C. Resources

There are so many Minecraft-related resources out there that it would be almost impossible to list them all. New books, new videos, and new websites appear so frequently (videos are posted almost hourly) that compiling a comprehensive source list isn’t possible for an appendix like this one. Instead, this appendix provides you with a list of books, videos, and websites that I’ve found useful over the years. Some of these resources are related to Minecraft directly, while others offer skills that you may find useful outside of playing Minecraft.

Keep in mind that resources come and go. A video listed here could easily be taken down at any time, books go out of print, and websites sometimes go out of date or get shut down. If one of the resources listed here is no longer available, look around, and you’re likely to find something similar.

If you find something useful or interesting that you believe other Minecraft fans will find useful, please consider posting the information to this book’s Facebook page. If it’s relevant and useful or interesting, I’ll add it to my Minecraft Engineer Resource List with a nod of thanks to you for submitting it! You can find the book’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/engineeringminecraft.

The Ultimate Guide to Minecraft Server (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0789754576/)—This book, written by fellow writer and friend Tim Warner, will teach you everything you need to know about setting up your own Minecraft server and customizing it to fit you and your friends’ exact requirements.

The Ultimate Player’s Guide to Minecraft (http://www.amazon.com/dp/078975357X)—For both beginners and experts, this book explains all the ins and outs of living and surviving in a Minecraft world. In addition to discussing Minecraft basics, it also covers many rather complex features explained in easy–to-understand language. It’s a great all-in-one-book guide.

3D Modeling and Printing with Tinkercad (http://www.amazon.com/3D-Modeling-Printing-Tinkercad-Create/dp/0789754908)—This book goes deeper into the bells and whistles that Tinkercad offers. It offers plenty of hands-on exercises and projects to expand your Tinkercad skills and apply them to Minecraft.

Minecraft: The Complete Handbook Collection (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0545685192)—These four books cover topics from building to survival to combat to using redstone. It is widely considered one of the best Minecraft book series for beginners.

Adventures in Minecraft (http://www.amazon.com/dp/111894691X)—With this book, you will learn how to modify Minecraft worlds by programming your own tweaks and objects. It’s not so much a how-to book for creating Minecraft structures. Rather, it’s a great introductory book to the field of programming that introduces the Python programming language.

“How to Make a” series (https://www.youtube.com/user/MagmaMusen)—With silly music and text-based instructions included, these videos are fun to watch. You’ll be amazed at how quickly and easily MagmaMusen creates some amazing little creations—from a pinball machine to a secret passage to a dishwasher.

Awesome Redstone Minecraft House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfJgPB3b48)—This video presents working elevators, push-button controls, and hidden passages. You’ll get an idea of just how powerful a working knowledge of the Minecraft redstone block can be for your own structures. (See Appendix B, “Redstone Tutorial,” for more information on redstone.)

Minecraft: Redstone for Dummies – A Basic Guide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN_MIX7M460)—This video provides a short and easy introduction to redstone and how it works. It doesn’t go super deep, but it will help even novices build some very simple automated features using redstone.

Autodesk Tinkercad tutorials (https://www.youtube.com/user/Tinkercad)—From the company that owns Tinkercad, you’ll find dozens of helpful how-to videos on using Tinkercad. These are the “official” videos from Autodesk, but a quick search of YouTube for “Tinkercad tutorial” will yield hundreds more.

MCEdit Tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpuq2LIUy1E)—User SethBling does a great job of introducing the basics of MCEdit. He also has a four-part redstone tutorial that’s worth watching.

Minecraft Wiki’s Tutorials page (http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials)—There are many websites devoted to helping novice Minecrafters, and Minecraft Wiki stands out as one of the best kid-friendly and useful sites, with dozens of guides (complete with full-color images) and reference lists. Minecraft is always being updated, and this site is very good at keeping up-to-date tutorials and archiving out-of-date content. This is one of the best places to start for all Minecraft novices with questions.

How-to Geek’s Engineering with Redstone lesson (http://www.howtogeek.com/school/htg-guide-to-minecraft/lesson11/)—The HowToGeek.com website has some great articles on a large variety of topics, not just Minecraft. But it also has some outstanding single-page tutorials related to Minecraft topics. This redstone lesson is excellent, but be sure to check out the other lessons that the site offers.

Stereoscopy (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Stereoscopy)—If you enjoyed seeing your Minecraft worlds in 3D (Chapter 7, “Seeing Your World in 3D”), you might be interested in learning more about how your eyes work and some additional methods you might use to create some fun 3D Minecraft images.

Making a 3D Print of a Real Object Using 123D Catch and Meshmixer (http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-a-3D-print-of-a-real-object-using-123D-Catc/)—You learned in Chapter 8, “A Full 360!” how to use the 123D Catch app to create a 3D video of a Minecraft world object (in that case, an Easter Island–like monolith). This article shows you how to print an object like that one in plastic, using a 3D printer.