Ragnur Le Barbares

MEGABUILD tutorial

CHAPTER ONE: PREPARATION

Step 1 : what to build ?
So you wish to build a truly huge spaceship? Well, the first step is of course to decide
what you are going to build. Three criteria matter for me: how much I like the ship/the series
it appeared in, how difficult it looks like to build, and how good I think it will look like in
Minecraft. Why?
-

How much I like the ship: of course, trying to build a ship you like will greatly help
to keep you motivated throughout the project: dont forget that it will take
weeks, even months to build, so youll never have the motivation to finish a ship
you dont like!

How difficult: I dont feel like a pro builder, and I know I wont be able to build
some of the more complex structures that can be found; it seems obvious, but
dont try too complex builds for your first time, unless you are very, very
motivated (see previous point).

How good it looks like: Minecraft is by essence a very blocky game (I know,
Captain Obvious strikes again!), but for your spaceship to look good, you will
need to add details, such as pipes, guns, antennas, airlocks, everything that will
differentiate it from a flying brick. Thats why I wont try to build a life-sife TIE
fighter in Minecraft: too small, no room for details, except if it is scaled up. Thats
also why I wont try the Death Star: far too big, the scaling down required will
make every little detail disappear (it would be like building a sphere, the only
details you could add being a trench and a superlaser).

To conclude this part, Ill choose my ship for this tutorial: the Omega Destroyer from the
Babylon 5 universe, which satisfies all my criteria:
- It is one of the flagships of my favorite sci-fi show, so of course I love it!
- Not a lot of curves, so relatively easy to build; I can build more complicated, but
this time I have a deadline to respect, so Ill keep it more simple.
- Enough room for details: big pipes running through the structure, complicated
engines, antennas, etc. (of course, it will depend on the scale of the ship in
Minecraft).

Step 2: reference images

The most important part of the preparation: finding good reference images! The most useful
thing you can find is the kind of picture that shows you the 4 views of the ship (side, top,
front, back). Fortunately, with a quick Google search, I was able to find such a picture for the
Omega Destroyer.

If you cant find this 4-views picture, dont despair! Youll only need a side view, and
every other picture of the ship you can find, under every angle you can find: it will help you
with the proportions, and allow you to extrapolate the top, front and back views of the ship.
From experience (the Scarran Dreadnaught of one of my projects, for which I only had the
silhouette of the side, and a couple of views from a 3d model), its much more difficult to do,
but still possible.

This brings me to a very important point of megabuilds: you are not trying to recreate the
exact same ship, it is an adaptation! So it is not the end of the world if the proportions are a
bit skewed, if you cant add some details or if you have to invent your own. Just as the Game
Of Thrones tv-show cannot be a carbon copy of the books doesnt mean its bad: for your
spaceship, its exactly the same!
Now, even if you have the 4-views picture (if someone in the comments knows the real
English name of this kind of picture, youll get a shout out!), I strongly advise you to find a lot
of other views, preferably in high quality, so you can figure out details, things you missed,
etc
Here are some reference images for the Omega Destroyer for this tutorial, a mix of episodes
screenshots and 3d models realized by fans:
http://www.foundation3d.com/plugins/p13_download_manager/images/697.jpg
http://tonygardner.com/blog/category/w-i-p/omega-class-destroyer/
http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/98/b5tech.jpg
http://www.fernhoo.com/picture/gallery/omega_destroyer.jpg
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/9228209/images/1271430619501.jpg
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/b5/td_OmegaFrontDet.jpg
http://www.gian-cursio.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/001a_shot.jpg

Step 3: scaling down

The goal of this step is to find the dimensions of our ship. For this, I copy-pasted the side
view of the ship on a new paint.net file, selecting the ship from the tip of the top and bottom
antennas. Youll notice that a part of the ship is cut: it is the rotating part, showed in the
other views at an angle of 45. In order to try and respect the deadline for the contest, Ill
make this part horizontal, which also allows me to gain more height for the ship.

Speaking of height, you know that Minecraft is currently limited to 256 blocks. This selection
is 323 pixels high (meaning 323 blocks), therefore we will have to shrink the ship a bit.
256/323 = 0.79, so we shrink the 4-views picture to approximately 79% of its original size,
and ta-daa! We have ourselves a ship that will fit in a Minecraft world!
According to these calculations, the Omega Destroyer will be 256 blocks high, 885 blocks
long and 236 blocks wide. In other words: BIG.
BEWARE: check each view of the ship to ensure that the dimensions are the same, or it will
be a pain in the backside later! For instance, the Front and Back views of my reference
picture are not to scale with the Side and Top views, I had to tweak them.

CHAPTER TWO: LETS BUILD: FIRST STEPS

Step 1: creating the world
Open Minecraft, select singleplayer, and create a new world (Game mode: creative, No
structures, world type: Superflat). Once it is done, walk (or fly) in a straight line for 30s-1min,
in order to create more chunks, which will help us with McEdit.

Now, open McEdit, and load your world.

You can see a lot of unwanted chunks on the left side, delete them for more clarity in your
world. Well also delete all the blocks (grass, bedrock, dirt) present in the world, so the ship
isnt standing on grass.

The world is ready to host the Omega Destroyer, dont forget to save it!

Step 2: first blocks

So, well start with the front section, more specifically the outer armor. I typically build the
outline in 2 dimensions, and then shape it with McEdit. It is very simple: head to your
paint.net ship plans, zoom in on the section of interest, and draw a line that follows the
shape of the hull (1px, antialiasing DEactivated)

Now, select your line, and read its length on the bottom of the screen: 64 blocks, that are
roughly 115 blocks above ground. Next step: build this line in Minecraft (either with McEdit
or ingame)!
Now, do the same for the rest of the outer hull.

(this is a 3d render with Minetographer)

And its done! Now, we need to fill this hollow plane, either by hand in Minecraft, or with
McEdit (I am lazy, so guess what I do!).

Step 3: shaping the armor

Lets add some details: the front view shows us that the part we are building seems to be 2
blocks wide, and the reference pictures show that the 2nd block corresponds to a darker
armor, forming the edge of our the outer hull. Lets build it!

90 angles are far too sharp in my opinion, adding just one block makes them more pleasing
to the eye .

Now, if you look at the front and top views, you can see that this outer shell isnt flat at all.
What we just built is correct in the side view, but needs to be shaped to fit the top/front
view. Once again, its extremely easy!
First, we need to draw the outline of the hull in the front view. Remember the first line, 64
blocks high? It should be the same in the front view, be sure to verify it (red line on the
following picture). Now, we can draw the other lines of the outer hull (yellow), which show
the final shape of this part.

Yes, I know, this is the right side of the ship, and we started to build the left side, but the
ship being symmetrical, this issue is easy to resolve...
To shape the outer hull, well go to McEdit, and select the top part. The goal is then to nudge
your selection, resize it, nudge again, resize again, etc. Keep doing this until your McEdit
structure follows the yellow Paint.net line.

Do the same with the bottom part, and the outer hull of the front section is complete! It
doesnt look like much for now, but the inner hull and the details will improve it a lot.

Step 4: Inner hull

Well start with the docking bay, one of the most recognizable features of the ship. We begin
with the ceiling of this subsection, as you can see on this picture.

A quick look at the front view to determine the height of this ceiling, another quick look at
the HD render to guess its position compared to the edge of the outer hull, and were ready
to build.

Note that I am only building one half of the ship. With the miracle of the Mirror tool, well
save an enormous amount of time to build the other half!
For the floor of the docking subsection, simply clone the ceiling at the appropriate height.

Using the same method, we can build the entrance of the hangar.

Next, some general details on the hangar (again, looking at the reference pictures is
mandatory ). Try to vary the materials used for the best effect! I use stone for the ship, but
a lot of grey variations are available, from clay to cobble to wool.

In the next two pictures, Ive made the wall of the subsection, and detailed it a bit. Ill stop
here for this subsection, and add more details if needed later.

Step 5: the magic of cloning

As I said before, we will clone and mirror the structure to make the other side of the ship.
This is very simple: open McEdit, select the structure, hit clone, then mirror, and put the
clone in the right position, before hitting clone again. Done!

Looks like some kind of weird TIE fighter

As a bonus, I also added the Earth Alliance logo, still with the same method, the one we
will use at almost every step of this tutorial: outlining in paint.net, counting pixels/blocks,
building.

CHAPTER THREE: Front section

Step 1: fine details: an example
Reference images say: 3 more ceilings for this subsection, lets build them! Beware, they are
not of the same length, check with your paint.net top view and other pictures!

As you can see on the next picture, the top subsection isnt symmetrical, so be careful NOT
to include it when you use the mirror tool later. The front view is a bit too blurry to make a
lot of details, in my opinion, so well use another picture to build them.

as opposed to

My advice in general for making details: try to stay close to the picture, but dont hesitate to
deviate if you think it looks better! And dont forget, stone is good, but using other blocks
and other shades of grey is better .
A concrete example with the part circled in blue: if I build exactly what is on the picture, the
result will look a bit dull.

So, its time to get creative! First, Ill smoothe the angles of the top part to get more depth.

Its still a bit strange, so Ill add a column of blocks in front of those pillars.

Much better. Now, the body of this section needs something as well: why not some pipes,
running through the structure?

For the left part, something I love to do: alternating half-slabs!

The bottom looks a bit empty now, some stairs will do wonders! And to finish, I added an
antenna on the right part, and iron bars in the hole: it will look like an open door/airlock.

Now go back and look at the first picture of this section. See how much better it looks with
those details added?

Step 2: front section top levels

Now that I have explained my main construction methods, both for large structures and for
details, Ill go a little faster in the tutorial, focusing on the important points.
Lets start this step by building the rest of the level we built earlier. Just like Ive explained
before, it is a mix of the reference pictures and my own ideas. Youll notice that I added
yellow/black warning lines on the hangar: just a random thought, I gave it a try, and I think it
looks good .

Now, lets build the upper level. Once again, to stress how important details are, and why
you should spend some time to make them, here is a before/after picture (before meaning
just like the reference picture looks like):

Step 3: front section sides

Not a lot to do on the side of the front section: some horizontal bars, the name of the ship,
and one big gun in the middle. Pretty simple, well use our traditional building technique:
outlines on paint.net, counting blocks, building blocks, wash, rinse, repeat.
Trying to find another name for the ship than the ones in the reference pictures
(Agamemnon, Tigerclaw) MINETORIAL! I bet you didnt see THAT coming, did you? Be
careful though, if you mirror the name to the other side, it will appear backwards! Youll
need to rotate the name instead of mirroring it.

Now to the interesting part: the gun. For the base, we need a circle of 13*13 blocks. Its time
to head to http://www.plotz.co.uk/plotz.php. Once there, hit change, then ellipse. You
can now enter 13 in each case, and you just need to build your circle . Lets make it 3
blocks wide.

With the help of Paint.net, we can now trace the outline of the gun, then fill it: excluding the
gun barrels per se, it is a cylindric shape, with a triangular shape attached.

Notice my laziness once again: I build the top half of the gun, then clone/flip it in McEdit.

Now adding the gun barrels. They are also cylindric, so dont hesitate to use Plotz if you have
a doubt. Dont forget to detail: here, there is a dip where the barrel meets the gun mount, a
yellow/black warning line, as well as some protrusions coming from the barrel and the
mount: nothing too difficult. Add some antennas in the back also .

Step 4: mirror fail!

I said at the beginning that the left and right side of the ship are the same. Wrong! The gun is
in this position on the right side, but upside down on the left! To fix this mistake, Ill mirror
the gun to the other side (so well have the gun of the right side in the right position), and
flip the left-side gun so it takes the right position as well.
When clone/flipping in McEdit, dont forget to check the copy air option, so the clone will
completely replace and not merge with the original.

Its done! You should check the stairs (detail of the small gun), because mirroring/flipping
sometimes places them randomly. If needed, rebuild them in the right position.

Step 5: bottom levels

It should be routine by now: look at the reference pictures, look at the front view, build the
floor of the level, build a black wall behind.

Add details. First, three cylinders topped by a half-sphere (with the help from Plotz once
again).

And then boxes, pipes, antennas, holes, and all of the fun stuff Ive shown on the previous
steps! Try keeping the same architectural style, so your ship appears coherent.

The second-to-last level is easy, just an application of what weve learned so far.

.The last level, according to my reference pictures, is hollow, and composed of various
antennas and boxes.

Now building the big antenna:

Then the details behind:

And were done! The front section of the ship is complete, but notice that I havent done
anything on the top or on the back of this section. Ill complete it once the central section is
underway.

CHAPTER FOUR: Central section.

Step 1: laying the foundations
The central section of the ship looks square-shaped, but a look at the reference pictures
shows us a lot of details and tweaks in this shape. Therefore, well start simple, by building
the cylinder that separates the central section from the rotating part. At its largest, it has an
81 blocks diameter (red line). At its edges, the diameter shrinks to 79 (yellow lines), then 7775 (green lines), 73-71 (blue), and 69 (purple).

Just as youve learnt during this tutorial, the goal is to use Plotz to build the circles, then
McEdit to adjust the position of the cylinder. Well add details later.

Careful looks at the reference pictures show that the central section is composed of a
superstructure, vaguely square-shaped, inside which there is a mass of pipes, boxes and
guns. So, the first thing to do is to build the superstructure. The side and top views are a
little too blurry for my taste, so I had to extrapolate a bit using our other reference pictures.

Once the basic shape is done, I just follow it to complete the side superstructure.

Notice that I havent built it until the front section; the transition between the two sections
will be dealt with later.

Heres the top:

Just add some smoothing for a better effect:

Now, clone/flip the top to the bottom, and clone/mirror the whole section to build the other
side.

Step 2: link with the front section top level -

This is the only reference picture I have that shows (not so clearly) whats going on in this
part, so expect a lot of improvisation!
First, clone the other end of the section so its close to the front one.

Then, a new ceiling in the back of the front section.

Now, black walls. Black walls are good, because we can use them to build details with a color
contrast, and because we dont need to build anything behind them. As you know, Im lazy,
and therefore aiming for the best possible effect with the least amount of time.

Heres the top part of a tower, with some details.

The bottom of the tower. You can see that the tower will be slightly more inclined than the
ref picture, but hey, adaptation, not literal translation!

For a little bit of variety, I used nether brick instead of black/grey wool.

A situation that can arise during these megabuilds is that you just dont like what you just
built. For instance, I am not particularly fond of this tower: the shape is correct, but
something is amiss. If its late in the evening, dont hesitate to leave the project, and maybe
tomorrow youll get a better idea for your problematic part!

And I finally found the solution in the morning: the tower was too light in my opinion, so I
darkened it a bit by replacing the nether brick with black wool, and the stone slabs with
cobblestone slabs. It looks better now, so lets clone/mirror it to the other side.

Now, what remains to be done is a couple of antennas on the top of the ship, and details
between the towers. Written, it doesnt look like a lot, but it still took me three hours to
build

Step 3: link with the front section: bottom level

So, for now, we have this.

And we want something like this.

So, lets get to work!

Boxes! Pipes! Spheres! Guns! A couple of hours! Boom.

Well, the screenshots a bit ugly, but its the downside of building in the shade

Step 4: Side and top details

Lets flesh out the central section! The first thing to see is a thick horizontal bar, starting
from the front section.

Next are some red circles, either missile silos of fighter launching bays.

Next step: a ceiling, and our usual mass of pipes, boxes, antennas, guns: fun stuff, I say!

Heres for the side. According to the ref pictures, theres not a lot of details on the top of this
section, so Ill improvise a bit, to try and keep the same level of details throughout the whole
ship.

And finally, the guns and details of the rear cylinder.

CHAPTER 5 : back section

Step 1: cloning around.
You cant miss the rotating section of the ship, but I wont build it yet, for a couple of
reasons. Firstly, the back section is almost identical to the central section I just built, so it
seems logical to me to build it right after the first. Secondly, I said at the beginning that Id
build the rotating section horizontally, and not at a 45 angle like almost every reference
picture. However, if enough time is left in the contest, I might still build it properly;
therefore, Ill build the rest of the ship, and see how much time I have left for this rotating
part, before deciding how Ill build it.
That being said, lets start on the back section (this is the one between the rotating section
and the engines). As I said, it is very similar to the central section, but longer. We have the
same superstructure, the same horizontal bar, the same red cylinders at the center, the
same details on the top, but the side details look different.
So, the first steps are easy: clone/mirror the cylinder (and the beginning of the
superstructure) at the end of the central section, and place it *looks at paint.net* 147 blocks
away.

Now, strip the superstructure of its details, take a slice of it, and clone it an appropriate
amount of times. Dont forget to close the superstructure by clone/mirroring the beginning!
And dont forget to also cut the horizontal bar, as it doesnt cover the whole section. The
ceilings can stay.

The ships looks a bit miserable, cut in two without its rotating section, so Ill just build a
cylinder to link the front/central and back sections.

Step 2: detailing (alt.title: I have already seen

this)
Ref pictures show that the red cylinders in the middle are the same between the central and
back sections, so guess what I do (hint: it starts with c, and ends with lone).

For the other details, its the usual, so Ill just post some screenshots instead of providing the
exact same description than in the previous chapter.

Dont forget: when you clone/flip or mirror, double check the stairs!

Step 3: Engines superstructure

Creating the engine section will be a little more complicated: the basic shape is an irregular
octagon, but its size increases throughout the section; therefore, well have to build in 3
dimensions, yaaaay!
Lets start simple: basic shape.

Now, the sloped line of the octagon can be built easily: use McEdit to work out the
dimensions, select an appropriate rectangle in paint.net, and draw the line!

We will now build this line: it is 3d, so I usually do it in two steps.

First, the horizontal part: just like before, take the dimensions in McEdit, transfer them to
paint.net, build the line. Here, we have a line of 74x6: Not very complicated .

Now, all that remains is to create the vertical slope. With our McEdit measurements, we
know that it is a 74x24 line. Once drawn in paint.net, well use the same process as in
chapter 2, step 3: select the line in McEdit, nudge, shrink the selection, nudge again, and so
on. Follow the line you just drew in paint.net, and youre done!

Do the same with the other line:

Now, its easy to fill the side and top of the structure:

Step 4: Engines superstructure -part 2

Heres the complicated part: building the diagonal, which of course, isnt regular. Once
again, I use a method based on paint.net; I dont think it is the best method, particularly
regarding smoothing, but its the only one I know (yet), so lets go!
The goal is to draw the largest line (which we have already built in Minecraft) in paint.net
(red line on the next screenshot), and the edges of the rest of the structure (black dots on
the next screenshot).

Now, you can see that if we want to build the next row of blocks, we cant build the same
line, because the left edge isnt at the same level! Therefore, we have to draw a new line in
paint.net, respecting the change in position of the edges. This is the yellow line on the next
screenshot.

I find it a bit difficult to explain, so I hope it is understandable for everyone. Lets build the
next row, for another example. This time, the left edge hasnt moved, it is still in the position

corresponding to the yellow line. However, the right edge has moved, and is now 1 block
down and 1 block left compared to its original position.

Therefore, we can draw our new paint.net line (green), and build it. Dont worry about the
holes in the structure, well fill them later.

Using the same method (and hoping you have understood the principle), I can now build the
rest of the structure.

I hate this kind of building; its so slow, and you cant clone anything! But finally, after a
couple of hours, the structure is complete! Now, just fill the holes by placing a block in front
of them, and youre done. Of course, clone/mirror and clone/flip it to build the rest!
Now that the basic (but overly long and complicated to build) shape is done, lets finish the
superstructure and add details. Believe me, when youve struggled for hours trying to build
those 3d slopes, building normally is so much more pleasant . If youve read this tutorial
since the beginning, you already know how to create the details. If not, GO READ IT!!! ;-).

Step 5: thrusters
The thrusters are basically big cylinders with decreasing diameters, so Ill build them with the
method shown in chapter 4, step 1: a cylinder of diameter X for Y rows, then a cylinder of
diameter X2 for Z rows, and so on. Plotz is our friend! Note: Im building outside of the ship
so you can see the details.

Adding the details isnt very hard if youve managed to build such a massive project.

Now, place the thruster at the appropriate position, and clone/mirror/flip it until you have
the 4.

It looks good, doesnt it?

Oh, and dont forget to build the inside of the thrusters ;-)

And finally, some details will end our engines section!

CHAPTER SIX: rotating section

Step 1: I lied!
I said at the beginning of the tutorial that I would build the rotating part horizontally, to save
time before the deadline of the contest. Well, surprise, I have several days left! Therefore, Ill
try and build my rotating section at the 45 angle shown in every reference picture!
So! Smells like the end, doesnt it? For those who have had the patience of reading this
tutorial, thanks a lot . Now, for this last chapter, I dont think I have anything more to
teach you: you know how I work, both for superstructures and details, and from now, its
only up to your imagination and reference pictures!
Anyway, lets build! First, like always, our superstructures, starting with the structural
beams, and filling them to build the section. This time, you will need to roll the structure
after flipping/mirroring it in McEdit, in order to preserve the symmetry.

Dont forget to build the central structure as well, the dark grey cylinder shouldnt be visible.

Step 2: details
This section is based on repeated structures, so the details are easy to build and clone.
However, you MUST be careful when you flip/rotate the section, because in these sloped
builds, its very easy to miss your target by just one block, which screws up the entire
structure. I had this problem thrice while building for the next screenshot. Maybe Im just
dumb :-P.

When youre near the end of the project, the temptation to hurry up is huge, and the quality
of your build can suffer a lot from it. So, try and keep a little patience when you build the last
details (but I admit that I often go too fast as well).

Aaaaaand thats it! In just six easy chapters (though a bit long), weve gone from this:

To this!

And for the final step, just head to McEdit, and remove the grass/bedrock of the new chunks
created during the construction.

Conclusion:
Well, that certainly was a long tutorial! I estimate the amount of work needed to build this
ship at about 30+ hours, but youll need a lot more if youre not experimented. Dont lose
faith though, you can do it!
Anyway, I hope youve enjoyed reading this tutorial (and that I was understandable enough).
Now for the mandatory part of any PMC blog, Id love to qualify for the finals of the contest,
so please feel free to diamond and favorite this tutorial, but ONLY if you think it deserves it.
To do this, just head to http://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/megabuild-tutorial-how-tobuild-a-massive-spaceship-1-complete/
And as always, constructive criticism and feedback is most appreciated! If you manage to
build your own spaceship thanks to this tutorial, please send me the link .

Ragnur le Barbare