Hanging Gardens - Second Tier done, Third Tier WIP

The second tier is complete and we are well underway on the third tier.  This means that we are approaching what we can call a third of the way done.  There are three phases to the project:  Exterior construction, Interior Construction, and Beautification.  Exterior Construction is nearing completion.  I don't expect the latter two phases to take as long, so we may be well past 30% of the way even now.

 The new towers look pretty at night.  We will be adding more torches and some glowstone during the beautification phase, but the lighting is already very atmospheric.

 The layout is really coming together nicely.  A central tower will add needed balance to the design.  This shot also shows that most of the surrounding mountains have been cleared.

A view of the third tier from the second, showing off the new walls and waterfall patforms.  Stairs lead upwards past the wall to the immediate right of the view.

 The new towers are directly above these platforms.  We have not decided whether to close off the interior of this area or to have entrances to the main structure further inside.

 A view from the third tier after just climbing the central stairs.  We plan to add a central tower to balance the layout and section off the garden interior.

 The tower platform.  The water spills off onto the second tier forming the waterfalls that drop into niches in the first tier.

 The tower interior.  Ladders in the corners lead to the top and a skylight keeps the area well-lit.  The ladders lead to a small ledge that makes a second floor before opening onto the roof.

 From the new towers you can see most of the third tier layout.  Large plazas crest the central stairs while smaller walkways join the towers.  There will be growing space on both sides of the walkway.

View from the roof of a tower, looking out over the lower tiers.  The new second and third tiers allow plenty of space for growing the plants which will give the Gardens their name.

Hanging Gardens - new tier 2!

So... the second tier has been almost entirely rebuilt. When we started planning for the third tier, we discovered that the original tier 2 layout wasn't as good as we wanted and didn't segue into tier 3 well. Thanks to huhwhozat for coming up with both the original and redesigned tier 2 layouts


New walkways, walls, and waterfalls from the beginnings of tier 3


Tier 3 overhangs on the corners, allowing waterfalls to fall into the existing waterfall pools on tier 2


It's starting to fill out and look even better. We've also cleared *most* of the mountains that were crowding around the walls in some spots.

Hanging Gardens - Waterfalls!

After much deliberating, trying, doing, looking, redoing, and starting over, we have a new look for the waterfall alcove.  We love it.  The added leaf blocks really helped to accentuate and contrast the construction.  We're not on the vegetation stage yet but adding a little now help to give us some vision of what it will look like eventually.  It looks beautiful.  I may have said that in previous posts but it just keeps getting better.  The proof is in the pics:

The new approach to the waterfall.  Note that the water is further recessed than before.









The shrubs help to accent the features of the pool... and hide the glowstone that lights it at night.








The top of the waterfall is a small pool.  The pillars on each side will support part of the third level and water will also spill into this pool from above.







At night glowstone lights the pool, hidden beneath the bushes.








The waterfall is lit from the alcoves in the wall at night.  Also note the addition of some greens along the main wall.

Hanging Gardens - Second Tier nearly done

The second tier is nearly structurally complete.  Stairs and walkways are done.  Most of what remains are the eight waterfall alcoves.  We also need to add detailing to the pillars that run the length of the second tier wall.  The detail will eventually be done in lapis lazuli block, but until we find enough of this scarce resource, green wool is the best-looking substitute.

Second Tier work in progress.  It has gone a lot quicker than I thought.  DixieWolf did the walls and I did the walkways in basically two days.  We have to make several more quarry trips.  Those are a LOT of sandstone slabs.  It took one or two stacks just to do the walkway between the stairs and the first pillar on the second level.

Birds eye view of first two tiers.  You can see the zigzag path of the second level.  The third tier will overhang a portion of this path, being supported by large pillars.

Waterfall alcove from first tier. Green wool will be replaced by lapis lazuli blocks when we accumulate enough.  So go find lapis, people.  We'll give you cookies.






Side stairs opening onto waterfall alcove.  There will only be four stair to the second tier from the outside of the structure.  We're putting water where the others would have been because water is pretty.  Deal with it.

Wide view of north wall. Waterfall alcove are yet to be completed.  The Gardens are already looking very pretty and they sit in a beautiful spot.  At least the pigs seem to think so.

Newly completed stairway to second tier.  The main stairs from the first tier open onto a few short steps then this platform with steeper step to the second level.  The stairs to the third tier will lead off of these.

Hanging Gardens - Climbing Upwards

The Hanging Gardens need to have some vertical height to them; sure, a large, flat structure that takes up 134x134 is kind of cool, but a tall multi-tiered structure that is 134x134x30 is way more impressive. So, we've begun work on the walls to the second tier. This tier is taller than the first and will have some medium width walkways, and maybe some grass strips for greenery and waterways.

An aerial view of the northwest corner of the structure. The 2nd tier wall stands taller than the lower section, and is differentiated by ribs, flush against the wall, rather than freestanding pillars. We're hoping to cap the ribs with Lapis Lazuli or Diamond blocks at some point

A view of the gardens at night. It is starting to look good, and it will look even better once we get trees and rivers/waterfalls tied in

Hanging Gardens - Now on Planet Minecraft

I decided to list this project on Planet Minecraft and perhaps generate some exposure.  Right now the article is just a stub redirecting to this blog.

http://www.planetminecraft.com/project/hanging-gardens/

Hanging Gardens - First Tier Built

The first tier is complete(ish)!  Foundations are done but detail work remains, along with water and greenery of course.  I'm running on only half my normal RAM for a few days until I get a replacement for my dead stick so pardon the small images since Minecraft chugs at 1600x900 right now.

Overview of first tier.  Something on the order of 32 stacks of sandstone slabs make up the walkway, which equals 128 stacks of sand.  Yes, it is all hand-gathered.

Pavilion at the NE corner.  This design will be repeated in the other corners.

DixieWolf did the majority of the design for the pavilion after I got frustrated with it.  I love how it turned out:

The Gardens already look beautiful at night.  View from the SE corner:

Hanging Gardens - Moving Mountains

The Hanging Gardens project is being constructed on a real-world scale.  According to Wikipedia early Greek works described the structure as being approximately 120m on each side.  Using a scale of 1 block = 0.9m, the hanging gardens is being constructed so that its base runs 134 blocks long on each side.  The towers when complete will stand 30 blocks (27m) high.  To afford space for this enormous structure a large plane had to be leveled.  We chose the largest flattest area we could find nearby, but still an incredible amount of digging had to be done.  A whole mountain had to be removed just to make room for the base, and large portions of three others.  Even this was not big enough.  A miscalculation put us 9 blocks shy of the 134 block mark.  The area was again enlarged.  Before the project can be called complete the rest of the mountains will need to be cleared from its sides so it can stand free of obstruction.

Some wide shots of the original area before it was enlarged:

Building this foundation revealed the miscalculation:

Hanging Gardens Update

Here's a peek at the latest work on the Hanging Gardens project:



Those sections of dirt/grass on the outside border (between the outer wall and the inner walkway) will feature some trees, flowers, and probably some small rivers.

Hanging Gardens 1

collaborators: DixieWolf, frozen_scarecrow, huhwhozat

The next big SR2 server project we've started is a replica/interpretation of The Hanging Gardens. This will involve lots of sand/sandstone, and tons of detail work. Hopefully we will be able to amass some minerals for decorative flare (some lapis lazuli pillar footers would probably look nice :D)

Here are a few shots of what we have so far:

Here you can see the basic first-block foundation. This shot gives you a good idea of the size; we had to clear several decent sized hills/mountains to get this large of a flat plain, and I'm pretty sure we're at 134x134 in dimension, for now. We may end up adding some plazas, fountains, and walkways once we have the primary structure ready.

Here is one of the four entrace stairs. We should be adding a lot more detail in the future, but it already has great character. Also in this shot is huhwhozat, who both proposed the project and laid out the plan for what you see so far

And here's the layout so far. We have the four cardinal stairway-entrances built, with several inset groups of pillars (below) to either side of the stairs. The wall is getting some height all around, and next we will probably work on some of the basic interior planning.

The pillars are a mixture of sandstone footers, sand body, and half-block capitals.

As you can see, the project is still pretty young and there is a lot left to do, but we're all pretty excited. More updates later