Today, work began on the ranch district. I don't believe I can get quite as much automation in this district since we are dealing with mobs. Like the tree farm, it will require plenty of manual involvement. I also wanted to go ahead and start a new theme with this district. I was concerned that if I used flammable materials to build with, the city would be susceptible to large fires. Then I realized that the residential districts are going to be full of wooden structures.
The ranch building is modeled similar to the tree farm: four main squares with three-block-wide paths.
Each field is 15x15 and holds a specific mob. For now they will be as follow: back left, Mooshroom; back right, chicken; front left, cow; front right, pig.
I populated the fields using the eggs available via Creative mode and got to work with the paths. I decided to outline each field with planks. I was a little uncertain with the paths. At first I tried sandstone, but wasn't content with how it looked (too bright). I swapped for stone, but the contrast wasn't very good looking. I wanted something a bit less contrasting. However, I came to an odd decision.
That's right. Nether brick. It's a little surprising I didn't discover this from watching so much of Etho's videos. But Nether brick and wooden planks make for a beautiful combination. The contrast is quite pleasant, and their textures complement each other well. I am definitely making this one of my preferred pairings for designs. Next I got working on the walls. I don't need this to be a very tall building. Five blocks tall should suffice. The frame you see is made of pine logs (apparently the official name for these is spruce, although I've often referred to them as pine or redwood). Their sides are similarly colored to the Nether brick, while their tops are nice with the planks.
Next I played with using more Nether brick. I had the roof in place but later removed it. Didn't want it there just yet. If you can't tell, I have the front wall made of Nether brick. Don't know if I want to keep it that way. I also added some lighting to the pens.
May be hard to see the details. I'm not being a good photographer today. Each pen has a glowstone in the middle, with a torch on each corner. The sign by the fence gate indicate what type of animal belongs in it. The middle intersection also has a glowstone block. I need to figure out the lighting for this building.
And the front door. I'm really liking how this building is turning out.
I won't update the download links just yet. I intend on doing that once every few buildings are completed. It seems kinda unnecessary and indeed unprofessional to make an update when I have half a building done.
Also, I played with MCEdit a couple days ago. My Main 1.0.0 and Freebuild Nonlegit 1.0.0 maps have a lot of unused chunks. These are places I've visited once, but since then I've had no need for them. I went ahead and trimmed those extraneous chunks off. Both maps are significantly smaller in size. What's nice is that with the new Minecraft update introducing a new ore, I can visit these plots of land (which aren't very far away) and get those ores.
