The Art of Block-Building



Just a little introduction: I am a huge FC fan and a big builder and if I am lucky, you have already been into my world. Anyways, through sharing my world with the community I have gotten many questions and requests about building things, and I plan on answering most of these questions here in this thread.

"You best put seat-belts on your ears, because I am about to take them for the ride of their lives." -Morris Moss

Things that i will teach you here:

1. The building basics
a- What kind of world should I choose?
b- Inspiration
c- World detail
2. How to successfully use your keyboard
3. How to get your world recognized
4. How to optimize server performance
5. Why not pixel-art?
6. These will be in no particular order

Why not pixel-art?
I do not support, and will not be teaching pixel-art for a couple of reasons. First of all, I think it is important to state that I don't hate pixel-art. I just hate the repetitive nature of it. I mean seriously: how many times do you have to recreate basic mario items before you realize that every other pixel-artist has done it? I have only seen two pixel-art worlds in my entire time on FC that actually impressed me, and the rest have just been annoying. So please, if you plan on making pixel-art: do something original, because reproducing somebody else's work brick for brick gets so old.

F.A.Q.s
Q1. Can you directly help me with my world? (come and build for me)
No- I am very sorry, but the list just gets too long. Also- Please don't go around asking people to help you with your world. Sometimes people run out of ways to say "no, thank you" politely.

Q2,3,4,5. How do you make your blocks move? How do you send out messages on the screen? How do you set the message at the loading screen? How do you name a custom block?
Answer- Keyboard!!!!! (I have to answer these sooooooo often)

What is kind of world is for me?
This is a question that all must ask when resetting their world. I think that you should know that I have never reset my world, and do not really know exactly what other worlds are like (with the exception of flat worlds, which i am very familiar with). I personally suggest using the default world (I honestly don't know what it is called) but the one people who had their worlds before 1.9. I think it is called hilly... Anyways, I urge my friends to use this world type because you can do the most with it. I know, it's a very simple reason, but true nonetheless. The big disadvantage of having a flat world is that you cannot go very deep. You can't dig caves, you can't make waterfalls, you just can't do much. To some people the appeal of having a flat world (either for basic building or for pixel-art) is most of the time just too tempting. And it is true that you don't have to spend a lot of time flattening out your world for the next big building project. And I am not necessarily saying that flat world are bad. But if you want the broadest range of options when building your world, go for something with a little more ground.

The Building Basics:
I always start off a building project one of two ways. I either have an overambitious plan that I have waaaay over-thought, or I just started putting blocks down. My favorite way to build is to at least have a general plan. Don't worry if you haven't thought out every room in your house or every leaf in your forest, just start putting down blocks, and more ideas will come to you on the way. Some of the most talented builders I know trap themselves because they don't even know where to start. But the best builders are already making bricks before they can even fully explain their idea to me (this kind of building comes with experience... or lack thereof. There is a fine balance between spending too much time planning, and starting a project prematurely). But remember, you're never going to finish if you can't start, so find that balance.

Inspiration:
Some people just can't figure out what they want to build no matter how much time they spend brainstorming. For those of you that have this problem, please, please do not go onto youtube and look up cool worlds and copy what they do brick for brick. It will just look like a cheaper version of the original thing and will not draw a lot of attention. If however you genuinely do need inspiration, then go browse some highly rated worlds. And If you can see that somebody has put a lot of effort into their world and you think it is pretty cool, please rate it. Do not make the mistake of thinking that by not voting for them, you give your world a better chance of success. If you build something cool, people will rate you. (Unless they are jerks like you who hold back ratings because you think that you somehow benefit yourself.) If you still are not getting inspired by simply browsing through other worlds, read a picture book about Frank Lloyd Wright.

So once you have an idea of what you want to build, the next step is to find a good location. A good location is a combination of many things. How close are you to your spawn/other buildings, does your location "flow" with your map? By that I simply mean: Don't build your spaceship right next to your medieval village. It will end up looking disjointed and stupid. If that is what your going for then by all means: prepare the way for your antarctic space noodle+1. But if you are the kind of person who likes their map to flow a bit more (like me) then plan out a bit. I find it best to put all of your objects form different themes or time periods in different directions on the map. For example: put your medieval village to the north and your spaceship to the south.

Once you find a suitable location, get to work on flattening the surface (if you have a flat world, this process should be brief). Remember when building and deleting long rows of blocks not to edit each one separate, form the above or below. Get behind the row of blocks and delete in a line. Lose yourself in a sea of block-breaking bliss as you create or destroy long series of blocks. Also remember when building up or down to use the "a" and "b" buttons to move vertically. This was a very welcome update on controls.

Once you have a flattened building surface the next step (if you are building a building) is to make a frame. A lot of poor, lost souls that I knew of waisted countless hours filling in the walls of their houses, just to back away and realize that they did not like the shape of the building. Make a frame out of blocks first, then back away and make sure that you like the shape of your building before you go and fill in all the walls. You will save yourself a lot of time.

World Detail: The Keyboard
As many of you know, you can use an xbox360 chatpad or a USB keyboard to greatly enhance the list of things that you can do in the game. Most people should have a dusty old usb keyboard laying around (or hooked up to your computer maybe?) Anyways plug that sucker into the front of your xbox and you are ready to roll. If you have an xbox360 chatpad, you can do all of the things that you can do with the keyboard (with a few important exceptions). Exception 1- With the USB keyboard you have the up, down, and side arrow keys, allowing you to repeat past commands. Instead of having to re-type "fill canvasblue 16 1 16" over and over again, you can simply press up on your arrow, and you repeat the last command. (You can continue pressing up to copy commands even further back). 2- You have an F1 key. Pressing this key allows you to see though all the blocks on the map (with the exception of custom blocks, which remain solid) This can be quite a view, especially if you have a lot of buildings of underground tunnels. Now some might choose the convenience of a chatpad, but i personally use a keyboard, even though i also have a chatpad. And seriously, a USB keyboard is like 5 dollars, if you plan on becoming a serious builder, I say it is a must have.

The applications of having a keyboard are many. You can name your custom blocks, set animations to them, send messages to people in and entering your world and place blocks with ease. You just need to know the correct server command. The quickest way to learn how to use these is to simply type "help" into your command console and try them out for yourself. Just hit shift, (the shift on the left side of your keyboard) type "help" and try out all of the amazing commands that the screen fills up with. I would list all of the things you can do but A. That would take forever and B. The console commands are always changing, and in order to keep this list up to date, I will simply tell you to type in help and take the lazy train out. If your TV has a low resolution and you are unable to read the console commands off of your screen then search the internet for the most up-to-date version of them.

Adding detail: Custom Blocks
Custom blocks are a very cool and innovative way to add a lot of creativity and detail to one's world. You currently have a limit of 64 custom blocks that you can create. Some people ask me (or kind of scream sometimes) "Thats a dirty liez, I only see 8 custom block spaces for me to create!11!1!" No, everybody has 64, you just can't see all of the spaces yet because that would be annoying. When you fill one page of blocks a new one appears right behind it so that you can continue your crusade of epic block building. But there is a point here, you only have so many blocks that you can build, so be creative. Don't build a custom block that you can only use once. Build blocks that have wide applications in your world, so that you are not wasting the custom block slots that you have.

Through the magic of keyboards we are able to name our custom blocks. Naming your blocks can do one of two things to it: Something amazing, or nothing... There are certain names, that when applied to a block, give it the magical abilities of motion, and occasionally self-awareness. To name you blocks, pull up the console command center with the left shift and type: setname [space] [your desired name here] and then hit enter. But to make your blocks do amazing animations you must name them one of these:

rotatecw
rotateccw
fountain
fire
smoke
greensmoke
orbit
planetary
piston
squish
dervish
randomisefacing
dangle
wind
jiggle
big
small
growshrink
twizzle

(I think that what these do should be self explanatory, but if you cannot figure them out from their names, then just go try them out.) And Finally:


How to get your world recognized.
Ok, so you have this amazing world that is seriously the best thing ever of all time. But you are still faced with a problem -> How do I get people to visit my world? The answer is simple and brutally disappointing: You have to open your would up so that everyone can edit. This is the fastest and most effective way to funnel traffic though your world. And I know what you are thinking. How can I open up my world and not get griefed? Well you may be surprised to find that this is entirely possible. All you have to do is run to the farthest corner of the map that you can get to. For some reason (I don't know why, I don't program things) people can only make a difference on your world if you are near to them. So by flying way into an unbuilt, unpopulated corner of the map, you are saving your precious buildings from sure destruction. However please remember that people can still edit near you, so go somewhere far away, a place that you don't mind getting griefed. Now while it is unlikely that people will even make it to you if you have a lot on your map and you are way far away, remember that it is still perfectly possible, and you should be mentally prepare yourself for people to make it to you and start griefing. At which point you can boot them or quit to title.

More ways to get votes (with the keyboard)
People that have the keyboard have a serious edge when it comes to getting traffic into your world.
Edge 1: You can increase the maximum amount of players in your world. Right now the maximum is 8, but that number might increase in the future so don't hold me to that. All you have to do is pull up your console command board and type in "setmaxplayers 8" The screen will give you feedback if you have successfully done this. This is a huge edge because it literally doubles the amount of people that you can have in your world.
Edge 2: You can set up a message of the day (which to my knowledge stays up more that a day. I think it just stays up until you change it.) In this message you can say a lot of things to potential voters that could seriously effect the way your world comes across. It is important to suggest that a player votes without shoving it down their throats. I have joined worlds who's message of the day was,"Vote for my world in 10 seconds or I'll hack you." That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. That will most likely lose you more votes than it will give you. To set a message of the day, just type in "motd 1 [<- for line one] [Your message here]" then hit enter. And yes, you can write more than one line for the message of the day.
Edge 3: You can send out messages to all the people in your world. All you have to do is type in "send [your message here]" You will be able to see it flash across the screen. Another thing to be careful not to do here is spam your guests with messages saying" plz rate awesome thanks" over and over. That is just annoying. Also don't discourage people from voting by closely stalking them with the banhammer. Again- the ideal place to be is in the corner of your map anyways so that people cannot edit your beautiful world.

How to optimize your servers performance
If you have a big world with a large variety of blocks there is no way around it: you are guests are going to lag (and you might too). But here are some ways you can have the bast, least laggy experience possible. It all starts with your internet speed. If you have a lousy service provider, you are going to have a hard time on the internet. Next you have to know how you have your xbox connected: Is it through a ethernet cord into a modem or router? Is it wirelessly hooked up to a wireless router? All of these things are going to effect your online experience. So basically: go to the store and buy all of the most expensive stuff. Then pay some guy way too much to install it all for you. If you are like me and don't wear jeans lined with gold then you are going to want to find out how to best use what you have to be able to connect to other players with the most success. The best way to do this would be to open up your NAT. If you don't know how to do this, you are gonna want to dig around in your attic until you find the skillfully hidden router box. Pull out the instruction manual and read up. If you burned yours at a tiki disco party rave like i did, go onto the internet and search for your model router and try to find an instruction manual online. If this fails, call the manufacturer and beg them to help you.

After you have your xbox to internet connection optimized, the next thing you want to do is make sure that your world is as easy to load as possible. This means you may have to do a few things. First off: minimize the amount of water you have in your world. Water is notoriously hard to load. Instead use blue canvas blocks whenever you can. I know it sucks, blue canvas isn't real water, but if people are constantly complaining, this may be a necessary transition. If you still insist on using real water, then use as little and make it as shallow as possible.

The next thing you want to do is fill in your custom blocks. When you are first designing them I always suggest that you make them hollow so that you can change it more easily if you don't like it. But once you have the design you want. The game has a much easier time loading filled blocks than hollow ones. Again- I don't know why, i'm not a programmer. If you have any questions. Send a message to somebody, or to somebody who knows somebody else. Hopefully this series of pointless messages to a miscellaneous "somebody" will get you to a better place. But I doubt it.

If you still cannot get your world to load efficiently then decrease the draw distance, water and world detail, and shadows, etc. You can edit this in game. The options are in the visual settings (in the pause menu).


Ok, If you have read this whole thing then i commend you, hopefully it helps you build something amazing and get that amazing something into the community to be experienced by all.

Thanks a lot! (If you have additional questions feel free to PM me on the forum here or on XbL)
I'll see you guys on Fortresscraft!

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