Guide : Make mountains with WorldEdit

Numberplay

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Hello there, some of you might have already seen that tutorial before in the Creative section of Primordia. Well it isn't really surprising that i repost it since the old section is removed and the new server allows everyone to use it. If you see mistakes or want to add tips, go ahead and post in the comments.

Without WorldEdit, you would have to place blocks one at a time and rethink your mountain over and over to finally get a shape that you like. Most of you would also abandon the idea since it is boring and very long. But this tutorial will show you how to build a mountain in only a few steps. It took me around 10 minutes from the first step until the last one and with some practice, you could do it as fast as me.

Do not use any command shown here to ruin other people's boxel.

Step 1 : Choose a location
I know this might sound stupid, you probably already know where you want to build your mountain, but have you though about biomes? Take for example the swamp biome, it will make the grass look darker but it will also make the trees darker. So make sure you avoid that except if you really want that effect on your mountain.

Here I took a location with no color change on the grass :


Step 2 : Shape the mountain
For this step, you will need a tool made with WorldEdit. Tools are made from an item that doesn't naturally place a block. I suggest you take a round shaped item like the slimeball first. You must wield your item and enter this command :
Code:
/brush sphere sand 5
/brush or /br is the command to bind a tool on an item, sphere is the tool that makes balls from the material (here sand). I use sand for its physic in Minecraft, gravel is an alternative. You don't want to see your mountain have ball shaped cliffs right? and 5 is the ball radius. With WorldEdit set with default brush sizes, 5 is the limit.

Now that your tool is made, right click on the surface you want a sphere made. You can do this from far away. Do this until most of the mountain is made.


You might also want to make the base smoother. This can easily be done in 2 steps.
First, make a smaller sphere brush. You can overwrite your current brush too.
Code:
/brush sphere sand 2
simply change the radius in the code. You're not forced to take 2 like I did. You can go gradually with 3 then 1. Now use this tool to complete the shape of your mountain.


Then, make a new tool specifically made for smoothing a region.
Code:
/brush smooth
I usually use another item to make this tool. This tool will level blocks in a region around where you right-click. You an also set a radius to this brush. Avoid using this on cliffs and also on structures, the result will look ugly. Type //undo if you do a mistake.


Step 3 : stone and grass
For this part, it's best to let you know that you have a limit on how many blocks you can change at once (Currently 50 000). If your mountain is too big, do this one region at a time.

You need to select a region here, preferably your whole mountain. To do this, you will need the wand. What is the wand? it's a pre-made tool in WorldEdit set on the wooden axe. Just take one from the inventory or type //wand to get it.

Right-click on a block to set the first position and left-click on another block the set the second position, both positions will be opposites corners in an imaginary rectangular prism. That prism is your selected region.

Sadly you can't select air with the wand, and for our mountain, we need to. You might want to type either //pos1 or //pos2 to set your current position as a region position, preferably on one corner of your plot and over the top of the mountain. Then use the wand for the second position on the floor or underground on the other corner of the plot. Note that you can also type //hpos1 and //hpos2 which will select the block your cursor is pointing at without the need for a wand.

now change all the blocks to stone
Code:
//replace sand,grass stone
replace will change the first set of blocks into the second set.
sand,grass are the blocks we want to change. Note that you need to separate the block names (or ID's) with a comma without spaces.
stone is the block i want to have. You could put many blocks here with the comma, each single block will then either be changed into one of the given block randomly.


Now overlay everything with grass.
Code:
//overlay grass
You could also move everything down here to the grass level it was before if your mountain isn't too big.
Code:
//move 1 down


Step 4 : Details
Now you are finally on the final step. You can do anything from here but if you want a normal mountain first then you can add trees.

Thankfully, WorldEdit have a tree tools. The command works like /brush.
Code:
/tree
It simply binds the tree tool on an item. But this one forces you to right-click on blocks from close to put trees. You will see a message if your selected region can't allow a tree there.


An alternative to this is to use
Code:
/forestgen
but you need to be at the center and also need to tell a radius on this command.

And now you do whatever you want. For my final picture, I added tall grass and flowers with bonemeal, changed some of the grass into gravel manually and made a very small pond with a waterfall. Pretty much everything here is made manually.


Now have fun making your mountain. I'll be making new tutorials soon for those who wants to use WorldEdit more.
 

Razinao

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A tip of texturing the cliffs is to mask air and then use a normal sphere brush sized 1 or 2. It will not edit the air and therefore won't make any more ugly bulges.