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Thanks to everyone for their support, this is my first submission to reach 100 diamonds, I'm truly grateful for your jewels, hearts and supportive comments!
Overview and Introduction
In the last few weeks I have spent 130 hours working on this project all on my own. It was not easy, considering how much I had to study for the last couple of weeks at the university. Nonetheless, I managed to complete what I had planned and I am quite happy with the result. I hope that you are too. The main goal was to build something that has a consistent theme and a realistic design, is adequately detailed and fits well in the environment.Overview and Introduction
Normally I would not be in such a hurry with a project, but building it for an event put some time constraints on me. Big thanks to the PMC, McMeddon and Nvidia GeForce for hosting this event. I hope that you guys like my tributes, which I tried to make non-intrusive and consistent with the theme, and that the project will be a worthwhile addition to the site.
The world download will not be available as I do not cherish the fact that some of my previous downloadable builds have been redistributed for profit without my consent and, obviously, without crediting me. If requested, I can provide the file to the event hosts if they would like to walk the streets of the town or the farmlands. I have decorated both, but I think that a stroll through the colorful farmlands is a truly unique experience, and climbing up the winding path to the Meadery with all the flowers around could make you abandon the big city and move to the countryside.
In this rather lengthy description you can learn a lot about the project and see the creative process behind it. The requirement of building on McMeddon’s custom starter map limits the possible options, as the entry should fit the landscape. But, as some say, “limitation breeds creativity”. Exploration of the diverse islands is a great source of inspiration, and knowing what I have to work with gave me a unique perspective, as I am used to building on my own planned-out terrain or simply in a flat world.
Terrain
The terrain was made by McMeddon, a master craftsman in the industry of designing custom landscapes. Out of all the custom biomes available, for my project I picked the edge of a deciduous forest and plains, as it was the most fitting for this project.
I made the following changes to the landscape:
-cave entrances in the area were covered,
-a small part of the forest was removed so there could be a proper distance between eastern walls and the woods,
-the river was broadened and some rocks were removed from the area, as well as the sand from the riverbed and riverbanks.
As for the rest - I tried my best to preserve the natural curvature of the landscape, and by doing so I managed to build some multi-layered structures, that is the town, graveyard, crop fields and flower fields around the Meadery. My builds tend to lack verticality, but this time I incorporated it, and I think it will become an important part of my future projects. Moreover, the broadened river allowed me to place a sawmill next to it, inspired by the one from Riverwood (TES:V Skyrim). I am really grateful for that river, as it already had a nice shape and after some tweaking with blocks and vegetation it became a central part of the landscape. As cool as the river is, it's better to use a bridge, right? That’s why I added some.
In order to take the first picture, I had to cut down a part of the pine forest, but instead of just removing it altogether, I made a small logging camp, left the tree stumps in the places where trees used to be, and placed stacks of logs around the area. There is also a field kitchen where the hard working lumberjacks can get some calories to burn. The cauldrons are filled with pumpkin soup, which is... lava. Looks like calories are not the only thing that’s about to burn. But hey, at least the color is right!
Castle
The whole project began with the castle. I planned for it to be slightly higher, but the vertical building limit of 256 blocks got in the way. The top of the flagpole reaches that very elevation. I chose white and red colors for flags because I began working on the project on November 11, which is Independence Day in my country. The castle is accessible through a staircase which stands over a small body of water. It has many, many windows, plus a balcony where the family of a local lord can enjoy their dinner. Corners of the towers are made of polished andesite for some extra detail.
Citadel
Next to the castle there’s the citadel, a structure with a more practical purpose than the main castle. It is simpler and more rough, and it houses both soldiers and prisoners. In the pine forest to the west I found a pillager camp, so I filled the cages with these guys. I used Evokers, because pillagers always carry crossbows. We would not want inmates to aim crossbows at us, right? Should an enemy attack, the citadel is where peasants and townsfolk would hide. And should the attacker be a dragon, well...
Dragonslayer
The ballista on top of the citadel is one heck of a weapon. It is aimed at the south-west, where the dragon threat would most likely come from, as there is a volcano and ancient, tropical land formation (If I were a dragon, that’s where I would lay my eggs). However, if a frost dragon attacked from the north-east… Dragonslayer would have to be rotated, that is why I placed this big cog underneath the ballista platform for soldiers to push. It would take half of the garrison to adjust the position; however, reloading would require some aerial support, either from dragons or hot air balloons. Actually, only from the balloons, since this very weapon is used against dragons.
Town
The town is rather small for a medieval setting, but such scale allowed me to build more unique houses and not rely on reusing each house several times. There are 28 individual houses. I have a bad habit of building houses on a flat world and then combining them into a city, but not this time! This allowed me to build on uneven ground, and the difference in elevation does make exploration more fun. Every house was built from scratch and with the use of various blocks that tend not to use. Several such sets of were used to build foundations, walls, roofs and chimneys. I even used bee boxes, beehives, soul soil, pumpkins (!!!) or composters to build walls, which I think makes houses look really distinct. I have never been good at implementing variety in my projects, but this time I tried it and have no regrets. There is also a marketplace with a tavern, a fountain, and several stalls where one can buy books, vegetables, fish, flowers or jewelry.
Temple of the Earthshaper
The temple is the second tallest structure in the project and it is quite round. Like, really round. If the amount of flowers in this project was still not enough, there is also a flower-shaped pattern on the inside of the roof. I was bullied by my girlfriend to do it, just like with many other elements in this project, and it turned out quite well.
The temple has many windows that allow sunlight to illuminate what is inside. And boy oh boy, there is a sight to behold. A statue of Meddon, The Earthshaper sits in the center, greeting each and every pilgrim. It gazes upon them with its two eyes, one big and one small. Both blue. At its feet, there are flowers and the most devout followers, who are even more colorful than flowers. The words ‘followers’ and ‘flowers’ are quite similar too, don’t you think?
I had also built another, taller statue, but the temple that could house it would be way too big. That first statue was more glorious, whereas the one you can see in the project is more serene. I think that McMeddon had changed his skin a bit in the last couple of weeks, so I would have to remake the statue anyways. By the way, using glow lichen to make certain areas of a statue brighter was a good way to make it more visible without adding intrusive light-emitting blocks.
The not-so-plain Plains
Plains are plain. That’s probably why they have such a name. People usually build their large structures there, since plains are pretty much flat, bare, and therefore easy to customize. However, if we build a city there, we lose the beautifully plain landscape of plains. That is why I decided to take advantage of the professionally crafted environment and turn it into farmlands. There are many different farms, each with many layers, and I think that I properly enhanced the look of the area. The plains are still plains, just not as plain.
Farmlands
Normally I would just make giant wheat fields, but this time I wanted to build something unique. After I finished making a pumpkin farm, I realized that the project would benefit from more blocky crops. Melon was an obvious choice in such a scenario, and it entered the farmlands with three new friends - giant strawberries, sweet potatoes and onions. I made them of red mushroom blocks, brown mushroom blocks, and mushroom stems respectively, with grass placed on top. I think that the area benefits greatly from this creatively applied variation. I will most likely include giant crops in my future projects, I am in love with them. There are, of course, some wheat fields, since I had to add a windmill there, which is a must-have in any medieval village or town. Decorating the land with flowers, wells, bridges, trees and making sure that the paths look properly took more time than it should have, but it was definitely worth it.
The Meadery
Look at these flower fields. Does the shape remind you of something? Something like… NVIDIA GeForce logo? Yeah. It took me a while to find the right place, proper size and proportions, and then to make the shape with a worldedit brush and manually adjust it afterwards. I planned to place the flowers with worldedit too, but peonies and other flowers that are two blocks tall don’t really work with worldedit, in the sense that only the bottom part appears. So I had to place all of them manually. Yeah. A menial process indeed, but it was worth it. Each of the three segments of this flowery logo stands at a different altitude, with the Meadery on the uppermost level. The Meadery is the largest wooden structure in the project, and it is surrounded by many beehives that house hard-working bees. It is the place where mead is produced and then distributed to Andreth and other settlements. The barrels with mead are the main decoration in this area, and they are transported to the town by a winding road. Even though the road is too long, beautiful flowers make it rather enjoyable.
Graveyard
Chronologically, it was the last part of the project. Quite fitting for a place like this. You can clearly see the verticality there more than anywhere else. Candles and potted flowers adorn every grave, in memory of those who laid the foundations for the town. There are several crypts there too, and one large, royal grave. This part of the settlement is not as colorful as the rest, but during the day it is not as gloomy as one could expect.
Signal Fire
It is probably the most unimpressive part of the project, why would it get its own section? Well, Planet Minecraft is a huge community, and many of its members have participated in the event. The existence of their creations has to be acknowledged! Light up your beacons, friends, and let’s enjoy our great works together!
Credits:
My girlfriend, for keeping me motivated and inspired
PMC, for hosting the event and providing opportunities for creativity
McMeddon, for making the terrain
Nvidia Geforce, for sponsoring the event
Backtoo4Myula, for creating the awesome Stay True resource pack
Chocapic13, for creating awesome shaders
1Krista, for creating an unbelievably useful guide on Chocapic13' shaders configuration
If you like what you see, don't forget to leave a diamond, a favorite and a comment!
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2 Update Logs
Final update for the Contest - New images on PMC & Imgur, description update : by Krevelir 12/06/2021 8:09:14 amDec 6th, 2021
I've replaced some images here with better ones (especially the temple exterior), added images of all farms to Imgur, updated a few sections of the desctription (fixed grammar, updated Credits sections, added a "thank you" message on top. That's the last update, don't get mad about notifications ;)
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Also, might it have been inspired by King's Landing, by any chance? The walls and the large domed temple are quite the eye candy.