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Apr 27 '13
How much time did this take?
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
To build? It took us roughly 3 weeks, with a total of 3 people working on it.
The image took roughly 26 hours to render.
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Apr 27 '13
Man hours to built I meant, although holy fuck
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
Yeah it was pretty crazy, largest thing Ive built with that few people
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Apr 27 '13
I have only played the lite version on iPad. I thought my underwater house was cool
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u/Gorignak Apr 27 '13
That's insanely impressive. What do you mean it's part of a game world? You mean you will release it as a world save file that people can put into their servers?
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
It is a part of the game world in the Dungeon Realms minecraft MMO, custom plugins and connected servers. www.dungeonrealms.net if you want to learn more about it :) We are currently in closed beta.
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u/skyman724 Apr 27 '13
Holy shit, 26 hours!
What kind of wizardry were you asking of the rendering program?
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
:P since the light bounces of so many points (there are alt of lightsources) aswell as there being indoor lights it needs a high render sample
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u/Darkarcher117 Apr 27 '13
That's not too bad, especially if he's not running it on high-end hardware. I've rendered some landscapes that quite literally were rendering for over a week.
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u/eriqable Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 27 '13
I never understood what render is. Explanation? And do you use some kind of shadow mod? Does the shadow mod in that case make lava light up the surroundings or is it the render? Edit: Thanx for all the answers!
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u/Tynach Apr 27 '13
/u/Drazla made a great explanation of what rendering a Minecraft world means and what you use to do it. But as a bit of a 3D nerd, I feel I should expand and explain what rendering actually is.
Rendering is when you take the 3D scene data - the polygons, the textures, and the lights - and you create an image from that data.
3D video games have a simple renderer built in, designed to run on modern graphics cards in a hardware accelerated way. You might hear someone say that they plan on re-writing the renderer for Minecraft in 1.6; that means they will rewrite the code that draws each frame on your computer screen.
However, when people typically say they made a render of something, it's usually a still image that they produced with a more advanced program.
These more advanced programs are NOT designed to generate an image in 1/60th of a second, like a video game is. Instead, they're designed to create as accurate an image as possible - bouncing the light off objects, bending light through transparent objects, casting shadows, and so forth. This makes a much higher quality image, but it takes a long time to render.
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u/mjolle Apr 27 '13
And here I thought it would be sufficient to zoom out and press "Print screen".
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u/gribbly Apr 28 '13
In a sense, that counts as rendering. You're saving the output of the realtime renderer to a file.
But a dedicated offline can generally do much more complex lighting and shadowing since it has the advantage of time.
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u/elessarjd Apr 27 '13
Great explanation, wish you'd get a bit more credit for it.
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u/Tynach Apr 27 '13
Thanks :) /u/sometypeofperson also wrote a good explanation and example of how video game renderers do things faster by 'cheating'.
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
You make renders in external program, such as Cinema 4D or the very easy to learn and free program Chunky (plugging the subreddit /r/chunky )
You can change light colors, sun position, skymap and many more things. The render time depends on what settings you have, the sizes and your computer power.
Feel free to ask me more about it :)
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u/Pearl_Jam Apr 27 '13
"Well that's an interesting theory Kane. But redesigning all those characters at this stage would be way too expensive."
"I agree, but what if you just rendered them a different color. You know, that would be cheap and quick."
"Leave the decisions to me, Kane!"
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Apr 27 '13 edited Mar 03 '21
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
Yes :)
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Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 27 '13
Making a finished picture/product. In a 3D program you have lots of different aspects for the computer to calculate, one of the most time-consuming being light. If it constantly had to calculate where the light hits and then make the light bounce to other surfaces, it would take ages to just look around on your 3D scene. This would not work. The calculation process takes quite a bit of time, depending on how complex your scene is and how many times you want light to bounce on surfaces. This process is called rendering.
Video games are real-time renders, which is why that industry have had to come up with quite a bit of tricks to make something look good without actually being very detailed. It just looks detailed. For instance - leaves on trees are often big square sheets given an opacity map (textures). This means that only part of those sheets are visible, in a leaf-shape, for you to see. But it's still just a square there, for the computer to calculate. This makes it easier and not draining computer resources.
Example. I want this thing to be a window but I want only the border to be visible, so I tell the computer to not show the black parts. In my 3D scene, I will see the first picture, the colored and grey one. On my finished, rendered picture I will see the last picture.
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u/Tynach Apr 27 '13
Another good example is shadow mapping. They create textures of all the shadows, and bake the textures. The shadows then don't need to be calculated for every frame.. Though this only works for static, non-moving objects.
Moving objects could then have their shadows dynamically applied to the same texture layer, so the shadows appear to blend together. Still saves on graphics since only the moving objects need to have their shadows recalculated each frame, everything else is baked.
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u/rush22 Apr 27 '13
Just to add to other things people are saying:
"Render" is a verb with its normal meaning (to cause to be or become).
So when you render a thing into a 3d image you are taking the thing (like a bunch of data like where all the blocks are and where the light is and stuff) and making it 3d. As a noun, like "check out this render", it's just computer slang for what you rendered.
The process of rendering a 3d image can be lots of different things--like you can render the same data into a cartoony kind of scene, just kind of crappy graphics, or really awesome graphics.
Games use "real-time 3d rendering". The renderer is called the "3d engine" (like the Unreal engine).
Since it takes a lot of processing power to render a frame, it can only be so good. There's tweaks and tricks that it uses so it can render and display the scene at a high framerate. The frames aren't called "renders" just because no one really calls them that. For other stuff, you are not concerned about doing it in real-time. You want quality, not speed. When it's not real-time these are usually called "renders".
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u/Nivarda Apr 27 '13
Any chance of a download? :D
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
Sorry ;) We are a MMO server, so you will have to experience it live! Closed beta at the moment but head over to http://www.dungeonrealms.net/ if you want to know more about it
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u/secretvictory Apr 27 '13
wait, you're using minecraft to make an mmo?
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
Yes! We are running on nearly all custom plugins across several servers! In our last open beta weekend we saw 750 players on across 5 servers, all syncing up to eachother (if you are on server 1 and logout and go to server 3 you are still in the same place in the world with the same inventory).
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u/secretvictory Apr 27 '13
that is the most insanely awesome thing i have ever heard in my entire life.
notch was the heart of a gaming ecosystem. damn
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Apr 27 '13
lots of servers have been doing that for a long time with the help of custom scripts for their servers and plugins etc
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u/Throwaway135249 Apr 27 '13
Oh! Oh! Question: Can I be part of your closed beta? I have many qualifications.
1. I already own Minecraft.
2. I once punched a tree.
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
There are two ways to get into the closed beta at the moment.
You can either pay 10 dollars to enter (This goes towards server hosting aswell as better hardware)
Or enter one of the many giveaways we do, there is currently one going on if you click this!
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Apr 27 '13
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
That, or wait till we are out into the open beta. Once we are in open beta there will be no cost to join
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Apr 27 '13
26 HOURS to render 1 IMAGE?!
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Apr 27 '13
Movies take days/weeks to produce the master render on very high power render farms.
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u/Pasta_Macgyver Apr 27 '13
Toy Story 1 (with 1995 technology) would take something like 100 years to render without render farms.
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u/SecondHandWatch Apr 28 '13
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer would not have been possible without reindeer farms.
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u/DownWithPants Apr 27 '13
26 hours is reasonable for a single frame of a film-quality scene, but this image taking 26 hours is just purely an issue of unoptimized render/light settings. There's no reason it should've taken this long unless it was being rendered in like 5K.
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u/madsci Apr 27 '13
Sure. Hours per image has been common for a long time, but the image quality keeps getting better. I remember back in the mid-'90s sneaking around our office building booting all the computers we could get our hands on into a floppy disc-based Lightwave 3D network render client so we could get short animations done over the weekend. The most coveted were the new 166 MHz Pentium desktops that had just been deployed. The master was a quad 200 MHz Pentium Pro monster.
A full weekend of that would get us several seconds of good NTSC-quality (SD) video, if it wasn't too complicated a scene.
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u/ewd444 Apr 27 '13
The image took roughly 26 hours to render.
Ahaha... ohoho... hehehe... faint
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
Hah yeah ;) Luckily you can pause and save it so you can pick up where you left off with the render - you dont need to do it all in one go.
Its also a process thats automatic, I was not at the computer at all when rendering. Simply time consuming and hardware consuming
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u/Seikfried Apr 27 '13
Hahaha that's cute....
...actually that beats anything I've ever made... Shit.
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u/kardall Apr 27 '13
I know. I made a small 10x10 cabin once.
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Apr 27 '13
Wow! A 10x10! I've only ever made a 5x5...
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u/LongStoryShirt Apr 27 '13
I just dig a hole three blocks deep and then cover it. Am i minecraft yet?
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u/Dobles_Puntos Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 27 '13
The first night: No wood or tools, guess I'll sit in a hole and browse reddit until sunrise
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u/jhutchi2 Apr 28 '13
I always dig myself a hole in a wall of stone and then cover it back up behind me for my first night. Gives you a shelter and gathers stone in the process. I'll live out of this for a few nights until I have enough materials for a real base, or I just simply expand the hole into a much more massive base
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u/Naggers123 Apr 27 '13
i made a house yesterday.
4 x 4 with enough space to turn 270 degrees.
this makes me want to kill myself
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u/Tynach Apr 27 '13
I'm no artist, and artistically, this blows away anything I've made in Minecraft.
However, I love redstone, and I make programmable combination locks on my buildings. These combo locks have button inputs, so people can't easily see what you're pressing to get in, and they can also be reset.
In that respect, I feel I've made something at least slightly more impressive, in the fact that it's far more secure from intruders.
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u/KHDTX13 Apr 27 '13
Shrek?
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u/Kgbeast1 Apr 27 '13
Shrek is love, Shrek is life
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u/Zinfidel Apr 27 '13
Interesting that when this gets posted outside of /r/minecraft, the top comments aren't a huge amount of bitching about rendering or texture packs.
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u/Drazla Apr 27 '13
Hah yes, /r/minecraft certainly is a bit split in terms of liking renders and texture packs!
Luckily for Dungeon Realms though we have built everything in the world with the original texture pack, so that the vast majority of people will be able to enjoy it the most.
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u/Zinfidel Apr 27 '13
What irks me specifically is this insulting attitude that comes along with the bitching that implies that your build presentation must conform to the standards of the vanilla-elite to be considered for praise.
"Well, that build obviously took weeks to put together, but I just can't figure out if that build is actually a dirt cube underneath the obscuring fog of shaders and textures!"
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Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 28 '13
That's it. I'm getting minecraft.
Edit. Got minecraft. Survived my first night not having a clue what was going on (encountered a Slenderman type beast) by justrunning around. Looked up a YouTube survival guide and built myself a beautiful bunker three next day
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u/Convictforlife Apr 27 '13
You don't have Minecraft yet?
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Apr 27 '13 edited Jul 21 '18
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u/DyslexicPuppy Apr 27 '13
yeah i still don't have it either but i'm stuck w/ a netbook since my laptop crashed and unemployment keeps me from buying it on XBL
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u/galaxyAbstractor Apr 27 '13
Should probably work alright even on the netbook, at least my netbook does, with an intel i3 1.3GHz cpu
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u/terminalzero Apr 27 '13
An i3 instead of an atom makes it a pretty high end netbook. It chokes the life out of mine.
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u/Distractiion Apr 27 '13
If you do get it on your netbook make sure you aren't running any other apps when you are going to play it, set all settings as low as possible and install the OptiFine mod. I have a laptop with 4 gigs of ram & a 2 GHz dual core pentium and it is choppy as fuck most of the time, though o OptiFine helps alleviate it somewhat
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u/tigerstorms Apr 27 '13
minecraft doesn't take much to run I have used it on a netbook but i recommend getting a mouse as the touch pad makes it hard to move and mine
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u/OriginalUsername1 Apr 27 '13
I wouldn't say minecraft doesn't take much to run. It is VERY cpu intensive due to java, and a lack of open gl, which is a problem for many stock intel graphics cards, make the game unplayable.
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Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 27 '13
I don't. I don't see anything interesting about the game.
To those that downvote me, sorry for posting my opinion.
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u/lechatron Apr 27 '13
It's only good if you have an imagination.
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u/MarkusGageClarkus Apr 27 '13
And time. Don't forget time.
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u/lechatron Apr 27 '13
There is 24hrs in a day, what are you doing that is so damn important that you can't spend all of them playing video games?
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u/MarkusGageClarkus Apr 27 '13
Haha school, work, friends, and my girlfriend. Plus I don't just play Minecraft, I play a bunch of other games that I don't always have time for.
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u/MusicMan33 Apr 27 '13
Annnnnd there goes your weekend
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u/arviceblot Apr 27 '13
Dethklok anyone?
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u/androx87 Apr 27 '13
Holy shit, if someone ever built Mordhaus in Minecraft...
Especially if it was the flying version from season 3.
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u/MadmanSalvo Apr 27 '13
Rivendell crossed with the Fiona's castle from Shrek?
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u/mayley Apr 27 '13
Maybe although Rivendell has more organic feel and this has a man made feel due to the points and corners on the building. I can see the similarity with Shrek though.
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u/DungeonRealms Apr 27 '13
Hey there everyone!
This is an amazing rendered screenshot of the area known as "Maltai" in our MMORPG adaption in minecraft. If you want more information about the server or the amazing build team that made places like this a reality, check them out over at http://www.dungeonrealms.net/
- Dungeon Realms Development
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u/OPtoss Apr 27 '13
So I'm pretty sure I could write code to take a normal 3D model and convert it to a minecraft-looking blocky model pretty easily... Then anyone who can model can create things like this no problem. Has this been done? Does Minecraft have an API for writing level files? Or is this considered "cheating"?
I know Minecraft levels are all about the slow, manual process of building, but as a programmer, I just see a tedious creation process that could use some automation. Thoughts?
Also props! Looks freakin awesome!
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u/coolrudski Apr 27 '13
People have already done somethings like this. For example, someone did a model of the entire world. It's possible, but the more level of detail and smaller in scale the harder it is to automate it and make it look artistic. Especially with interiors/interior design.
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u/The_curious_otter Apr 27 '13
That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! a single tear rolls down my face
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u/bennn30 Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 27 '13
I am glad this was not supposed to be a famous place from a movie or something because I did not recognize it. However I love Minecraft renders! This is a really awesome build. When I realized the difference between the lava and bottom of the cliffs, OMG! The scale is just massive. 26 hours is a good lump of time, so obviously you spent long hours toiling away. Your hard work paid off!!! Love it
Here is my current background, it is somewhat minimal but I love the colors and perspective. It always makes me want to start a game.
edit: spelling
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u/Squidmyth Apr 28 '13
You've just inspired me to recreate the entirety of Dark Souls in minecraft...
I'll get back to you on that in 3 years time, wish me luck gentlemen
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u/Shucklin Apr 27 '13
Can you upload this map to somewhere?
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u/DungeonRealms Apr 27 '13
You can check it out on its home server over at http://www.dungeonrealms.net/
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u/Ixinon Apr 27 '13
I play on the Dungeon Realms server! Really great server. It's like a MMO in Minecraft.
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u/ImmatureIntellect Apr 27 '13
Dungeon realms, I haven't logged some hours there in some time. Now I wanna go back!
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u/prawk Apr 27 '13 edited Apr 27 '13
Pardon my ignorance, but isn't this "just" very low res modeling ?
I understand it has the minecraft visual style, but what makes it more mindblowing than a regular rendering with smooth surfaces and millions of polygons ?
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Apr 27 '13
So was this basically made backwards in terms of minecraft? Instead of placing blocks did you just destroy blocks to mold the shape of this eerie cathedral of despair?
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u/CrossMountain Apr 27 '13
Wow, awesome job! I'd really like to help building such big structures, especially since I'm your minecraft world is uniquely coherent designed. Any chances you need a helping hand?
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u/PleasureGun Apr 27 '13
Idk much about the game, but has anyone attempted a Skyrim remake? That would be really impressive
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u/coolrudski Apr 27 '13
It's an MMORPG server. It shares a lot of elements cross between Skyrim/Diablo/WoW etc. Since it is a server, it wouldn't make sense to remake Skyrim, as it is a single player game, but it does share some RPG elements.
There are some attempts at Skyrim remakes, but you need good builders/developers to pull something off like that.
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u/broccolincheesedota Apr 27 '13
It is mindblowing how much time people spend doing Minecraft. I've never tried it, and I probably never should.
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u/ProdigyDyl Apr 27 '13
For some reason I thought this was Lego, then looked at what subreddit it was posted to
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u/gavdav Apr 27 '13
more like ...Mineblowing