That did not mean it was a complete project. Even after the video feature appeared, I continued to add to the surroundings. Curved walkways were added around the towers, and the flow of the landscape was improved. I continued to add secret areas (easter eggs) underneath and around the build. To this day, I can still count on a single hand the number of people who have seen the Vaults under Zair. There are probably less than a dozen people who have found the nuclear fallout bunker under the hotel (thanks Jomeaga), the haunted metro-vox platforms, the gold mine shafts, the storage caves, the Zair-theme song note block composition, and the magnitude of other goodies underneath the establishment.

Since being feature by CaptainSparklez, the resort has also been featured (and thumbnailed) on several other youtube videos. It has been showcased at Minecon (Yogscast Panel, Minecon 2011), and has become a build that has been mocked on other servers.

Back in the original days of Zair’s construction, I was only a member. It was just the beginning of Pangea, and the staff had yet to finish generating the Pangea map. Midway through constructing the Zair hotel, I received Builder status. At the time, the only bonus that came with that was /i to give my self an unlimited supplies of items. Later on, after finishing the first several revisions of the Zair resort district, I was granted sniper abilities. Sniper was still in its early-development stages – like pre Voxel Sniper 1.0.  None the less, I was able to utilize the voxel, ball, and disc brushes to do some basic landscaping to finish the second iteration of zair.

The revision featured in CaptainSparklez Video was revision 4. It had a completed courtyard area around the towers, and the floating sky pads had been relocated. Revision 5 was seen in Mexxy’s video that was seen during the Yogscast panel.

Anyway, I’ve always felt that I could do better. I did not have the tools I have today as a Voxel Box Titan when I created the original build. Today, I could best revision 6 (the current revision) of Zair if i restarted. Thus, that is precisely what I have done. I have recently started construction on the Xair resort. Xair will share many of the successful themes and components present in Zair. It will not be a clone of Zair, but an entirely new resort with it’s own unique flavor and appearance. I will be improving everything that was (and still is) flawed with Zair. I will be incorporating new components, revised designs, even more curvature, and introducing many, many more viewing angles and perspectives. Xair will likely replace Zair when the Voxel Box moves to the Palceon map next year. I do not want to spoil everything I am building into Xair, so much of it will remain a secret until it is near completion.

Here is a teaser of the Xair project, after two days of construction:

Xair Resort

I expect the project to take several months to build, and it will change a lot just as Zair did during its’ construction. I wish I could go back and timelapse Zair’s contruction, but unfortunately I’m not a time traveler… I am doing the next best thing though! I am timelapsing Xair’s entire construction, and I plan to upload a timelapse video when completed. Look to see that video popping up on youtube, and look for other youtube videos to be showcasing Xair.

Speaking of Zair, it will soon be undergoing a transformation. It is going to be improved, expanded, and brought up to today’s Voxel Box standards.

Lately, I’ve been working on a large mountainous area on my map created with Voxel Sniper. The dimensions are about 1800 by 1100 right now. It has about a dozen mountains at the moment, with the lowest valley being at block height 3, and the tallest point being 128. I’ve added several waterfalls, lavafalls, and streams. I’ve used existing caves and created elaborate cave entrances. Most of this work has been accomplished with size 10-20 ball brushes of stone, followed by recursive smoothing and eroding, an overlay of 2-deep grass blocks, then coverage of bigtree tree brushes. I then go back and add smaller details, specifically around cave entrances, peaks, and cliff faces. I have actually been contemplating making a modded map with a different map height, and attempting taller mountains

I plan to start work on a mountainous town in the coming days in one of the range’s valleys or cliff sides, and will provide updates as it takes form.

Aerios is massive. It is a community driven project that has seen dozens of contributors over its existence. For whatever reason, it is considered inferior and a failed project by many on the Voxel Box, to the point it has been mostly abandoned. It is really depressing for such a great build. Everything is well detailed and block selections and styles are consistent from building to building, with every build being unique in some form. There are many decorated back alleys and facades, there are many small parks and fountains. There is a combination of large and small builds. It all comes together for an impressive town, even if its not in a completed state and is laid out somewhat poorly.

A special thanks to Yogscast and Mexxy for featuring Zair, Bridgeport, & other Voxel Box builds at the Yogscast Panel @ Minecon. See the featured video segment here.

Built in December 2010, Zair was one of the Voxel Box’s first establishments on Pangea. It was built by hand, block by block, in a pre-VoxelSniper era, without worldedit, and entirely by then-builder Nebula7 of the Voxel Box. The Zair resort and civic district have went through 4 iterations.

It started out as a simple idea for two garden plazas built into the land. The lower plaza was built along a bay, and an upper plaza was built ontop of a small mountain with a steep cliff several hundred blocks south. While building the upper plaza, it begin to progress down in a series of circles. The idea of a garden plaza was soon abandoned, and it later became the Zair Hotel. At the conclusion of the first iteration, the hotel had 63 hotel rooms, including 5 suites. It has a two floor hotel, a helipad, a spa, two restaurants, and a lava-fall in it’s lobby.

The second iteration of Zair saw a single curved tower built. This tower was toped with an observation deck. Built in unconventional ways, the tower could never be completed and fully furnished. It was later abandoned and destroyed to make way for a more elegant dual tower formation. This third iteration also saw the introduction of the Zair plaza, a 3 level ground-underground garden, shopping, and service area linking all of the hotel and resort structures. The plaza also contains the Zair MetroVox station which has lines heading to nearby Bridgeport.

The civic district was built to handle services for the port of Zair. It’s main structures include a courthouse, clock tower, jail, port authority, and storage yards. It also contains a number of houses and shops built by other builders of the Voxel Box.

Zair has been involved in an ungoing political war over land claims with the nearby Island of RidgeDog, owned by server administrator Ridgedog, to the north west of Zair port.

More information on Zair is available on the voxelbox wiki, here.

There are two major builds in Babiole:

• Chateau de Rasoir. This is Razorcane’s home, and it is no ordinary home. The Chateau includes a bowling alley, a private indoor swimming pool, a map room, and a personal bar which is catered by Nebula.
• Notre Pere de Babiole. It is a gothic styled, 97-block high, cathedral in the northeast corner of town.

It has been under construction since August, yet it is still considered “Unfinished” by its lead architect, Razorcane. It is Razorcane’s only city build on the Voxel Box, and he achieved both Builder and Sniper ranks through the town’s construction.  Many other Voxel Box members have taken up residence in the town and contributed houses and shops to the skyline.

Pulled over from the original Voxel Box map, Citadel City was the first establishment placed in Pangea. It is a city fortress, in the shape of a perfect octagon. For most on the Voxel Box, it is considered the capital of Pangea.

It was built by hand in mid 2010, prior to the existence of any Voxel or Bukkit plugins.

Features

• The Tree of Life. A massive tree in the center of town.
• Massive Docks. The harbor houses many of the great boats built on the voxel box, and currently provides sea connections to five other cities.
• Balloon Port. Currently three baloons provide access to The Daro, Quercas, and Auxium.
• Train Station. The underground train station provides rail access to many nearby establishments.
• Airport to the south
• Historic Voxel Stadium, which has hosted many VoxelSporting and build-off events

A link to Voxel Sniper

Recently, I have been experimenting with sniper while exploring various ideas, themes, and builds on my personal minecraft server. I thought I would share some of the results. For this part, I present the Oasis Experiment.

Forest Oasis

This idea was to create a forest oasis in the middle of a vast desert. I wanted a combination of small shrubs, normal-size trees, and massive thick trees. In the middle, some small “lava” lakes – the complete opposite what most would hope to find in a desert oasis. I ended up building seven large sequoia-style trees, each being roughly 50 blocks in height, and each one being an improvement over the last. If I recall correctly, I used six Voxel Sniper brushes in the process of this experiment.

1. The Standard Ball brush (/b b m). One of the bread-and-butter brushes of Sniper, it lays down simple balls.
2. The Erode brush (/b e smooth). With each tree, I explored various options with erode brush. I started with the predefined smooth brush, however found as I was creating trees I needed smaller erosion brushes for more precision. Through the process of building the trees, I found a suitable, very powerful combination of recursive, size, erosion and fill settings.
3. The Splatter Ball brush (/b sb). A brush that generates some very natural effects when used wisely. By fine tuning the generation and seed settings, I was able to produce effective leaves covering the branches.
4. The Overlay brush (/b over d3). The desert doesn’t turn to soil instantly. This brush makes changing terrain types fast and effective. After a few clicks with it set to grass (/v 2) and a size of 10 (/b 10) around the bases of the giant sequoias, I had a decent, unpolished forest floor. Pretty good results for roughly15 seconds of clicking.
5. The Tree brush (/b t tallredwood). Every worldedit-ish mod has one, but none are quite as easy to use as the sniper version. set the brush. point and click. You’re done. I built a combination of tall redwoods, bigtrees, and normal trees around the bases of the sequoias.
6. The Snipe brush (/b s m). You can never leave out the brush that sniper is named after. It’s a must for the clean up job and fine details.

The Process