By Jacob Rees in LivingVideo Games
Introduction: How to Make a Glass Dome on Minecraft
Warning: This set of instructions is intended for intermediate and experienced Minecraft players. If you are not an experienced MInecraft player you will need to follow the in game instructions to learn how to play the game in order to be able to follow these instructions.
This set of instructions is a guide on how to construct a glass dome on Minecraft. A glass dome in Minecraft is a pixelated dome meant to resemble a real-life dome. Since Minecraft is strictly square the dome will not be spherical, but it will resemble a curved, spherical dome as shown in the figure below. This process could take a few minutes to a few hours depending on the size of your dome and how skilled you are at Minecraft.
Step 1: Materials
In order to start building the dome you will need the following materials (Fig. 1 shows an example of these materials):
- You will need a certain amount of glass blocks depending on the size of your dome.
- You will need one 64 piece stack of dirt blocks.
These are the only materials you will need unless you have not yet made glass. If you have not made glass yet, you will need the following materials to make glass (Fig. 2 shows an example of these materials):
- You will need a certain amount of sand blocks depending on the size of your dome.
- You will need coal or charcoal, specifically an eighth of the amount sand you are using.
Step 2: Sizing and Flattening
In order to start building your dome you will need to choose a size for your dome. The chart below shows the blueprint of valid dome sizes in Minecraft that you can choose from. Once you have selected the size of the dome you will need to clear a sufficient space in order to build the dome. This simply requires making a flat surface in your MInecraft world big enough to hold the diameter of your dome. Once you have done that you will need to follow the chart below in order to outline the bottom of your dome with glass.
Note: In order to avoid wasting glass blocks use dirt blocks to outline the dome and when you know that the outline is correct you can replace the dirt blocks with glass blocks.
Step 3: Construction
At this point in the process you will need to either have all the glass needed to make the dome or you will need to continuously make glass by burning sand in a furnace and using coal or charcoal as fuel for the furnace. Now you can start to construct the dome. You will need to reference the chart in the last step for this. You will need to construct a half circle going vertically into the air at the points where the cross in the chart touches the circle on both sides. This will complete the outline of your dome.The figure below shows a small example.
Note: The size of the half circle is half of the size of the dome you choose.
Step 4: Adding Height
Next what you're going to do is add blocks to the perimeter of your dome. The amount of blocks you add is based on the size dome you have chosen. For a size 39 dome you will add 4 blocks, for a size 21 dome you will add 3 blocks. The figure below gives a visual example. In order for you to figure out the number of blocks you are supposed to place vertically you have to cut the outline of the dome in half and take the number of blocks from where the cross hits the circle to the point where the blocks shift over. Once you know how to do this the rest of the dome should be fairly easy to complete.
Step 5: Completion
After learning the last step all you have to do now is repeat the last step, except you follow the outline and push in one block for each layer of glass and reduce your wall vertically to match the dome outline that you made in step 3 until the dome is completely finished. The figure below shows the best representation of this process because it is very hard to show visually.
Step 6: Conclusion
Finally your glass dome should be complete and it should look something like the figure below. It may be smaller or larger depending on the size you choose for your dome. I hope these instructions have helped you in the process of making a glass dome on Minecraft. If they have not satified your needs here are a few video links that may help you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AScVrYdDAo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4FUC-mXnw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0fntDHJT0A
Warning: Some of these videos have small amounts of profanity (mostly swearing). Please be aware so you can take the correct cautionary measures.
