Minecraft Images

Back in the 80's when I was in school we didn't have any of these fancy modern day graphical printers. We used text and our imaginations and that was good enough. We could print in any color, but back then we only had the colors black and white. Life was just like the Andy Griffith show, and Don Knotts was a friend to all.

Keeping that in mind, and that true-type fonts are for sissies, the first time I tried to map out a Minecraft map file I revisited my childhood and represented the information graphically using text:

In this case 0 is clear blue sky, 18 represents green leaves, 17 wood blocks, 1 stone blocks, 2 grass blocks, and 3 dirt blocks. With that in mind you can clearly see a tree hanging from a hill, which is upside down in the clear blue sky. It was very exciting at the time, even if I didn't quite understand up from down.

(For a complete list of block values, check out: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/File:DataValuesBeta.png)

Once I understood how the file structure worked I decided that I needed to inject my own creations directly into the maps. Here was my first attempt, creating a square-ish building out of raw diamond blocks and glass:

My nephews were not impressed by my old school graphics. Much fun was made at my expense, and those beggars are no longer welcome on my Minecraft server. They still occasionally show up and mess up my stuff, but they are definitely not welcome. So along with updating Minecraft files I also attempted to represent game files graphically in interesting ways outside the game.

Yes, I know. Its the worst YouTube video you have ever seen. Nope, no kittens. A perfect waste of the Internet.

To make this video I first plotted graphically 512 cross sections of a Minecraft game file, each 128 x 512 blocks in size. I then pulled those images into a video as an animation so I could look under ground for hidden structures, and watch mountains rise and fall into the sea.

No, I don't really understand why the border does that.

Here is the finished structure from my first attempt to modify a map file:

In the picture above I experimented with building gigantic spheres out of various materials. Below I discovered why you do not build things out of dynamite.

Up until this point my work was constrained to a single map file 512 x 512 x 128 in size. I decided that I wanted to graphically represent the whole map, and find neat stuff under ground. The image above shows the entire map for my game, interestingly enough Minecraft does not generate the world map until you wander through it, which is why it looks like a half painted wall. Below is an overlay that points out wood underground, and hidden chests. At the time I generated the map they had just released underground strongholds, so I did not realize there would be so much wood underground.

In the image above I experimented with removing every block from the region that could not be mined like coal, gold or diamond. It was neat to look at, and hard to do anything with. After a few days in game the region below became so dark that all that valuable ore just turned into permanent monster spawners. Below is a picture of my favorite tree fort, and of course the pyramid I made to guard my remains in the afterlife.

The last thing I was able to accomplish before they changed the stupid file structure of the game was inserting structures so large they would only fit across a number of region files. I created a large, 3 dimensional array that would allow me to insert structures of any size, and built a parser that would then take my array and break it down and translate it to the contents as many region files as necessary.

I'm also a huge fan of Portal, and Portal 2, so I thought I would give creating my own enrichment spheres a try. The video with the painful frame rate above represents how close I came. I do love flying down those tunnels, whoosh!

I can still see 2 bugs I never bothered fixing in any way other than lowering my expectations. You can see in the video as you move through the underground spheres large chunks of stone jutting up from the base of the spheres. I never figured out how to extend the size of the map file. When my structures exceeded the file size I compensated by converting layers of the map file to stone starting at the bottom then trying again. Each time a layer of stone is added the file compresses more easily, eventually allowing for my interesting objects to be inserted into the map when an equilibrium is reached. The other bug is when 1/16 of my whoosh tunnel appears to extend through the wrong side of the sphere for no reason.

Ah, lowered expectations. So salty.

The picture below was my desktop at work until I tired of telling people what it was...