! I'm just too inspired/getting carried away with it at the moment! Also might have finally designed a storage area look I like to modernize the existing one (In my creative copy of the world.) So finally perhaps bye-bye cobble walls after 3 & 1/2 years?..

Thursday 22 May 2014

Amplified EXTREME Mountain Survival

New project.


So I started a new world, an amplified one; and originally it was going to be for the Sky-bridges project. I know I restarted this for 2013, but it was before we had the new biomes and amplified settings. Plus now we have generation sliders. Just as well I never got far with it as I will starting again soon. That was the original intention for this world - but then, not only did I spawn on an oddly shaped mountain but; a freakishly isolated one in the middle of the ocean!




Don't worry, it's not going to be a home in a mountain (Again!), I set myself some challenges and new rules. The twist is - I cannot build inside the mountain! Any rooms I need for this have to be on the mountain or coming off the mountain. That means there may well be platforms built of the sides of the mountain - but no building inside it! I can use the inside for resources - but that's all! I can also convert the sides of the mountain if I wish - which is an idea, looks completely built on the outside but is really solid mountain inside.

Of course there wasn't one single solitary tree on said mountain! It does however have a nice beach base, there's a cow and a pig, oh and a horse! Which almost got killed the first night by a creeper! First things first I had to get up to the mountain itself so I dug some dirt (By hand) and slowly made a dirt stair-case up to and connecting to the tallest bit of the mountain. When night cane I needed to get trees from.. somewhere.. So I swam and swam, eventually reaching another island - populated by skeletons. Wasn't going to go up that way! Especially as I had no weapons or tools. I couldn't even see any trees anyway. After swimming around the new island I finally saw a few trees! Oak and Birch! Of course the birch tree would be on an awkward to get too ledge!


Of course as well as planting, I brought back plenty of saplings to plant on my island, Only building a crafting bench and boat, the latter; so at least I could get back quicker. When I returned I made all the basic tools and a sword in cobble and began planting, finishing off the dirt stairs. Now I could use a pick and shovel to carve around the mountain to get to the top. The first basic home was in plain Oak wood, but I planned to make it villager hut like using logs bordering the windows too. Eventually I smelted cobble and made stone brick for the borders.




You can just see a small wheat farm I've made at the bottom for now in picture two, I want to have a farm coming of the side of the mountain later; where mobs can't get on too. That will only really be needed when I start getting more things like pumpkins, coca beans, water melons, carrots and potatoes. For the former items I suspect I'm going to have to do a lot of traveling! I have started a mine inside the mountain as technically that's not a building. Found 6 diamonds! Made a diamond axe to begin with as I will be using a lot of wood at first, the rest I'll split into a diamond sword and space.

This is going to be a very interesting project/challenge!

Thursday 15 May 2014

Elevators & Ravine Homes

Main world, survival. Begun in 2010 in Alpha, I found a mountain with a hollow front and lava pouring down the front, round the back a single block waterfall coming out of the wall.. I decided it was a nice place to make a home! In 2012 after 2 years and developing my building style I began a mass re-generation scheme of my world, inside and outside. This is the story of my main world...

This will be the last update for a little while on my main world as I'm giving my older worlds a little rest so that when I return to them, I'll have a bit more motivation. So I was watching a YouTube video about Minecart elevators and started to wonder if I had room for one. Which is pretty funny as some weeks ago in a creative copy I was recreating the beta era look and ended up recreating this picture in the corridor next to the old water elevator:


Original:




Creative 2014:




Anyway back to 2014, and I am putting it in the same place, the exact same place, in the exact same corridor! Only difference of course is it's going up not down. (Although that might be fun too.. Now there's an idea!..)




So the door would go on that left side towards the back door, where the first painting is roughly. There where a few concerns however, as I needed it to be 6 blocks back according to the tutorial. That means going into the corner of the front room extension. I was also worried about what rooms I might hit going up. Due to this, I tested it on my creative copy (World #2 in da future!) first of course. The first problem, wasn't so much so; but I did cut through a corridor (Going up from the back of the front room extension) and came out in the side of my observation deck. Never-the-less, I was happy with it; it could be done. So happy that it spurred me to do it for real in my actual survival world.


Unintentionally, I must've started a few blocks nearer the timber log trim on the wall because I came out a bit more outside the observation deck. The extension room wasn't a problem, I made the window in that corner smaller where the wall latched onto it and continued the existing wall along to meet using snow blocks and stone brick trim for the bottom border. Added some stained white glass so you could see the lift from that side too - as I was using so much of it for the elevator. Also managed not to carve through the corridor like in the creative copy.




One problem though. Where I decorated the rest of the walls with snow blocks to blend it all in and match, it showed on the outside of the mountain. So now I guess I will have to just make that whole side of the mountain outside smooth snow blocks too!


Work in progress:


What you may or not see up the top is new safety railings and I've also added some "Bushes" up the top on the edging to cover some of the redstone work needed. Also had to move the door coming out to the Observation Deck, and the door to the observation deck itself on that side; as the elevator comes out literally right outside the side of said area.




Ravine Home 

Made some more advances on this world! Whilst I rest from the old worlds I am concentrating on the newer ones (Including Podzol home!), and so got to work on this project. Up to now I had only glassed over the top of the ravine and lined it with trees, and created piston doors to seal up the stairs down to my home from mobs. (Piston doors are also behind actual doors.) Also walled up the side of where the redstone was for said pistons to hide it all. (Neither shown in the first early picture.)

Resource Pack also now changed to Modern HD after first picture.








First job was to start ripping up the ravine floor. As this was just going to be a main corridor to the other ravine below (At the far end of this ravine), I opted for Birch planks, edged off with acacia planks.


Then subsequently changed the cobble walls around the doors/piston doors to sandstone:






This chest is nearly empty now as I slowly move things downstairs into the abandoned mine Storage Bay.

There is so much of the new granite types about - Granite, Andesite and Diorite. At first in these next few pictures, I still wasn't sure about what to do with the floor, but I began creating lots of alcoves for future chests. Each with polished granite blocks either side and a backing behind the chest (Also underneath) of raw Diorite:







Eventually for the floor I decided to keep the abandoned mine wood plank edges - except changing it to birch planks, and for the middle underneath the tracks - polished Andesite.




I figured I needed an armory and a bit nearer to the stairs as I have to walk half-way along the ravine to get to this storage. So at the bottom of the first stairs from the upper ravine, I have got this upcoming area for a future armory room:




I wanted it to be like a big vault, but wanted something to represent iron blocks as I didn't want to waste the ingots right now. Detailing needed of course.


Also have a little farm up on the surface of the ravine, in a small dip pond:




Notice the abundance of birch trees nearby where I've been replanting and replanting each time I chop one down!


The big push on the abandoned mine storage area has got me really pumped for this world now! Want to do as much of this as I can like the Podzol home, of which I'm starting feel "meh" about the design. Can't wait to see what changes there are by the next time I post!

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Losing Inventories // 1.7.5








Unfortunately, this world is going to have to be put on hold as is any world in the latest snapshot, due to the inventory / ID change.

Now I know better than to accidently open a world in the latest snapshot then go back to a previous version and loose all my stuff, but it seems even just going into a snapshot can loose you everything thanks to the new ID system being implemented. Such is the case with World #3 - the one where I knocked down my old beta home and rebuilt it in a more modern style. Not only did I lose everything in my inventory, I lost everything in every single chest in the house. Including all the sand sandstone from the previous building. So much so that even in my back up folders now I have separated the saves into pre 1.8/post 1.8. If I do want to attempt one of the later worlds I have to take the existing saves out (Just in case, and I now only keep the saves I need in there) before popping in a snapshot world and starting it up. Before going back to a previous version, I will load it up in that version with no saves in my save folder at all, do that first; before putting them back in after a re-opening Minecraft. I am being that careful now/am that paranoid. 

In other news I have upgraded my three worlds that I use Sonics Unbelievable Shaders on; (World #1 - Underground home and original Alpha world, World #2 - Main world and World #3 mentioned above.) Now the shaders have updated I've gone from 1.7.2 to 1..7.5, slowly getting nearer to modern Minecraft!

No real news on my main world, although I have continued the sky-lights theme; this time in the science lab.


I can't work out the problem with the stained glass not being see-through as it's supposed to be, something to do with the shaders I guess.

That's about it for now, quick post today, will have more news soon. =)











Light changes..

 So as I plan a build (On my creative copy) for the horrible chunk error wall next tot the hotel at the Chunk Plaza development, i've be...

Popular Posts