This is a simple list of public links to things related to Vokselia, our little Minecraft world. The quick URL for this page is http://bit.ly/vokselia, or, hey, http://vokselia.com.
Nerdy details: it's our private SMP server, begun on September 24, 2010. We're a bunch of computer graphics geeks and friends, currently population is about 13, with about 7 of us pretty addicted. For awhile we had monsters turn on during Fridays (with creepers and ghasts off), but for the most part ours is a peaceful world.
We've used fairly few "cheats" throughout our history. A few players have gifted themselves various blocks on occasion: pmin loves building railways, so he tends to give himself iron and gold; fusty and Morgan did a lot of excavation, so tried out TNT (which for the most part was a break-even vs. simply digging out the blocks). When the rules changed and diamond picks then wore out, gerloh gifted himself some for his massive excavation efforts at The Sphere. A few of us have gifted ourselves a few balls of slime so we can make sticky pistons. We created a stack of bones for the Shrine of the Unicorn. I would say about 99% of what you'll see in our world was mined, harvested, and created by hand. Exception: the Wild West area, where anything goes and god commands are permitted.
A snapshot of our world as of December 2, 2011. It's big: around 506 MB. Unpack to C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\saves, then look for it in the single-player world list. See the readme.txt and PDFs included in the download for tour information. (Note: in this particular save it starts out rainy; in a minute the sun will set, just use the bed to get to a clear dawn.) We also recommend Eihort as a wonderful tool in quickly moving around the map, if you don't feel like walking around.
Isometric world map for October 22, 2011, made with Tectonicus. You can't zoom in all the way because I didn't upload the gigs of images at the bottom of the pyramid.
Older Google Map style world map. This one's ancient, but it's a different view and shows a night view, heightfield view, and signs, which usually indicate points of interest.
Yes, our world was once known as "Voxelia", but that's a name of a company, so now we're Vokselia. There's no way you could confuse the two, but just in case: if you want to look at Minecraft stuff, you're in the right place; if you want a French company specializing in 3D real time that designs and realizes solutions in the field of infrastructure management, urban planning, prototyping, and transportation, go see them.
Here's a rough categorization of our videos to date (well, through March 24, 2012). Some videos may be linked two or more times, as they fit into more than one category. Newer stuff is listed first, except for the Summaries videos.
Building Ideas/Technology
Simple (or not so simple) ideas that anyone can implement or learn. "Defunct" means just that, it no longer works under the current game code. Remember that you can download our world to look at most of the inventions.
Bed Lights - a little trick I found on reddit that lets us once again have indirect lighting.
Inchworm Train - an automatic piston-driven train-like thing, quite amazing and wonderfully useless.
Lighting Experiment - a bit subtle, so I'll tip you off: how well is the scene illuminated by flaming pigs from a spawner? Watch the pigs hit. Now watch it again (I kinda forgot there was already a video like this).
Limited Lighting - a little trick to give spooky lighting for steps.
Pork Rain - pigs die, though the video is mostly about getting grass to grow in distant places.
Elevators - there's fusty's old hatch elevator, where you had to also jump in place to go up. The movivator moves you vertically and horizontally, but was a bit glitchy; also see the fascinating inchworm device, which can move independently of its surroundings. CrazyCake's elevator is more traditional, and includes call buttons at top and bottom.
Two Switches - two new types of switches (at least, new to us). The Halloween tour shows a variant of the second type in action.
Pain and Slowness - what block locations cause you to get hurt or slow down when you're in a minecart.
The Lost Empire Line - a great old-time fake booster system, followed by amazing lava fountains (described here). Needs way more views.
Cyclotrons - a water-timer cyclotron lets you use only four powered tracks and minimal redstone to boost your minecart up 70 altitude or more, or a very long distance. You can even share the four track among two entirely separate launchers. See the second half of this tour to see cyclotrons in action.
Steps with Gaps - you can make a perfectly safe (or a bit unsafe) series of steps with gaps, using well-placed ladders.
Lava and Fenceposts - Lava resting on a fencepost will not destroy it; you can get a nice outside heated patio this way.
Fish Boost - you can boost minecarts with a fishing rod (does this still work?).
Portal Transport System - expensive and inefficient, a system made for large institutions that like to waste resources. But, unique.
Musical Minecarts - the original idea was Musical Minecarts, a now-defunct technology. Before there were detector rails, you could send signals by powering carts across plates using boosters. The modern version is simply using detector rails to play music, in this case the Crab Canon. However, lag (and to a lesser extent, the sloped tracks) cause timing problems - a slower tune would work better.
Almost Automated Sheep Shearing Facility - defunct, as carts no longer float through water. Sad, because this thing was great: sorted out sheep and cows from other animals, collected them in carts, and brought them to you for shearing. If Notch had let dispensers' eggs shear sheep (eggs thrown by players do), it would have been fully automated.
Cylon Eye Device - a strange creation that passes signals back and forth.
Egg Farm - defunct, mainly because carts no longer get pushed by water (why, Notch, why?!).
Farm Train - best idea ever, a little train powered by coal that lets the animals see the sights. First video is the best, second is from another view, and there's also a screen-saver version. Finally, there's the crazed animal version, back when carts would freak out when they touched.
What does Lava Destroy? - I'd trust the information on what lava flows through and knocks off the ground, but I can't swear to the "what doesn't burn" data; that info changes over time, and ignition sometimes takes awhile.
Making Glow Boxes - defunct, it was a sad day when stair steps were made opaque, as the lighting effects achievable were beautiful. The latter half of the video does have a worthwhile tip on safely digging upwards.
Perturbed Scientist Lair tour - crazed machines, along with various decorating ideas: part 1 and part 2.
Water Walls - it turns out to be tricky to build a self-supporting wall of water just one block wide. Videos show the basic idea, and give a longer tutorial.
TNT Experiment - some quick tests to show the power of TNT under various circumstances.
Making a Lava Lamp - sadly, not one with floating blobs, but the video shows the basics of how lava pours.
CrazyHome Tour - just a brief peek at his house while he was gone.
Eiffel Tower (L'Effie) Tour - a tour of Sarconix's wonderful construction, and one of our most popular video topics. There is a modern, short version of the tour here. The full tour is in three parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3. More information here.
Great Lava Pool Funatorium - Eric kept clearing and digging and finding more and more pools of lava. Here's a tour, running along the outer edge for a very long time.
CrazyCake's Lock - for redstone experts, a tour of CrazyCake's door lock system: part 1 and part 2.
I made a bunch of these odd little two-second glimpses of Minecraft play on our world over some span of time. They're an acquired taste, like monkey brains.
First Month - October 2010, there's also a long narrated version. I'm astounded by how much we did in just a month: Jet Set Willy, L'Effie, Sentinel Castle, the Dome, Art Park, Teapot, Compass Tower, Parthecube, Fire & Ice and Mother Arbol, Big Dig, and the Guardian, just to name the big ones.
Second Month - November 2010, also with annotations describing what you're seeing. Highlights include Burning Man, CrazyCake's lock, Heaven's Teardrop, more Art Park, Vox Arbolis (giant tree), Dome ride, Hollow Mountain, The Hopper, world's tallest waterfall, Blinky, Nature Preserve, Loderunner, Deep Woods, and the Southern Fortress.
Third Month - December 2010. Includes X the Unknown, finished Teardrop, Waterfall Vale, Tree Farm, Lost Empire, Hollywool, Spawn Station, pmin square cactus farm, Loderunner games, Dome's a Sphere, Anatomy of a Mountain railway and many other rails (minecarts work now). Plus, capes!
Fourth Month - January 2011. Snowball fight, the Sphere nears completion, art galleries (pictures now work in SMP), X the Unknown projects (including teleporter), and Ghoom Station Loop. Plus, cake and squids.
Part Five: Fifth and Sixth Months - February and March 2011. Pmin's rails (a lot of these), logs burn away forever, Sphere rail tour, lava table, arch bridge, X the Unknown rails, Community Station, Chicken Harvester, April Fool's chest, water ride. Plus, egg fight!
Part Six: Seventh Month - April 2011. UBWOF drop, Borromean Rings, Community Station, Jet Set Willy test ride, Cactus, Sheep Shearing Factory, Arch Bridge, start of The Maze, HiLo stations, Crab Canon, New Spawn Manor, the Unicorn Shrine, and Eihort zoom. Plus, wolves, repeaters, weather, and cookies.
