Thinking Inside the Box - Exploring my Building Philosophy in Minecraft

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] Minecraft for a while now but the more I thought about it the more I began to realize that most of my choices are actually made without even thinking why in this video I will try to explain my thought process now I will talk about some specific methods and give some general tips but this is more an exploration of my building philosophy or approach if you will I'm six wings and thank you for joining me today if you like what I do here on my channel leave a like a comment or join my patreon to support me and get access to world downloads of all my builds since I've started the channel I've almost spent as much time making the videos as I have building so the videos and the stories in those videos I feel like they're part of the world's I create it's been fascinating for stories specifically in movies so why not start there with movies in 1995 a couple of Danish filmmakers including Thomas winderbeer and Las ventria founded a movement called Dormer female films or document 95. in the manifesto they set up a number of rules like only shooting handheld only using natural light only using diegetic Sound and Music and no stencil effects they wanted to strip down filmmaking to its purest form this was taken even further in a 2003 documentary called defend Bean spin of the five obstructions the last ventria posed a challenge to the Danish poet and film director Yuan LED he wanted him to remake a short film janlet made back in 67 called the perfect dominsky or the perfect human but with a couple of obstructions or rules he had to make five versions of the film and each time the rules changed rules like it must be a cartoon onosha can be more than 12 frames shoot the film in the worst place you know the rules seemed arbitrary but as a lifelong fan of yarnlet Les Francia had deep knowledge of him as a filmmaker and was able to pick rules that made it as difficult as possible for him specifically now the reason for this was to deconstruct his filmmaking process and explore his weak points but what happened next was interesting the obstructions were designed to limit him but they actually ended up being a gift for each short film he made he used the obstructions as a feature and each time last tried to make it harder Johan found a way to outsmart him [Music] the fifth and final short film was made by lass himself where he admitted defeat so why do I bring up weird Danish avant-garde filmmakers you might ask well so when I think about why Minecraft has been such a success not only as a game but as a good and legitimate tool for building one word comes to mind limitations if you compare to any other 3D modeling software where you can detail infinitely it seems restrictive and it is initially that seems counter-intuitive but by limiting the options you don't have to worry about the manual details the game has already made those choices for you it's accessible but it's actually really complicated if you want it to be we all know the feeling of having way too many options instead of just a few which makes everything so much easier I really think that the way Minecraft headlines Choice overload is probably the best design choice in the game and this way of thinking is actually something I use all the time when I'm building because my Approach is to limit myself with rules or obstructions and has done an approach I picked or anything it's just something that happened naturally here are some examples the most basic or fundamental rule is physics this can vary a lot with some build around a simple wall Construction While others have a much more pronounced pillar Construction but for every build I think about what needs to be load-bearing [Music] this approach has multiple benefits it helps to keep the bills a more grounded and realistic feel the genre of working is definitely fantasy but my bills are always grounded in realism in terms of physics and for larger fantasy builds I actually tend to overemphasize the construction [Music] aesthetically that's also a benefit where peeler's buttresses and arches become defining features of Their Own foreign can also serve as guidance for deciding how to decorate the interior [Music] so for instance in large interior spaces pillars can work as a reference points and can divide the space into smaller zones [Music] and personally I find this particularly useful in Japanese inspired architecture where the grid plays a central part in the construction with a grid of pillars you have a lot of options you can have open errors between the pillars or place walls between them to create smaller rooms if you need larger areas you can remove the pillars and place load-being arches or bolts these can come in many different forms and Architectural Styles so one tip I'll always give is to take some time to study real-lab architecture it's so valuable especially drawings that highlight the construction [Music] but remember this is mostly applicable to what you would call pre-modern architecture so if we are talking eurocentric that would be neoclassical Baroque Renaissance Gothic and Byzantine architecture and so on [Music] for many years I've worked with 3D modeling software and one of the habits I've implemented is working with repeating sections and design elements in Minecraft this can make complex structures easier to handle and give a more coherent expression so by focusing on designing narrow sections you can get really interesting and complex results by simply repeating those sections [Music] another thing I do is to reuse the signs I really like and try to see how they work in different contexts [Music] um a simple rule I apply all the time is working in uneven numbers and also do this to have a sensor plug it's really beneficial for something like Towers but actually I use it for all kinds of buildings it makes decision making much easier this is how I use it when I'm building a tower the first thought that comes to mind is should it be three five seven nine blocks wide and so on it also makes it much easier to copy rotate and paste sections when I'm testing designs now the next concept is not a strict rule I apply but more of an aesthetic preference are gravity towards namely I prefer to design builds that follow the Bugsy nature of Minecraft not go against it let me explain what I mean by that [Music] in that I prefer to always build box shaped buildings if an idea or concept happened to follow episode plan then that's fine but for parts it has to be diagonal hence jacket I tried to detail those parts to look like it's a design choice not a pixelated flat surface same goes for angle walls since you can only jacket what I'll do is is to detail them to make them look like cornices instead of pixelated angled walls another example is pillars for radial designs where I tend to keep them perpendicular instead of angle around the center that is why buttresses work so well in the game so it adds a taper to the build without being an abstraction of an angled wall suppressor prefer to design buildings that would look more or less similar in real life of course this doesn't work for everything and spherical shapes are one of those things but my goal is to get close to that now even I break my own rules sometimes and this can be a good thing as much as I love symmetry breaking from that can add a much more Dynamic feel to the build so by all means try some of the rules I laid out if they work for you but not to the detriment of your own creativity [Music] the question I'm asking myself when I'm beginning a new project is what level of detail do I want in my build because depending on what you build you might need to make it really big to get the right amount of detail there's a constant battle between scale and detail that has to be managed but going back to before I even placed the first block for a moment I usually have some kind of spark that sets things in motion the topic of inspiration is a difficult one and how you get inspired is something that can be really difficult to convey or even identify but getting a lot of visual stimulus from art and architecture is crucial how a project comes to life happens differently each time perhaps I see a drawing or an image and sometimes that is enough to inspire a new project [Music] or maybe a draw a sketch and turn that into a build real-life buildings are always a good source of inspiration other times I just go straight into Building without thinking about it [Music] and when I improvise I sometimes sketch directly on screenshots usually for larger builds it's a crude but effective way to get an idea of how to build could look with a rough schedule idea of what I want to build I tend to grow in either one of true directions main approaches that honestly deserve a video of Their Own in the first method a plan from scale to detail and the second from detail to scale let me explain as you might have noticed I love building on mountains and what I try to achieve is to have the building be part of the mountain almost as if they grew out of the Earth but you have to keep in mind that when building a mountain surface area is limited so what I usually do is to build mountain tops myself or look for ones that could match Towers or buildings breaking a large build into small solitary buildings can make the process a lot easier because you're working on each build in isolation from this point I simply complex and pick the closest uneven number that matches the size of the peak now talking about what to build more specifically is a Hot Topic in and of itself but the most General tip I can give is to give each facade a sense of depth the amount of depth depends on how much space you had to work with so for small Towers maybe you just use stairs and wall blocks to create depth and for bigger Towers you can begin to offset parts of the facade by one or two blocks computed Corner plugs to give the tower a more rounded shape or you can do it in the middle of the facade try and experiment with different blood types too but remember that the specific type of block you choose usually isn't the most important part and most of the time I don't try to have the details in my builds resemble real life to a T here's how I choose to think about it approach to detailing is sort of like an impressionist painter's approach you can see the details sort of but what accounts is the impression of the build as a whole [Music] foreign so for this part I could change the pattern you probably wouldn't even notice unless you're looking closely the exact placement of the blocks is less important than the patterns they create so try and look for that instead of the exact placement of the blocks [Music] unlatchable sections are usually subdivide the facade into smaller sections which can make things much more manageable and for traditional medieval castles with flat walls I will probably put more emphasis in texturing but yeah that's a whole other topic the second approach is the one I use for my solitary structures here the scale is not an issue to the same extent because I'm not limited by the terrain so what I do is I design what I call key elements that will dictate the size of the build for the Autumn Castle the section is the key element which is copied and placed on the grid the size of the build is then controlled by the number of sections you add for the sanctum the main pillars are the key elements and by taking inspiration from the proportions of real buildings we can scale each element accordingly the width of the pillar is determined by the level of detail I felt necessary using the height of the pillar is directly related to the width which determines the distance to the pillar next to it which in turn determines the size of the arches and finally the size of the Dome for the cold Tower and Mausoleum the tower pillars are the key elements and that element is used to decide the proportions of everything else [Music] when testing sometimes the bills end up being way too big and I have to start over and that part can be really annoying that is one of the downsides of this method and there's definitely a trial and error aspect to it I will admit it is a process you have to get used to there's a lot of testing and trying things out to see what works and what doesn't and that is why I repeatedly suggest familiarizing yourself with different styles of architecture do this enough and at some point you will have internalized it so you don't even have to think about it when building so you can begin to deviate from common Styles and traditions and one of the most exciting things for me is to create something that is reminiscent of real-life architecture but change things enough to make something new [Music] inspiration can come from a lot of places and looking at and starting architecture is definitely one of those things but in the realm of fantasy one of the greatest Inspirations is from the world's created by the Japanese game Studio from software commonly referred to as Soul spawn games like eldenbeing bloodborne and Dark Souls has all inspired me so much they are hauntingly beautiful yet decrepit at the same time and have some of the best examples of environmental storytelling I could talk at length about what I love about all these buildings and places but I want to touch on another concept I can't say that I don't hear people talk about a lot when covering these games it's the concept of staging or staging the architecture commonly seen in movies in the form of establishing shots [Music] establishing shots is supposed to set the stage and give the viewer a sense of place [Music] in filmmaking this is probably easier to achieve but in a video game with no pre-rendered cutscenes this can be much more difficult Soul spawn games do this masterfully the way you arrive at each new area always seems so deliberate [Music] approach of from software but I've always imagined an artist painting the scene first and having that piece of artwork be the basis of the design [Music] I might be wrong but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case this is something I use in my videos all the time [Music] but I always try to mirror that in the worlds I created in Minecraft itself by placing paths watchtowers navigate or tunnels anything that can direct the player I deliberately frame the subject so it's approached the way I want it [Music] when drawing a test building for new project I always try to imagine the build as an artwork first and then I tried to apply that in-game when the build is conceived I know this might feel a bit nebulous as a billing tip but since it's such a big part of the way I think about building it feels wrong not to include it [Music] and yeah that's mostly what I wanted to say I hope you got to learn a little bit about how I think about building as I mentioned some of the parts could be explored further in their own videos and I do have a serious plan on Towers covering my castle type builds but for this video I wanted to present the whole picture I wanted to share my thought process instead of just giving you a list of tips because everybody builds differently and this video isn't about telling you that this approach is the best one it's just mine it all depends on what type of Builder you are or what type of Builder you want to be in a lot of ways I'm a very rigid Builder it took me many years before I even considered using something like trapdos for decoration my bills is something I really feel I need to get better at I've learned so many things from different kinds of Builders I suppose that's how it is for all of us we are all standing on the shoulders of giants I'm so glad I began making videos for many years it's been a thing I wanted to learn but it always felt like this scary and difficult thing that I just couldn't possibly learn but then I made the first video the one on my channel and let me put it this way there are a lot of scary and difficult things you have to face and sometimes venturing into unknown territory can be one of those things scary and full of dangers but other times when trying to achieve something the dangers you meet along the way turn out to be nothing more than Shadows Shadows that disappear once you reach your goal so thank you and I really hope this video will inspire you to build because making this video inspired me to build this is what Minecraft does to you I suppose it's just peer creation [Music] thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: SixWings

Views: 11,700

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Id: gZwUS4n00oM

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2023