Out of my PECAN/CHESNUT Mind!

With the release of 1.3 (Or rather 1.3.1), it's about time I updated my painterly texture pack for the world. I previous updated the wood and got rid of that pooey brown coloured wood for traditional oak (default) wood:

 

However, I never updated the doors so they were still the old colour, but now I have some nice pecan doors and took the opportunity to update a couple of things as well as update for 1.3.1 (Emeralds, book & quills and other new stuff). Here are the comparisons:

Glass is now border-less too.

New sandstone, the larger bricks make it look less "retro" and more modern and smarter.

One of the big problems I had was what the stairs looked like when made of cobblestone or stone-brick, cobblestone looked horrible, and stone-brick just the same. As you can't change the stairs them selves only the block the were made from, i couldn't change cobblestone as I wanted to keep that look, I just won't be able to use cobblestone stairs (stone stairs), but that's a good thing! With Stone-brick however, I have changed it radically to a lighter stone colour (Like in World#1), and it looks much much nicer. (I wish there was an option for marble steps or even iron steps!).

Finally I created a new patio area, out the back of the dining room, near the tennis court. I originally done this on the creative version, and it came about because of wanting to create a path around to corner of the tennis court. (Corner shown, left pic below), to create a new staircase up. Also because of the new dining room plans (Raising the ceiling up 2 blocks) it meant the path area (left pic below) would be one block higer because the dinning room is below it so once the ceiling was done I had to add another layer of dirt to cover the snow ceiling, making it 1 level higher and thus rendering the old stairway up (Very bottom right on the left pic below), un-usable.

The back entrance also to the dining room wasn't very good either, you'd go along a long one-block stone path, not safely either because the long stairs down were to it's right., where as now  we've new stairs (double) down to a nice patio area instead of a narrow one block corridor. It's hard to explain, and easier to see in pictures:

BEFORE & AFTER

Stairs now go down in the opposite direction, no dangerous walkway, allowing a nice set of double stairs descending..

A narrow entrance become a whole new patio area, eventually to be filled with tables, seating and plant pots. This while new change to this area will be easier to explain in a future video and episode of my welovetomine series.

I also had a new idea for the living room and the old mushroom farm. If you remember, when I moved the mushroom farm, I cleared out the room and it's remained pretty much empty since:

I've had an idea however...

Where the wall goes round to the very back wall in the distance, that area, is right behind the back wall of the living room behind the TV:

I've already tested this on the creative version, but what i'm going to do is knock down the back wall behind the TV so it's an open area creating  more open second reception room and new office! The old poky little office will be no more. It's be an office/reception room and will really open things up. I'll have to close access to it in the corridor, but that's fine. On the creative version I've raised the ceiling level of the living room too, but I don't know if I'll do it on this legit version, I'll have to see how this conversion goes.

So these are latest plans for re-generating World#2, I've still the new science lab to finish in the old cave behind storage, the dining room to re-decorate, finish patio, new reception area as mentioned, redecorate library and still lots more to do!

Revisiting World 1 V1.1

So I revisited this world recently, (See: Here) and did a few things like adding another row to the farm allowing for pumpkins to grow now. Speaking of farms, I also did the last few blocks of the cactus farm floor and the walls so I can go some cacti:

Also with so many white sheep I finally decided to make my sheep farm full of coloured sheep, mainly because I need the grey wool to finish of the floor so I can add furniture:

I also want to finish the bathroom:

And the bedroom:

I've still got me tree farm outside the side of the house so I want to prioritize getting most of the roof done. I also want to build a portal nearer to this home, I have one already, but it's far away on mountain #3.

More Thoughts on World#2 Re-Generation

For a little while I've been thinking about re-doing the dinning room... It's perfectly fine as it is, but it has a very industrial feel with it's little servery and line separation railings. I want to make it more "Residential" more  "Homely" like a proper home dining hall you might find in a big posh manor house. Admittedly, Thoughts of the first modern Batman film back in 1989 ("Can you pass the salt?!"), before the new trilogy today, sprung to mind. I wanted to redecorate, have big chandeliers from the ceiling etc. This would mean raising the ceiling level however.


So this is how it is currently:

I turned on my creative version of this save, aka "World#2 In da Future", and started digging into the roof, and this will be the new height of the room:

It will be one block lower however for the snow ceiling, because, as you can see I'm right under the side of the mountain near the back. (The "Back-yard" so to speak, before the tennis court and swimming pool.) I don't think I'm gonna keep the skylights either. I'll re-think the decoration, although I do like the soul-sand, and it will get a completely new floor, and one very long dining table! I was gonna put a little kitchen in the corner, but have decided against it. Instead I've explored the idea of putting an industrial kitchen behind the very back wall of the dinning room:

It's under the ground level of the outside, so there's plenty of room just to dig into the mountain. Here there is room enough for a 15 block width (from dinning room back wall to far wall) x 10 width, industrial kitchen.

One problem, obviously the new dining hall height level removes alot of the ground above it, I.E. that "Back-yard" on the surface. Having tested this in creative though, and completing a snow ceiling, I have found I can landscape and put a layer of grass over it, slightly raising the ground level outside. The other good thing, is it gives me a chance to re-do paths, gave me a new idea for a way down to the tennis court and a way to make the paths slightly more attractive with a side border.

I am also getting rid of the cobble sky-walk up to the creeper face:

It serves no purpose and I've gone off it. Not sure about the bit around the mountain yet. The creeper face itself will remain, but will be changed to dirt to blend into the mountain. I also want to remove the minecart track going across the sea. Although you can now get a boat back in the latest patch when you destroy it, the track stops boats leaving, and if you head the other side, ice stops you. I would like to have the minecart track go through a glass tunnel - under the sea directly below the bridge! That'd be awesome and much better, but again a big, BIG project!

Crossroads

I'm at a cross-roads in Minecraft.


I've given up the will to find Lapis for my 1.9.5 world, and am getting a bit bored with it to be honest. (My modern home in a mountain.) I might put that on hold for a bit. As for World #2, it's not worth making blogs about as I am making a YouTube series around it. Currently I am editing episode #3 but it's 47 minutes long! Therefore it will be split into episodes #3 and #4. I recorded episode #4 this morning (What will now be episode #5?), but eventually I noticed by headset control had flipped over on the desk. When I stopped recording I saw it had turned itself on, and muted me at some point.


I haven't even looked to see where yet. I might have to do a post-dub. :(


So I really don't know what to do yet. Not starting another world until 1.3 release on August 1st, and right now ad-fly is also being a pain. I keep getting this thing when clicking an ad-fly ling, wanting to install some sort of down-loader manager called livid. I try it but it's an arse. I think you they now want you to register with ad-fly to down-load anything? So no texture packs or mod upgrades as most people use-ad-fly. Speaking of 1.3, a lot of people are getting excited about it but meh I dunno. I suppose it's because I've been trying the snapshots.


I suppose I could continue my underground home on world#1? I did have a idea which I started on a new world (Creative) and that's creating a home in a ravine./ Should I post this? The ravine in question, is an underground one that follows from a cave, so you can't actually see it on the surface. it'd certainly be an unconventional home.


Lastly I had to cancel last Sunday's live-stream due to tiredness and some issue in that thing called "Real-life", at the moment. Might do one this Sunday however.

Official Website!

Lately because I have been livestreaming a fair bit I have been thinking about maaaaybe making a series around the world#2 re-generation. In fact I have just recorded and uploaded episode #1 to YouTube. The point is(!) in the middle of recording (I had to re-record the last quarter) I decided to make a website around this blog. I already had a spare domain floating around, so be sure to check it out at!:


www.welovetomine.co.uk

It's only a small website, and it's early days yet, but who knows what the future will bring.

I've already made a good start in the old cave transforming it into the new area for the science lab and it's storage area complete with netherwart farm. I've took down the wall that I wanted and shaped things with cobblestone for now, just to get the general idea. When doing it on creative, it's naturally so easy, when you go to do it legit, things don't always go to plan, measurements don't work out that should.. I have the basic structure thowever and changed the bottom row of the walls to the special decorative sandstone block. mainly because I had a lot of them from a previous corridor decoration.

On episode #1 of the video I started after just having collecting about a dozen stacks of sand to decorate the place, the wals, but almost lost the lot after dying from a mass spider attack! You'll see it on the video though. First thing I'm doing to do is finish the lobby down to the storage area. he latest snapshot has added the crafting recipe for colored stairs, which were previously only available in Creative. So I'll try and finish the walls, change the floor to pine floor planks/stairs and then I'll start using the sand to decorate the new area. I will however do all the glass first for the lab itself.

Be sure to check out the new website and don't forget to follow me on twitter: @welovetomine. Please watch the video and if you like it i might do this more, and maybe regularly.

Last post for June?

PEACE!

Most Ambitious Project On World #2 Yet?

Boy did I have to fish around in my albums to find this banner!

Staying with World #2, I was playing around on the creative version of this world and came up with an inspired idea.

I was trying to figure out how to make the stairs/lobby down to the storage area prettier. Once again it has cobblestone - everywhere. It really hasn't changed since Alpha, the only change has been the removal of the furnaces on the way down, the emergency exit and changing the floor from cobble to mossy cobble. So I fiddled around and came up with this nice design using light gray wool walls and stone slabs on the corners. There was only one problem - wool right next too the old lava incinerator = not good!. Thinking ahead of not wanting any avoidable accidents in the future I wondered where I could move the incinerator. It came to me that I could (Perhaps should) start using the cave behind the back wall of my storage area.

In the past there's been a glass wall here with a mob trap for mobs, with an underground section before the glass wall to go down and collect the drops. In the very far past this cave was also another way to the outside, even though it turns back on it'self several times. Until the old lava/water traps were above it on the outside, later replaced by tree farms. I had an idea to start digging the wall to the right back, behind the galley of chests on the right hand side of pictures 1 & 2. I took the wall all the way back to the last chest on the far right towards the iron block. What I created in effect was, another galley on the opposite side of that wall the of the same length creating even more storage space.

The dirt being where the chests will be.

I re-instigated the glass wall again, but only 3/4 of the way along this time, creating a new galley behind it at the start of the cave for the incinerator, and a new home for the infinite water giver. I had to re-do this as creepers kept spawning and blowing up the glass divide - 3 times!

The rest of the space past these two installations is just a cave that winds back on it'self several times:

Up those natural steps:

Before going up said steps, there's also a small cleared out area from long ago, lower down:

The plan is, to knock the wall to the right of the natural steps (In pictures 1 &2) down, up on that flat area, will be the NEW science lab for brewing! (The old one being still damaged by a Creeper. never got round to fixing it.) Where the wall that's coming down is, will be a reception, and behind that wall lower down from one of the winding off area's a storage room for materials (Brewing materials, glass bottles) will be created. Even this storage room although small, will still be more roomy than the last one. To the right of reception as you go through will be a secure and closed off area, leading down to that dark little room which will become - a nether wart farm! (Something I need to research.) here is a little preview from the creative version:

I was really pleased how it turned out on creative, you can't even tell it's a cave any more! I'm not sure if I'll use the iron blocks with the block wool for the floor, as it will be costly, but a black n white floor is a little bit Clichéd. Now I have to do it for legit, on the legit world! it'll take time, and it'll probably raise problems - as I found out when I tried to copy the new look storage lobby/walk-down area in my legit world by legit means, but it'll be well worth it!

Speaking of the lobby/walk-down to the storage area here's how it's going. Again, it was done on the creative version and now it's being down legit, on the legit world:

BEFORE:

AND AFTER:

More slab corners to add, of course.

Awaiting more light gray wool.

This old lab will be sealed off and covered over with gray wool eventually. Note the new window feature to the storage area!Obviously lots of work to do, especially for this new area for the new science lab, storage room and surrounding area in the old cave. If I can do this legit though, and pull it off, it'll be quite the accomplishment!

In the lobby down to the storage area, lots more wool to add, more stone slab corners and completely redoing the ceilings with snow as usual replacing torches with Glowstone, watch this space for more development! Also when Jeb fixed the colored stairs (Actually adding the crafting recipe), this standard Oak floor maybe jungle or spruce wood with matching slabs & steps.

Reminiscing! Old vs New!

This is a very quick post, but I just found this really old picture from alpha, taken from the window of my Observation deck!:

The land outside the window! No watch-tows, no lit beacon or board-walk, no apartment block! I had to re-open Minecraft and take a modern comparison!:

Similarly in the front room!: (With an old HD texture pack though):

Today:

Proper post next time, I just had to share my indulgence of nostalgia!