Building well

Plan before code. Write the plan as a comment at the top of the build:

1. What makes it recognisable at a glance? A keep is tall, square and crowned; a market is low and crowded.
2. Its parts, each with bounds, material and joins: footing, body, openings, roof, trim, props.
3. Its setting: neighbours, ground, and the way a player approaches.
4. Where detail goes: the skyline, doors, windows, corners, the roof line, places a player stops.

Build in that order, and look at each stage before the next. End each stage with a render and a check. Name the parts as you go (b:part), so renders and the check can name them.

stage	what is built	look with	ask
1. massing	the footprint, the main volumes, the roof shapes	--view sides,roof	Does the outline say what it is? Are the proportions right: towers tall enough, roof steep enough, wings in scale?
2. architecture	openings, wall depth, eaves, how parts join	--view approach,entrance,plan and citadel check	Are windows holes with sills and frames? Does the way in read? Can a player walk to every floor?
3. setting and detail	paths, ground, lighting, props, trim	--view approach,cutaway and citadel check	Does it sit in a place? Is the detail where the eye goes?

At each stage:

• Write down the three worst problems the pictures and the check show.
• Fix those, then look again with the same views.
• Finish every fix before the next stage.
• Render again only after a change or for a new question.

The four ways a build fails:

• Painted flat. A window keeps its glass in the wall’s plane, with a sill and a frame that stand out in front of it; glass pushed behind a wall one block thick sits inside the room. Give walls depth: plinths, beams, cornices.
• Visible boxes. Taper what grows: a tower narrows, a roof flares at its eaves. Break long edges. Let parts overlap and sink into each other.
• No setting. Add a path, a fence, a tree, a barrel, a lamp, and shape the ground to meet them.
• Detail everywhere, or nowhere. Put detail where the eye goes.

Half blocks are the detail. Use detail = 2 for shapes finer than a block: roofs, eaves, sills, steps, cornices, arches. The build turns half steps into stairs and slabs. Name oak_fence or glass_pane and the build joins them.

Conventions that keep a build square.

• An axis of symmetry runs through a block’s middle, so a symmetric thing is odd: a door 1 or 3 wide, a gate 5, a path 3. build:mirror("x") of one half gives the other.
• A block is inside a circle when math.sqrt(dx * dx + dz * dz) <= r + 0.5. The + 0.5 gives flat edges.
• Mix a large surface from two or three blocks of one family, chosen by a hash of the position. A restart then builds the same wall.
• Write a part once, round its own middle. Place it with build:rotate and build:mirror.

-- Helpers a pack writes for itself; nothing here is the engine's.
local function hash(x, y, z)                         -- 0..1, the same every time
    local v = math.sin(x * 12.9898 + y * 4.1414 + z * 78.233) * 43758.5453
    return v - math.floor(v)
end
local function mix(x, y, z, blocks)                  -- { "stone_bricks", "stone_bricks", "cracked_stone_bricks" }
    return blocks[math.floor(hash(x, y, z) * #blocks) + 1]
end
local function disc(b, at, r, block)                 -- 2r + 1 across, round the block `at`
    for dx = -r, r do
        for dz = -r, r do
            if math.sqrt(dx * dx + dz * dz) <= r + 0.5 then
                b:block(at + vec3(dx, 0, dz), block)
            end
        end
    end
end
local function cone(b, at, r, height, block)         -- a tower roof, widest at `at`
    for y = 0, height do
        local rr = r * (1 - y / (height + 1))
        for dx = -r, r do
            for dz = -r, r do
                if math.sqrt(dx * dx + dz * dz) <= rr + 0.5 then
                    b:block(at + vec3(dx, y, dz), block)
                end
            end
        end
    end
end

Look at it, and say what you saw. Only citadel render and citadel check (see “seeing what you built” and “checking what you built”) prove a build good.

• Judge only pictures taken after the last edit.
• Fix every fix from citadel check, or say it is deliberate. Weigh advice against the build’s purpose, and say what you chose.
• After an edit to one part, run citadel check --since to show the other parts did not change.
• The pictures are flat colour. Report textures as unchecked.
• Report what you looked at, what you fixed, and what is left.