Dol Amroth

[Eaglz24]

Another big update!

Progress this week has really been kicking off and the project is now in full swing, with @Eriol_Eandur, @Darki190 and myself voxelling away the surface terrain of Dol Amroth. All of the Dol Amroth terrain should be done now apart from the cliffs, to which we have all now started.

Spoiler: Terrain screenies

Along with the terrain, @Thijs1801 and myself have begun to sort out the textures for Dol Amroth and possible future Gondor textures, with a texture deadline day on the 6th of December. So, a reminder to everyone who wishes to create textures for Dol Amroth and Gondor, please contact myself or @Thijs1801. Most of the textures have already been created, and are now being sorted, here's a sneak peek of the wall design!

Spoiler: wall design

And lastly, for everyone who is eager to start building the city I have good news for you: The opening day when building first commences, will be a Build day. For now we cannot yet issue a date for when that will happen, but count on us that it shouldn't take longer than 2 - 5 weeks assuming everything runs to plan. More information will be given once the textures have been sorted and added to the blockstates.

 

[Thijs1801]

Yet Another Big Update, and our current workplan:

I'm glad to announce that after such a long time, 3 days, @Eaglz24, @Eriol_Eandur (and @Darki190) have finished the beautiful promontory of Dol Amroth! It looks amazing, so much work in such a short time and it doesnt even look rushed. See below for pictures or visit it yourself at /warp Doltemp.

Spoiler: Terrain Pics!

For now Eag and I are focussing on creating the texture files and sorting them out. But what I wanted to elaborate on here is our current workplan, which is as following:

1. Sort out the textures for the Gondor update
2. With new textures, create new concepts. (Same style, different textures)
3. Plan Wall of the City
4. Build City Wall. (@_Luk )
5. Start planning the Farms.
6. Build Roads
7. Build the Farms.
8. Add as much decoration as possible.
9. Finish up farms and move on to the city
10. Plan the roads and determine the borders of each town
11. Begin planning the houses of each town, town by town
12. Continue with the bigger buildings, like schools etc.
13. Make building guide for the houses.
14. Create plotbuilds for each town.
15. Start building, bigger buildings for artists or good adventurers.
16. Each town will be finished with decoration and as much detail as possible (No Armorstands).
17. Eventually there will be some sort of contest for a building.*
18. Finish up the city with checking and adding detail if necessary.
19. Start planning the Palace and concepts for building style.
20. Build the palace and Tirith Aear.
21. Finish up with details.
22. Final checking
23. Party Like crazy in the main market.

Lil' Edit: Eag and I decided to extend the forest around Lostfalls and Dol Amroth. Here's a map of what we planed:

Spoiler: Forest Map

This plan will span out over at least 4-5 months, so dont expect a big party before the beginning of Summer D:
With that, I am out. o/

-Thijs

 

[Eaglz24]

Smaller update here, more of an add-on to the Forest Thijs, Darki and myself are planning on.

Darki, thomas and me worked on a concept for the forest, which wraps around lostfalls and the beginning of Dol Amroth. See the post above for the map.

Here's the concept we made, you can also find it yourself just north-west of Lostfalls.

Spoiler: Forest concept

We decided to make the concept similar to the Lostfalls forest, but far more detailed; so more of a pine style forest. Though, the concept might change slightly once we get the new blockstates and more blocks to use for it such as fallen leaves/better vines/more dirt variants etc..

Some things you can find in here, and most likely in the actual forest once we get to building it, is things like fallen trees/broken stumps/burrows/ grooves/other animal holes.

Let us know what your thoughts are, and if you have any suggestions

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

We decided to aim for more realism on MCME so we should do so for forests as well.

To be honest ALL our trees we use so far are not realistic for trees inside a forest. They are shaped like solitary trees on a free place with light comming in from all sides.

Trees in a forest compete for light with each other. Thus they grow upwards quickly and have most leaves where the light is, at their uppermost parts.

As a result forest trees don't have full canopies of leaves, below the topmost branches there are only sparsely scattered leaves.
Also forrest trees have almost no hoizontal branches, all branches grow up towards the light.

As an example here are two pictures of beech trees (yes it is the same kind of tree in both pictures).

Spoiler: Solitary beech tree

Spoiler: forest beech trees

Same for pine trees:

Spoiler: Solitary pine tree

Spoiler: forest pine trees

The forest picure is not a good concept picture for a MCME forest ofc as it is free of underwood (modern forest monoculture). We should have a forest with trees of different size and kind and more fallen trees ofc.
About fallen trees I have another issue. The clean truncated logs don't look like fallen trees at all. For trees which were cut by humans they are ok, but old, naturally fallen trees usually fall together with their roots, dragging them out of the soil. I think we should try to make something like that using some new block states. Chorus flower plants could be good for that as they connect to each other like fence (but in 3 dimensions).

 

[SKy_the_Thunder]

To be fair I'd say a forest next to one of the biggest seaports is most certainly deliberately planted and cultivated. It's the closest source of wood after all. So the feel of a modern monoculture forest isn't all that wrong.
I agree on the forest style trees though.

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

To be fair I'd say a forest next to one of the biggest seaports is most certainly deliberately planted and cultivated. It's the closest source of wood after all. So the feel of a modern monoculture forest isn't all that wrong.

Great input, I didn't thought about that.

There is still a difference between modern monoculture and a planted and cultivated medieval forest: Modern mashines need a lot of space that is the main reason to keep modern forest clear of undergrowth. So I would still suggest some undergrows but very few (if any) fallen trees.

 

[Eaglz24]

Honestly I don't think it's that big of a deal to result in having to redo every single tree model for forests. It would anyway be a massive task that could span on for weeks, and we don't have the tree-enthusiasts like kisos around anymore that would take up such a task. Plus finding people who want to make trees on the plotbuilds was always a bit difficult, and finding people that can make good looking ones even more so. Idk, just seems like huge and unnecessary task right now.

I agree though the chorus tree could look good, but I think they need end stone to grow on, and can break apart quite easily (Maybe can be fixed with some plugin stuff?).

Good point on the fallen trees though, ill be sure to change it

And yeah, I think it would be perhaps best to have a bit of mono culture forests as well as natural grown forests around the area, would probably make the most sense having both.

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

I feel very tree enthusiastic.
This is a thing I have in mind for a looooong time now, just I'm somehow too busy with other stuff all the time.

But why wait longer, let's start doing better. We don't need to redo all forests or all kinds of trees. For a pine forest which is used to grow trees for shipbuilding and thus is quite a monoculture we would need only better pine trees. I would be happy to build a few examples and set up a plotbuild.

Placement limitations of blocks can easily be fixed by plugin, I already did that. Every block from the the custom block inventory will be placeable everywhere not regarding any vanilla placement rule.

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

I used the chorus plant to make nice connecting branches and made a concept pine tree:

Spoiler: forest pine concept

I tried spruce and oak texture for the branches. Bad news is, that chorus plant block has only one server stored block state. Thus we can't use it for more than one texture.

 

[Eaglz24]

Wow looks great I'll add it to the textures doc. Imo the oak texture would be more suitable, as we use it the most. But we can also use wall blocks for slimmer 'branches'.

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

Yes, i used the spruce texture first, but changed to the oak texture.

Walls are already uses, aren't they?
Also walls are not connecting to downside block. Fences are even less suited as they connect horizonally only .

 

[RubenPieterMark]

What avout using one glass pane for a bunch 3D models for thinner logs, kinda like in Moria.

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

What avout using one glass pane for a bunch 3D models for thinner, kinda like in Moria.

I think that is quite confusing for builders. Better to use individual free block states for each model (there are enough ).

Also connecting block states like glass panes are quite valuable for special stuff when you really want to make use of the connecting abilities.

 

[bender400]

I used the chorus plant to make nice connecting branches and made a concept pine tree:

Spoiler: forest pine concept

I tried spruce and oak texture for the branches. Bad news is, that chorus plant block has only one server stored block state. Thus we can't use it for more than one texture.

Time to redo all the trees on the server...rip

Looks fantastic

 

[ooitsbirdo]

Why make alll sooo realistic, i want to cry, #redoMCME

 

[Smaug_Niphredil]

In Gondor, there are hardwood trees that grow named Lebethron. These trees are said to be black, but fair, and beloved by the woodwrites of Gondor. I am guessing that these trees are not very common to find but they still grow in forests, mainly Ithilien and other places. I think it would be great to get a texture for the wood for this type of tree and make them grow in MCME.
I don't know what it would have looked like, but I think it would be the same shape as a silver birch tree.

 

[Wodleth]

In Gondor, there are hardwood trees that grow named Lebethron. These trees are said to be black, but fair, and beloved by the woodwrites of Gondor. I am guessing that these trees are not very common to find but they still grow in forests, mainly Ithilien and other places. I think it would be great to get a texture for the wood for this type of tree and make them grow in MCME.
I don't know what it would have looked like, but I think it would be the same shape as a silver birch tree.

There are a few in Ithilien, just look for the dark wood logs. We thought of them as Northern Red Oak trees, but darker bark

 

[Eaglz24]

Tree - Plotbuild

Description:
Beech Tree

Spoiler: Beech tree references

Height limit is 10-15 blocks, no higher, no lower
Will last 1 week
Anybody can build, do not make more than 2 at a time, please
Plotbuild can be found a few blocks west of /warp doltemp
Use /get logs, otherwise your plot will not be accepted
Example tree can be found at the plotbuild, it's the one with a yellow dot above it

Use /plot claim, to claim the plot (whilst standing inside the chosen plot)
Use /plot finish, when you have finished

 

[greglas2]

Tree - Plotbuild

Description:
Beech Tree

Spoiler: Beech tree references

Height limit is 10-15 blocks, no higher, no lower
Will last 1 week
Anybody can build, do not make more than 2 at a time, please
Plotbuild can be found a few blocks west of /warp doltemp
Use /get logs, otherwise your plot will not be accepted
Example tree can be found at the plotbuild, it's the one with a yellow dot above it

Use /plot claim, to claim the plot (whilst standing inside the chosen plot)
Use /plot finish, when you have finished

E'scuse me but these trees look nothing like the beech trees I've seen in forests/woods. I think that this might be, as Eriol said before, because theyre all lone trees, and not in forests. I can not imagine seeing these trees in a forest to be honest. Perhaps beech trees look different in north America though.

 

[Wodleth]

Beech trees in forests would be thinner, taller, lack side branches and they would mostly be focused on the top canopy.
Something like this

But these trees would look bad in minecraft, imo. Unless they're huge