Guess what! Minecraft got another 5 maps designed to showcase the raytracing which I couldn’t
help but boot up and explore. Not just for the raytracing, though, but also to appreciate
the talent it must take to create these masterpiece levels. I’ll be going through them, from
my least to most favourite. In at number 5 is The Observer. What’s there
is pretty. There’s just not much to see because it’s mostly empty. It’s just a
load of colourful rooms showcasing glowing and reflective surfaces. Now to be fair this
is supposed to be played in Adventure mode, but I’m here for the graphics so I just
force creative and fly around. The maze room’s cool and futuristic-looking. And I like the
blue and orange colour-scheme in this one. And there’s this staircase which goes around
the side of a large room with what appears to be a reactor inside. I made some diffuse
shadows just here- it looks simple but this kind of effect is difficult to achieve in
real-time when there are so many different light positions to account for.
And at the top is this panoramic view of the world around. Kind of like the house that
I made. I thought there was something quite atmospheric about this view, so decided to
watch the sunrise here. And that was it.
4 – Although I only rank Dark Village at number 4, I have a soft-spot for it since
its library is very similar to the one I dreamed about long before Minecraft got complex enough
to feature one for real. It’s set in a village at sunset, in the heart of a dark forest.
For some reason the time of day was fixed at sunset for me, which did admittedly look
pretty, especially on those reflective leaves and sun-kissed surfaces. But I fast-forwarded
time to midnight since this is when the map truly shines. Quite literally.
I found myself most obsessed with the small details, like how a plant would cast a dark,
fuzzy shadow in the corner it was in. Something as blocky as minecraft surprises me whenever
I see little details like this and it’s all the more rewarding for it.
Since the first video I made, it seems the RTX implementation has had some tweaks since
the framerate seemed a lot higher and more consistent. It would still take a second or
so to calculate changes to the lighting such as with this torch here. It’s obviously
not ideal, but when given the choice between fast and approximate, and slow and beautiful,
I think the latter works better with the style of gameplay that minecraft offers. Again,
I don’t think this is the final version since the devs are aware of this and have
plans on how to minimise the effect… but it obviously hasn’t been done just yet.
And here it is! Exactly like my dream, all those years ago. I’m a right sucker for
dark corners and distant ledges as the library extends back into the unknown.
I seem to remember more fire in my dream… Again, it’s the small details that make
the raytracing special by lighting everything so NORMALLY. This is just a small, humble
room, lit by a dim off-white light. It doesn’t need fancy shaders, nor crisp clean shadows
to look impressive. All it needs is £1,000 of cutting edge graphics hardware, am I right.
But this is only half the level. The other half is down under-ground.
Ah yes, that’s more like my dream!
Now again, I might be missing something here, but it seems like it’s just an underground
town of sorts. Think the Mines of Moria, but on a tight budget.
It’s nicely decorated and you could live quite comfortably down here. But, you know…
it is still just a minecraft world.
3 – Hilltop Lifestyle is an Italian-inspired village. It’s huge, it’s sprawling, you
can explore the buildings and it’s on a hill. What more could you want. My only criticism
would be that it’s all at an odd angle. It feels like it’s been made in an external
program and then ported in, and some bits feel a bit bare because of that. But that
feels like harsh criticism when so much effort has been put into this design and I did enjoy
exploring the different buildings, most of which had my favourite brown-stained glass.
Most of these houses are empty, so you’d have to use your imagination to picture what
it COULD look like. And I liked lighting up the dark rooms, since that’s what raytracing’s
all about. As the sun set, the light-coloured bricks
gave the town a warm and welcoming glow. And is it just me, or is every minecraft level
required to have a ship somewhere?
In at number 2 is Medieval, which is almost like a sister village to the hilltop lifestyle
one I’ve just covered. This one’s smaller and less dramatic. And yet, I prefer it because
it’s more densely packed with places to explore, and it feels a bit more homely and
full of medieval character and decoration. It’s sat on top of a giant cavern filled
with glowing gems- and a dragon’s skull. I don’t know how they managed it but there’s
ANOTHER mine network around the other side, which the sun beautifully lights up around
midday. And ANOTHER in the form of a crypt with what
appears to be a nether portal mid-construction. And there are all kinds of districts and attractions
in the town itself; a church that catches the morning sun, spilling shades of stain
glass across the benches. A multicoloured market.
And a labyrinthine castle with rooms leading off everywhere. Although the views from the
towers are a bit disappointing… unless you make some manual adjustments like I did.
And a hodgepodge of fields. It feels like a more elaborate version of that dragon castle
from the first map collection. And lastly, my favourite map: Egg hunt. You’ve
got half an hour to find eggs scattered across the map! Though who cares about that. I couldn’t
be bothered- and I think, when you see just how large this world is, you wouldn’t be
either. Now I’ve seen some big levels before, like the city or jungle one from the first
collection. But this one manages a massive scale, whilst still feeling hand-crafted.
You can keep flying and flying and you’ll come across room after room of stuff. I love
these deep crevasses, which are wide enough to be epic, yet still deep enough for the
slightest change in sun position to make a huge difference to the pit’s atmosphere.
There’s a lake in a cavern, with walkways around the outside to rival the best Skyrim
has to offer. And then there’s this surreal place, where
it’s as though the world has been split in two like a geode.
I enjoyed lighting up the darkest of caves with torches.
And, of course, adding a command block and forcing fast-motion to watch the sun travel
overhead, as the creepers’ shadows danced below. Isn’t it incredible to think that
a world made of blocks can be so imaginative, and so inviting. I think I’m probably done
with raytraced Minecraft for now, but it was just too tempting not to revisit it one last
time.