Initial Pack Development
Working on this pack was a huge undertaking, as we wanted to remain faithful to the Star Wars lore and canon. Our goal was to recreate iconic scenes and regions across planets, like Tatooine, Endor and Hoth, with access to each of them in a way that made sense. With various canonical transport links between planets and operational spacecraft, we brought something new and unique to a Minecraft pack.
Travel System
We worked to create a system of transport links around the different planets, creating a "lightspeed" effect to teleport the player. With research into where each space craft travels to and from within the original trilogy and the Mandalorian, we could keep the travel canonical. This system would allow us to work with different planets, without the worry of players being unable to access them. The system would allow us to create a world we had never tried before, a Fully Void space, with the planets lying within that void.
Creating Assets
Many large scale assets were created first and foremost, to achieve the correct scale and proportions to the playable character. An iterative process, assets would be created and sent to LucasFilm and Disney for approval and feedback.
Some more complex assets were created as FBX models, converted to voxel schematics for rapid scale iteration, and implementation into Minecraft.
Designing locations
Recreating very well grounded locations from across the Star Wars universe was both challenging and exciting, with a lot of research and communication involved across teams. Many of these locations are vast, meaning priorities of certain buildings, builds and lass masses had to be made. With the still limited world space, Large scale assets were placed in sensible locations, while design techniques were used to use the spaces in between in a meaningful way. Visually distinctive buildings and assets are used to aid the player in navigation throughout the map.
Similarly to the assets, approval and feedback would be recieved by LucasFilm and Disney to ensure that we had created an environment that matched that of the Star Wars IP.
Quality Assurance
Testing on this pack meant ensuring that we met certain standards and criteria.
Finding any imperfections in landscape in which a player could become unintentionally trapped.
Testing the transport system required transporting to each location from each of the ships multiple times, to ensure that these were all working consistently as intended.
Visual Polish
As with every pack, it is important that everything is in order from a visual perspective. In the case of this pack, visual polish was a huge undertaking, as each of the planet undersides and large surrounds needed to look the part. I was responsible with other members of the design team to ensure that all visual oddities were fixed for release, and were to a standard to recieve final approval from LucasFilm and Disney.
