Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Eager to learn more, I arranged to meet Eric so he could show me the online
world of
Minecraft
. One of the irst things I noticed in Eric's living room were
3D printed tchotchkes scattered around. He showed me a 3D printed replica
of a castle, plus a blocky, rough-hewn, gray stone house with a yellow thatch
roof. The house, Eric explained, was a printed replica of a village in
Minecraft.
We sat down in front of a widescreen computer monitor, and Eric logged
into his
Minecraft
account. Eric explained that
Minecraft
is a multiplayer game
where players create an avatar and set up their own custom-designed virtual
world. By clicking and dropping cube-shaped chunks of raw material into
place, players create elaborate and rich fantasy worlds. At the time of this
writing,
Minecraft
had an estimated 8 million active players, a population the
size of a small European country.
I peered over Eric's shoulder at the screen as he walked me around his
virtual world, Vokselia. “When you start, you get an account and then you
get a world with nothing in it.” His
Minecraft
world, shared among a few
friends, boasts houses, castles, a giant glass dome, even a few farm animals.
Eric showed me one of his most ambitious designs, an angular grasshopper.
He explained that it was a challenge to design the grasshopper's spindly legs
and antennae in such a way that they could survive the 3D printing process.
In a
Minecraft
world, each cube-shaped building block represents the real-
world equivalent volume of one cubic meter. Unlike contemporary video games
that are so sleek and inely rendered they look like movies, the graphics on
Minecraft
, at irst glance, appear crude, even primitive.
Minecraft
worlds are
made of big, blocky chunks of raw material. Trees, houses, lakes, structures
are coarsely pixelated. Each lat surface appears to be made of individual tiles.
What makes
Minecraft
so addictive? Part of the appeal is that the visual
effect is magical, the cube-shaped building blocks lend a mystical air to the
cities, buildings, and fantasy worlds that people build. “In video games, the
graphics may be higher quality but you can't change and move things,” said
Eric. “Most video games are interactive but you can't get to the level of design
you can here.”
This fantasy world has strict and consistent internal rules. The game
imposes physical laws onto players so their design space is a blend of fantasy
tempered by the discipline of the physical world. Players must navigate their
way through the same constraints that introduce real-world complexity into
the building process. Since an elaborate design project can take a lot of time,
to speed the game along, a day in
Minecraft
lasts only 20 minutes.
