For Every Cool Addition, There Is an Equal Uncool One

So, we have some pretty big updates that came out of Landmark.

I’ve not been playing of late. I’ve been busy with writing and the site, so there simply has not been the time. I got on for a few minutes today, however, intending to pay rent on my claim and check out a few things.

Combat is being rolled out, starting with PVP. I was going to check out how to set up combat arenas on the claim, when I saw that they managed to, in one swoop, make glass uber cool and mess it up completely.

First, the cool:

Anti-Voxels

I mentioned anti-voxels before.

So what are they?

It’s a plain 1×1 voxel that has been warped using “negative” space. This small voxel looks like a rod and can be used to create a lot of different shapes. If you will recall my pretty book shelves in Needs More Library, I used anti-voxel planks to create the shelves.

So, when I say they are created using “negative” space, what do I mean?

Well ….

Picture time.

You’ll start by adding a 5×5 volume voxel in whatever texture you want. I actually suggest the Stucco, which can be found in dirt, because it is white. You can use the Paint Tool to change the texture to whatever you want once you’ve built your item. In this I used water, but that’s just because at the time I was playing around with water to see if anything else happened when making Anti-voxels.

Other than the nature of water making it difficult to select the anti-voxels, nothing, in case you are wondering.

Patch!

By the way, Dave apparently does not approve of the word “patch” to refer to game release updates. Which is kind of funny, actually, from the 7/31 Landmark Live, because Collette refers to them as the preferred Update and then immediately goes back to Patch. I think Dave might have taken notice more except for things like “In a moment, Dave will hop over to the other computer.”

Dave, by the way, injured his foot pretty good on vacation a few weeks back.

Anyway, this week had new updates for Landmark and this Patch was a nice one.

Still no combat and death. We do have some fun things.

• Guilds
• Glass voxel materials (I guess I need to go gather sand … sigh)
• Food props

So, today, I’m going to take a look at some of the new updates and see what we’ve got.

Building Tools

I debated with myself on whether or not I wanted to have a Guide Post just covering the building tools themselves and decided … kinda. Since I’m not doing a video tutorial, I found it really hard to put together anything nice without it being over-simplified or jumbled. Understanding the tools are important but … well, there’s a lot of stuff. The best thing to do is just play around with the different tools to learn what you can do with them. However, I did promise that from time to time I would be linking to some of the videos that helped me along in the game. So, meet Strahz.

Now, a couple of important notes.

• This was made during Alpha, so some things have changed with the tools. For example, you can change voxel size you will add, delete, etc, by using the mouse wheel on a 1-voxel increment rather than the old increments available before.
• The select tool looks a little different, but for the most part acts the same.
• The smooth tool is way different and has a little more versatility. While the basics of the smooth tool – what you use it for – are the same, just how to use it has changed. And really, the best way to know those changes is to study up on a specific technique it is used for.
  • Note, however, when making things like columns, no need to spread your select tool out around the item to get round edges.
• The Templates UI is a little different now, but pretty intuitive.
• Two tools are missing because they were not in this part of Alpha:
  • The paint tool, which just allows you to change the texture of something you have already made (useful if you have stairs and want to change the texture from one type of stone to another).
  • The line tool, which lets you create voxel strings in different volume sizes from one area to another and allows you to make diagonal shapes quick and easy.

And that’s the basics for the tools. Play around. Later, I’m going to be looking at anti-voxels, mico-voxels, mega voxels, and some of the things you can do to play around with them.

Until next time.

Water, water everywhere!

I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago that you can build with water, but did not mention anything beyond that.

I have begun playing with water as a building tool. What do I think of it?