How would you folks feel about a Skype Community chat ?
A Skype group has been around for a long time, and it's an invite-only group to prevent spam. We usually scout this thread and invite people that seem involved in the community and like cool guys in general, and invite them to the chat. To prevent the chat from getting too messy, we do not immediately invite everyone we see though.
There have legitimately been mapmakers, myself included, who have been around here for years and still haven't released a full map because they've spent hours and hours on trying to make each area look pretty. This needs to stop. Stop caring so much about aesthetics, and stop spending so much time on them. They're not your priority.
I don't get this. You're conforming to what other people are doing (making stuff pretty) and then complaining that you're conforming and not just doing your own thing. What's up with that? Honestly, the whole argument here seems to be "I don't like it when people put effort into aesthetics because...YOU SHOULDN'T!" and that's a pretty pissweak argument right there.
and regarding your list of things that legendary didn't have...do you want everything to stay the same? It's been 4 years since Legendary. I don't see why things need to stay the same because "that's how they once were" or whatever.
Disarray took so long because I wanted everything to look nice. Disarray took so long - and was eventually scrapped - because I searched too much for perfection. Unfortunately my general personality is basically "it has to be perfect, otherwise it's getting deleted" and applies to everything in my life, near enough - blogs I've started, crafts I've produced, writing I've done - and it of course applied to CTMs as well. I wanted Disarray to look amazing and be one of those great-looking maps. But it was never going to be that, because I could never make it perfect.
I usually quit stuff because I procrastinate a lot, and then I'm like, "I'm never gonna finish this," and delete it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hey there, all. I stream CTMs as well as other indie games, Minecraft servers and probably that's it. I'm your supreme overlord too so I command you to CHECK ME OUT: www.twitch.tv/techniclepanther
A Skype group has been around for a long time, and it's an invite-only group to prevent spam. We usually scout this thread and invite people that seem involved in the community and like cool guys in general, and invite them to the chat. To prevent the chat from getting too messy, we do not immediately invite everyone we see though.
Oh, and for browneye, btw: Ice cream sandwich.
Right , That makes sense that it is invite only. I'll just wait until I'm more well known / active here , then. Looking forward when (and if ) I get added. Would be nice to meet all the cool folks here.
The area's name is Unnatural Habitat, and the theme is an artificial forest (fake trees will be added soon)
I'm curious how you will fill the area, but so far it reminds me my "early youth": I feel like I'm looking at the "cooled lava bubbles" in the central chamber of the Genie cave in Aladdin (1992) where the Lamp stands
This is my guide to aesthetics as it stands (keeping in mind this is just what I've learned over the past 2 years of mapping and such.) I've been planning this for a while and this seems a good a time as any! These few tips (lol there are lots) don't take too much time and can add a bunch more purdiness to your areas too!
NOTE: I'm writing this to someone who knows a little about aesthetics but not much (sorry if I baby you a bit :3)
Tip #1: Block variation
Alright let's get the biggest one out of the way first shall we? Block variation is a fairly common thing in modern day CTM maps and is pretty much expected of all maps nowadays, it isn't really that hard to get great block variation you just have to know about colours.
What's this you ask? It's a colour wheel of course! Now on a colour wheel all of the colours next to each other go together as well as the ones on the opposite sides of the colour wheel. This is basic colour theory and can be applied to block variation too! You just need to find blocks with similar colours as well as opposite ones. And the best thing is most of these colours go with the greys and whites of stone, stone brick, snow and quartz!
Another tip with block variation is to have a highlight block. A highlight block is a coloured block that is used perhaps in seams within a duller colour of an area this is evident in a lot of maps such as the Painter, RC 2 and whatnot. And if you're really stuck for ideas on block variation, look at what other people have done in their maps and use that, I'm sure people won't mind, it is after all a community where we share ideas is it not?
Tip #2: Cave Shapes
Cave shapes are a lot about personal preference, which programs you use, what brush size and shape etc. My method is a wider and shorter brush to get the shapes I want as I really like the look of ledges around the area with trees and other miscellaneous stuff on them. (You can see evidence of this in my screenshot of my snow area!) But it's really up to you, the one piece of advice that I can give is to ERODE!!! Natural caves are never perfect shapes, even the MCedit erode brush will do just make your caves natural! And as for lighting within said caves try to highlight interesting parts of the cave and just generally illuminate the block variation. Having some light mixed among vines looks really good too. Also hide your lighting for a better effect.
Tip #3: The Vine Tool
The vine tool is a staple of modern CTMs and is very useful in the right places and it doesn't have to be used just for vines/leaves either, it gives a lot of vertical depth to an area as well as make the ceiling more interesting to look at! The vine tool can be used to make stalactites in cave areas as well as hanging ice in ice based areas too.
Tip #4: Structures
Structures are perhaps one of the most time consuming aspects of CTMs (IMO) and it can be tricky to find ways of making structures efficiently that also look good too. This is probably my most valuable tip that I know of to make walls in structures (this is how I make all of mine) and you can see evidence of my method of making structures in the previous screeenshot. Alright here it is:
1. Make all walls at least 3 blocks deep. (This is very important as it sets up the next steps)
2. Carve out a design in the wall. It can be any shape doesn't really matter it helps if it fills out the wall vertically, then fill it with the highlight block you are going to use for the structure, for example in a nether area you may want to use nether brick or red stained clay.
3. Accent the walls. This one's a bit vague but essentially purdify the shape so it looks less blocky. During this stage you can also put things like slabs, stairs, walls and other detail blocks on the shape to give it more depth
4. Repeat down the wall and around the structure!
As for some other tips about structures is to look at ancient civilization structures (that's where I got my idea for my pyramid thing) and once again look to others in the community for examples.
Whew! That took ages but here we are at the end, I may keep adding to this if people want or I could do an entire thread that people could add to. Let me know what you guys think of my tips!
So, after a very long time (in 3 weeks it would have been 2 years), I think it's my time to leave this community and move on. The last few months I've been getting more and more into adventure map making and have been drawn away more and more from this thread. I've noticed I almost never download CTM's anymore if they come out, where I used to playthrough them the week they came out. You may have noticed me almost never replying anymore. I was about to remove the bookmark from this thread, but I figured I couldn't leave without at least saying some stuff, even though most of you don't know me and most that do know me probably don't care much.
I want to thank you all for giving me a great time in here, and being great people overall! I've really enjoyed being part of this amazing community. You guys really helped me grow both as a mapmaker and as a person, and I've learned a lot from many of you. I'm still going to be producing maps, but they will probably be more redstone-oriented, and it's very well possible I will never make a CTM again. Don't worry, I'm not going away or anything, just won't be replying here probably. I will also not stop helping out people with redstone like I've been doing for a year now, but if you guys ever need help I suggest sending me a message here (or, even better, over reddit), since I won't read this thread anymore. Messages of any other kind are obviously welcome too.
A lot of you will probably have me on skype, and don't worry I'm not getting rid of those. I would like to ask you guys not to put me in the CTM group chat anymore, otherwise I'll unfortunately have to ban you from my skype, and I really don't want to do that :-( <3
I'm not going to write down names because I'll forget a lot of people, instead I'm just going to thank you all for the good times!
Goodbye, all! May your maps be amazing and your brushstrokes eroded :-D
So, after a very long time (in 3 weeks it would have been 2 years), I think it's my time to leave this community and move on. The last few months I've been getting more and more into adventure map making and have been drawn away more and more from this thread. I've noticed I almost never download CTM's anymore if they come out, where I used to playthrough them the week they came out. You may have noticed me almost never replying anymore. I was about to remove the bookmark from this thread, but I figured I couldn't leave without at least saying some stuff, even though most of you don't know me and most that do know me probably don't care much.
I want to thank you all for giving me a great time in here, and being great people overall! I've really enjoyed being part of this amazing community. You guys really helped me grow both as a mapmaker and as a person, and I've learned a lot from many of you. I'm still going to be producing maps, but they will probably be more redstone-oriented, and it's very well possible I will never make a CTM again. Don't worry, I'm not going away or anything, just won't be replying here probably. I will also not stop helping out people with redstone like I've been doing for a year now, but if you guys ever need help I suggest sending me a message here (or, even better, over reddit), since I won't read this thread anymore. Messages of any other kind are obviously welcome too.
A lot of you will probably have me on skype, and don't worry I'm not getting rid of those. I would like to ask you guys not to put me in the CTM group chat anymore, otherwise I'll unfortunately have to ban you from my skype, and I really don't want to do that :-( <3
I'm not going to write down names because I'll forget a lot of people, instead I'm just going to thank you all for the good times!
Goodbye, all! May your maps be amazing and your brushstrokes eroded :-D
@Rubisk Aww, sorry to see you go man. It's been great watching you grow as a person and as a map maker over your two years here. Hope you to see you again sometime.
@SabereXx 1) Your area looks outstanding for being so early in development! The color palette you used is especially nice, i like the browns and soft purples.
And 2) No I did not use worldpainter. I hollowed out a large rectangular shape in MCedit, then went into single player and used worldedit to place gravel along the walls. After I finished one wall i used MCedit to speed up the rest of the process there, then converted walls and ceiling into sandstone. From there i went quickly back into single player and used worldedit again to make a large cylinder. Then it was BACK again into MCedit to copy and paste the cylinder all over to get those hill-like structures. then i just eroded everything a bit, used a /cs frag brush on the ceiling, and fixed all the blocks to what they are now.
Also thank you to anyone else who gave me feedback on my picture!
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Sabere, you might want to use the log with bark on all 6 sides. Here's a command: /setblock ~ ~ ~ log 13 (but I think, that it is in new versions of MCEdit) Anyways the area looks great!
A lot of you will probably have me on skype, and don't worry I'm not getting rid of those. I would like to ask you guys not to put me in the CTM group chat anymore, otherwise I'll unfortunately have to ban you from my skype, and I really don't want to do that :-( <3
I'm not going to write down names because I'll forget a lot of people, instead I'm just going to thank you all for the good times!
Goodbye, all! May your maps be amazing and your brushstrokes eroded :-D
Well, here's what I've got so far with this area! (night vision because this area is SO DARK!)
More bridges, stairs, and trees are on the list to be added. Any suggestions for other structures i might try? (don't say towers, i swear i've had enough of towers XD )
I don't get this. You're conforming to what other people are doing (making stuff pretty) and then complaining that you're conforming and not just doing your own thing. What's up with that? Honestly, the whole argument here seems to be "I don't like it when people put effort into aesthetics because...YOU SHOULDN'T!" and that's a pretty pissweak argument right there.
and regarding your list of things that legendary didn't have...do you want everything to stay the same? It's been 4 years since Legendary. I don't see why things need to stay the same because "that's how they once were" or whatever.
also:
>extra credits
>2015
Yeah nah nah yeah nah yeah nah nah mate.
hybbles ily but nice job misinterpreting me
basically what i was saying was id fallen into that trap of obsession with aesthetics as well
and no im saying you shouldnt put nearly as much weight on aesthetics as people do nowadays because it adds very little to the experience when compared to the amount of time it takes
im not saying you shouldnt care about aesthetics, im saying people need to stop caring so much about them and just focus on gameplay for the most part
Well, here's what I've got so far with this area! (night vision because this area is SO DARK!)
-Snip-
More bridges, stairs, and trees are on the list to be added. Any suggestions for other structures i might try? (don't say towers, i swear i've had enough of towers XD )
Acaran took the words out of my mouth, I went from Aladdin to Cube World And I honestly like it!
Maybe some additional things (even small like stone altars or chopped trees and bushes) in the empty spaces.
You talk about a very dark, maybe you should make the area very bright and vibrant like the colors your picked and make only custom mobs that can spawn in daylight... ? I just really like the feel of it being bright
Hmm, I can't think of anything that would tie well to the Unnatural Habitat theme.
Maybe you could try something like Hobbit Holes in the sides of the platforms.
Also it reminds me a lot of Cube World.
@Acaran, regarding your dilemma, if you don't have time at all either forget about it and release it as is or give it quick "cleaning tour" and release it.
If you have some time I'd just fix what is really wrong and give it some good lore to help the gameplay. Regarding the last area you can always try to get as close as possible to your "old style".
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Curse PremiumA Skype group has been around for a long time, and it's an invite-only group to prevent spam. We usually scout this thread and invite people that seem involved in the community and like cool guys in general, and invite them to the chat. To prevent the chat from getting too messy, we do not immediately invite everyone we see though.
Oh, and for browneye, btw: Ice cream sandwich.
I don't get this. You're conforming to what other people are doing (making stuff pretty) and then complaining that you're conforming and not just doing your own thing. What's up with that? Honestly, the whole argument here seems to be "I don't like it when people put effort into aesthetics because...YOU SHOULDN'T!" and that's a pretty pissweak argument right there.
and regarding your list of things that legendary didn't have...do you want everything to stay the same? It's been 4 years since Legendary. I don't see why things need to stay the same because "that's how they once were" or whatever.
also:
>extra credits
>2015
Yeah nah nah yeah nah yeah nah nah mate.
There already is one
lol
I usually quit stuff because I procrastinate a lot, and then I'm like, "I'm never gonna finish this," and delete it.
Hey there, all. I stream CTMs as well as other indie games, Minecraft servers and probably that's it. I'm your supreme overlord too so I command you to CHECK ME OUT: www.twitch.tv/techniclepanther
Right , That makes sense that it is invite only. I'll just wait until I'm more well known / active here , then. Looking forward when (and if ) I get added. Would be nice to meet all the cool folks here.
Onward, to new and exciting areas!
The area's name is Unnatural Habitat, and the theme is an artificial forest (fake trees will be added soon)
Looking neat Sylf, if anything I would add Ice/Packed_Ice in the stalactites. But I like it this way too
I'm curious how you will fill the area, but so far it reminds me my "early youth": I feel like I'm looking at the "cooled lava bubbles" in the central chamber of the Genie cave in Aladdin (1992) where the Lamp stands
ALRIGHT HERE WE GO!
This is my guide to aesthetics as it stands (keeping in mind this is just what I've learned over the past 2 years of mapping and such.) I've been planning this for a while and this seems a good a time as any! These few tips (lol there are lots) don't take too much time and can add a bunch more purdiness to your areas too!
NOTE: I'm writing this to someone who knows a little about aesthetics but not much (sorry if I baby you a bit :3)
Tip #1: Block variation
Alright let's get the biggest one out of the way first shall we? Block variation is a fairly common thing in modern day CTM maps and is pretty much expected of all maps nowadays, it isn't really that hard to get great block variation you just have to know about colours.
What's this you ask? It's a colour wheel of course! Now on a colour wheel all of the colours next to each other go together as well as the ones on the opposite sides of the colour wheel. This is basic colour theory and can be applied to block variation too! You just need to find blocks with similar colours as well as opposite ones. And the best thing is most of these colours go with the greys and whites of stone, stone brick, snow and quartz!
Another tip with block variation is to have a highlight block. A highlight block is a coloured block that is used perhaps in seams within a duller colour of an area this is evident in a lot of maps such as the Painter, RC 2 and whatnot. And if you're really stuck for ideas on block variation, look at what other people have done in their maps and use that, I'm sure people won't mind, it is after all a community where we share ideas is it not?
Tip #2: Cave Shapes
Cave shapes are a lot about personal preference, which programs you use, what brush size and shape etc. My method is a wider and shorter brush to get the shapes I want as I really like the look of ledges around the area with trees and other miscellaneous stuff on them. (You can see evidence of this in my screenshot of my snow area!) But it's really up to you, the one piece of advice that I can give is to ERODE!!! Natural caves are never perfect shapes, even the MCedit erode brush will do just make your caves natural! And as for lighting within said caves try to highlight interesting parts of the cave and just generally illuminate the block variation. Having some light mixed among vines looks really good too. Also hide your lighting for a better effect.
Tip #3: The Vine Tool
The vine tool is a staple of modern CTMs and is very useful in the right places and it doesn't have to be used just for vines/leaves either, it gives a lot of vertical depth to an area as well as make the ceiling more interesting to look at! The vine tool can be used to make stalactites in cave areas as well as hanging ice in ice based areas too.
Tip #4: Structures
Structures are perhaps one of the most time consuming aspects of CTMs (IMO) and it can be tricky to find ways of making structures efficiently that also look good too. This is probably my most valuable tip that I know of to make walls in structures (this is how I make all of mine) and you can see evidence of my method of making structures in the previous screeenshot. Alright here it is:
1. Make all walls at least 3 blocks deep. (This is very important as it sets up the next steps)
2. Carve out a design in the wall. It can be any shape doesn't really matter it helps if it fills out the wall vertically, then fill it with the highlight block you are going to use for the structure, for example in a nether area you may want to use nether brick or red stained clay.
3. Accent the walls. This one's a bit vague but essentially purdify the shape so it looks less blocky. During this stage you can also put things like slabs, stairs, walls and other detail blocks on the shape to give it more depth
4. Repeat down the wall and around the structure!
As for some other tips about structures is to look at ancient civilization structures (that's where I got my idea for my pyramid thing) and once again look to others in the community for examples.
Whew! That took ages but here we are at the end, I may keep adding to this if people want or I could do an entire thread that people could add to. Let me know what you guys think of my tips!
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Curse PremiumSo, after a very long time (in 3 weeks it would have been 2 years), I think it's my time to leave this community and move on. The last few months I've been getting more and more into adventure map making and have been drawn away more and more from this thread. I've noticed I almost never download CTM's anymore if they come out, where I used to playthrough them the week they came out. You may have noticed me almost never replying anymore. I was about to remove the bookmark from this thread, but I figured I couldn't leave without at least saying some stuff, even though most of you don't know me and most that do know me probably don't care much.
I want to thank you all for giving me a great time in here, and being great people overall! I've really enjoyed being part of this amazing community. You guys really helped me grow both as a mapmaker and as a person, and I've learned a lot from many of you. I'm still going to be producing maps, but they will probably be more redstone-oriented, and it's very well possible I will never make a CTM again. Don't worry, I'm not going away or anything, just won't be replying here probably. I will also not stop helping out people with redstone like I've been doing for a year now, but if you guys ever need help I suggest sending me a message here (or, even better, over reddit), since I won't read this thread anymore. Messages of any other kind are obviously welcome too.
A lot of you will probably have me on skype, and don't worry I'm not getting rid of those. I would like to ask you guys not to put me in the CTM group chat anymore, otherwise I'll unfortunately have to ban you from my skype, and I really don't want to do that :-( <3
I'm not going to write down names because I'll forget a lot of people, instead I'm just going to thank you all for the good times!
Goodbye, all! May your maps be amazing and your brushstrokes eroded :-D
Farewell Rubisk. Best of luck.
An extremely WIP area
What did you use to make this area? World Painter?
Lots of things to cover!
@Rubisk Aww, sorry to see you go man. It's been great watching you grow as a person and as a map maker over your two years here. Hope you to see you again sometime.
@SabereXx 1) Your area looks outstanding for being so early in development! The color palette you used is especially nice, i like the browns and soft purples.
And 2) No I did not use worldpainter. I hollowed out a large rectangular shape in MCedit, then went into single player and used worldedit to place gravel along the walls. After I finished one wall i used MCedit to speed up the rest of the process there, then converted walls and ceiling into sandstone. From there i went quickly back into single player and used worldedit again to make a large cylinder. Then it was BACK again into MCedit to copy and paste the cylinder all over to get those hill-like structures. then i just eroded everything a bit, used a /cs frag brush on the ceiling, and fixed all the blocks to what they are now.
Also thank you to anyone else who gave me feedback on my picture!
Sabere, you might want to use the log with bark on all 6 sides. Here's a command: /setblock ~ ~ ~ log 13 (but I think, that it is in new versions of MCEdit) Anyways the area looks great!
I don't do that since like a year, lol
cya Rubisk, I never really liked you...
have a good one
Well, here's what I've got so far with this area! (night vision because this area is SO DARK!)
More bridges, stairs, and trees are on the list to be added. Any suggestions for other structures i might try? (don't say towers, i swear i've had enough of towers XD )
hybbles ily but nice job misinterpreting me
basically what i was saying was id fallen into that trap of obsession with aesthetics as well
and no im saying you shouldnt put nearly as much weight on aesthetics as people do nowadays because it adds very little to the experience when compared to the amount of time it takes
im not saying you shouldnt care about aesthetics, im saying people need to stop caring so much about them and just focus on gameplay for the most part
also:
>greentexting
>2015
Yeah nah nah yeah nah yeah nah nah mate.
[YOUR AD HERE FOR JUST $69.69]
Acaran took the words out of my mouth, I went from Aladdin to Cube World
And I honestly like it!
Maybe some additional things (even small like stone altars or chopped trees and bushes) in the empty spaces.
You talk about a very dark, maybe you should make the area very bright and vibrant like the colors your picked and make only custom mobs that can spawn in daylight... ? I just really like the feel of it being bright
@Acaran, regarding your dilemma, if you don't have time at all either forget about it and release it as is or give it quick "cleaning tour" and release it.
If you have some time I'd just fix what is really wrong and give it some good lore to help the gameplay. Regarding the last area you can always try to get as close as possible to your "old style".
Did this this afternoon. It's about 60% done