Texture Packs and Skins

This is the MangoMinecraft of the present. I drafted this post a long time ago and forgot to publish it. Just to clarify, I have updated to 1.6 now.
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As you may know, Minecraft 1.6 came out recently. It added horses, stained clay, coal blocks, hay blocks, and more. Another thing that was changed: Mojang replaced Minecraft's texture pack with the resource pack. While the texture pack only lets you edit images and colors, the resource pack lets you edit pretty much everything except the actual game code. This includes sounds, fonts, text, and lots of other stuff. That's the reason I haven't updated yet; I've been messing around with texture packs and skins and I've been having to much fun to update just yet. Don't worry, soon my desire to ride horses will overpower my desire to make creepers wear pink shoes and the sun to have a smiley face. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, here's a picture:

        You may also notice that I added weird scribbles on the grass and the pig over in the lower left corner. You can also edit what you look like, and although this picture doesn't show it, I look like I have very long black hair. That didn't really work out very well, because the shape of the Minecraft body is broad-shouldered and just looks weird with female skins.
        The process of drafting this post caused me a lot of annoyance. Have you ever copied something huge, and then copied something else before you pasted the first thing? Maybe you didn't realize your mistake until you tried to paste the first thing and got something else instead. Well, that's exactly what happened to me when I was drafting this post. I started writing it in the Computer Version post, but then realized it was too long and copied it to paste it into this post. Long story short, THE INABILITY TO COPY MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I'm done now.
        It took me a while to find a good YouTube tutorial for editing texture packs. Part of the problem is that you have to specifically type 1.5.2 tutorial, because versions 1.5 and later have separate images for each block, instead of one big image. Also, a lot of tutorials said you needed to extract the minecraft zip archive, but that just complicates things. By the way, if you're thinking of getting the computer version now, or if you have 1.6, ignore me because the format of resource packs is completely different. The most helpful video tutorial I've found for editing resource packs is this one. He doesn't explain specifically how to use the programs to edit sound and image files, but there's other resources for that. By the way, Paint.NET is an awesome image editing program. It has a really great user interface, and you can do pretty much anything. And, it's free!
        Back to the video. Back when texture packs were used, when you wanted to make a new texture pack, you created a folder in AppData > Roaming > .minecraft > texturepacks. You then copied all of the default files in there and then edited them. However, in the video, with the new resource packs, instead of copying all the default files in the beginning, you copy, paste, and edit each file individually. I don't really know if you have to do that, because it seems inefficient and time-consuming. Oh well... Both of them work. Another method that I haven't found mentioned anywhere is to use TextureEnder.jar to generate a resource pack. (TextureEnder.jar is available for download here.) If you just create a copy of the default texture pack and convert it, it does all the work for you. Doing this may require a bit of help from YouTube tutorials, though.
        One last thing. In versions before 1.5, HD texture packs required the use of a program called MCPatcher. But now, Minecraft automatically stitches textures together, so you can create HD texture packs!!! YAY!!! Here's my front door. Like, literally my front door, except in Minecraft.

        That's pretty much it. More on my exploits in the computer version later.

Computer Version

    Sorry for the late post. I just noticed that I never actually told you what happened after I made the mistake in the Minecraft Tips Post #2 and Minecraft Mini-Lesson #1 post. Well, I dug straight down, since there aren't underground caves. After about 2 minutes, I found iron: there were two iron ore blocks showing on the side of my tunnel. I dug both of them and stepped into the space where they used to be to see if there were any more iron ore blocks. There was one right above me. I dug it, and four pieces of gravel fell on top of me and I started suffocating. I quickly dug the four gravel blocks before I died, but I was lucky. If there had been more gravel on top, I probably wouldn't have been able to dig my way out fast enough. So, now you know why it's better safe than sorry, even if you're in Pocket Edition.
        I've been having a ton of fun trying out the new features in the computer version of Minecraft. One thing I really like about the computer version is Creative Mode. It's exactly like survival mode, but with unlimited items and invincibility. Yes, I know that sounds kind of obvious, but what I mean is that Creative mode in Pocket Edition is totally different, and it's not really as fun. It takes away a lot of the fun stuff in survival mode, like the day/night cycle and hostile mobs. Not to mention that even peaceful mobs don't spawn naturally and require spawn eggs (and there's only 4 peaceful mob spawn egg types available right now.)
        I'm amazed by the variety of stuff in the computer version. There's just so much. The huge variety of blocks and items makes structures look really realistic, and I'm totally a building person in Minecraft. This is a good time to mention that I love building from tutorials. I'm working on using more creativity when thinking of ideas for things to build in Minecraft, but I still think it's fun to build awesome things that other people have built.
        Right now I'm building an Ender Dragon statue from a YouTube tutorial at a 16:1 scale. That's one pixel on the real Ender Dragon to one block on the statue, which is a scale that's commonly used in Minecraft to build statues of mobs or players. I'm going to post screenshots of it in progress. Right now, I'm building the head. It's so huge that bats are spawning inside of it! Here's some pictures:

Some very confused bats

The inside of the unfinished head

The view from the outside

Unfortunately, my dragon is going batty. Excuse the old-fashioned, not-really-that-funny pun. I will try to get more posts out now, especially book reviews, because I kinda forgot about those for a while.

Minecraft Tips Post #2 and Minecraft Mini-Lesson #1

        The golden rule of Minecraft: Never dig straight up or straight down.
     
        If you dig directly above you, you risk having water, sand, gravel, monsters, primed TNT or anvils (those two are only likely to be discovered in multiplayer games, but yes, those hurt), or maybe even lava drop  down on you.

        That reminds me of a mistake I once made in a Minecraft Pocket Edition game. I was desperate for iron for shears, since there weren't many sheep around and I didn't want to kill too many for a bed. I dug straight down from the surface (uh-oh!) planning to pillar-jump my way back up.

        I guess it's okay to dig straight down if you're in Pocket Edition. It doesn't have massive underground cave systems that you're definitely going to die if you fall into them, whether by mobs, lava, or just fall damage. But in the computer version... It can take weeks in Minecraft to explore and light up a cave system or ravine. And it'll probably be overflowing with mobs. If you absolutely must dig down, hit F3. It's in the row of "F" keys at the top of your keyboard. It shows the debug info screen, which is a information menu that covers the upper right-hand corner of the Minecraft window. It includes:

• Your x, y, and z coordinates
• The biome you're currently in 
• The amount of light that's hitting you
• Your speed
• Whether you're touching the ground or not
• A whole bunch of other technical things (see the Minecraft Wiki page on it for details)

        There are two main ways you can use the debug info screen if you're planning to dig straight down. The first is that you can use the Minecraft wiki or other resources to figure out if there might be hazards around your layer (layer is another term for your y-value). Note that your head is 1.62 blocks above the block you're standing on, so your y-value will almost always end in .62 and the actual layer you're at is your y-value minus 1.62. For example, no one likes digging underneath them and falling into lava. Lava is found frequently from bedrock up to about layer 50. From there, it is less and less frequent, and when you get to layer 88 and above, there's none at all. Using this info, I can tell you that it's generally not a good idea to dig straight underneath you if you're pretty far down in your mine.

        The second way you can use your debug screen to decide whether to dig up or down is pretty awesome. But first, a Minecraft mini-lesson about Blocks, Items, Particles, Sprites, and Entities.

        Minecraft blocks are pretty self-explanatory if you play Minecraft. Items are objects in Minecraft that can't exist outside the player's inventory, like an iron ingot or a diamond (except for thrown items that are waiting to be picked up by a player, of course, upon which they become entities). Particles are two-dimensional icons that appear in-game, like the purple End and Nether particles and the hearts that appear around animals and villagers when you're breeding. Sprites are two intersecting 2-dimensional images like flowers, sapling, and mushrooms. Finally, there's entities. These are moving, interacting things. (Sorry for the bad description.) Here's some examples: animals, anvils, primed TNT (non-primed TNT is a block), all mobs, the player, etc. Gravity always applies to entities, and they can be pushed around by water and lava.

        You know how the player's name appears floating over the player's head on Minecraft multiplayer servers? If you press F3, a little tag like that will appear over every entity, even ones that you can't see because of blocks in the way. It's really handy, because you can spot dungeons and large clusters of mobs underground, and you generally don't want to run into those.

Note: Many experienced Minecraft players consider using F3 in-game as cheating and using F3 is disabled on many Minecraft multiplayer servers. If you're planning to publicize your Minecraft work, make sure you mention whether you're going to use F3 or not.

Minecraft Survival Base Tutorial

1. Use a circle template, like this one, and build the outline of your base. I used a little over a stack of cobblestone for the one I used for my base, #19.
2. Smelt a ton of sand into glass. I used almost three stacks of glass panes for the next step.
3. Glass panes are cheaper, but are harder to build with. I placed two layers of glass panes on the cobblestone outline. Your home is now animal-free, so you can move in if you're playing on peaceful. Don't turn all of your glass into panes, because you'll need some glass blocks later.
4. On the parts of the circle outline that have two blocks diagonally next to each other, you'll need to use an extra glass pane for it to look good from the outside. See diagram below:

5. Continue placing layers of cobblestone on the circle outline. You can add windows now if you want, but the way I do the lighting in my base, you don't need windows on the walls.

6. It's up to you how high you want the ceilings on each floor in your base (or if you want ceilings at all.) I built a pretty small circle, so no ceilings wouldn't have looked very good. If you build a bigger circle, you can just have no ceiling. It feels open and looks really cool. Here's an example. I personally hate the feeling of two-block-high ceilings, and if you have a bed inside your house, two-block-high-ceilings won't work. I always have three or four-block-high ceilings. Fill in the ceilings on a few floors, depending on how high you want your ceilings to be, how high you built the cobblestone wall in step five, and how many floors you want.

7. Decide if you want just a central ladder going through your base, or stairs in between each floor. In my base, I have a central ladder and stairs going between areas that I use a lot.

8. Make sure you have the ceiling of the top floor done. Now it's time for the lighting. You can use torches if you want, but I personally think glowstone looks really good. Get a stack to a stack and a half of glass blocks. Not panes, those look horrible when you use them in ceilings and you keep falling through them if you're not careful.

9. You can choose exactly how you want to do this step. On the roof, make rings of glass around the place where the ladder comes out, and have a regular patter of glowstone. You can use anywhere between 4 and 24 glowstone on each floor. depending on how big your base is and how much glowstone you have. Check out my other Minecraft PE Base post for more pictures. Here's one:

Minecraft Tips

I'm going to be posting Minecraft tips. Most will be from the Minecraft wiki. If you haven't been there yet, it's awesome. The funny thing is, that's the unofficial one ( the official one is here), and the unofficial one's more popular and has WAY more stuff. A lot of the tips will be kinda basic, but I hope that's okay. There'll also be some fun facts.
Tip #1:

• The slowest way possible to walk in the game is to sneak and block with your sword while walking backwards through cobwebs and still lava on soul sand with ice underneath it, with the effects of the potion of slowness. This results in an approximate speed of 1/272 m/s. (from the Potions page on the Minecraft Wiki). 

The other Minecraft tips posts will be longer than this

YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

        I got the computer version! YAY! I have version 1.5.2. I don't think I'm going to be installing snapshots, pre-release versions, beta versions, and stuff like that because they have tons of bugs and I don't want to seriously ess up my game. Also, sometimes there's problems like not being able to get the new features in areas you've already explored. I just wish the official releases would come out faster, because the snapshots are already in 1.9ish and there's horses and everything!
        So, anyway, I've been watching some Let's Play's (LP's) on YouTube, and I'm thinking I might want to do one, except it'll be through blog posts and screenshots. I'm looking for a good seed. I don't really like playing survival in crazy seeds; I just like normal survival seeds, but maybe with some diamonds underneath spawn? I don't know. I'll be watching YouTube videos and visiting websites and stuff like that to find a good seed.
        I'm mostly a peaceful mode player. I think monsters are kinda annoying. I know it's not that hard to play off of peaceful mode, but I guess they just get in the way of doing more fun stuff. Once I get the mob spawner built, though, I might go on Easy or Normal.
        That's this post. It's really random, but that's me. The name of this blog was going to be Random Mangoes, but that was taken. :(

My Minecraft PE Survival Base

        My main survival world is a peaceful mode world. The seed I used is 0.69.0, which is the BEST SEED EVER. I got it from this video. You spawn at the bottom of a hill, and there's lots of goodies under spawn (iron, diamond, gold, AND coal!!). Since it's a peaceful world, I didn't really need a house and my base was a bunch of chests, furnaces, a crafting table, and a bed in front of the spawn hill. However, I'm preparing to turn off peaceful mode forever, so I decided to get a bunch of resources and build an awesome base. Here's how to get to the site of my house: Walkover to the right edge of the hill and climb over it. There's a tundra on top of the hill. Walk across it, and go down the hill. You'll see a big, grassy plain with tons of animals.
        My base is a big cobblestone cylinder with windows. Here's a picture:

My Base

        My base currently has two floors and a ceiling. There's a ladder going up through the center. The bottom floor is sort of boring. There's just the usual stuff: furnace, crafting table, stonecutter, bed, etc. There's also the entrance to my mine and the entrance to the sheep maze. I'll explain later. The second floor is my utility room. There's a crafting center with a chest full of fuel, another bed, and my chest area.

Second Floor Chest Storage Area

        My base is a torch-free zone. I hate the old-fashioned look of torches and Mojang's failed attempt to make them look like they're flickering. Glowstone is just SO much better. I built rings of glass in the exact same position on each floor, with some glowstone. During the day, the natural sunlight goes all the way to the bottom floor. It's awesome. Here's some pictures: 

My roof

View from the second floor

View from the bottom floor

        Also, I have an over-the-top wool farm. It's not really a farm, though. It's more like an awesome habitat for the sheep. It's almost a maze, with several rooms and flowers in each one. There's also little decorative pools of water.

The sheep maze

       This screenshot was taken last Thursday, when Springtime the green sheep was still happily enjoying his beautiful home. He came into my life when he accidentally wandered too close to my house and was pushed into the sheep pit. He was tragically lost in an accident on Sunday in which he was annoying me by trying to escape. I tried to poke him with my fists, but I forgot to put away my diamond sword.  Let's all have a moment of silence to mourn the loss of Springtime, the green sheep. 

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        Finally, there's my failed beacon. I learned a trick to build beacons without having to fall off and die: build a two-block-wide tower as you're going up, and dig your way down on one side when you're done. My beacon, however, failed for two reasons: One, I didn't start out with enough materials. At first I used dirt, then stone, then sand. My second mistake was falling off not once, but twice. This means the beacon is about half as tall as it could be. You can see my base before you see the beacon, which defeats the purpose of a beacon. Sad Face.

Beacon Fail

        Sorry for the really late post, imaginary readers. My posts are always too long.