I recently managed to install VoxelSniper on my game and noticed the contest about 5 days prior to the end. I originally wasn't going to do this contest, but after seeing the abundance of WorldMachine/WorldPainter worlds, it finally got under my skin.

I personally don't think WorldMachine created projects as good as they seem at first glance. These types of maps are overly abundant nowadays, and rarely do I find a good one. I don’t mean to discredit the people who make these types of worlds, I know world machine is a good program for making large worlds in the video game industry, and the renders made with WorldPainter are excellent, but the thing about Minecraft: it has a limited view distance.

Making big land masses that have biomes that span for many miles (or Kilometers) doesn’t work when I can only see a few hundred feet in front of me (or meters, don’t hurt me) and often times, the materials used to substitute the colors just don’t fit in to Minecraft in my opinion. terracotta, cobble, and the such don’t spawn in Minecraft the way they do in the maps, and it takes me out of the experience.

I have always preferred the VoxelSniper method, take auralien_sama's Eldaria Islands, www.planetminecraft.com/project/eldaria-island---custom-terrain-mc-10---end-portal/ they are gorgeous, and were made the old-fashioned way. Yes, they have a large map size as well (3k by 3k) BUT its made up of smaller fantasy like islands. After using VoxelSniper, I can see why its better for creative builds. with VoxelSniper, you can see what you’re doing, and you can create things you otherwise couldn't. you also aren’t limited in what you build, you can build things like arches and cliff overhangs, and oh yeah FLOATING ISLANDS. Though, I can be the first to admit that this method isn’t perfect either.

yes, you can get any shape you want, but it takes FOREVER. This was my first attempt at making a large project in voxel sniper, and it took up the few days I had. Slowly making sure that the terrain is natural looking is very monotonous and don’t even get me started on putting in water, that is something I can not do effectively (as of yet), though it is very possible to put in very convincing and beautiful rivers and waterfalls. Smoothing out the terrain can also be spotty at times as well. Oh, and when I say its long, I mean its long in the sense that auralien_sama built about 3k x 3k, plus nether and end dimensions, and it took him over 500 HOURS! But the end result is typically more worth it. WorldPainter/WorldMachine is better for fast large-scale builds, can smooth out the terrain and create things like rivers more effectively, but bigger doesn’t always mean better

This is my first attempt at VoxelSniper, its nothing grand. I am not good at terraforming, but I like what I made better than a lot of the terrain builds that are published nowadays. I don’t expect to win, but if any major terrain artists take anything away, maybe try using VoxelSniper on smaller builds, and see where your imagination takes you, mine took me to the skies.