Kenny
Looking for meaning in the weirdest places
- Apr 27, 2026
- 71
So I have this really weird hobby and it revolves around Minecraft, I've been wasting a LOT of time in it and I'm not sure what to say about it. I'll give a bit of context to preface the hobby itself.
So ever since I was in kindergarten I've played Minecraft, I loved it then and I love it now. The openness of it allowed me to do random creative stuff and burn time where I'd otherwise be doing something dull. This isn't to say all my life was all dull, well, most of it was, but I just enjoyed having it as a pastime, and I still do. Later on I eventually got Minecraft on a computer and started playing multiplayer, which opened up a whole new page for me.
It was on multiplayer where I first learned how to do something called "map art", aka recreating an image in game by placing blocks. You see, when you open a map in game it'll show a 128x128 area of the surface, but you can actually create an image in this 128x128 area. This is relatively easy with the right tools, as there are programs where you plug in any image you want and it turns it into a schematic that you can make. The problem is that it looks really noisy, as the program will essentially try to get the exact shades of colors and it'll make the maps look really bad in game. Why is this? Well Minecraft has a limited color palette, very limited in fact. I believe it's only about 183 colors compared to 10,000,000 colors that we can see (that was a google search but you get the point). Anyway the program adds random splotches of weird color to try to fix gradients and what not. This is widely regarded as the standard way to do it.
Unfortunately I'm a perfectionist so this made me a bit upset, so I set my mind to figure out how to make good maps, and I think I've finally found the theoretically best way. What I'll do is import an image without gradients (or at least usable gradients) into a separate art program where I can manually edit the image, and I'll clean all the noise out of the image and polish it. This process usually takes 2-8 hours per map, which for context, is the time it'd take to build 1-2 maps the standard way in game. Once I have this reference built in the program, I will manually freehand it in game with the program as a reference, as I cannot actually download a schematic for what I do.
In addition to cleaning up noise, I also staircase my maps. It's a really complex process but I'll explain it like this, a block will change shade in a map based on the block North of it. If the block is level, it's the same shade. If higher, the block gets darker, and if lower, the block gets lighter. Basically this means if you mess with heights of blocks you get more shading and what not.
At this point you're probably wondering why the heck I'm ranting about the most obscure stuff you've probably heard of. It's really stupidly overkill I know lol, I did the math and one project I want to pull off would be the equivalent of thousands of dollars at a minimum wage job (made me reconsider the project entirely).
Well that's the interesting part... I looked at the SaSu logo and realized that it was very square, and also it was made of literally just 3 shades and one color. Soooo I decided that I'd make an art of it and hopefully I'll finish it tomorrow! I was going to send pictures of it here but then I realized there isn't much to show... yet! It shouldn't take that long to make, it's really simple.
Also for comparison I attached an image comparing my map to the average standard method map just for an actual comparison.
This one is mine! (technically unfinished) This one is a random one (notice the gradients)
If anyone is interested I can send pictures of the stuff I'm working on I just think this is a really weird hobby and I know literally nobody else that does it to the level I do. I am a Minecraft nerd to unheard extremes
So ever since I was in kindergarten I've played Minecraft, I loved it then and I love it now. The openness of it allowed me to do random creative stuff and burn time where I'd otherwise be doing something dull. This isn't to say all my life was all dull, well, most of it was, but I just enjoyed having it as a pastime, and I still do. Later on I eventually got Minecraft on a computer and started playing multiplayer, which opened up a whole new page for me.
It was on multiplayer where I first learned how to do something called "map art", aka recreating an image in game by placing blocks. You see, when you open a map in game it'll show a 128x128 area of the surface, but you can actually create an image in this 128x128 area. This is relatively easy with the right tools, as there are programs where you plug in any image you want and it turns it into a schematic that you can make. The problem is that it looks really noisy, as the program will essentially try to get the exact shades of colors and it'll make the maps look really bad in game. Why is this? Well Minecraft has a limited color palette, very limited in fact. I believe it's only about 183 colors compared to 10,000,000 colors that we can see (that was a google search but you get the point). Anyway the program adds random splotches of weird color to try to fix gradients and what not. This is widely regarded as the standard way to do it.
Unfortunately I'm a perfectionist so this made me a bit upset, so I set my mind to figure out how to make good maps, and I think I've finally found the theoretically best way. What I'll do is import an image without gradients (or at least usable gradients) into a separate art program where I can manually edit the image, and I'll clean all the noise out of the image and polish it. This process usually takes 2-8 hours per map, which for context, is the time it'd take to build 1-2 maps the standard way in game. Once I have this reference built in the program, I will manually freehand it in game with the program as a reference, as I cannot actually download a schematic for what I do.
In addition to cleaning up noise, I also staircase my maps. It's a really complex process but I'll explain it like this, a block will change shade in a map based on the block North of it. If the block is level, it's the same shade. If higher, the block gets darker, and if lower, the block gets lighter. Basically this means if you mess with heights of blocks you get more shading and what not.
At this point you're probably wondering why the heck I'm ranting about the most obscure stuff you've probably heard of. It's really stupidly overkill I know lol, I did the math and one project I want to pull off would be the equivalent of thousands of dollars at a minimum wage job (made me reconsider the project entirely).
Well that's the interesting part... I looked at the SaSu logo and realized that it was very square, and also it was made of literally just 3 shades and one color. Soooo I decided that I'd make an art of it and hopefully I'll finish it tomorrow! I was going to send pictures of it here but then I realized there isn't much to show... yet! It shouldn't take that long to make, it's really simple.
Also for comparison I attached an image comparing my map to the average standard method map just for an actual comparison.
This one is mine! (technically unfinished) This one is a random one (notice the gradients)
If anyone is interested I can send pictures of the stuff I'm working on I just think this is a really weird hobby and I know literally nobody else that does it to the level I do. I am a Minecraft nerd to unheard extremes
