SSRC's Grand Build Competition SSRC is starting an annual building competition with a grand prize of 1,000,000r. What is the goal of this competition? I want you to bring your very best block forward. If you've been looking for a reason to build then here it is. You have until April 1st, 2021 at 11:59 PM EMC time to build the best building you can. There are only four simple rules. 1. You must submit your res by April 1st 11:59 PM EMC time on this forum with pictures or video using the same account that owns the res. Builds will be open for public voting April 3rd on another separate and compiled thread. Alts will not be allowed to vote, other then that everyone on EMC get's one vote. 2. You must use a normal 60x60 town res - there are no size requirements but only serious submissions will be admitted (no dirt shacks.) 3. No existing buildings will be eligible. (screenshots have been taken of every live map). 4. Farms will not be eligible as this is a build competition not farm competition. There is no theme, so everyone can pick what they do best, so let's see your best. 1st Place: 1,000,000r2nd Place: 500,000r3rd Place: 250,000r The community will choose the best building via popular vote on a separate post on April 3rd. Alts will not be allowed to vote, other then that everyone on EMC get's one vote. The top three reses with the most votes will win the above mentioned prizes. In the event of a tie we will do a runoff between those tied reses. (If you would like to donate to the prize winnings please message me on the forums, the more incentive the better!) Happy building, and may EMC's best builder win. POLLS ARE OPEN TILL 11:59PM TODAY 4/3/2021 VOTE HERE: https://empireminecraft.com/threads/ssrc-build-competition-voting.84365/
What an amazing competition! Good luck to everyone who participates and I cannot wait to see the fantastic new builds!
I have some ideas... I fear I won't have enough time on my hands to do anything, though... For me, it would have been a lot better if it would have been allowed to be in creative. Question1: Does it matter that I have already posted a screenshot of a creative version of a build? I might just finish a small project, and then schematica it over during lectures... That's the only thing I think I have the time for Question2: Does it matter that a build is only landscaping? I am really quite bored of houses and the like, so I might just make something that is only nature
Q1: completely fine because there's no way for me to enforce that anyways. But the build must then be built on EMC as that will be the product that is judged. Q2: that's fine, there are no themes. Nature is acceptable.
Huh, that's quite short notice for such a broad competition, with such high stakes! I know many people work best under deadlines, but still...
It is a short notice... Luckily enough: I do now finally have a design ready, I only need to find the time to place 3DCs of leaves somewhere... Item collection (taking it out of my storage) and inventory management is going to be a huge pain, though: 228 different blocks, a new record for something I build in one go, and a disapointingly low amount of which is different variants of the same blocks (slabs/stairs.) I expect that just getting all materials sorted on location is going to take me a few hours...
Here's my submission! Res- 16253 on SMP8. Its a Russian style Cathedral (Aka CATHEGRAL) (Also planning on selling the res after the comp--lmk if interested)
The residence is 749, SMP1 If you think it doesn't look like it took a lot of time, you really underestimate the amount of time it takes to schematica a custom tree... This build was originally constructed in creative a few months ago, and I posted it on some sites, then, too. (Probably most notably here) For this contest, I finished it up to make it look good, not just in screenshots, but in-game as well. (The interior, for example, wasn’t done jet) I originally designed it during boring lectures, and started it as a challenge to be a bit more bold and daring when it comes to colouring; you should notice the yellow clay, the red sandstone, and the many colours of flowers. Though the house may be the focal point of the composition, whist designing it, I mainly focussed on the nature that surrounds it. It is separated in three parts: the farm, the garden, and the forest, all separated by paths that leave to outside the residence. I am especially happy with the way many of the custom trees came out, and specifically like the large sycamore maple in the North-East. Though the screenshots are taken with shaders, it is designed to be viewed with the vanilla game and textures. A trivia question for you: all my trees are based on real-life species, to make everything more realistic. Of the eleven, four are of the Acer genome / European maple trees: One Acer Campestre, one Acer Platanoides, and two Acer Pseudoplantanus. There is also an Italian alder, Alnus Cordata, a common hornbeam, Carpinus Betulus, two birch trees, Betula Pendula, two cypresses Cuspressus Sempervirens, and a chestnut, Aesculus Hippocastrantum. Knowing these trees are all in one place (some are in a garden, those might be planted…) Where in the world must this build be located? There actually is one correct answer, believe it or not.
I present "buttons" Maybe it's against the serious submission rule, but SSRC said in chat that we could always go the meme route, so here I am I swear if I win this would be a mad cap'n scott situation all over again. Don't vote for me
A trivia question for you: all my trees are based on real-life species, to make everything more realistic. Of the eleven, four are of the Acer genome / European maple trees: One Acer Campestre, one Acer Platanoides, and two Acer Pseudoplantanus. There is also an Italian alder, Alnus Cordata, a common hornbeam, Carpinus Betulus, two birch trees, Betula Pendula, two cypresses Cuspressus Sempervirens, and a chestnut, Aesculus Hippocastrantum. Knowing these trees are all in one place (some are in a garden, those might be planted…) Where in the world must this build be located? There actually is one correct answer, believe it or not. [/quote] Knowing most of these are native to the European and Asian areas, Correct me if im wrong, too lazy to google and i know japan likes their maples and also has the climate to support them along with cypress, araucarias (which arnt native to Europe anyway) And also take large pride in oriental gardens compared to Europe I was leaning to a Eastern European country but I'm really leaning towards japan, possibly Canada so my answer is japan. Followed by Canada.
You know what… I am going to write out the correct answer, and an explanation as to why I even do this. Here is the answer: There are some things that won’t help you figure it out: First, the Birch trees, Betula Pendula, are probably the most recognisable trees, but they are native to basically all of Eurasia, so that one doesn’t do too much. Additionally: they are the most common Birch type to be planted in Europe, in addition to being located in the garden. They don’t tell you a thing. The Cypresses, though, Cupressus sempervirens, are clearly of differing age and located in the forest, meaning they must grow natively in this area. This species is specifically native to most of the Mediterranean, including southern France, most of Italy and Greece. We know we’re in southern Europe, but that is not close to as specific as we’re going to get. The European maples, specifically the two Acer pseudoplatanus, and the Acer platanoides also have to be native trees, because of their location and ways of growth. They are native to central and southern Europe, bordering at the Caucasus. Aesculus hippocastanum, the horse chestnut, is native to only Greece and southern Italy, but it is a frequently planted tree, both in forests and in gardens, it might be native, but you cannot assume it. The combination that gets in interesting is the Common Hornbeam, Carpinus betulus, and the Italian alder, Alnus cordata. When examine the forest and farm, it should be clear both are native species, because of their general location and ways of growth. Additionally: neither tree is commonly planted. Thing is: their natural habitat barely overlaps. It means we must be in this bit of Italy: (You will also find that this region has a flurishing but quite local wheat industry ) Yes, that is absurdly specific, even for my standards. The only reason I posted that trivia question is because I noticed how specific this area is when looking at overlay maps of native areas on Wikipedia. It was too good not to post about. Most of my builds are “somewhere in western Europe” as I tend to make trees that I have seen myself, meaning most of my trees are native to either the Netherlands, Germany, France Italy or Greece. I do also like to make sure that it is technically possible to find a place where all of them overlap, but, most of the time, this overlap area is the entirety of southern France and Italy or the entirety of Scandinavia and northern Europe. If you’re wondering why I even make trees that are a specific species, instead of just “a pine tree” and “a birch tree,” here is a full explanation: I have found, looking at builds by different people, that most nature feels really life-less, or, if not that, slightly off, or cartoon-like: It feels like someone is remembering nature, and drawing it poorly. One of my biggest (and slightly unrelated) pet-peeves with this is that people tend to forget that trees don’t start fully grown. There are always some younger trees in forests, especially near the edges, where the forest gets thinner. These younger trees are a second “layer” of vegetation, underneath the canopy of the older trees above it. This is something you might not notice is wrong with someone’s building, but, you know what a forest looks like, and you see that what this person has made looks slightly off, even if you cannot tell why exactly. In my quest of finding more of these things, I also found that a part of the problem people have is that trees have species, and that species have traits. This is mostly noticeable in gardens and parks, where, in real life, usually a lot of different species are planted. Having only “deciduous” and “coniferous,” when making Minecraft trees usually leads to trees that are far too similar, making the park look unrealistic. By paying attention to what specific species I am making, and what the traits of that species are, I can largely circumvent this issue, and have a more realistic park. A similar, or, well, opposite, problem arises with natural forests: Forests tend to have large stretches of one or two tree types. Again, species have traits: when there is a large area filled with one tree, all trees should have those traits. A common example I give is this way of growing: This happens when two young trees slowly grow into each other, as their stems get larger and larger. In some species, like the American Sequoia, one tree dies when it is forced to grow like this. You cannot just have two trees grow in the same space and have it be fine, only one of them can live. In other species, like the Norway Maple this tree here is trying to be, it flourishes, and grows a lot better, even. Cypresses are also famous for doing this: The oldest known Cypress, which was planted in Iraq more than 4000 years ago, is speculated to be 8-20 separate trees that have grown into each other. When there is a larger forest of trees, either all of them can grow into each other, or none can, as, again, this is a species trait. So, some forests look like this on the ground level: And other look like this: In a larger forest, there usually isn’t just one tree that clips into the next tree, it’s either basically all of them, as they grow in random locations, or virtually none of them, save the few clearly different species. I’ve seen some really good builders mess this one up There are a lot of other little things like this you might start to notice when you pay attention to it. Thing is: I don’t really have to pay attention to all that: I can just be really faithful to the trees I see on images when looking at a specific species, and most of these problems disappear. I know this might all sounds really nit-picky, but I don’t do this just to nit-pick different mistakes people make: I do this because, thought you may not know why, doing stuff like this wrong is noticeable: even when you don’t know why, you know what a forest looks like, and you know that something someone has made doesn’t really look realistic, even though you might not be able to point out what, exactly. To summarise the part above: by being a lot more specific with my tree types, and by looking up exactly which tree I am placing somewhere, I have been able to eliminate a lot of the “this feels wrong but I don’t know why” issues my older builds seemed to have.
