2. Creating Your Own Castle

What You’ll Be Doing

Find and install MCEdit

Find your own structure on Thingiverse

Log in to Tinkercad and explore some of its features

Import your own castle with MCEdit

Explore more MCEdit features

I hope you enjoyed following along in Chapter 1, “Taking Over a Castle,” as I found a castle and brought it into my Minecraft world. I moved quickly in that chapter because I had a lot to cover, but in this chapter I’m going to slow things down a bit and go into a little more detail about the tools I used.

This chapter gives you a chance to mimic what I showed you in Chapter 1 and create your very own castle—or any other object you like. Along the way, you’re going to get a little more experience in using MCEdit and Tinkercad, two very important (and free) tools that are pure gold to a Minecraft engineer.

This is a hands-on chapter, so you should have it with you as you sit in front of your Mac or Windows computer. I’m going to ask you to actually perform the steps I describe as I do them. Hopefully you’ll like what you discover in this book and will be repeating the steps over and over again to grow your own Minecraft worlds. At some point, you won’t need to reference the book any longer because you’ll know the proper steps and their correct order to make fun things happen.

For this chapter, you’ll need the following:

Minecraft or Minecraft Pocket Edition installed on a computer or tablet

A web browser (such as my favorite, Chrome) that supports OpenGL

A (free) user account with Tinkercad.com

MCEdit installed on your computer

I think it’s probably a safe bet that you already have Minecraft or Minecraft Pocket Edition installed on a computer or tablet, and most computers have a web browser installed for accessing Thingiverse.com and Tinkercad.com. But you probably do not have MCEdit installed. Next, I’ll show you where to get that application and how to install it.

But before you can use it, you’ve got to download and install it. Fortunately, both tasks are extremely simple. Start by opening a web browser and pointing it to mcedit.net, as shown in Figure 2.1. (Be careful to only download MCEdit from the official site as there are versions of MCEdit that are infected with viruses and malware that you can download from other websites.)

On the mcedit.net home page, click on the MCEdit 1.x button near the top of the screen. This will take you to a new page that looks like the one in Figure 2.2.

At this point, you need to download the version that corresponds to your computer’s operating system. (At the time I’m writing this, the most recent version is 1.3.0.0 for Mac, Windows, and Linux users.) If you’re a Mac user, click on the single button just below the Mac OSX icon, if you’re a Windows user click the appropriate button (32-bit or 64-bit) to download the version you need, and if you’re a Linux user click your one button choice.

I haven’t been able to find any visual differences between the different operating system versions of MCEdit. I use both a Mac laptop and a Windows desktop. Throughout the book, I’ll mostly be using my Mac laptop, so don’t worry if your screen doesn’t look exactly like mine. Just keep in mind that MCEdit will work the same for Mac, Linux, and Windows users.

After you click the appropriate version button, the application will download to your computer. There isn’t an installation process for Mac users but for Windows users you’ll need to double-click the downloaded file that creates an MCEdit folder—inside that folder you’ll find the MCEdit icon. When the download completes, you just double-click that icon to open and run MCEdit. Figure 2.3 shows the MCEdit icon on the far left and the MCEdit application open and ready to go.

Once you’ve downloaded MCEdit and opened it up, you can leave it open or close it down. You’ll return to MCEdit a bit later in this chapter, but right now it’s time for you to find your own castle or other suitably large building.

Open a web browser and point it to Thingiverse.com, as shown in Figure 2.4.

Think about Thingiverse as a library. With most libraries, you can go in and check out books (for a period of time), read them, and then return them. Most public libraries are free, so there’s no charge to check out books.

Well, Thingiverse doesn’t hold books. Instead, it holds digital files that represent physical objects in the real world. These digital files go by a bunch of names: 3D models, digital models, .stl files, and more. I prefer the term 3D model. A 3D model is a three-dimensional representation of an object, but it doesn’t have to represent a real-life object. There are 3D models for dragons and fairies, for example. You’ve already seen a 3D model of a castle. The important thing to remember is that Thingiverse is filled with digital files of 3D objects that Thingiverse users have created and uploaded for other people to use.

One of the most popular uses for 3D files is for 3D printing. The “old-fashioned” type of printer that you’re probably already familiar with prints using ink on paper. A 3D printer such as the one in Figure 2.5 melts plastic and then “prints” out 3D model files to create small plastic representations of digital objects.

Thankfully, you don’t need a 3D printer to use the 3D model files with Minecraft. But you do need to convert a 3D model file that you download from Thingiverse before you can import it into Minecraft. (You can use Tinkercad.com to do this, as described in detail later in this chapter.) Before you perform this conversion, however, you need something to convert.

It’s time for you to find a castle or other object that you’d like to transfer into one of your Minecraft worlds, and the easiest way to do this is to use the Search bar in Thingiverse.

Type in “castle” or “tower” or “house” or anything else you’re thinking about using in Minecraft. You can also be very specific, such as searching for “Eiffel Tower” or “White House.” How would you like a copy of the Eiffel Tower in your world? Figure 2.6 shows a search for 3D versions of the Eiffel Tower, but you can search for whatever you want. Whatever object you choose, just keep following my instructions, and you’ll soon have it imported into a Minecraft world of your choice.

There are a bunch of 3D models of the Eiffel Tower. Some are very intricate and are so detailed that they even show bolts and rivets. Figure 2.7 shows two versions of an Eiffel Tower 3D model. One has the basic shape and the other is extremely detailed. Your choice of basic versus detailed is based to some degree on the size you’re going to make the object in your Minecraft world. For example, if I’m going to put a really big Eiffel Tower in my world, so I’m going to choose a more intricate one, but if I wanted to place a small Eiffel Tower, I’d go for a less detailed one. Whatever object you choose, you’ll have a chance to decide how big (or small) it will be in your own Minecraft world a bit later in the chapter.

Once you’ve found a 3D model that you like, click on it to open its information page. Figure 2.8 shows the information page for the detailed Eiffel Tower created by Thingiverse user noisygecko.

You can click on the Instructions button to read any information the 3D model designer has included about the design. Sometimes you will see multiple files that can be downloaded, and the Instructions page will often tell you the differences between files.

The button you’re interested in now, however, is the Thing Files button. Click on that button to view a list of files available for download. Figure 2.9 shows three different files available for download. In this case, I’m only going to be downloading one of them: EiffelTower_fixed2.stl.

Thingiverse supports a variety of different types of files, but when you’re exporting files for Minecraft use, you always want to be on the lookout for .stl files. If you don’t see an .stl file for the object you’ve selected, you’re going to need to go back and find another Thingiverse object.

Once you find an .stl file for a suitable object, click on it to download it to your computer. Then grab that downloaded file and place it on your desktop or in a folder—and remember the location where you saved it because you’re going to need it for the next set of steps.

Before moving on to those next steps, however, think about what you’ve done for a moment. You’ve used a repository (Thingiverse) to browse thousands and thousands of user-created objects (3D models) and downloaded a specific file (with the .stl extension) for free. F-R-E-E. Hundreds of thousands of objects have been downloaded for free from Thingiverse over the years. Most of them have been printed (in plastic) using 3D printers. But this repository isn’t useful just to owners of 3D printers. As you’re about to see, .stl files can be used in many ways, including for creating your own modifications.

I’ll be covering many of Tinkercad’s features in Chapters 3 and 4, but right now I just want to explain it in a little more detail so you’ll start to understand just how important this application (and others like it) really is to Minecraft engineers.

Tinkercad is a type of tool called a CAD (rhymes with mad and sad, although using a CAD application is fun and shouldn’t make you either of those things) application. CAD stands for computer-aided design, and it’s pretty easy to understand despite the complicated name. The first part, computer, says it all: When CAD applications were first being developed, they were created for use on computers. Today, CAD applications still run on desktop and laptop computers, but they can also run on small computers such as tablets (such as an iPad) and even mobile phones! As you’ll soon see, however, using a CAD app on a phone isn’t always easy because of the small screen. Tablets are a little more useful with CAD apps, and you can see one called 123D Design running on an iPad in Figure 2.11. But you may find as I have that when using a CAD application, the bigger the screen the better!

The next part of the name, aided, simply means that the software helps you do some of the complicated stuff. Can you hand-draw a perfect circle or pyramid? I can’t either, but with a CAD application can help you draw a shape such as a circle and ensure that it’s perfect in every way. The software can even help you draw the circle with a specific diameter. CAD software can do many more things besides draw perfect shapes—all of the functions that humans often find difficult or tedious. (You’ll soon see some example of how CAD software aids a human user.)

Finally, the last part of the name, design, should be obvious to you. The software allows you, the user, to design some amazing things—and not just castles. Companies today use CAD apps to design all sorts of products, from the cases that go around mobile phones to the shape of a hood on a prototype car. As a Minecraft player, you design in-game things using the built-in tools and blocks available to you. A CAD application allows you to design anything your imagination can come up with, using dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of tools to get the job done.

CAD software can move you from Minecrafter to Minecraft engineer, and the best part is how fun CAD apps are to use.

Do you have your 3D model downloaded and ready? If so, it’s time for you to open up a CAD application and try it out. If not, get that done first and meet me in the next section.

I highly recommend using Chrome for Tinkercad; login, click the Create New Design button, and you should see a blank grid in the center of the screen and a toolbar running down the right side of the screen, as shown in Figure 2.12.

I’m going to go into more features of Tinkercad in Chapter 3, “Crafting a Super Maze,” but right now I just want to give you some hands-on time using the visual controls of Tinkercad. This includes zooming in and out and rotating an object around to view it from different angles.

Imagine for a moment that you are in a room with a square table sitting in front of you and a remote-controlled airplane resting on its surface. You could walk around the table to see the airplane from the sides and rear. You could squat down and look underneath the wings. If the table’s surface were made of glass, you could even get underneath the table and view the underside of the airplane.

Think of the workplane in Tinkercad as a digital glass table. Anything that’s placed on it can be viewed from different angles, including from straight above or underneath. And just as you could get your face close to the airplane to see details of the cockpit, you can also zoom in and out on the workplane to see details on an object or get a complete view of a larger object.

To understand this better, it’s time to take that digital .stl file you downloaded earlier and pull it into Tinkercad. To do that, click on the Import section on the right to open it up so it looks as shown in Figure 2.13.

Click on the Choose File button, and a window like the one in Figure 2.14 appears. You use this window to find the .stl file you downloaded.

Select your .stl file and click the Open button. The filename will appear in the Import section, as shown in Figure 2.15.

Make certain that millimeters (mm) is the Unit option, but you shouldn’t fiddle with the Scale setting at this point. Then click on the Import button to star the import of your file. This could take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, depending on the complexity of the 3D model you selected and your Internet speed.

When the import process is completed, you should see your 3D model sitting on the workplane, as shown in Figure 2.16.

Notice in Figure 2.16 that the top part of the Eiffel Tower isn’t visible. The entire object is too tall to be completely displayed on the screen. Maybe your 3D model is also extending beyond the viewable edges of the screen, too. This is easy to fix. All you need to do is zoom out a bit.

There are different ways to zoom in and out on a 3D model: You can use a mouse (with a wheel button on top), a touchpad, or onscreen controls. Let’s start with the onscreen controls. Move your mouse pointer to the Zoom Out button (it’s the one with the – sign in the upper-left corner of the workplane window; refer to Figure 2.16) and click it once or twice. You should see your object shrink a little, as though you were walking further away from the object. Figure 2.17 shows that I’ve zoomed out a bit, and the entire Eiffel Tower is now visible.

Click on the Zoom In button (the one with the + sign) a few times. This is similar to moving closer to an object on a table so you can get your face super-close for a good look. Figure 2.18 shows that I’ve zoomed in close to the tower.

You can also use a mouse or touchpad to zoom in and out. With a mouse you use the wheel button (on top): Roll the button forward to zoom in the screen, and roll the button backward to zoom out the screen. Easy!

Zooming with a touchpad is a little different and may take some practice to get it right:

On a Mac, place two fingers on the touchpad. Swiping your fingers forward (to the top edge of the touchpad) simultaneously zooms in, and swiping your fingers backward (to the bottom edge of the touchpad) zooms out.

On a Windows touchpad, you’ll need to consult your documentation to determine the method for zooming in and out—it will probably be similar to the Mac version of pinching to zoom, but could be different.

After you’re comfortable using the Zoom In and Zoom Out features of Tinkercad, you’re ready to learn to rotate an object so you can view it from different sides (including above and below). Once again, there are different ways to do this.

Just above the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons, you’ll see a small icon of a house with four triangles pointing in different directions. This is the Rotate Object tool (refer to Figure 2.16).

Click on the triangle pointing to the right, and the object automatically rotates 45 degrees clockwise (along with the workplane). Figure 2.19 shows the Eiffel Tower rotated 45 degrees so it is visible from a slightly different angle.

Click on the left triangle, and the object rotates counterclockwise 45 degrees (and again, the workplane also rotates). Clicking the arrow pointing up rotates the object back toward you (allowing you to view more of the top of an object), and clicking the arrow pointing down rotates the object away from you. Go ahead and try it so you can get really familiar with how the tool works. Figure 2.20 shows the object rotated so from the underside is visible.

You can also rotate a 3D model by using a touchpad or mouse, but the rotations are in much smaller degree increments, giving you a smooth rotation instead of 15- or 45-degree turns.

With a standard (two-button) mouse, to rotate a 3D model, simply press and hold both buttons down and move the mouse around. As long as you hold the two buttons down, you can move the mouse left, right, forward, and back to change the orientation of the 3D model you are viewing.

When an object is selected, look closely, and you should also see tiny white squares in various locations around your model. Don’t fiddle with them right now; instead, move your mouse pointer over the little white square near the top of your 3D model (and just below the black cone). Don’t click on it; just move your mouse pointer over the block, and a value should appear, as shown in Figure 2.22.

The value that appears is the height (in millimeters) of your 3D model. As shown in Figure 2.22, my Eiffel Tower is 120.91mm tall. Your 3D model will most likely be a different height.

In just a moment, you’ll learn why knowing the height of your object is important. Once you’ve determined the height (you might want to write it down), move your mouse pointer away from your object so you don’t accidentally modify it.

Throughout the book, I’ll introduce more tools and features in Tinkercad, but now it’s time to take this 3D model in Tinkercad and prepare it so MCEdit can place it in one of your Minecraft worlds.

After clicking the Download for Minecraft option, a window like the one in Figure 2.24 appears.

Remember that earlier in this chapter, when you were importing your .stl file, to leave the Unit setting at millimeters (mm)? I hope you listened because that’s important. When you download a 3D model for Minecraft, you define the height of your 3D model by using a ratio of Minecraft blocks to millimeters. My Eiffel Tower is 120.91 millimeters tall, and according to this pop-up window, when I import the tower into Minecraft, it will be 120 blocks tall—which means it’ll extend into the clouds. Very cool!

If I don’t want my Eiffel Tower to be that tall, I can change the value in the small box shown in Figure 2.24. Right now, it’s set to download the Eiffel Tower so that 1mm = 1 block. If I change the 1 to a 5 (that is, 5mm = 1 block), I divide the height of my 3D model by 5 and get 24 so that the Eiffel Tower will import into Minecraft with a height of 24 blocks.

In this case, I want to create a slightly shorter-than-original version of the Eiffel Tower by setting the value to 2. This will give me a Minecraft version of the Eiffel Tower with a height of 60 blocks (every 2mm = 1 block, so 120mm = 60 blocks).

Once you’ve decided on a value for your object, click on the Export button. The file that downloads is no longer an .stl file. Now it is a .schematic file, as you can see in Figure 2.25. (Notice that I renamed the file from the silly name Sizzling Bruticus-Jarv that Tinkercad gave it to EiffelTower.schematic.)

With your new .schematic file, you are now ready to bring the 3D model you selected earlier in this chapter into your Minecraft world.

If you haven’t already downloaded and installed MCEdit to your computer, do that now. (Refer to the beginning of the chapter for instructions.) Also, make certain that Minecraft is closed on your computer; if it’s open, you’ll at least want to make certain that whatever world you have open in Minecraft isn’t the world you’ll be opening with MCEdit. (I sternly warned you about this in Chapter 1.)

Double-click the MCEdit icon, and the tool opens as shown in Figure 2.26

The MCEdit start screen may not look fancy, but this is one powerful tool. I’ll show you some of its features shortly, but I think you’ve waited long enough to import your 3D model, so I’ll let you do that right now.

On the MCEdit start screen, click on the Open button. MCEdit automatically checks the default folder where Minecraft stores its game files, including those that are related to your worlds. Figure 2.27 shows the window that MCEdit opens, where you should see a list of folders that have the names you’ve given your Minecraft worlds. (The list will be empty, of course, if you haven’t yet created a world.)

I have three Minecraft worlds here. EngineerLand is the world I’m using for many of the projects in this book, DadWorld is the world I play in with my sons, and MyTestWorld is what I use when I want to test a new tool (such as Tinkercad) to make certain it works before I use it with one of my other worlds.

Click on a folder, and it will open and display a bunch of files, as shown in Figure 2.28.

The file you need to find is called level.dat. Click on this file one time to select it and then click the Open button. MCEdit then opens the world. Be patient, as it can sometimes take a minute or longer for it to open. Once the world is open, you see a screen like the one in Figure 2.29.

Movement controls in MCEdit may be somewhat familiar to you. You use the WASD keys for left, right, forward, and backward movement. Note that if you’re not careful moving forward or backward, you could find yourself sinking quickly below the surface, as shown in Figure 2.30.

While using MCEdit, think of yourself as a ghost. You can pass through solid objects easily, including the ground. Instead of tunneling down into the ground or having to locate the front door into a castle, MCEdit lets you just zoom around and through objects that would normally be treated as solid and require you to dig or mine through.

The other set of controls you’ll need to practice with right now is the IJKL keys on your keyboard. Pressing J keeps you in place but turning to the left. (In contrast, pressing the A key moves “you” to the left while continuing to look forward.) The L key rotates you so you can look to the right. Press I, and it’s like you’re turning your head to look up. And the K key turns your digital head so you’re looking down. Keep in mind that you can customize your key selections in MCEdit if you don’t like using WASD or IJKL keys, but if you’ve not done this, these are the default settings.

It takes some practice to get used to these controls, but you’ll be a pro at it with just a few minutes of playing around with them. Try using the IJKL keys with your right hand as you use the WASD keys with your left hand and practice flying around your world a bit.

Once you’ve got the WASD and IJKL keys figured out, go search for a suitable place to put your 3D model. I’ve found a spot to the left of the large castle shown in Figure 2.31.

Next, click the Import button, and a window like the one in Figure 2.32 appears. Browse to the .schematic file you downloaded from Tinkercad, click on it once, and click the Open button.

Use the WASD and IJKL keys to move the view if needed. Then use your mouse or touchpad to move the green box that appears onscreen and contains the size and shape of your 3D model (see Figure 2.33). The green box could be small, large, or gigantic. You may need to zoom out (using the WASD and IJKL keys) in order to see the entire box.

When you’re happy with the location of the green box, left-click to lock the green box in place. Once the box is locked, you can use some of the tools that appear on the left side of the screen in Figure 2.34, including the Import button.

Now you can click on the Import button to start the process, which doesn’t take long. When the import is done, your 3D model will be sitting pretty in the location you selected, as shown in Figure 2.35.

You may have noticed that the imported Eiffel Tower doesn’t look like the nice smooth version I downloaded from Thingiverse. Remember that this is Minecraft! Everything in Minecraft is made of blocks, so smooth surfaces aren’t normal. Still, it does really look like a Minecraft version of the Eiffel Tower, right?

I can use the WASD and IJKL keys to zoom in and inspect the object. Figure 2.36 shows that I’ve zoomed in to check out my new tower.

In later projects, I’ll introduce you to other useful features that MCEdit offers. Before you finish this chapter, however, I’d like to show you how to use MEdit to quickly change a block (or collection of blocks) of one type to a completely different block type. For example, if you have a large lake of water blocks, you can easily change all the water blocks to iron blocks, or even lava. This technique is even useful for changing buildings from one material to another. For example, I like that my Eiffel Tower is made of stone blocks, but you might want to change it to all brick blocks.

To do this, use the WASD and IJKL keys to zoom out a bit and then use your mouse pointer to select the object you want to change. To do this, move your mouse pointer to a piece of ground that’s near a corner of your object. In Figure 2.37, you can see that a small white box appears near the lower-left corner of the Eiffel Tower.

Next, click and hold the left mouse button (or press and hold a single finger on a touchpad) and drag that small white box to the left (or right) of the object and then drag to the rear of the object. This will create a white square that surrounds the base of your 3D model, as shown in Figure 2.38.

Now click and hold on top of the white box and drag up. This way, you create a 3D box that will completely surround your 3D model, as shown in Figure 2.39.

Now that the object is selected, you need to know what material it is made of at the moment. Sometimes you can guess, but it’s really better to know for sure. To figure it out, after selecting your object, click on the Analyze button on the left side of the screen. A new window like the one in Figure 2.40 appears.

In Figure 2.40, you can see that inside my selection box are a mix of materials: air, sand, and even a cactus. Air has the most blocks (77091 blocks), and there are quite a few sand blocks (1257 blocks), but it’s the block of quartz that is the material making up the Eiffel Tower, with 2136 blocks in all. Make note of the material of your object (write it down as it is written on the screen) because you’ll need it for the next step. Click the OK button to make the Analyze screen disappear.

Your object should still be surrounded by the selection box. Click on the Fill and Replace button on the toolbar that runs along the bottom of the screen. (This button is fourth from the left. Remember that you can hover your mouse pointer over a button briefly, and the name of the tool will appear.)

Two new windows appear, as shown in Figure 2.41.

On the smaller window, click the Replace button, and the smaller window changes again and look like the one in Figure 2.42.

Click on whatever material is visible in the top part of this small window. (In Figure 2.42, it’s Hopper (Disabled North), but that’s not important.) When you click this, a scrolling list of materials appears to the right, as shown in Figure 2.43.

You can scroll through this list to find the material that currently makes up your object. If you know the exact wording, you can instead just type it into the top Search bar, as shown in Figure 2.44.

Once you’ve found the material by using the exact name you discovered with the Analyze tool, click the OK button.

Next, click on the material beneath the Replace With section in the smaller window and once again scroll through the list to find the material you wish to use as a replacement. If you know the exact name or a part of it, type it into the Search box at the top, as I’ve done with Brick in Figure 2.45.

Click the OK button, and you should now see that the smaller window contains two materials: On top is the current material of your object, and beneath it is the material to use as a replacement (see Figure 2.46).

Click the Replace button, wait 10 to 30 seconds, and the replacement should be done, as shown in Figure 2.47. (Click the Deselect button on the right toolbar to turn off the selection box or just click anywhere else on the screen.)

Slick, huh? I could easily go and select one of my castles and turn its walls into the super-tough obsidian or maybe just dirt. It’s my world, and I can do as I please…just like you can with your worlds!

MCEdit is a Minecraft engineer’s dream. There are so many fun things you can do with this app, and you’ll be learning a few more throughout the remaining chapters. But for now enjoy your new model. You didn’t have to build it block-by-block, which could have taken hours, days, or even weeks.

Feel free to go back to Thingiverse and find a few other fun objects. Practice what you’ve learned in this chapter: downloading an .stl file, importing the .stl file into Tinkercad, saving the 3D model in Tinkercad to a Minecraft-compatible file, and then using MCEdit to send that .schematic file into one of your worlds. After doing this a few times, you’ll have the process memorized and will be able to start really building your worlds with dozens or hundreds of amazing objects.

Now that you know about Thingiverse, you know where to find ready-made objects that can be imported into Minecraft. But what if you’d like to create something that’s not available on Thingiverse? Up next, in Chapter 3, I’m going to show you a tool (that’s free to use) that allows you to do some more amazing things and create even crazier constructions for your Minecraft worlds.