Sunday 28 September 2014

Minecraft Hoenn: Part 11/43: Mauville City and New Mauville

Part 11/43 of the creation of the Hoenn Region in Minecraft.
So, here we are at Mauville City. The 7th city so far. Mauville City is very near the centre of Hoenn and can be entered from any of four directions. North, south, east and west. Mauville City has a Gym, Rydel's Cycles and the Game Corner. Mauville City also has a sub-location called New Mauville. New Mauville is a non-essential location for the player in the Gameboy game to visit. The reason the player would visit New Mauville (apart from looking around) would be to shut down the out of control power generator at the favour asked by Gym Leader Wattson.

This part was actually quite quick to make because it's quite a lot simpler than previous parts of the Hoenn region such as Route 110 and Slateport City, as featured in Part 9 and Part 10. It was simpler because there are no watery parts that need to be blended in with the land in a way to look seamless.

This is quite a long story so bear with me. It's full of great stuff however.

Sunday 21 September 2014

Minecraft Hoenn: Part 10/43: Route 110 and Route 103

Part 10/43 of the creation of the Hoenn Region in Minecraft.
This part was a little bit different from previous parts. I wanted to decoraitut fentire region without any modifications or editors but now I have realised that if I keep this practice up, construction would take a very, very long time. So for this part I've decided to try and use MCEdit to place rows of blocks that make up the land that the player walks on much faster than before. It use to take hours to lay block after block manually in the game but using MCEdit to fill an area with blocks takes just a few minutes.
In part 10 I build Route 110 which features the Trick House and the Desire Cycling Road.

ROUTE 110:
Route 110 is unique in the Hoenn region in that it has the Seaside Cycling Road which is the only bicycle only are (apart from the pylons on the route up to Fortree City). The Seaside Cycling Road is a path that the player in the Gameboy game can use to quickly get from Slateport City (featured in the previous part) to Mauville City using a Bicycle. Route 110 is also where the player battles May or Brandon for the first time in the first proper battle between the other rival.  

As always the border is marked out first which makes it much easier later when it's time to add the buildings and finishing touches.  The borders act as reference points on the map which makes it easier to place a building in the right place for example. 


Now, this is where I wanted to save time using MCEdit. MCEdit is an external Minecraft world editor which  helps save hours of time when filling in the water blocks within the borders.
At first MCEdit was a bit how do I use this?? But after a few minutes I found the brush tool. The brush tool was a bit time consuming and imprecise so after a bit more looking around I found out how to use the fill tool.

Yes, yes, I know. I'm only running Windows Vista because my computer is almost 7 years old. It's an HP 8710w Mobile Workstation if you were wondering. It runs Minecraft at a steady 60fps while standing still but once you start moving or place blocks the frame rate drops to about 5fps. Grrr. Time to consider saving for a new computer.

After using MCEdit I re-loaded the world in Minecraft to find that the external editor had worked wonders saving me a few hours of my time. There were just a few rough edges that I accidently created with MCEdit's brush tool but this was easily resolved and soon the more fun aspect of construction can begin.

 FINALLY, we can start building and decorating the route.

By the way, this is the gap between Route 110 and the western side of Route 103. Everything is lining up perfectly. I hope.

This is looking north before the Seaside Cycling Road. This grassy trail is a man made segment of the route. The cutout at the start of the grassy path is where the Trickmasters house is. 

Patches of tall grass are dotted around the trail. It is along this trail that the player in the Gameboy game has their first real battle with their rival. 

This is the gate to the cycling road. This is also the only series of gates in the entire Hoenn Region. The gates exist to ensure the player on the Gameboy is riding their bicycle when on the Cycling Road. There are two of these gates. One at the northern end and one at the southern end. They are both identical inside and out.

And the mysterious Trick House. The Trick House is a house that has 8 puzzles for the player to complete. Unfortunately there is not enough physical space to fit 8 puzzles. I actually didn't build any puzzles in the Trick Masters house so sorry if you were looking forward to it. I might build a puzzle room nearer to release. 


The painting on the back of the wall is a prop for the script on the back wall of the Trick Master's house. The sign next to it says "I am leaving on a journey. Don't look for me. -Trick Master".

And here is Route 110 90% complete pre cycling road. 


SEASIDE CYCLING ROAD:
The Seaside Cycling Road is a cycling road (duh) that provides a fast way to get between Slateport City and Mauville City. Building it felt like I was building a motorway which felt great.

The fence around the cycling road that is supposed to stop people falling off was originally going to be blue glass panes but I thought that looked too much like the ocean and blended in too much so I decided to get rid of that and use white glass panes instead.

And before I knew it the cycling road was complete. 


Add a few trees and Route 110 is complete. 

And the remaining screenshots are of Route 110 after vegetation. You may notice that there is an irregular hexagon of dirt down at the bottom right quadrant of the screenshot below and wonder what it is. If you have played the Pokemon game you will know that as being New Mauville which is being built in the next part.




ROUTE 103


That's all the progress so far in the Hoenn Region.

Stay tuned and subscribe.

If you have any tips for improvement please don't hesitate to share. It would be greatly appreciated.

Next: Part 11 features Mauville City and New Mauville.

22.73% complete

Sunday 7 September 2014

Minecraft Hoenn: Part 9/43: Slateport City

Part 9/43 of the creation of the Hoenn Region in Minecraft.
It has been over a week since I last made a post and this is the first original post on the new blog. Here I made Slateport City. Slateport City is a harbour city and is one of the Hoenn Regions major cities. The city is host to many attractions including the Contest Hall, Pokemon Fan Club, Oceanic Museum, Stern's Shipyard, Marketplace and the Name Rater.
During the middle of making this Minecraft 1.8 came out which added many exiting things like coarse dirt that doesn't grow grass which will mean I can replace the Soul Sand ridges and rocks. This post has over 60 screenshots so grab a drink and treat yourself.

First thing's first. Mark out the border with dirt.  Slateport city is one of the largest cities so building it took me about 2 weeks.


By far the most tedious part. Filling in the interior of the border. This took over an hour of moving back and forth and back and forth and back and forth layering the dirt down. 
 But eventually...

The very first paved area. This is where the Slateport Lighthouse sits. In the Gameboy game the lighthouse is there just to admire and provides no real function.

Paved pathways are added before the grass because I can. Actually it's because path placement is critical to accurate building placement. If just grass is placed it will probably have to be excavated again which will just cause confusion and inaccuracy. This method also saves a bit of time.

Looking at this remind's me of some sort of medieval castle grounds. Mossy cobblestone marks the edges of the path to show the transition from cobblestone to grass. In the Gameboy game there is some stylised pave work on the edges of the paths.

After laying the grass and the paths it was time to mark out the perimeters of all of Slateport City's buildings. 

POKEMON CONTEST HALL
This is the Pokemon Contest hall. Yes, the angle is a bit too high and my player is under the influence of a night vision potion. But in the Gameboy game this is where the Hyper Rank Pokemon Contest Hall is. There are 4 contest halls in Hoenn, one for each rank. Hyper Rank is the 2nd highest with Master Rank being highest rank in Lilycove City.

Just like the Gym's of Hoenn and any other major building with a massive interior and small exterior, most of the building is built underground.

The red wool walls are for the interior looks. 

In the building above the ground there is an Acacia wood staircase that leads down into the contest hall. 

And after laying that floor I discovered that it was one layer too high. Everything would have fit but there is a stage in here that is two blocks high and in a room with a ceiling height of 4 blocks it made for a very squashed in feel. The solution was to rip out the floor, excavate another layer and then re-lay the floor.


Ahh. The floor and the ceiling height is just perfect now.  The underground hall is 1:1 with the Gameboy game.

This is the stage where the contest's are held. The stage light blue stage has a viewing area that surrounds the main stage. 

The green stage  is the main stage where all the trainers and their Pokemon in the Gameboy game are judged and awarded for their efforts.
 

A quartz ceiling with glowstone lighting provides the finishing touch.

The interior of the Contest Hall. I think it looks bigger in the screenshot then it really is. The hall is only 14 blocks deep. 


And this is the main foyer that the player first walks into. The access point to the staircase is an opening on the back wall on the left. The jukebox is a stand-in for the Berry Blender which the player uses in the Gameboy game to make Pokeblock's to enhance their Pokemon for contests.




SLATEPORT MARKET:
Slateport Market is a place where the player can purchase items that are not available in a normal Pokemart. There's a Doll Shop and there's the Energy Guru where the player can buy secret base decorations and Pokemon healing items.

The entire marketplace is in it's own corner of Slateport City. 

Because there are no crates in Minecraft I had to improvise with wooden planks.

The gazebo's that the retailers sell from have fence posts with dark green roofs made of wool.  In the roofs, hidden from view are torches that provide illumination.

Plant pots are there because they are present in the Gameboy game. On top of the fake crates is carpet which is only for cosmetic reasons.

NAME RATER'S HOUSE
The Name Rater's house is where the player can re-name their Pokemon. This house is just an ordinary house and isn't really that spectacular. The lower half of the building is hay bail and the upper half is yellow clay. The roof is made from a combination of dark oak wooden planks and slabs.

And here is the interior. An interesting thing is that this is the first bed to be placed in a house since Petalburg City.


POKEMON FAN CLUB
The Pokemon Fan Club has no practical use in the game. It is a place where people talk more about cute Pokemon and Pokemon contests than battles. The exterior has several materials and features including 45⁰ walls at every corner and a porch like roof over the front.


The interior is quite funky. Glowstone lighting around the edge of the ceiling and an End Stone floor form the interior.

The finished Pokemon Fan Club. 

SLATEPORT HARBOUR
Slateport Harbour is where Captain Stern can be found most of the time. It is also where the player can travel to the Battle Frontier via the S.S Tidal.

This building is built half on land and half over water. This is because ships dock inside the building. 

And the interior. Instead of travelling on the S.S Tidal the player can use a normal Minecraft Boat instead.



OCEANIC MUSEUM
The Oceanic Museum plays a role in the story in the Gameboy game. The player must deliver some Devon Goods to Captain Stern. The player must pay 50 Pokedollars every time they wish to visit. If the player has less than 50 then entry will be free of charge. 

The exterior of this building has an interesting  exterior. There are columns at the front and windows that wrap around. Green clay makes up the majority of the exterior, accented with wooden planks and dark grey stained glass.


The exterior of the building is complete.

The interior is non-original and doesn't match up with the real Oceanic Museum. Head masks take the place of artefacts that are on display. This is the first floor...
 And this is the second floor.

STERN'S SHIPYARD
Stern's Shipyard is an ugly, brown box where Captain Stern runs his ship building business. It is where the S.S Tidal was constructed.

The exterior is quite simple with only two windows plus two skylights.

Looking up at the ceiling from the ground floor.

The ground floor furnished. Since the 1.8 update fences can be made out of any wood material which is very handy at there is more variety in colour.

The top floor furnished. The void in the centre of the room provides a view down to the ground floor.


And now all the buildings are finally complete. 

FINISHING TOUCHES
Just the usual finishing touches which meant adding scenery and land that the player doesn't (or shouldn't) walk on.

Just burying the underground area of the Pokemon Contest hall where tree's will be planted on top. 

These trees grew quite a lot taller than I thought. I was going to use tree's of this size up near Fortree City but I guess I will now use Jungle tree's. While laying the perimeter of the tree's I discovered that I made the walkway exiting north of the city 2 blocks longer than it should have been which would have caused problems later on in development. These issues were corrected.


FINISHED
And here is the finished product. After two weeks of work it seems like it was worth it. 


Silly bat's



That's all the progress so far in the Hoenn Region.

Stay tuned and subscribe.

If you have any tips for improvement please don't hesitate to share. It would be greatly appreciated.

Next: Part 10 features Route 110, Cycling Track and the rest of Route 103.

20.45% complete