Page 1 of 2

Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:11
by voxelproof
Image

Image

Gael de Sailly's rendering using wziard's minetestmapper:

Image

The structure, probably the largest ever created in voxel games of that kind, is 1334 nodes high from the grade and consists of nearly 3 million blocks*.

Some minor work on details is still needed, however I hope to make this map available for download in a few weeks time. Of course don't expect it to be furnished :)

Image
Supporting beams, view from the ground floor

Inspired by music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mM46lVVarg

__________________________________________________________________________________________

WARNING 1

Downloading the .mts file to the world on my laptop takes exactly 15 minutes, and I succeeded only in second attempt; if your hardware is anything below 8GB RAM you should seriously consider whether to download this file -- it may, as it did on my laptop, freeze your computer. Also, depending on your hardware configuration, assuming it's low-end one, it may take considerably longer to place the schematics into your world.

WARNING 2

However if you luckily downloaded the schematics and can see the building, don't rush to see everything at once. Again, if you are using weakly performing machine, such precipitous sightseeing will most probably crash your MT game (or freeze the hardware) -- so, do it slowly and whenever you see slowdown in fps, turn off the world and wait a while until the RAM is cleared. In other words, use it responsibly :)

I am sorry to say that, but because of these risks I strongly advise those users, who have old or just weak hardware against downloading this file :| Sadly I had to say that, now you're warned and I take no responsibility for any damages that might arise from using this schematics (or from trying to use it). Otherwise my work might turn out for some of you to be just a more sophisticated version of "Albanian virus" but maybe a little more damaging.

IMPORTANT

To achieve the best aesthetic impression, use Good Morning Craft texture pack. The designing and construction were performed using this tp and it is integral to the visual coherence of the creation.

Before downloading the schematics make sure that you enabled following mods:
  • World Edit
    Simplyslopes
    Moreblocks
    Crafting bench
    Mymillwork
    Stairs
    Art Deco
    Facade
    Angled Stairs
    Noncubic
otherwise you'll see a lot of pinky cubic pigs everywhere not taking even small hit of LSD. Also very important: enable connected glass in settings of the main menu. It is crucial because the rows of modern-looking smooth windows give the whole body of the building its vibrant rhytm, so characteristic of real Empire State.

Unfortunately the schematics file contains a large hole in the west wing of the lowest part (part of the roof and internal supporting structure are erased). Of course the original creation is complete and I suppose it's due to some bug in the handling of .mts compression by the game. If you want, you may easily make a small repair; maybe this will encourage someone to continue the work on this creation which, from my side, I consider finished.

LICENSE

This schematics is released under CC-BY-SA 4.0. You are encouraged to use it in any constructive way; however I'd like to ask those who might like to include it in some gaming projects not to make any references to terrorist attacks and such stuff. What may look as an innocent play and fun for one group, not necessarily may be enjoyed by others.

CREDITS

This is in this particular case also very important. I'd like to express in this place my sincere gratitude, first of all to all developers who continue working on development of this awesome game engine, maintain it and allow users to find a beam of sunlight even when the weather outdoors is dark and gloomy. And, also important, they provide it for free. Thank you all.

The same goes to all modders whose mods were used during the construction of EVB. If any mod necessary for the proper performance of the map isn't shown in the list above or you experience any issues, please let me know.

DOWNLOAD

The following .zip contains the schematics of the Empire Voxel Building. Unzip it and place in 'schems' folder in the chosen world folder in 'worlds' folder:
EVB.mts.zip
(556.32 KiB) Downloaded 157 times
Enjoy! And I challenge you -- make something impressive, too. MTG and a great variety of its mods constitute a powerful creative tool. Don't try to make anything such big or just because it's big -- I've made it to proove myself, check the limits of the MTG and provide sort of trailblazer for others, who maybe will create better things. Just do something nice and original, the possibilities are infinite :)

EDIT
* - numbers revised and updated by Gael's research. I hope all the nodes will stay in their proper places, but, as every professional user of World Edit knows, this tiny mischievous beings have their own lives and preferences and the structure will need maintenance to stay functional ;)

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2019 19:08
by azekill_DIABLO
truly magnificient voxel :D

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2019 23:11
by voxelproof
azekill_DIABLO wrote:truly magnificient voxel :D
Thanks :) Maaaaany offices to let.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 01:36
by Sokomine
Looks very promising and impressive. Just....a...little...bit...too big! Have mercy with those of us with slower graphics hardware :-)

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 08:57
by voxelproof
Sokomine wrote:Looks very promising and impressive. Just....a...little...bit...too big! Have mercy with those of us with slower graphics hardware :-)
I have very weak gfx capabilities too :\ Actually I'd like to ask those members of the community who have more powerful hardware to make screenshots of the whole structure -- it's utterly impossible on my laptop. Any attempt so far ended in crashing either the world, game or the computer itself (I experienced a few hangs which were all the more frustrating that they made switching off my laptop impossible -- I had to wait until the battery runs down).

This is the best what I managed to achieve -- and it ended in crash of the world which became corrupted (I resumed the project thanks to backup):

Image

The scale (1 node -- 1 foot) is chosen because of the greater creative possibilities of adding decorative details, for the sake of fidelity of proportions and because I conceived that since Dwarf Fortress was one of the main sources of inspiration for Notch it's highly possible that our in-game characters are dwarves too :)

EDIT:

Another try. Still looking like after heavy bombardment :|

Image

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:48
by voxelproof
Nevertheless locally rendering provides pretty nice views:

Image

Image

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 21:47
by solars
I like the look of the building. :)
But why not furnished?
How much floors has the building?

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 02:23
by TumeniNodes
Beautiful
I was unaware MTG had a Haudenosaunee mobs mod :P

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 10:39
by voxelproof
solars wrote:I like the look of the building. :)
But why not furnished?
How much floors has the building?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building

You can play around with furnishing it when it's ready for download. I think that in 10 - 15 years you'll have done it, of course with the help of the entire MT community;)

Seriously: the map isn't intended for gaming in its present form. Its scale rules out using any of existing furniture mods due to the discrepancy of scale (mods assume that one node is roughly of the size of 1 meter). It is a purely technical experiment with a tiny bit of aesthetic ambitions added.

This model also does not represent real Empire State Building and this is the main reason I gave it another name; in fact I wanted to check out certain architectural ideas and use it as a training ground for developing voxel building techiques. Also wanted it to make it looking better than the real building :) The experience obtained in this field hopefully will help with other projects.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 10:44
by voxelproof
TumeniNodes wrote:Beautiful
I was unaware MTG had a Haudenosaunee mobs mod :P
Image

8D

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2019 21:08
by voxelproof
Image
Finis coronat opus

To my great surprise (and satisfaction) I've just finished the project. That is, although the work on the interiors could take another year or more, the goal which was to create general architectonic outline, is actually accomplished.

Any ideas were I should upload the map? Since many content contributors within this community have much experience with different hosting sites, I'd like to know which one would be the most suitable for complete noob :)

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 17:22
by Sokomine
Try saving it as an .mts file. It's a bit on the big side for these but might still be reasonably doable. .mts files are tiny in size even for large structures.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 17:44
by voxelproof
Sokomine wrote:Try saving it as an .mts file. It's a bit on the big side for these but might still be reasonably doable. .mts files are tiny in size even for large structures.
I'll try it, thanks for the advice. I hope my wonderful machine won't explode during the process :)

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 21:11
by voxelproof
voxelproof wrote:I hope my wonderful machine won't explode during the process :)
Indeed, it almost did *-_-*

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 21:48
by solars
For my maps, I use Google Drive.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 22:59
by voxelproof
solars wrote:For my maps, I use Google Drive.
I know, I considered using it but luckily I managed to get it packed into zipped .mts. Thx

Empire Voxel Building Screenshot Gallery

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 15:51
by voxelproof
Here's a small collection of screenshots depicting the structure. If anyone managed to render this building in full, I'd greatly appreciate posting here these pictures showing the building in whole :)

Image

Image

Image

Gallery, part 2

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 15:54
by voxelproof
Image

Image
West entrance, not existing in real ESB

Image

Gallery, part 3

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 15:58
by voxelproof
Image

Image

Image

Gallery, part 4

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 16:04
by voxelproof
Image
General view of the eastern facade and main entrance

Image
Partially rendered supporting framework

Image
EVB by night

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 00:27
by Gael de Sailly
voxelproof wrote:If anyone managed to render this building in full, I'd greatly appreciate posting here these pictures showing the building in whole :)
I have it, generated using wziard's modified minetestmapper to render it at high resolution.
Well, on my weak laptop (2 GB RAM), it has not been easy. Placing the schematic was already a nightmare. I had to write a program that splits the schematic into 300 slices, and places them individually. I can upload it if anyone is interested. For the rendering part, it was not even worth trying to have more than half of it at once, that's why I used minetestmapper. I had still to generate the colors.txt for minetestmapper, and of course the script wasn't working at first, etc, etc.

But I have it, and, from far, this building is just incredible. Thinking about it, it's very likely the tallest thing ever built in a voxel game, just figure out that a fifth of it wouldn't even fit into a Minecraft world. The vertically unlimited world has a huge potential that too few people are taking advantage of, like you do. Big congrats for you, voxelproof :)
Spoiler
Image

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 10:55
by wziard
Which reminds me that I should make the height-shading customizable. Because it looks a bit weird and washes out the high parts of the building in this render.

I'll try to add some settings for that.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 14:30
by voxelproof
Gael de Sailly wrote:
voxelproof wrote:If anyone managed to render this building in full, I'd greatly appreciate posting here these pictures showing the building in whole :)
I have it, generated using wziard's modified minetestmapper to render it at high resolution.
Well, on my weak laptop (2 GB RAM), it has not been easy.
Many, many great thanks to you, Gael. It really looks good, better than I expected. You've done great work and it had been, as I can read, quite tricky :) Now we can say that we know what the limits of the feasible construction projects in MTG are given this particular one clearly has crossed them.

___________________________________

Why ESB?
The idea originated from two sources: the first one was MTS Framebuoyant. When I was looking for screenshots of Hindenburg airship I found pictures showing airships at the top of ESB's mooring mast. I knew it was primarily designed to harbour passenger traffic carried by airships but at first the idea of building a model of ESB seemed unrealistic, all the more that I had not much experience in such large buildings. But I kept thinking about it and it made me uneasy.

Because the second cause is that my experience of the real ESB is very personal and involves a strange and memorable event in my life. How many people stumbled across Empire State Building, not having expected to ever see it or even to be in the New York City one day before? And this is exactly what happened to me.

I was travelling to Philadephia with my cousin and we planned to visit Washington DC and make a lot of sightseeng there, but with no plans for NYC. Unfortunately when coming back from the US capital our old piece of scrap went down and only thanks to Maryland Police and very helpful police patrol we managed to find accomodation (in Holiday Inn), sell the car (for $100) to a local car mechanic and even got a lift to the motel. But then we had to wait for the rescue from family in Philadelphia, whom we asked for help. It was in the early 90's, so there were no cellular phones and we had to keep watch in a specified point at the road over all vehicles incoming from the north :)

Then we had to buy train tickets to Niagara Falls (where we stayed in Canada). We had to take change in New York, but had no idea about what station the train would arrive at.

When I stepped down from the train in NY, I rushed to ask the first friendly-looking young lad. "How do they call this part of the city up there?" I asked him. "Manhattan" -- he answered after a while when he obviously considered whether he was interrupted by a moron.

It was like a strike of a thunderbolt. We arrived at Penn Station. And when I came up to the street and saw the easily recognisable silhouette of Empire State Building, I was truly happy, and all these seemed to be like an incredible dream.

We had only 55 minutes to the next train (Amtrak "Maple Leaf" to Toronto), just enough time to make a short walk along 33rd West Street towards the huge structure.

It was very early Sunday September morning, the day was set to be sunny and the sky was blue, but the sun could not be seen from the depths of city canyons of Manhattan. And suddenly I had a very ambivalent feelings: I was happy and delighted to see this world-famous landmark, a true icon of the City That Never Sleeps, and at the same time I strongly regreted that I couldn't go closer, watch it inside or go to the observation deck. And I knew that I would never have the chance again.

So, thanks to Minetest I kinda have come back there. It was a great pleasure, wonderful creative gameplay; and aside from my ambition to impress the community or do something extraordinary, it brought back the memories of my companion, who is no longer among us.

I dedicate the work to all those for whom the real ESB was the last step towards Eternity.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 22:40
by wziard
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2896&p=341920#p341920

adding --isoshadeheight <height of the building> probably will give the render nicer colors.

Re: Empire Voxel Building

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 08:17
by Gael de Sailly
wziard wrote:adding --isoshadeheight <height of the building> probably will give the render nicer colors.
Thank you very much :)
Here is the new result:
Spoiler
Image