Hello, I'm N8thanH, and welcome back to Across the Map!

As many of you may remember, last week, I began on a project to create a large custom island. Last post, I created a huge seabed area for us to build an island on. In today's post, we will be following up, by building the island itself! Sorry that I didn't have time to do it all last week; that post was getting long.

So, to start things off, let's fire up MCEdit once more, to get to work!

Once again, if you are following along, remember to back up your map! Especially after all your work on the seabed, you may want to save that.

 To start things off, we will want to make a big, round island. We can shape it more later, but for now, we need a starting point. To make the island, we will start by using a giant, round brush. It doesn't matter if it pokes out above the water. We can trim it after. We will fly above the island, and drag it though the seabed!


 This was the result. It's okay if it goes into the water a bit. If this happens to you, just move the water out of the way.

Next is when we clip the top. I want to leave a bit of a water's edge, so I moved the selection a bit above the sea's level.


Here is the clipped island! We can finally begin to see what the final product could look like, and just how much space we have.


However, we can all agree that the island doesn't look like it belongs. That is where this system comes in:

1. Sculpt with a Fill Brush.
2. Run the Erode brush.
3. Use the Smooth filter.
4. Repeat these steps.

Or, if you want to abbreviate it,  you can refer to it as S.E.S.R., or Sculpt, Erode, Smooth, and Repeat.

1. Sculpt with a Fill Brush
 
The goal is to blend the island into the surrounding trench. To do this, fill in any obscure holes, like the one below, and build up to any sharp edges.


I found a sharp edge that needs something added on, right here.


You can just pile up some mass next to it. I will revisit this area on other steps.


2. Use the Erode Brush.

Our next step is to erode away any obvious shapes. Run your Erode brush along anywhere that is too bulky... Sorry if that isn't a good word. This step is hard to explain. Ignore any unnecessary roughness; this isn't football, after all. ;D


 Feel free to carve away at anything that bugs you. Need I say more?

3. Run the Smooth Filter

We do this step to solve our troubles with rugged terrain. Just select the whole area you have been working on, and run the filter. Hopefully it will help! Also, in case your program freezes, now is a good time to save your work.



4. Repeat 

Maybe you didn't fix everything you came to. That is where this step comes in.

In my case, the island looks good, but the top is still way too edgy. I will need to run along it with the Erosion brush, for sure.


I did my first run of erosion. The island now looks more like a Mesa formation. In reality, a Mesa is a hill with cliffs on all sides.


For a bit, I thought I could live with the way it is, but decided to run with a second round of erosion on the island. If you are doing the same, my advice would be to erode any ledges like this to be level with the terrain around the island.


Our next step is to do some terrain forming at the top. You go ahead and do your thing, but my island won't be too hilly, so I decided to pile up a bunch of fairly flat brush strokes. Of course, it's not quite that simple. Below is my result. It might look a bit goofy, but I will smooth it out as I go in-game, perhaps, and yes, I plan on using it for another project.

Next, we need to run Topsoil and Setbiome. I've selected both the entirety of the stone I added, and the area around the island. I'm going to run both filters, with Setbiome set to Beach. Afterward, I will shrink the box, and set the rest of the island as Plains.



Now, this is when I want to do whatever carving I want to. This island will be called Crescent Island, named for a Crescent Moon shape. So, I will need to give it that characteristic. I will simply use the usual process...

Shape...


Erode...


Finally, Smooth. I also ran along the bay's bed with a topsoil brush.


This has been a long project. Our final step is to plant some flowers and such! There is a filter suited for this, known as Forester. You can use it to plant trees for you, but there is another well-known way to use it.

Right here, you can see the default settings. This is great for generating trees, if that's what you want to do. But, let me reveal my plan. I want to build an island city on this island, or at least a modern port town. So, making wild trees isn't entirely helpful.


Instead, I'll use it to randomly plant flowers and tall grass. Just copy the settings I used in the screenshot below. For good coverage of plants, you may desire to run it multiple times.


At long last, the island is done! Here is how it looks in-game!


Oh, gosh! I've created a virus! What have you done, MCEdit?!


'Scientific' research shows that this is a new kind of glitch grass, not yet known to Minecraft-kind. Maybe one day we will understand it... But, for now, let's smash our problems.


Well, that's it for today! As always, your feedback is very much appreciated; if you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. But for now, thanks for stopping by! I'll see you all next post. Until then!

Hello, I'm N8thanH, and welcome back to Across the Map!

I hope your summer has been going nicely so far!

Sometimes, I go on these pondering rambles in my mind, just by thinking of one thing, then being reminded of another or remembering something related, repeating that, and coming up with some sort of idea.

Thinking of summer time, and the ocean, I got the idea to make a subtropical island in Minecraft! Right here, I will be documenting my design process. If you wish to follow, I'd suggest getting good at your world editor, first. For today, I will be using MCEdit. When somebody mentions a map editor, this is the program that usually comes to mind.

To start things off, I have generated a Customized world, with a preset with the following specifications. Also below are screenshots of what this Preset generates like, with and without Night Vision.

These are the traits of the Preset:

• No chances of spawning Gravel or Dirt
• No Mineshafts, Strongholds, or Dungeons
• Biome: Ocean
• Height Strech: 21.133 (Advanced Setting, makes terrain more flat.)

Have you ever seen the Far Lands from Beta 1.8 to Release 1.7?  With the lack of shadows and simple terrain, this is exactly what the 'fake' terrain looks like. The only giveaway is the Squids; mobs do not spawn in the Far Lands. In 1.8, the fake terrain doesn't render, and you just see the new world border. *Sigh...*


Okay. I'm now going to head over to MCEdit, now that enough of the map has been generated. You may want to look around in-game to find a relatively flat area, if you are following along. Here we go!

The first step: clearing out the water. I decided to take a large square of fairly flat terrain, and I replaced Water with Air, to make my life easier, and avoid any extra mess. Feel free to clear more water, if you feel like your island will need more space. I will probably end up doing that, since it doesn't seem like there is much space, but that's always the case in this editor.


Alright, now that the water is gone, we can get to work on the terrain smoothing! To do this, I just went to town on any hills I noticed with a very large Erosion brush. The terrain is a bit too rough, though. We will address this shortly. Also, I believe I expanded the water-free area.
 

I'm going to try something new. What would happen if we were to use the Smooth filter? I've never tried it. Word on the street is that MCEdit was meant to help players cope with updates to maps. Maybe it can clean up itself? If I don't like its antics, I can always hit Undo. But, if it crashes the program, then we have a problem.

So, I decided to try the filter on this hill, which has been annoying; it rests right on my little hand-made boundary, and is barely generated. For those reasons, I can't really fix it by hand...


It worked, dare I say PHENOMENALLY well. My props to whoever coded this filter; Codewarrior, I assume? 


I want to try it on a larger scale. I'll do it in this area, which is just slightly rugged.


It's an improvement, but I'm not quite as impressed as I was with the first test.

I'm almost done. I just need to fill this spot in before I continue, then we will run the Topsoil filter to patch up any stone that is showing.


Time to use the Topsoil filter! To match with the Gravel, I will set it to a depth of one. If you want to, you can use the Topsoil brush version with Sand, or whatever you fancy.

Here is one last look before I run the filter...


We will see what the finished seabed looks like in-game. I still have some cleanup to do, mostly just with this area.

Before you head in-game, I recommend you make a backup if you are following along, just in case you trigger a flood accidentally. To do this, just go to Resource Packs, hit Open Resource Pack Folder, go up a level, enter 'saves,' and copy your world to another location. I keep a folder in .minecraft called World Backups, where I paste in my backup, and add the day's date to the file name.

Check out all the green blocks in the background. That is where I ran a /kill command on every squid in my vicinity.

Now, here is the seabed in-game, with the gravel in place! Now that we are in-game, we can really see where we need to smooth stuff out. But, I will start with that cave that poked through, then proceed to smooth out the terrain.


When you are filling in a cave like this, you may find floating blocks that shouldn't float. Be sure to place a block below each. In my case, I need to prevent all cave-ins, since I am near the water wall. I don't want to set off a chain reaction.

If you are in the same situation where you need to avoid cave-ins, be sure to not place blocks next to floating ones while trying to stop a different one from levitating, like in this case. In this case, I would need to secure the bottommost floating blocks first.


If you appreciate natural-looking terrain, you will want to smooth out any uneven terrain, and edges that are too rough, or don't belong, like right here. What's up with this?


Just remember to re-add any missing surface coverage after fixing the terrain, like this exposed stone.


Also, be sure to see the Impromptu Random Bonus Screenshot of the Day! In today's screenshot, we see an item frame that I placed with a book in it, from the time I hooked up a Nether portal for ThunderrCat. Only, she took the book, and somebody else left this block of dirt in its place.

My caption: Do you want me to interpret this dirt? Is this a subtle message? Okay, if this is how you really feel about things...

I have been doing this for a long while; this project took a lot longer than I expected! Here is a glimpse of the finished seabed! Can you even recognize this area? By the way, sorry about the strange resolution of this screenie. I had Minecraft stretched to half the screen when I took this screenshot; I was chatting with a friend on Skype while I worked.


This post is getting long, so that's it for this week. As always, your feedback is appreciated, and thanks for stopping by my blog! I'll see you all next post. Until then!