One trick to change the way you build in Minecraft
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00:00 Gradients. This video is all about gradients.
00:04 And yes, the title is a little bit like "One trick to improve your Minecraft builds instantly, click now to see how!"
00:09 No, this is about gradients. And what is a gradient?
00:12 Well, it's basically this. A line of blocks that takes you from one colour as smoothly as possible to another.
00:21 So this one is from black to white, and it's got lots of different shades of grey in between.
00:27 This is a great gradient in Minecraft because we have lots of shades available for us to use.
00:33 So, the idea in this video is to give you an idea of how to use one of these to improve your builds.
00:40 Now, to quickly demonstrate this, I've got a few examples to show you.
00:44 So, I whipped up this build here. It looks pretty nice, but I intentionally used just stone as the wall.
00:51 And this is totally okay. It's a very subjective thing whether this improves or doesn't improve.
00:56 All I want to say is that gradients can change the way that your builds look in Minecraft.
01:02 So, this is our base house. Now, over to the right, we have a gradient from a dark grey to a slightly lighter grey.
01:09 But as you can see, texture plays a big role in this. The busier the texture, the more off-putting it can be.
01:17 However, I think this version of the house does look better than the plain version.
01:21 And another thing to note is when you're using gradients, it looks better the further back you go.
01:27 Now, I've got a few more examples. I've got one that goes from light grey to white.
01:31 And I think this one really looks quite nice. And I've got one that goes from very dark black all the way to sort of a dark grey.
01:39 All of these examples demonstrate just how much using a gradient as your walls in your building can change the way your house looks.
01:49 Okay, so now that you understand the concept that we're going to be doing, let's talk about how you actually go about doing it.
01:56 And some advice on how to use them.
01:58 So, I've provided you with this big long line of blocks, and this is going to be our gradient.
02:04 Now, as you can see, over there, I didn't include a house that went all the way from this to that.
02:11 Because mainly, when you use a gradient, you don't just have one line of blocks.
02:17 No, no, no. If you want a gradient, it really needs to be at least a couple of blocks tall.
02:23 And then the idea would be that you mix it up as you go along. Like so.
02:28 So, there's no hard line in between them. It goes steadily from one to the other.
02:33 Now, the process that I use is that I lay out a gradient like this in front of the build.
02:40 Kind of like I did here, where you can see all the colours, and you can use this as your reference guide.
02:46 So, you can see the darker colour has gone at the bottom, and then as it gets progressively lighter, we move up the building.
02:54 Now, you can do this any way you like, but I prefer to have a darker colour at the bottom, and the lighter at the top.
03:01 So that when you look at the building, your eyes are naturally drawn upwards.
03:05 It can make your builds look a little bit taller.
03:07 Depending on how big your build is will determine how many of these blocks you can realistically use.
03:14 My house over there is reasonably tall, but it's not massive.
03:18 So, I would use about six blocks from the gradient.
03:23 But you can use as many as three.
03:26 So, I wanted to demonstrate why it's important to make sure you use the correct amount.
03:32 Because it really affects the way that your build looks.
03:35 So, what I've got here is two stone pillars.
03:38 On this one, I'm going to use every single colour on the gradient.
03:42 On this one, I'm only going to use three.
03:45 And what we should see is a very drastic effect on this pillar, and a more subtle one on this.
03:52 Both are unique in their own ways, and it's designed to give you an idea of what might be the most appropriate for your build.
04:00 So, let's do a quick time lapse of what these two will look like.
04:04 So, the left pillar will have one of every single block in our gradient.
04:08 And as you can see, it's a little bit more tedious and inventory management.
04:13 Whereas the right-hand side took next to no time at all, and a lot less blocks.
04:17 Something to bear in mind.
04:19 Our two completed towers end up having a very different effect.
04:23 Now, one of the things that I want to point out to you, and I mentioned earlier, is that gradients look better the further away you are.
04:30 And there's no better way to demonstrate this than with these two towers.
04:33 As the further I get away from them, the less pronounced the transition becomes.
04:38 And in fact, on the left-hand side, you can see that there's four distinct areas of colour instead of 18 or whatever it is.
04:46 And on the right, you can barely tell that there's anything at all.
04:50 Highlighting that this one is far more subtle than many different kinds of blocks.
04:56 For example, my mansion on Season 7 of Hermitcraft uses this effect.
05:01 And these houses here use more of a detailed effect.
05:05 So, what I thought we'd do is, now that you've seen what we can do with gradients, we would go through one together.
05:13 I've highlighted a gradient that I think would look really nice with this particular house made of stone.
05:20 And I record this in 1.17, or at least a snapshot of it at the time of recording, because you get a really nice block available called the Moss Block.
05:31 And this transition, I feel, will make it look like there's a lot of natural things growing up the building.
05:39 So, let's go over the process of actually implementing a gradient into a build like this, assuming that you have a house that has one block.
05:48 So, the first thing, of course, is to lay out your gradient like so, in front of your building, from dark to light.
05:55 And I like to start from the bottom, so what I've done is gone and added in these moss blocks just down here.
06:01 Now, one thing that I didn't mention earlier, as to not overload you with tons and tons of information,
06:06 but when you do a gradient, you don't always have to do equal parts of each colour.
06:13 For example, on this one, I feel like it will look better if all of the green parts are occupying the very bottom of it,
06:21 so that it looks like it's only growing up very slowly.
06:25 So, the way that I make this naturally progress into other colours is the bottom layer is all 100% moss.
06:33 Then, you just implement just one or two on the second layer, and then very few on the third layer.
06:39 Three layers is a really good range for spreading the block over the build.
06:45 And we'll do something very similar with the green concrete powder.
06:51 So, again, because this is meant to spread over three, we probably want to keep it fairly light going.
06:57 And what you want to avoid is lots of patterns.
07:00 So, for example, a way not to do this would be one on, one off, one on, one off, one on,
07:07 because it then ends up looking like teeth.
07:10 You really need to try and create a lot of variation amongst it.
07:16 So, we take the action of spreading out each block over three,
07:20 and basically mix all of them as we make our way up the building.
07:24 You know, this is actually starting to look really cool already.
07:27 Now, it's possible when you lay out your gradient, it looks great here,
07:31 but when you actually put it on the building, it may end up looking a little bit odd.
07:36 So, don't feel like you need to be committed 100% to the gradient.
07:40 If you need to swap out any singular block, I thoroughly encourage you to do so.
07:46 Or you may feel like you need an extra one.
07:49 Gradients take a little while to really understand and come to grips with.
07:55 So, the thing that you want to do is always take a really long step back and assess what's going on here.
08:01 So, I've just taken a step back, and I actually think what I've done, the mistake I've made,
08:06 is I've got way too much green.
08:08 I think the green, or the concrete powder at least, really wants to stop much further down than this.
08:15 So, what I'm going to do is eliminate some of the green layers,
08:20 and basically push the hard colour down a bit.
08:24 And there we go, I've just edited it, and that works a lot better.
08:28 Yes, there's a solid line of green that will go around this, but it's way more subtle.
08:34 So, what I'm going to do now is basically continue, once I'm happy with one small segment of it,
08:40 I'm basically going to continue this all the way around the build and see what it looks like.
08:46 And I've managed to wrap it around the entire build.
08:49 And you know what? I think this might be my absolute favourite gradient of all time.
08:57 This new moss block is a bit of a game changer.
09:00 And the reason that I love this the most is because it, in a sense, represents a reality of some sort.
09:07 You could have actual vegetation that's creeping its way up this old-looking building.
09:13 And you'll also notice that I've kind of broken my own rules a little bit,
09:16 because using the mossy cobble, I actually made it creep up way further than it really should,
09:23 and this gives the impression that there's actually a bit of vines growing as well.
09:29 And also, I've got to do a big shout-out for GlowLichen, because this actually adds an awful lot as well.
09:35 Now, I feel like I've explained pretty much all about how to make a gradient work in your build,
09:44 but there's a couple of extra little bits of information that I need to give you before I depart.
09:50 So, number one is that you need to let go of what a block is called or made of.
09:57 For example, most people will be like, "Oh, gravel? I wouldn't use gravel as a building block. What?"
10:06 Or the most common one that I hear is "wool? I wouldn't use wool."
10:11 When building ingredients, you need to look at the colour and the texture.
10:15 It really doesn't matter what it's called. It's simply a means to a colour scheme.
10:21 So, to wrap this video up, now that I've shown you all the different kinds of gradients,
10:25 how to put them in, and what they can do for your builds,
10:29 it's time to give you a bit of a cheat sheet list of all the different kinds of gradients that I can come up with.
10:37 And a big shout-out to PolescentMoon as well, who's helping me put together these gradients.
10:41 Then you can just choose which colour you like and take it and implement it into your build.
10:47 But I would also like to know which one of these is your favourite.
10:53 For me, personally, I quite like this one, but I think it just tops out with the reality moss-growing house over here.
11:01 So, let's take a look at all these different kinds of gradients.
11:05 So, here we are. We've got a bunch of different gradients.
11:09 This doesn't mean that every single blue block is in here, just the ones that we think you will find the most useful.
11:17 Now, it's also worth noting that you are unlikely to include a gradient from all of these available.
11:25 It's more likely you're going to choose somewhere between 6 to 10 of these at most.
11:29 So, I'm just going to pop up here and give you a chance to get a really good idea of all of the different colours.
11:38 I'm not going to go through each and every single one of these blocks because that would take a long time.
11:44 And you should be able to identify which ones they are.
11:48 And some of them are a little less intuitive.
11:50 Like this one goes from dark brown to light brown and all the way kind of to the creamy colour of sand.
11:56 The blue goes from dark blue all the way up to the prismarine.
12:00 And then we've got greens.
12:02 Yellow is pretty lacklustre, I must admit.
12:05 And then you've got some of the lighter shades there.
12:07 Orange, which is great for space age stuff.
12:10 The dark red for your more evil-y looking builds.
12:13 And then this one is a unique one, which is kind of an orange that goes to pink.
12:17 This one is also quite a nice palette to use.
12:21 So, there you are.
12:23 All of the gradients that we feel you will find useful.
12:27 So, this one trick should, in theory, change the way that you build.
12:31 If you do have a build, take a picture beforehand and then try and apply a gradient and do a before and after picture.
12:39 It would be really interesting to see how they look.
12:43 And, of course, building is completely subjective.
12:45 So, if you like to keep it completely plain, you can.
12:49 Thank you very much for watching and goodbye!
12:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]