Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Eric showed me a train station's loor tiling, a mosaic of browns, reds, and
yellows. To make brown tile,
Minecraft
players can't just choose “brown” and
apply the color to a loor tile. Instead, there's an organic and laborious process
to make brown tiles. “These tiles are colored from special dyes for wool. You
have to go shear sheep and gather wool to get these colors,” said Eric. “Pink
is quite rare. Brown is quite rare. You have to ind cocoa to make this brown
color tile.”
I suspect part of
Minecraft's
appeal is that players can work together in
teams on massive building projects, creating the sense of old-fashioned com-
munity. Somewhat like a barn-raising, Eric and his friends teamed up to build
a virtual masterpiece, Community Station. This train station was modeled on
St. Pancras Station in London. Each player contributed time, raw materials, or
design expertise to the project. When I saw Community Station, there was a
sparkling Christmas tree in the corner of the station's atrium—apparently the
players hadn't yet gotten around to taking it down after the holidays ended.
Minecraft
demonstrates a new design paradigm: Gamiied CAD. For $27,
Minecraft
offers players easy, powerful design tools, plus an online community
of fellow players and builders. Back when I was a young engineer, learning to
use design software was almost like learning to manage an airport control tower.
It had a bewilderingly complicated user interface, special vocabulary, and was
way beyond the skill of the average user. It wasn't fun to learn at any age.
Minecraft
is so easy an 8-year old can play. In fact, a few months ago, my
8-year-old son started playing
Minecraft
at home. After a few days of learning
his way around, he designed and built me my own virtual home (near his tree
house), complete with a shower stall and bed.
Minecraft's
physical constraints seem to fascinate him. He set up several
experiments to test the explosive power of TNT, blowing massive angular
craters into dirt and cliff face. My son explained to me that a few chickens died
when they accidentally wandered near the explosion; yet somehow a passing
cow survived the blast and shortly afterwards, was grazing peacefully near
the gigantic crater.
Deep inside
Minecraft's
software (of little interest to anyone other than a
few computer scientists) lies an interesting design architecture. Its software
does not use industry standard design models.
Minecraft's
blocky graphics
are not generated by traditional solid modeling (the design tool of choice for
engineers), nor surface mesh (the design tool of choice for animators and art-
ists). The heart of
Minecraft
is a digital unit called a voxel. One digital voxel
