[WIP] Tatsuyama - 龍山 - Empire of the Dragon Mountain

[Wooraah]

v1.0 of the map is now complete, check out the launch thread here


Thread now locked.... because of launch.



The Project:

This is to be by far my biggest project in minecraft so far, so I've decided to share it with this wonderful community. I plan to release early versions of the map and related schematics once I feel that work has progressed enough. Tatsuyama, the Empire of the Dragon Mountain will be a fully detailed Feudal Asian (Japanese/Chinese) city map with many several districts and many unique features you will not have seen before.

The Concept:

My initial was inspired by some 3d modelling and subsequent binvox import of a dragon (see here http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=2208.0), and I came up with the concept of an ancient sleeping dragon who forms part of a mountain range that protects the Empire. My thinking has evolved from there, and the map will eventually have a fully fledged back story.

More about Tatsuyama:

Tatsuyama, (龍山) means "Dragon Mountain" in Japanese, and felt the most authentic after searching around for a few appropriate names in Google translate.

The symbol seen in the attached image represents the belief system of the people of Tatsuyama with the dragon protecting them on one side, the ocean on the other, with the golden Buddha deity keeping a watchful eye. You will see the symbol recurring around the empire in various forms when it gets to publication stage.

The Emperor believes himself to be a direct descendant of the of the dragon mountain itself, and it is with an iron grip that he rules over his people. However, recently whispered rumors have begun to circulate in the tea houses that the Emperor's health is failing, and with no legitimate heir, the future of the empire hangs in the balance.

I have some hazy plans to perhaps create a kind of emergent rival clan to the Empire of Tatsuyama, and build an outpost for them in another part of the map at a later date, but this is plenty to keep me busy for now. - Update, I may end up using the excellent work on Himeji by matthewianmcc here: http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=1240.0 and/or Omgitsjeff's Matsumoto castle here: http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=2902.0 depending on how well they fit into the world.

Methodology:

- I've already imported the Dragon and the Golden Buddha using Binvox, as well as a small dolphin in the bay, but this is likely to be it for that for now.
- The remainder of the work will be carried out in game with the help of WorldEdit and Single Player Commands to speed the process up, but I feel i can't get the detail I need from working with MCEdit, so I'm unlikely to be using that much, although I may do some proof of concept testing and messing around with layouts and stuff in MCEdit so I can see how things look.

Current Status:

Overall Status (88% Complete)
Time Spent so far: Around 315 hours
Date Started: 5 April 2011

- Find appropriate map seed   - Complete (using "torey0")
- Custom Texture Pack 100% Complete - See http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=3130.msg21621;topicseen#new
- Town Centre Design 70% Complete
- Town planning and layout  85% Complete
- City walls and towers 80% complete
- City Gates 4 of 5 complete See http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=2482.0
- Basic terraforming 95% complete
- Main Palace 50% complete Main Palace exterior complete, Summer Place to complete.
- Temples and Pagodas 100% complete See http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=4983.msg35534;topicseen#new
- Residential Districts   70% complete
- Fishing Village   80% complete - might add one more building.
- Commercial District  95% complete
- Docks, including at least 2 Asian ships   100% complete
- Ruins of an ancient culture  100% complete See http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=3581.msg25216#msg25216.
- Gardens 25% complete
- Farms 100% complete
- Bridges 100% complete
- Theatre and Art Gallery 100% complete See http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=4759.msg34096;topicseen#new
- Mausoleum Not started
- Minecart system Not started

Images:

Newest versions of the plans for the world map and updated images of progress are included later in the thread.

Latest images are shown below.

[Wooraah]

Wall, Tower and Gate Schematics available at: http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=2482.0

1st ship of the imperial fleet here: http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=3459.msg24420;topicseen#new

Ancient Ruins (Angkor Wat) here: http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=3562.0

Latest WIP images and map shown in this post.

A full imgur gallery of all WIP images is here: http://wooraah.imgur.com/tatsuyama____empire_of_the_dragon_mountain#eL5bh

[Dragonrider]

I've got to admit this is pretty darn amazing. I look forward to seeing some in-game shots of your work :)

[Wooraah]

I've got to admit this is pretty darn amazing. I look forward to seeing some in-game shots of your work :)

Thanks, might have guessed you'd like something dragon themed :D

[Dragonrider]

Thanks, might have guessed you'd like something dragon themed :D

 I love dragons. and I love intricately built structures that pay head to minor details!

[masterlipi]

wow really good work!

[wyldone28]

awesome work so far. Can't wait to see more.

[Wooraah]

Status Update

Ok time for an update, see if I can build a little excitement  I will update the front post with progress, and a new map with thinking around areas, buildings etc is linked below.

I've also added a few new things I want to add on the map, including an imperial guard headquarters, a lava pit for executions, and some secret stuff that I won't reveal yet.

Recent Activities

After a lot of deliberation I decided to rotate my town centre so that I could get a better angle for sunrise and sunsets over the iconic builds in this project. Turned out to be a major decision, as re-blending a square of 850x850 back into the landscape after a 90 degree turn is a BIG job. I'm still not 100% happy with the results yet, as some areas still look cut and pasted, as you can probably see in the updated map but I'm there on most of that.

Due to the scale of the project, I want to get the major infrastructure done first in this project, so next on the agenda was road planning, and terraforming inside the central area. This included clearing many of the the trees within a 700x700 area, then laying the routes in a semi logical way, which went ok, but still some work to do. I'll reforest later when the majority of buildings are down.

Next on the agenda was the walls and towers for the town, and although I ended up spending waaay longer than planned on this part, (around 15 hours for the design, and 6 hours actually putting them in the map,  I'm really happy with the results. To make my life somewhat easier I developed a modular style of towers and walls, which I'll attach below, and spent a long time designing an effective double helix staircase system for the towers.

The installation of the walls took a fair bit of terraforming to smooth out the hills and valleys (see all the dirt on the map?), but the grass will grow back in time, so it'll look good.

Tell me what you think, I really like the look, although i may go through and replace every other window on the walls manually.

Next on the list

Next phase is probably finishing off the roads to link up the walls, then the big step of designing and creating 4 or 5 city gates. I'll probably do the walls for the summer palace in a different style, so I haven't put them in yet.

[Wooraah]

The wall and tower schematics come as follows:

1) Towers on their own
2) Towers with 1 exit (using these at the limits of my borders where the walls meet the ocean) - rotate as per needs.
3) Towers with 2 exits - L shape, again rotate as per needs.
4) Towers with 2 exits - straight, to break up long straight sections of wall.
5) 3 block wide repeatable wall sections - Which can be cloned ideally in straight lines, but also fairly effectively in a sloping diagonal (i.e. not 45 degrees, but around 15 degrees, or 1 block up/down every 3 setps, you'll see what I mean in the screen shots i hope.

[Crunchygoat]

Hey Wooraah

Registered here looking for some Asian type schematics and this is one of the first posts I come across. This looks like an amazing project, but pretty big, careful you dont get burnt out by it, but loving the look so far. I'll try out the walls and towers now, but shouldn't you post them in the published schematics? I don't think many people will see them here, and they look like they work well.

[Wooraah]

Hi Crunchy

Thanks. In terms of the walls and towers, I'm not sure how to publish to be honest. This map is going to generate maybe 20 different schematics, so it's a bit spammy if I publish them all individually. I may publish the walls and towers when I've made a gate or two, as they are pretty useful for any city build, but other stuff will be more specific to this project.

In terms of the workload, yes it's taking a while, but breaking it down into chunks like i have helps I think, get one project done at a time.

[Crunchygoat]

Omg, I just checked out those towers on my map, that double helix staircase is awesome, good work.

[Dragonrider]

Hey Wooraah

Registered here looking for some Asian type schematics and this is one of the first posts I come across. This looks like an amazing project, but pretty big, careful you dont get burnt out by it, but loving the look so far. I'll try out the walls and towers now, but shouldn't you post them in the published schematics? I don't think many people will see them here, and they look like they work well.

 ^ i agree with this guy. Don't get burnt out!
so far it looks amazing. keep up the good work :)

[UndeadJesus]

I think it would look cooler with a dragon skeleton :D

thats what i'm working on now, i'm using the binvox model as a base

[Wooraah]

I think it would look cooler with a dragon skeleton :D

thats what i'm working on now, i'm using the binvox model as a base

Interesting thought, keep me posted on how it looks.

The dragon is already in the map and integrated into a mountain range on my map, so I dont think I'm going back on that now, but I need to tweak it a bit more to look right, so no screenies yet.

[User Deleted Accounts]

Wow, amazing. This is gonna be great once its fully complete..

[moto_chic]

Amazing work! I have to say that is definitely my favorite wall design i have seen so far and i love the giant Buddha ruins. Cant wait to see more more updates! Also what texture pack are you using?

[Wooraah]

Thanks guys.

It's a custom pack, with custom art. See a copy of the current terrain.png below, still some tweaks needed.

It's based on Borderlands 128x128 with lots of custom elements. I'll look to release it when the map is done.

For the finished pack, please go to: http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=3130.msg21621;topicseen#new

[last_exile]

Wow. this is pretty much amazing! are you planning to release this on a server? cause we would love to host you if you are, or haven't already chosen one.

anyways, incredible work, i'll be following this for sure!

[Wooraah]

Wow. this is pretty much amazing! are you planning to release this on a server? cause we would love to host you if you are, or haven't already chosen one.

anyways, incredible work, i'll be following this for sure!

Erm, I hadn't given much thought to server release until you raised the topic tbh. I'll be releasing the various components as schematics, as well as the whole map as a schematic (which will be pretty big as you can imagine). Feel free to host it wherever you would like. Just give credit as appropriate.

Walls, towers and gates are already available at http://www.mcschematics.com/index.php?topic=2482.0