I was asked and volunteered to review an eBook from Packt Publishing titled, “Instant Minecraft Designs How To” by Mephisto Waltz.
First, I want to start off by saying that I have always considered myself a survivalist when it comes to Minecraft, rather than a builder, but I have always been fascinated and wanted to learn how people come up with great designs. Second, I just started joining multiplayer servers the first of this year and have always wondered how the admins use plugins to create these marvelous structures.
So on that preface here we go …
Okay, I am struggling with the review right now after spending nearly all day this past Saturday trying to get everything installed, started, and going. I really want to give a good review, but right now I need a little more assistance than just what the eBook has provided.
Here are a couple of issues I found.
1. When following the video to install World Edit and VoxelSniper on the CraftBukkit found on the author’s website he tells us to choose the proper Java version to install based on your PC’s requirements (time code 3:13). My PC has Java 7 32bit x86, but when I chose that option with BukkitGUI and started the server VoxelSniper would not work. I eventually went back and selected Java 7 64bit (quite by accident) just as in the instructions and VoxelSniper worked correctly. Not sure what the issue is here but I know my operating system in only 32bit so that may be in a bug in BukkitGUI, but it cost me about 2 hours before I could actually start using the tutorials.
2. In regards to WorldEdit CUI after installing and starting up the server (CraftBukkit 1.5.1 beta) I received an error message that WorldEdit CUI is out of date even though I downloaded the recommended version by the author. At first it did not work, but then after about 10 mins I could see the outline of the selection so even though I received the error message it appears to work. Just a little confusing.
3. On the Tudor house design (the one called Simple) I got to step 1 at the bottom of page 12 of the eBook that says, “1. Using the Wooden Axe, left-click to select the corner block of the house that is between the bottom of the windows and the floor.” I tried over and over to figure out which block the author was referring to with no success. I would like to continue the tutorial but unfortunately had to stop here. An image would have been nice in this instance just to make sure we were selecting the correct area.
I did get about half way through the Airship design but by then was just too tired to continue.
I enjoyed learning a little of what I could about WorldEdit and SniperVoxel, and would like to continue on, but need a little advice from perhaps someone more familiar with the system. By the way, while WorldEdit CUI is a nice addition that lets you know exactly what is selected it is not necessary to complete the tutorials since WorldEdit is actually what does the work. I found WorldEdit CUI extremely useful though while trying to work on the Airship to ensure I had actually selected all the blocks I thought I was selecting. A few times I found my calculations were off and because of WorldEdit CUI I could see that before actually going through with the commands.
More to come later on the next session!
Minecraft Times 