Best Posts in Thread: Building Guide For The Designerly Inibriated

There is no right or wrong way to build something, Just different processes in how to do it. The following is my process. If you don't like it then don't follow the guide, I'm not forcing you to read or watch anything this is just a neat little how-to I made a while back and figured I should share.

Another disclaimer, I'm a huge Touhou fan (Japanese danmaku game series) A lot of the things mentioned on here are for replica builds or designing a building based on limited information (such as the constraint of a game background). If you don't understand what I mean by something please ask, if it becomes an issue I can edit it to a more conventional style.



Design Process for Building:


Step 1: Declare what you want to build


Not officially declare, that’d make you seem retarded. This is more of a mental stage. Say you want to build the Scarlet Devil mansion. So you’d think what type of building it is and what materials you would use.


Common building types that I draw from are:

Mansion: French, German, English
mansions come in all shapes and sizes and there are other styles other than these three mentioned. However these are the three you most commonly see. Google is a good reference for these, pay attention to the roof line, gardens, and window shapes and positions as these are the primary ways to tell the types apart.

Pagoda: Chinese, Japanese, South Asian (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam)
Pagodas aren't just your standard Asian style tower. It actually refers to a genre of building that originated in China and was later adapted by other cultures as trade routes became more common. Pagodas typically have an odd number of floors as even numbers would mean it's either 2 or 6 stories since 4 is considered unlucky. 4 in most Asian languages is read as "Shi" or "Yon" the former is also their word for death. In these cultures it's not a swear to count (Japanese would go: Ichi, ni, san, shi(yon), go, hachi, roku, ect.) but the alternative reading was added for people who don't want to use the version with a negative connotation. Chinese buildings specifically also have a horizontal counting system known as "Jian" which is the space between two support pillars. A standard home would be 1-2 Jian, a nice house would be 3-4, a temple is 5-6, and palaces are 7 and up. The Chinese Imperial Palace has 9 Jian

Houses: Tutor, Suburban Modernist (Frank Lloyd Wright), Contemporary (Standard Murican house), European city house, Romanesque, Cottage, Apartments, Chinese Traditional, Japanese Traditional, Pueblo
These are honestly so varied that you should save yourself the headache and do the research on these as you need them rather than all at once. Houses also have different styles based on WHEN they were made. A European city house in the 1800s is vastly different from one built in the 1900s so check dates on those.


Castles/Cathedrals: Gothic, Byzantine, Greek, Roman, English, Russian
Most of these styles originated from the renaissance period with the exception of the Russian style which took inspiration from the Byzantine churches who took from the Muslim mosque who took from the Arabic farm house after Muhammad inspired his people at one. (there's no such thing as too much borrowing in architecture) To understand what kind of cathedral you're going for you need to look at the culture of the buildings nationality. Colors mean a lot in things like this believe it or not as do cardinal directions. Mosques are always angled with their prayer wall facing Mecca ALWAYS. European churches always have a cross like floor plan (few exceptions, don't believe me compare Notre Dame to the Vatican) Mosques are more modest looking on the outside and are mostly just an empty building on the inside, Cathedrals have huge arching roof lines and excessive wall carvings and decoration (especially the Italians).

Greek vs Roman is also a confusing one. Contrary to pop culture most of the Greek temples were painted red and black on white marble. the paints just didn't stay. Mycenae's ruins actually had some paint on it still. Roman architecture uses domes, the Greeks didn't use domes until much later and had a more open wall structure with more colonnades than the Romans who used the lesser colonnades as decoration rather than support as the Greeks did.


Just figure out which one of these styles your build fits under and what color you want it and that’s step 1 in a nutshell..a very long winded architectural history packed nutshell.


Step 2: Planning it out


Yes, I actually do this, I go to the store, get some graph paper, and I draw out the floor plan. You need to make a list of rooms that are essential and rooms that will be filler. So for the SDM example we’d have a layout something like:

Remi’s room, Sakuya’s room, Voile, Patchy’s room, Basement, Flan’s Cage, Kitchen, Dining room, Foyer, Ballroom, Event room (Seen in Silent Sinner in Blue), Studies near each bedroom


Filler rooms: Servant Quarters, Storage closets, Guest Rooms (Slightly nicer than the servant rooms), Specialty Libraries


Once this is declared draw out a floor plan, if you need examples of how to do this google is a cool kid, it’s how I learned originally.


Step 3: Framing it out

Now that you have an idea of what you’re doing you start building, Frame out EVERYTHING first, an order to do this would be, floor plan (Horizontal), Height of walls, outer walls, indication for how many stories, and eventually you’ll have a full skeleton of the building.


At this point I fill in some floors and put signs on specific rooms, the ones mentioned in step 2 to be exact. The frame will make it easier to switch things around before you fill in the walls while still giving you a feel for how the building will look. So if you don’t like something this is where you can change it without going crazy.



Step 4: Color in the lines

fill in the walls, think about window placement and how much light you want in a space. leave gaps for doors and fill in the floors and their patterns, checkers are nice, there are other patterns you can pick from too. Don’t neglect the signs as you build as you might need to leave room for redstone if you plan on using that. At this point just try to pay attention to what you’re doing and don’t let it condelude your plans. You thought this all out for a reason.


Step 5: Detailing the exterior


I put this before interior for one reason alone, the exterior is the first thing people see and will effect their initial judgement of the build. Your interior can be beautiful but if the exterior is meh people still won’t like the build.


draw ideas from the style of building you’re trying to go for, like a French Mansion, mimic it with stairs, slabs, and any other material you have at your disposal. When in doubt I always force myself to use more stairs as they make it look like you have access to smaller blocks than you do [Microblocks why aren’t you vanilla : ( ]

Use the heavier detailed areas to highlight key points in your build, Have a nice front door? Frame it so it looks like it. Detailing is all about drawing attention to the parts of the build you want to show the most.


Step 6: Furnishing


I don’t know how to explain how I do this other than studying example of what rooms look like and various furnishings and replicating it. Look at what the room is suppose to be and make it look like that I guess.


Step 7: Feedback


Your build is never done, you can always add on something as you come up with it. Get feedback from other people and use that to get better.

Here is a tutorial on the tools I use for making my builds. though the video I made focuses on terraform the tools can be applied to other things. Also when I made this I didn't necessarily have Meep in mind as an audience. I'm not sure how crude my humor is or not but it shouldn't be more than a strong PG