Community Project - Relic's Cathedral

[Ben]

We are going to start a community involved project to build a cathedral.

We will be using this topic to submit ideas and start the planning out of game.
This is a serious project that will involve solid planning on design and scale of the building.

Please post any plans or contributions you have for this project.
Behind the alter(s) in the typically large wall where you tend see a huge stained glass window or big cross we will be placing the pixel art version of the face fire logo that csquirrelrun has. (scaled down of course)



Please during this planing phase make use of the cobblestone generators and treefarm to start stock piling materials.

I will be supplying rare materials such (but not limited too) as red wool, gold n' diamond blocks, and lightstone. The project will be protected from being broken to prevent greifing and people stealing rare blocks for themselves.

Again at this time submit any design ideas/suggestion be they via text, picture, or video.

After the planing has completed and building has started we will us this post to as an instruction form for construction.

[csquirrelrun]

So I had a nosy around youtube just now and good examples of cathedrals are few and far between. For many people, as the scale of the project increases the more monolithic it becomes, especially on the exterior. This example has a money shot but the rest isn't very interesting, especially once you get up close to it. Also went overkill on the torches but that is another key issue, the lighting, which worked well in the last room with the skylight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBwxcn5oR5c

This next video is of a HUGE cathedral, which despite its scale, has a massive level of detail. It is too big IMO and I think this is because mods were used to help build it so the player would have spent most of their time flying and not looking at the building from the position of the observer. But they did manage to match scale and detail very well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1EO4gtFhvI

This last one is also large but has a great level of variety and detail, it borders on the eclectic but there are some neat tricks like integrating lightstone in the roof to provide lighting and make it appear structural at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rha083pxkU


From the few clips I've watched the important factors for a Cathedral appear to be: Structure, exterior detailing and lighting. Also, I'm thinking we'll be scaling down in size compared with the latter video, but that's easier to achieve than scaling up and losing detail.

I'll start working on some smaller sizes of the RO facefire and see where we go from here. Also, co-ordination and planning is going to be interesting...

EDIT: some smaller sizes
48x29

32x20

At 32x20 and below the detail becomes lost and it begins looking like a half-assed attempt at being cool by using pixel art.

Hmmm, but then again above 32 pixels in height is still quite large for a window/stained glass.

[csquirrelrun]

Ok, so you can pretty much ignore my concerns with the scale now. I made a mock-up in single player with dirt and cobblestone and then altered the textures to give the impression of red wool and black wool. I made the 32x20 size which looks cool.

Mock-up
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/196/mockup32x20a.png

I also made a quick test video to give a better sense of scale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVS7HNmj9h0

Altered Texture:

[csquirrelrun]

Got another mock-up up on youtube now.


I was thinking in terms of construction and planning it would be good idea if the building is comprised of modules, so you design and build a detailed module as a mock-up, which is then repeatable along certain lengths of the cathedral, that way people can simply copy what has already been built in order to help out.

So you could have an area where all the modules are, each labelled, and then at the building site all you'd need to do is mark out which module goes where by placing a sign and marking out the edges of the module.

[Tasha]

May I suggest Salisbury Cathedral as a blue print? There are detailed plans and the design is very repeatable.

http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/

(google the plans, there are buckets with and without cloisters)

[Nightz]

I'm totally on board for this project. I'll be in mine craft quite often, so see you there

[jim]

HAHA awesome!

[Book]

Salisbury is a nice site. I think the size will depend on what scale you need to construct the internal arches of the ceiling. Make the arches look right and that will give you the final dimensions. Quite tall...maybe tall enough where we mine down a few so that it fits. then decide on the size of the doors and we can get rolling. 135 meters long and 78 at the nave and spire is about 120m high ... hmmmmmmmmmmm ...

[csquirrelrun]

Unless anyone has any objections I'll start working on some plans, sections and elevations of Salisbury in a Minecraft scale. I think the size will be established as I go along, starting with a rough minimum and then after some quick mock-ups of various elements we can establish whether or not it needs to be bigger. Anyone looking to become involved or keen to help out, at this stage just keep stock-piling materials.

On a side note I see the latest version has made Stone slabs harder to make (requiring smooth stone now) good thing I didn't start making any half-block roads!

[csquirrelrun]

Salisbury is a nice site. I think the size will depend on what scale you need to construct the internal arches of the ceiling. Make the arches look right and that will give you the final dimensions. Quite tall...maybe tall enough where we mine down a few so that it fits. then decide on the size of the doors and we can get rolling. 135 meters long and 78 at the nave and spire is about 120m high ... hmmmmmmmmmmm ...

Yea, that would be a mission...

Whilst the horizontal planes of the Maps are vast in size, the vertical plane remains at a fixed 128 Block height

Fancy digging to bedrock?


EDIT:
Progress report
Here is the beginning of a plan and section. Made the scale up, seems ok. If we fancy laborious digging then it can go bigger and have an impressive spire, otherwise 64 blocks is about maximum for sea level.

progress report.jpg (47.04 KiB) Viewed 1066 times

And the plan I'm going from (rotated clockwise 90degrees *d'oh*)

progress report 1.jpg (144.01 KiB) Viewed 1066 times