Hello! I'm N8thanH, and welcome back to Across the Mayonnaise! In Yesterday's post, I promised I'd do a double-post this week. As I promised, here I am! Another usual-length post. You lucky ducks. t:

For this one, I have two simple Redstone circuits. They are very compact, and could make your experience a good amount easier!

Extra Convenient Boat Dock

I made this one a week or two ago. This boat dock's Redstone is totally contained (except for the back, but that shouldn't be a problem), so it should be easy to build it in the water, and also, it's tileable. That means that you can continuously build it next to itself.

This dock is actually pretty simple, but by no means was it simple to develop. When you first encounter it, the dock should be clear of water.


When you click the button, it'll throw out a boat, and release the water. Before, I had hoppers in this dock, so you could just throw it back, and also a dropper that bumped the water up. But, I was having issues with it while making the dock more compact, and I decided to remove it. The other flaw is that if you click the button a second time, the water also toggles. That issue is minor, but it annoys me nonetheless. I may be able to fix it, and I'll try if I do a tutorial on this dock.


Anyways, you just have to place the boat in and sail off. Another design flaw: only the middle pressure plate actually triggers the circuit. At least it's really hard to avoid, if you can at all. I don't think so.


 So, from there you can sail where you need to. Once you decide to return, you can simply drive through the pressure plates without flooding the dock, land the boat, break it, and place it back in the dropper.


Here's the Redstone circuit. If you can see where the input is, find that. When you click the button, the wire branches in two directions. One goes to the circuit in the center of the dock, which is an RS-NOR latch, also known as a Memory Cell. The other branch, which has some delay, delivers a pulse to the dispenser once there's no power going to it.



On the far left is the second input; from the pressure plates. It causes the adjacent Redstone Torch to turn off, thus allowing the one across from it to turn on, and delivering a pulse to the dispenser. That event only happens once; the Memory Cell must be flipped by the button to happen again. This is why the dock doesn't flood when you're trying to pull in. I'd appreciate it if the other side only pulsed once too, but it's not governed by the Memory Cell.

The Stew Machine

I have to say that I'm really proud of this one. It's a little self-serve vending machine with a Mooshroom! It kind of reminds me of a particular kind of Japanese vending machine that could heat up little boxed meals for you. I remember seeing a YouTuber who does reviews of the food inside various ones. Maybe search them up on Google.

Anyways, here's my machine! :3


To use this machine, you just have to push the button. It'll dispense a bowl, and allow you to click the mooshroom behind the glass.


Then, you can milk the mooshroom as much as you want. I'm pretty hungry, so I'll have three bowls!

Once you're done, all you have to do is throw the bowl at the mooshroom. Then, the door closes again.


Here's a tour of the redstone. The redstone in this machine is slightly more complicated, so I'll show you guys some nice screenshots.

This is where the button connects to the circuit. You can see that it runs in various directions.



 In the back, there is another Memory Cell, only this one is a vertical model. When the button is pushed, it causes that wire coming from the button to stay powered until the cell is flipped.

I was using Spectator Mode for these screenshots, if you can't tell.

One of the branches of the circuit goes up to this piston. The redstone torch makes it so that the piston retracts when you push the button, and extends when the Memory Cell flips back.


Connected to the bottom torch from the Memory Cell, there is another branch that runs this way. Note that it's not connected to the line running from the button. This line causes the dispenser to shoot out a bowl.


The repeater runs to a single dot of redstone. I was having trouble with this dot powering the hopper and thus locking it, so the circuit was never turning off.


Speaking of the hopper, it runs underneath the latch, and it switches the latch to its default state.


Sorry if this is still confusing. I'll do a video tutorial another time.

Well, that's it for this bonus post! As always, I appreciate your feedback. Thanks for reading!

I'll see you all next post. Until then!

Oh, but before I go, here's the Impromptu Random Bonus Screenshot of the Day! This one is of HowlingW0lf from our very own server. I think it speaks for itself. :D


See you guys next week!

Hello! I'm N8thanH, and welcome back to Across the Map. Sorry for not posting the past few weeks! I'll have two posts coming this week, so keep an eye out this Thursday. Tuesday and Thursday are the two days I try to post; mostly since I tend to procrastinate too long to post on Tuesday, Wednesday isn't convenient, and I consider Friday too late.

Anyways, the first post this week will be a little update on what I've been up to with my texture pack, Cloud 16. I've been working on changing some of the textures that I wasn't happy with. Some of them were done when I wasn't as good at texturing, or just done hastily. I just thought I'd show you guys what I've been working on. Anyways, here's what I've been up to. I figure I'll go in the sequence of the Skislands.

So, first of all, I've changed a bunch of textures on Lightly Forested Forest; the first Skisland on my little texturing map. This is the first Skisland, and a lot of the textures on it are commonly seen as you play. In the photo below, you can see that I did new grass and fern textures, and also Coarse Dirt and Spruce Wood.

It's easier to notice in some biomes, but the grass and fern textures actually have non-grayscale pixels, so they don't change with the colors of the biome they're in.

If anyone remembers my old texture pack, FreshCraft, then you'd remember the... Distinct style I had. I tended to be rather predictable, and I always did this patchy kind of style with my wood, with a hard border. At the time I was working on the woods, I didn't really have a developed style as far as texturing went. So, now that I do have a more developed style, I've decided to go back and edit it. As opposed to having the texture being based from the foreground bark, this texture was built from the background portion.

As for the Gravel and Coarse Dirt, they were just cheap recolors of the dirt texture I had at the time. I decided to go back to them, and use a proper texture. I really don't enjoy doing the earlier textues in the game. It's the man-made blocks I enjoy doing. But, for the most part, in early worlds, these textures are all you really see.

Anyways, I also tweaked my Stone texture and the stone portion of all the ores, some were also tweaked in the appearance of the "ore patches," and I did a new and unique Gravel texture. It turned out pretty well, but my perfectionism and trained eye drove me to work on it for several hours. It's the sole reason why I didn't post last week. I still see little patterns, but I don't think it can be improved any more.

I can still distinguish block boundaries, but this texture will have to do for the time being.

The Coal Ore got a complete makeover, and the Iron Ore is now a more distinct color.

The Lapis Lazuli may need work. Ah, well. Another time.

Gravel. The most annoying texture in the game. Behold it in all its glory.

Anyways, moving along, I was pretty unhappy with how my 1.8 polished Stupid Stones turned out, so I redid those. The Diorite was the base for the other two. It was a decent texture; it wasn't drastically changed. These ones aren't necessarily up to my standard of having no visible repeating patterns, but I thought the clustered pattern looked kind of neat. I'll see if it bothers me enough. Right now, it doesn't. 

One thought I had was to fill in the space between the protruding parts of the Stupid Stones with the regular stone coloring. I just don't want to make any builds look messed up. Heh. As if anyone would use them in a build.

I'm going to move on before my impulse to fix textures kicks in. If that happens, there won't be any posts this week.

Next up, in the Magnificent Meadow, I did moderate-to-minor improvements to three of the double-tall flowers. The petals of the rose and peony got retextured, but I think they may need more contrast. Also, I slightly changed the color of the pink tulip to make it look more different from the white ones. It may not be enough, though. If I make any more changes, I'll to a follow-up next Skisland Project post.



This peony is just messed up.


Anyways, I decided to clean up the hide patterns on the cow and mooshroom textures. They felt too busy to me. Both cows have the same patterns, just different colors.


Last, I have a new little Skisland. The only reason it exists is because I forgot to implement a few blocks on the previous Skislands, and they had to be done at some point. However, I didn't feel like any of the prior Skislands needed a pond. So, here is as good as any place.

I didn't have any inspiration for the vines. Look for them in my follow-up next time.

Want to know where it is? I don't feel like doing a guided tour, so here is a bird's-eye view. It'll have to do for you guys. :t


Well, as far as my texture pack goes, this is all I've been up to. So, that's it for today. I'm going to go get outside before sunset. Keep an eye out for another post some time tomorrow! I have a simple little redstone doohickey to show you guys. Why not?

Thanks for reading! I'll see you all next post. Until then!

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

Sorry for the delay since last post. In case you don't remember it, at the very end, I posted a little "screen-selfie" with Fire-Cat. In case you didn't notice, my skin looked a bit different from the one on the sidebars of my blog.  (I need to change that photo again, so it probably just looks normal if you're reading this a while after the time I'm posting this.) Indeed, last month, I updated my skin! Instead of doing a brief post talking about the latest version of my skin, I thought, "Why not do a post on all of them?" So, I thought to myself, "That's a good idea." (Hooray for monologue!)

So, that's what we're doing today. Luckily, I have photos of every version of my skin. I'll be doing a little personal overview of each version, starting with the first version I made.

This photo is a pretty accurate representation of what I was as a Minecrafter at the time. (I think the resolution is different than normal in this photo. I used to play on my family's desktop. That'd explain it.)

So, I decided I was fed up with being a Steve, and decided to create my first skin. This first version was done in an online editor known as SkinCraft. As you can tell, my skin was a basic Steve skin re-trace in my favorite colors (yes, I mistook the old goatee for a smile, a star badge (These days, I imagine it to be sewn onto my shirt. Don't ask me why I shade it as if it's metal.) and a basic spike-y hairdo that I liked.

At the time, it seemed like a decent idea to shade my skin with random, slightly-darker shapes all over myself, and give my hair a shining effect that's a totally different color than my hair. I can be mistaken, but I think that the default "Steve" skin may have had the Tetris-piece shading, too. Only, I was totally clueless about doing graphic arts, and in retrospective, my skin would've been best off without that kind of attempt...

Mind you, the actual Steve Skin is kind of bad itself. Back when Notch was the only developer of the game, Minecraft's textures had a different art style. You'll notice the really old blocks have a slightly different look. However, I think a lot of these blocks have since had texture changes.

It's worth noting that I created a variant of my old skin, featuring a Santa hat. I don't think  I have a screenshot of it, so I'm going to play dress-up with my old skin. :D



After Christmas, I started to get sick of my skin. Some time in January of 2013, my skin got a re-texture for the first time. By no means was I good at it, but I shaded my skin with Paint.NET (not a website), since I had been using it for texturing FreshCraft, my old texture pack, which still isn't done. My current focus is on Cloud 16.


Anyways, my shading at the time tended to be subtle, but it's there, and definitely an improvement over what I had before. I wouldn't exactly say the same about my hair, to be honest. I tried to tinker with it, but it turns out that drawing decent-looking spike-y hair is notoriously hard, and something I only accomplished recently. I still dislike my old face. XD

Notice that I kept some of the old Tetris-shape blotches on my arm. I was so used to seeing them on my Heads-Up-Display, so I kept the bottommost pixels on. They're still on my skin to this day.

At one point, I ended up changing my hairdo to not have that annoying central spike. This ended up making it into my second Christmas version, which came dressed with an improved Santa hat, (Now including more invisible white pixels that I couldn't fix to save my life!) an undershirt; it's chilly in the winter, an ugly sweater (that wasn't really what I intended) and, best of all... GREEN PANTS! I was a texturing genius, even back then!


 To be honest, I'm not really sure when the next time I updated my skin was. The file I have was last modified in August of 2014; last year. It seems like it was longer ago than that to me. The image always had the 1.8 overlay, and that was added January of that year. I really don't know, to be honest.

Whenever it is that happened, my skin got a pretty major overhaul. My face was unchanged, but my shirt and shoes were darkened, and I donned a vest for when 1.8 comes out, a new pair of pants with a pattern that I don't tell anyone.  I decided I'd do something (probably not a shout-out like I said the first time; I have almost no audience whatsoever) for whoever guessed it. I got a very clever, but not exactly correct answer from HowlingW0lf on Bluestrike the other day: a pattern. She can pride herself for being technically correct, which is the best kind, I suppose. She's not the grand winner, though.


The one thing was that my face was relatively flat, boring, and sort of stupid-looking. Just this January, I managed to pull off something I've tinkered with a long time ago; a more subtle smile. You can see it on the right of the post feed, but I'll be changing it "soon," (keyword: "soon," not right after this post) so, to keep this post relevant in the future, here is the same photo.


The hairdo was still bothering me. Fire-Cat, who decided to change her skin at around the same time. I was inspired to change mine again. I had some new ideas for the hairdo this time. I went and did it, and I'm really happy with the result. I think it's as good as it'll get. Luckily, I'm proud of it. Also, I gave my skin a re-shade. Hopefully the mystery pants pattern is still recognizable. I was sort of nervous about shading them. I may make the shading more subtle.



Some closing words come to mind. Here goes. :/

My big flaw is that I'm a perfectionist. I also happen to enjoy art, but it's constantly a plague to me. For better or for worse, I'm always searching for ways to improve.