Slices of Hell One and Two

Render times: 23 hours and 30 hours

Have you ever wondered what the Nether would look like if you could cut through it with a knife?

The first shot is set on the core of the map and noticably includes a cut of Nether Central Station near its center. To the right is the nearby Great Oak substation, where you can spy two lines heading in different directions. To the bottom left appears to be a large dirt platform over a lava lake, possibly used to gather glowstone early on. Pockets of quartz are spread all over, along with a few private tunnels that may have been forgotten over time.

The second image has a more spectacular view as it was chosen to intersect through a large cavern. The dramatic glow of lava and glowstone really makes it stand out! Notable elements include part of the race track for Bowser's Castle right on top of the lava, the Centralia Islands rail access reaching up to the Nether ceiling to the right, and someone's private Nether rail station at the top left.

Edited by Dr. Cossack on December 13, 2015 at 10:55:00

A Vampire's Domain?

Render time: 51 hours

DrLemay built a large castle structure on top of several stone spires and mountains far in the wildnerness. The structure makes use of its environment as much as possible and can either look like a fantasy setting (at daytime) or some haunted location (at nighttime).

As a bonus, at Sphenicus' request, here's this render dressed up in Castlevania clothing. Compare it to Castlevania 1's intro screen if the reference is lost on you!

A Welcoming Sign... Or A Warning One?

Render time: 16 hours

AnomalousSparrow (ex-BluSparrow) made this at the entrance of Forks, when coming in from Central. This is part of his ongoing reorganization of the area, which includes new buildings and an expanded town area. There's also a chicken grinder within, if the statue didn't make it obvious enough!

As I like to say in Minecraft, a good chicken is a dead chicken... I especially like how the faraway mountains came out on this one.


One thing to note since I upgraded to Windows 10 is that the renders no longer seem to lock up 100% of my CPU: it seems to cap off at 80% instead. I think I'm going to keep it this way, I feel like it might be better for my computer in the long term.

Edited by Doctacosa on December 6, 2019 at 17:23:42

Unholy Ascension

Render time: 8 hours

This is a what-if type of picture requested by Skreelink: take his Tower of the Gods building, replace all the quartz by obsidian, and see the results! Besides the structure looking much darker, obviously, it still has a nice design. Stone works well mixed with several material types, which helps!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on January 17, 2016 at 23:46:44

An Absurd Travel Distance

Render time: 19 hours

This is it, the record breaker on Laurasia: the Transcontinental. This overland rail stretches from Central to Sanctum, in the far north, and takes 92 minutes to ride nonstop from end to end. Kagato, Skreelink and I worked on this monster to make the initial connection, and while it's rideable, it's far from being finished...

You can spot Oak Hills Station near the beginning, followed by the ever-staring Pedobear and a magical floating hammer head, cut from a Mario pixel art. The rest is simpler as little construction occurred along this line yet. Squint hard enough, and you can even see Sanctum at the very end!

This shot was made to mirror the one I did of the Transoceanic last spring.

Edited by Dr. Cossack on January 27, 2016 at 9:34:36

So you did for the stretch beyond the Mausoleum, sorry about that! I was more thinking in terms of the endpoints, but that's not exactly fair, is it?

I've edited the above!

Under the Dome

Render time: 81 hours

The one location available for TNT Tag as of this writing, the Dome features a no-nonsense approach to the game! A wide open floor has small water canals as the only trap able to slow down players, while a large TNT-themed box is attached to the top to hold the players before each match.

From the sea...

Render time: 26 hours

... to the skies

Render time: 22 hours

Far from most pairs of eyes, and unseen by most, xray has built himself quite the domain over the seas! Edgeport is based on a converted sea village (glitched world generation), heavily modified to give it a new look. Eventually, three majestic floating islands were added nearby, hosting a few houses and a large variety of plants. The entire spot is quite scenic, if you ask me, and well worth the detour!

What's that long, glass column you say? It's merely the funnel of an iron farm located right above both views!

Photo Sphere: Keystone City

Render time: 65 hours

Here's something new! I recently discovered that it's possible to create photo spheres through Chunky: same basic rendering process as before, but instead of creating a flat picture, it produces a full 360° view that you can use to look in any and all directions. The resolution required to get a decent look is much higher, though. This one is 4000 x 2000 pixels, which is four times the size of my standard HD shots. He who says higher resolution also says longer rendering times!

I feel like these type of images will work especially well for large sceneries that can't be enclosed in a single frame, or inside structures where tight locations don't work too well with a standard camera view. Gondwana is a prime example of the former: the crazy landscape looks great when moving around, but since the height varies so much, it's hard to really get its scale from a single shot.

Click the link above if you haven't done so yet, allow it several seconds to load, and enjoy! I'm opened to suggestions of rendering locations that you believe would look great using this new technique, so don't hesitate to submit requests!

Photo Sphere: From Possibility To Reality

Render time: 68 hours

Link liked the idea of having a dark twin of his existing tower so much that he decided to actually build the replica in-game! Between his Tower of the Gods and the Spire of the Fallen, you can see how light and darkness contrast with each other. Of note, a few blocks are different between the Spire's prototype and the final version.

I feel like this is one of the uses of the photo spheres that highlights how big a given building really is. While wide shots show its entire size, close-ups like this one allow you to get an idea of scale, which can make things all the more impressive!

Larger Than Life

Render time: 17 hours

Wind and I are not the only ones with giant statues of ourselves! axe_y built this big display on an island west of Port Townshend. I'm rather fond of the rare inclusion of a horse!


Bonus: Mountain Valley

This is the special world that is currently in use for Nena, the temporary 1.9 server. I unfortunately lost track of the name of the person who designed this place. I like its simple yet impressive looks!

Photo Sphere: Unusual Shapes Remix

Render time: 51 hours

Last year, I tried to capture the sometimes crazyness of Minecraft's default land generation, in Laurasia. While I think that the renders came out nicely, they don't quite bring out the shape of the general area they were taken in. Hopefully, this new attempt works better for you!

Photo Sphere: Expanding Squares

Render time: 102 hours

Posted a day late on purpose due to foolish shenanigans; happy birthday Door!

This was specifically requested by Exo to show the great progress that happened in this area. The focus of the image once again highlights Doorgunnerjgs's growing village, as shown in a previous render. I specifically aimed for a similar look, although with a higher point of view so people could get a good view at the surroundings!

The Dragon And His Forge

Render time: 116 hours

Far down below, in a secluded location, Raegal built the FORGE: a monstrous array of automated smelters, able to process large quantities of items in no time. Some farms take the space in the middle of the large room. Of note, the floor made out of black glass. The void rests below, making for a rather uncomfortable sight if you're afraid of heights!

Attack of the Clones

Render time: 50 hours

Nobody picked up on the fact that Raegal was visible on the previous render? Chunky recently added an option to integrate people in shots, and I even get to assign skins and positions manually if I want to. In that case, he logged off in just the right position, so I didn't need to adjust anything.

Moving on to this actual render, some of you might have seen the few screenshots I posted from MCEdit, showing the last logout position of all players ever. It turns out that Chunky now can do the same, with much prettier results too! What I captured here is Central, right outside the former spawn point, with a FLOOD of players and visitors exploring for just a few moments before logging off, never to return. It makes for quite the crowd, and the inside of the spawn gate is even more packed!

Now, what about the people that you see floating above? Those must have all been using flight mods, and they either logged off in the air or got auto-kicked for flying...

...I'm scared.

Photo Sphere: A Sandy Fortress

Render time: 71 hours

By request, here's an updated look at Racconeel's fortress, located off Port Townshend. While the building itself hasn't changed much, a bridge has been recently added to allow people to travel back and forth without swimming.

Also seen around are some creations of Sphenicus and Anonymous_SoFar, including a rather large pony...!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on May 30, 2016 at 22:07:36