Temple of Brad Pitt - Minecraft edition

by Geodesic Templars (programming by Jacob J.)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Burning Man 2020 did not take place in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Instead, several virtual versions of Burning Man were created online based on different 3D technologies. Disorient participated in a couple of those worlds while Geodesic Temple decided to focus on the Minecraft version.

We used the 2019 model of TOBRIT so we would have a basis of comparison for what we would create online. We decided to translate the physical materials literally to Minecraft materials. A few questions came up. How do we best convey the idea of TOBRIT? How big do we make the temple in Minecraft? We made it as big as the server could handle. How do we make it efficient and reduce the load on the server?

Porting the model from Sketchup to Minecraft requires a few steps. Information is often lost and/or added when going from one format to another (skp > dae > obj > etc.) which eventually resulted in added geometry to the Minecraft model. So we did like every good templar would do. We went in and fixed it by hand. The experience of fixing TOBRIT manually in Minecraft was a remarkable experience. Deep diving in the Minecraft world, working on a piece which we had created in the physical world a year ago was both demanding and rewarding in unexpected ways.

Here are a few screen grabs of the evolution of the Temple of Brad Pitt in Minecraft.

v.1

Version 1 was a literal translation of the model of TOBRIT 2019. Jacob opened a world of possibilities by transferring the .skp model into Minecraft but it seemed that too much had been lost in the drastic resolution decrease so we increased the resolution. We started lighting the sculpture "by hand" but eventually decided to automate the process.

v.2

v.2 improved scale and readability but we felt that both still needed to be increased.

v.3

For v.3 we simplified TOBRIT 2019. Since gravity was no longer a concern, we removed the 8 octahedra that stabilized the central octahedron aka the Purgatory on the playa. This version rendered some unexpected geometry.

v.4

In v.4 the Ark became heavier and we gave it a darker material. We decided to keep the unexpected geometry of v.3 which became an opportunity to carve "manually" the final piece. We also decided to go back to lighting the piece "by hand" to give it a more lived-in vibe.