Documentation

To quickly get started, see this quick step by step or this video . For problems, see the troubleshooting section let me know if you're still stuck. Check the quick reference page for a brief rundown of mouse and keyboard controls, menu and export options, and what the files included with Mineways each do. Read this for the process I go through when exporting for 3D printing.

Normally you can just hit "OK" on the export dialog and things will work fine. Read on if you want to understand how to make your models less expensive, use different texture packs, and otherwise tailor you want to see printed out. What follows is extensive documentation about each part of the export and print process. If you don't want to wade through it all, at least search this page for the phrase "Key tip", as these bits are particularly useful.

Subscribe to the Mineways mailing list - it's for only important announcements, such as new version releases. Announcement archive Email:

Installation

Installation is trivial: download and unzip (using 7-Zip or other decompressor) to some directory, like the desktop.

Uninstall: just delete the directory. If you created color schemes, there will be a few small entries in the registry, If you are fanatical and want to clean these out, search for "Mineways" in your registry editor and you'll find them.

Double-click the mineways.exe to run the program.

Opening Worlds and Schematics

There are many ways to open a Minecraft world or schematic file in Mineways. If one doesn't work for you, try the next.

File | Open World: In the "File" menu header there is "Open World". Click (or hover) and move to the right to select your world. These are the worlds in your "%appdata%\.minecraft\saves" directory. The worlds are listed by their (not necessarily unique) given names on the left, their folder on the right, and arranged alphabetically by these folders. If you want to specify a different directory for where your world saves are located, use the "-s" option on the command line on startup; see the command line options.

If you want to export any particular block, use File | Open and select the "[Block Test World]" - this is an internally-generated "world" of blocks, with each block type listed from west to east in block ID order (for 1.12 and earlier; for 1.13 on I've assigned values greater than 255 in a somewhat sensible fashion), and with variants shown from north to south by their data values. To select a single block, find it, right-click it, then hit "[" to move the bottom level up by one, thus selecting only the block itself and not the surrounding grass.

Here's a view of a small portion of [Block Test World] exported to OBJ and rendered with Cinema 4D:

If you can't find your world in the list, you can select "Find your world..." at the bottom, which is the same as doing...

File | Open...: This option is for opening schematic files and worlds. Navigate to wherever your schematic or world is stored and select the level.dat file. On Windows, the default folder for world save files is "%appdata%\.minecraft\saves"; for Mac it's "~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves/". A pro tip: if you save or rename your schematic file to have the world "repeat" in it, e.g., rename "eiffel.schematic" to "eiffelRepeat.schematic", the schematic will load and be repeated across the map, with a minimum one block gap between each model. This can be useful if you want to create a single 3D print file that has multiple copies of the model. Also, for schematics, only, Control-A will select the whole schematic model. NOTE: the new schematic file format introduced by FAWE for 1.13 data is currently not supported in Mineways.

File | Import Settings: If you've previously exported a model from your world or schematic, you can select this data file (.OBJ, .WRL, or for STL export, the .TXT file generated) with Import Settings. Doing so will not only open your world, but will also set all the previous export settings you used to make this export file, including the color scheme and the terrain file chosen.

When you import a file's settings, the settings affect only the particular file type. For example, if you read in a WRL file for 3D printing, its settings will not affect OBJ rendering export (or even OBJ 3D printing export, for export settings specific to OBJ files, such as material output). This feature is backward compatible to Mineways 2.0, though features added since then will be given default values. The two exceptions are that the "Create a ZIP" and "create files themselves" export settings are not changed when settings are imported.

One other extremely useful type of file that Import Settings can read in is a script file. You can create script files to automatically perform all sorts of operations, including special ways of modifying blocks during export. See the scripting documentation for more information.

The first image is a schematicloaded via "File | Open..." In the second the schematic is renamedand loaded. The word "repeat" in the file name tips off Mineways to repeat the object. Also, I typed Control-A to select a single copy of the schematic.

Here is a 3x3 set of objects output and viewed with G3D:

Mapping

Press F3 to take you to your (single player) player's location.

Scroll around by dragging with the left mouse button, WASD keys, or arrow keys.

Zoom in on an area by the mouse scroll wheel, Page Up/Page Down keys, or Q/E keys.

Mouse over a block and look at the bottom of the screen to see its location and ID. (Note that a coordinate like "-76" means "-75 to -76"; "4" means "4 to 5"). "Y" is the height.

Use the slider at the top of the window to slice away all blocks above the given altitude.

You can play Minecraft while using Mineways. In Mineways press the "r" key to load your world again, showing whatever changes you made.

Search the menu for other options. Some quick notes on these less-descriptive options: The "hide obscured" option removes all blocks above the first air found in caves, making it easier to see the caves themselves. This option is turned on when first viewing the Nether. The "give more export memory" frees memory as possible while exporting. It is mostly meant for the 32-bit version (on Mac or Linux). This option might allow you to export a large model you normally couldn't, at the cost of a slower export.



Selecting a Region

Here's basic map use:To create a 3D file for viewing or printing you first select a 3D box in your world. Whatever is in this box is exported. Hold down the right mouse button (or left mouse and Control key) and drag to define a selection area.once a region is defined, you can then use the right mouse button to select an edge or corner and drag to fine-tune the rectangle. Hit the space bar to automatically adjust the depth to something reasonable, if need be.Using the mousewheel with the Control key down changes the depth; using it with Shift down changes the visible height (this second mode can be slow, since the map is regenerated).

Once you make a selection, you may get a dialog as shown below. Mineways will detect when what you see is not what you'll get. It will ask if you want to set the depth so that everything you can see from above that you have selected will be exported.

Example Region Selection:

By default, the heights used for the rectangular block are from y=63 (sea level) to y=255. The upper slider determines the visibility height, but usually you'll leave this one alone. You'll normally use it for viewing or selecting areas fully underground or in the Nether (or poking around your map to look for diamonds and other hidden treasures).

The selected export depth can be changed in a number of ways, even when no area is selected. The depth slider is the simplest way to modify this value. If you click the middle mouse button on a location, the depth is set to its height. The [ and ] keys shift the depth by one, and so are useful for tuning. The spacebar will also select a reasonable depth for your selection volume, based on visibility (water is considered invisible, so that the bottom of lakes will be solid). Holding shift while tapping the spacebar will treat water and glass as opaque, useful for 3D printing. See the full shortcut key list for more options.

Key tip: to see what you're doing, export the model and view with a viewer. I usually work by adjusting the box size and export options in Mineways, export, then viewing the file in G3D (which reloads the viewed file when you tap the "r" key) or, for .WRL files, MeshLab (unfortunately, their Alt-R reload doesn't clear out the previously-loaded file) to see the results. Open 3D Model Viewer is another free, solid viewer.

Exporting Models and Maps

If you want to render the model, select "Export for Rendering" from the File menu, or use Control-R, and save your file. The resulting file(s) can then be imported into a huge variety of 3D modelers and viewers, e.g., Blender . See this section for instructions for various popular modelers.

You can select "Export Model for 3D Printing", Control-P, to create a model suitable for sending to a 3D printer. Even if you don't have a 3D printer, you can still get it printed, usually for a reasonable price. See the next section for how to get going.

The big difference between rendering and printing is that 3D print models must be solid and well-formed. Currently Mineways treats all blocks as solid, full blocks: half-steps or stairs are treated as blocks, as is every other block. There is also no transparency for the materials, since printers do not currently support this type of creation. Models for rendering can, when full texturing is on, include billboard models for flowers, saplings, crops, and other elements. Note that the billboard locations are added in comments to the output .OBJ and .WRL files. In this way, a dedicated modeler could substitute his own elaborate grass, flower, or other models in place of the simple billboards Minecraft provides.

To make your model immediately viewable on the web in 3D, choose the third option "Publish to Sketchfab." Mineways directly uploads your model to the Sketchfab site and makes it displayable to everyone. It's fun and easy, honestly. Go here for detailed instructions.

The next option is "Export Schematic", which allows you to then import your model to another world by using WorldEdit or MCEdit. Note that Mineways can read any old-style schematic file by using "File | Open...".

Schematic files are commonly used to share constructions among builders. Tools such as WorldEdit or MCEdit can be used to import them into other worlds, make duplicates, and many other operations. You can also upload and share these files on sites such as Planet Minecraft. Signs will not have text, chests will lose their contents, objects such as paintings are not exported, and heads are turned into pumpkins. Currently no export options beyond the dimensions and the rotation angle affect schematic export in Mineways, and the rotation angle only partially works, mostly for full blocks that do not have any orientation. In other words, the orientation angle will rotate the model as a whole, but each individual block will not be rotated: stair steps and signs will still go the old direction, rails get "interesting," and so on. I'd avoid it... Also, 1.13 and newer elements will export as grass blocks and a warning is issued, since the standard schematic format does not support these.

"Export Map" is simple: whatever area you have selected is exported to a PNG-format image file, named as you wish. The zoom level affects the result, though will differ slightly from what you see on the screen for boring reasons. While you can manually export any portion of the map manually, the real power is from using scripting. You can make a simple text file to specify more than one map. Each map can be set to display a different part of your world, or even a different layer, by adjusting the maximum Y height. See (and run) the sample file "scripting/make_map_tiles.mwscript" for an example that creates four adjacent 1000x1000 maps centered around location 0,0. If you want to edit these maps, consider using ImageMagick, which lets you perform all sorts of annotations and much more.

See the file "scripting/make_slice_maps.mwscript" for making a series of layers that you can turn into an animation. You can then make animations like this (and at a slower speed):

Displaying with G3D

Once you have a model for rendering, you might want to preview it before importing it to 3D modeler. If you are using Wavefront OBJ files (the default) and not exporting separate tiles , I recommend the free G3D viewer (pro tip: hold the Alt key down and use WASD to move fast in G3D). This viewer now recognizes a special tag in the OBJ's material description that makes Mineways models display with the classic blocky Minecraft look. If you are export separate tiles, I suggest the Open 3D Model Viewer . If you use VRML or STL files, MeshLab is a fine free viewer for these other formats. See some other viewer options here

Download this special version of G3D here. Unzip and run, then drop your .OBJ file on to the window to view it. Simpler yet, you can set up your Windows system to view .OBJ files with G3D when double-clicked. Just run register-G3D-viewer64-run-as-administrator.bat one time as administrator (see these instructions to learn how).

Camera controls: WASD for normal movement, ZC for up and down, QE for swivel. Hold down Shift to go more slowly, Alt to go fast. Escape to quit.

Aside from being a lovely renderer, G3D has additional features such as making a screenshot (F4) and recording a video (F6). The master G3D site is here.

Here's an example, side to side, of a lot of the blocks in Minecraft.

G3D displaying an OBJ rendering file:

Color Schemes

Color schemes allows you to change the color for any block, and - extremely useful for 3D printing - remove any blocks you want from view.you can eliminate all glass from your model by setting its alpha to 0 in a color scheme. This part of this video shows how to use color schemes to do this.

How do use a color scheme: From the menu, Add a new color scheme, then Edit it. Change the name "Color Scheme" at the top of the dialog that pops up to something useful, then select any block type to edit it. Color is given in hexadecimal color format. You can use MWSnap (old but free), FastStone Capture (new but costs $20), or other programs to find the hexadecimal (e.g., #787878) color value of any pixel on your screen. 'Alpha' says how opaque a block will appear on the screen, with 255 meaning fully opaque and 0 meaning fully transparent (invisible). Blocks with an alpha of 0 will be deleted when exporting. You can turn off export of all blocks by using the "Hide All Blocks" button. This feature allows you to create separate parts, e.g., a glass roof could be created by then turning on just glass export. The "Hide Tree Blocks" hides all log and leaf blocks, making printing of 3D terrain simpler (trees are sometimes hard to print well).

Changing the color will affect the 3D print model's color for only the "solid material colors" and "richer color textures" export modes; "full color texture patterns" (the default on the export dialog) will not be affected (except water, a little bit). To change full color textures' colors, you need to edit the input terrainExt.png itself. See TileMaker.

"My Model's Too Expensive!"

If you export to 3D print and upload to Shapeways, you might be surprised to find that the price is sometimes just shy of a used car. For example, this model of our spawn area is 15 x 9.8 inches in size (about 190 x 125 blocks, 2 mm wide), and costs $633.14. Expensive models happen because either the model is too small, or too large. The problem with models with only a few blocks in them is that you'll then scale it up to see it: each block itself is then massive. You have to pay for each block's volume. Mineways can't help you much there, you'll need to use a CAD program to hollow out your object manually. Shapeways has a tutorial on hollowing

The more common problem you can hit is the blocks are not small enough. This happens with larger models, those 100+ hour darlings you sweated over in Minecraft. The cause is that, by default, Mineways exports the model to print at a safe size. Colored sandstone has a thin wall dimension of 2 millimeters. This means if some wall in your model is less than 2 mm thick, it is in danger of breaking into pieces if printed in color.

Rule of thumb: colored sandstone has a cost of $6 for every thousand blocks printed at the default 2 mm/block. There's a fixed cost of $3 per model, and $6.50 shipping. For example, if you want to spend $50, at this scale your model can have about 6750 blocks, after subtracting the fixed costs.

There are some solutions to the price problem:

Switch to the white and flexible physical material. Choose this material in the options dialog on export and the thin wall minimum drops to 0.7 mm. This brings the price (and size) of your model down, from about $6.00 per thousand blocks to $0.48 per thousand. You do lose color printout, but can paint the model yourself. Your model should print safely.

Print it smaller and cross your fingers. Change "Make each block 2 mm high" to "Make each block 1 mm high", for example: at 1 mm/block, you can print 8 times as many blocks as 2 mm/block: $0.75 per thousand blocks. I like this scale a lot, it's cute. Two examples: World in a Bowl and Sentinel Castle. If you don't have any tree trunks (which at 1 mm will snap right off), thin walls, or other filigree, the model should be fine. You can remove trees from your model by using a color scheme that makes leaves and logs invisible. See this video, which shows how to make glass blocks invisible; just do the same with logs and leaves. At worst, at 1 mm other little bits might break off. Companion cubes will print with no problems, models of ships with thin masts and lanyards are much less likely to survive. Keep going smaller until you like the price, or simpler yet, just choose the scaling option "Aim for a cost of $25.00" or whatever you want. Note that Shapeways itself might refuse to print your model if they believe some parts are too thin to support the structure; here's an example where Shapeways decided the support struts were not thick enough.

Learn more about the options below. Proper use of "fill bubbles" and "super-hollow" can easily combine to reduce your costs by 2/3rds. "Seal off entrances" and "Fill in isolated tunnels" can also help. These options are extremely useful for going to a smaller scale but still having thick enough walls. The strategy I like is to have the interior of the building get filled with blocks by using "fill bubbles" and then have "super-hollow" remove most of these blocks, leaving a shell that's thick enough to print. Long and short, don't print what you can't see.

By the way, I hear "it would be cheaper using LEGOs" a fair bit. LEGO blocks cost around 4-5 cents a block, 2 mm colored sandstone 3D printed blocks run about 6/10th of a cent. There are advantages to LEGOs (larger, reusable, fun to make) and disadvantages (no textures, not perfect cubes), but LEGO cost is not an advantage.

By default, Wavefront OBJ *.obj (and *.mtl) files are exported for rendering, VRML97 (aka VRML2) for 3D printing. Here's the rundown of the various file types you can select, including some subtleties about each. If you want to export to the glTF format, one indirect way is to upload to Sketchfab, make the model downloadable, then download from there.

OBJ, absolute: Wavefront OBJ is an old format, so is commonly supported as an import format for a huge range of applications. If you export materials, a corresponding *.mtl file is output; if you export textures, one or more *.png files are also created. The .obj and .mtl files are text files, so can be edited or processed further. By selecting "absolute" for the OBJ file, indices are absolute (positive), the norm. This is the format to use for export for upload to Sculpteo. See other export choices in the OBJ file export options documentation.

OBJ, relative: relative indices are used on faces. These allow you to concatenate two or more OBJ files into a single OBJ file.

Binary STL: This file format is commonly used by 3D printers. It normally is used for single-color materials, but the exporter will use either the Materialise Magics or VisCAM format to attach colors to triangles - see this article. I recommend using VisCAM's variant, as MeshLab will then display the proper model colors. When STL files, binary or ASCII, are exported a corresponding *.txt file is generated with information about the model. This same data is included in the beginning of the *.obj and *.wrl files themselves. This text file can be read back into Mineways using "Import Settings" to set everything back the way it was set before.

ASCII text STL: A variant for 3D printers, the file generated is considerably larger than the binary form and cannot include color. The main advantage is that this file type is a simple text file and so can be easily edited. The format is trivial and so can provide a raw set of triangles for a model.

VRML97: Also known as VRML2 or VRML 2.0. While this format has been superseded by X3D, it is commonly supported by a wide range of packages. That said, its main reason for existence here is that it's the only file format that Shapeways uses for colored models. The *.wrl and *.png file created are put into a zip file and uploaded to Shapeways for printing - see more about this process below. The VRML file produced is tailored toward making a single texture for printing. Note: Shapeways will properly preview all VRML output modes other than "solid material colors", where it has a limit of 16 different colors. These colored models will print fine, however. VRML97: Also known as VRML2 or VRML 2.0. While this format has been superseded by X3D, it is commonly supported by a wide range of packages. That said, its main reason for existence here is that it's the only file format that Shapeways uses for colored models. The *.wrl and *.png file created are put into a zip file and uploaded to Shapeways for printing - see more about this process below. The VRML file produced is tailored toward making a single texture for printing. Note: Shapeways will properly preview all VRML output modes other than "solid material colors", where it has a limit of 16 different colors. These colored models will print fine, however.

Export options

There is a bewildering dialog that pops up on export, with a ton of options. You can blithely ignore this dialog and always just click OK (or the Enter key). However, some of the options are extremely useful, so plow on if you want to make sure your model is good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it people will like it.

World coordinates selection: you can see and change the 3D volume of space to export from your world. If you want to know the location of a place in your world, use the F3 key when playing Minecraft. Note that negative values like -5.239 will round down to -6. Also note that your Y-value altitude is one higher than where your feet are located, and so two higher than the ground beneath you.

Key tip: If you exported a model in an earlier session and want to use the same settings for another export, read the model file (.OBJ, .WRL, or for STL the .TXT file) with the "Import Settings" command from the "File" Menu.

Create a ZIP: like it says, when exporting for 3D printing a ZIP file of the exported files is created, ready for upload for 3D printing at Shapeways or other service.

Create files themselves: the exported files themselves are also made available for previewing. By default, this option is off for VRML 3D printing, on for everything else. This is done because too often the .wrl file got uploaded to Shapeways; you must upload the .zip file. Material Export Remember that for any format you can turn off a block from being output (and being visible) by setting its alpha to zero in your own color scheme.

On the left of the dialog are texture options:

"Export no materials" option is just that.

"Solid material colors" will give solid swatches of color for each material. The color scheme's colors controls these.

"Richer color textures" gives texture tiles that have some noise in them. For the OBJ file format the difference is that a PNG texture file is output; VRML97 always exports a texture for any material option. The color scheme's colors controls these.

"Full color textures patterns" requires the terrainExt.png file, reading this file to create full textures for each block, as possible. The color scheme affects only the water color: the higher the alpha set, the more of the base color you define is combined with the water texture. So, for a deeper blue, you can define the two water colors (note there's a "stationary water") as dark blue or even black and a high alpha, e.g., 200.

"Tiles for textures" can be used only when exporting Wavefront OBJ export for rendering. It is like "Full color texture patterns," except that instead of exporting the three RGB/A/RGBA textures, single images (which I call "tiles") are exported for the block faces, by default to a subdirectory "textures". These tiles are named similarly to Minecraft's block textures, though possibly modified to improve how alpha cutouts look. This mode allows you to modify and swap individual textures. It also is a better option for exporting high resolution texture resource packs (where the block faces are 256x256 or larger), as having a single, large texture (as generated by the other options above) can be too large for systems such as Blender. Since each texture is separate, mipmapping works correctly for distant blocks. Various options are ignored in this mode, such as the various OBJ grouping and material options and the composite overlay faces checkbox. Note that if you want to manually upload an OBJ with separate image tiles, Sketchfab has a 100 texture image upload limit. Finally, if you make a zip and do not "create files themselves," the PNG tile files will not be deleted, since they may be shared by other exports.

Content is shown on the left exported with "full color texture patterns" and on the right with "tiles for textures." Mipmapping works properly with separate image tiles.

Texture Output If you export textures, there are three types of files that can be output to PNG files, as needed. "RGB" is a colors-only file, "RGBA" is colors and transparency, "A" is just the transparency values. For 3D printing, only the RGB file is exported. For rendering export, if any blocks needing transparency are found in your model, then the "RGBA" and "A" files are also exported. Most rendering systems need only one or two of these file types, not all three. You can turn off output of any of these file types by unchecking the corresponding box.

This option can save you much time if you are exporting again and again while using a large custom terrainExt file (the next paragraph explains what this file is). You can export your model once with textures on, then modify your export and, by exporting to the same file name, you don't need to export the textures again. For the "tiles for textures" option, you need to uncheck all boxes to turn off tile creation and export - one box checked means all tiles will be output.

The one file you may want to change is the terrainExt.png file that comes with Mineways. To select a different terrainExt.png file, use the "Set Terrain File (terrainExt.png)" under the File menu. Mineways comes with a number of premade terrainExt.png files for you to try. If you have a terrainExt.png file you would always like to use by default, copy it into the directory where mineways.exe is located and call it terrainExt.png, replacing the one that is there.

To make terrainExt.png files yourself, use the TileMaker.

Here are some of the texture pack terrainExt.png files distributed with Mineways, with permission, displayed with G3D. Note that some tiles in these resource packs may be missing or distorted in the terrainExt*.png files that come with Mineways, due to differing naming conventions and texture layouts. Click on an image for the larger version.

The effective 3D print resolution of textures appears to be around maybe 10x10 for the default output block size of 2 mm/block. Fine details are unlikely to be visible, though sometimes I'm surprised to see them.

Click on an image for higher resolution versions.

One warning: 256x256 and larger tiles from a texture resources packs may cause failures within Blender and other rendering packages.

Blurry Textures

If your rendering software doesn't show the distinctive blocky style of Minecraft, you can fix this in two ways. The first is to set texture sampling in your renderer to be "closest" or "nearest neighbor." This is the best solution. See the instructions for the various renderers for more information. The other option is to use higher-resolution textures, which will simulate turning bilinear interpolation off.

On the left, the basic 256 x 544 terrainExt.png file is used; on the right, the input terrainExt.png image is resized (without filtering) to 1024 texels wide. You can download high-resolution versions of terrainExt.png: 1024 wide and 8192 wide. In Mineways do "File | Set Terrain File" and select either; the higher-resolution version gives sharper results, at the cost of memory.

You can also interactively compare these sampling methods here vs. here.

These textures are for the default Minecraft appearance. To avoid blur for your own terrainExt.png file, resize it to be say 4x larger in both directions. You can use the TileMaker program included with Mineways (use the "-t tileSize" option), or any other image manipulation program (I'd use "nearest neighbor", if possible - IrfanView has this option when resizing a texture by doing "Size method: Resize"). Note: from experimentation, this higher resolution does not improve the clarity of 3D texture printing.

There is a case where you'll want your textures to be blurry: when they're far in the distance. Usually mipmapping is done by a renderer to make this happen. The Minecraft block textures are normally put in one large texture and each is given a border 1 pixel wide. This border avoids bilinear interpolation artifacts. However, mipmapping for extremely far blocks will not work well, since tiles are next to each other in this big texture. The solution is to either export full tiles (where each block face is exported to a separate texture), or disable mipmapping for rendering and live with the artifacts (other sampling techniques should work fine).

Wavefront OBJ File Export Options If you find you want your model data to be arranged a bit differently for your rendering system, there are a bunch of options. These vary how Minecraft blocks are grouped and how materials are shared among different block types. Every rendering system imports OBJ files differently, so try different combinations and see what you prefer. Most of these options do not affect display. These options are mostly for determining how much control you have over modifying materials and moving blocks around.

Wavefront OBJ has two concepts when it comes to polygon faces: named objects and named groups. In Mineways there can be one or more objects in a scene, each object can have zero, one, or more groups inside of it. Normally there is just one object exported; the "Make groups objects" creates a separate object which then contains a corresponding group.

Mineways has (rough) "block families." For example, the Stone family has stone, granite, polished granite, diorite, and so on. Each block in this family has a separate "type." Materials can be output by one per family or one per type.

Any number of polygons can be in an object or group. There is also a set of materials (defined in the .mtl file). One and only one material is applied to each polygon.

Export separate types: on by default, this option says each type of block - stone, logs, fences, and so on - are put in a separate group. Turning this option off means no groups are created, which can be useful for simplifying import into rendering packages but can make editing more difficult. This option does not affect how many materials are generated.

Export individual blocks: This option is mutually exclusive with the previous option, "Export separate types." Normally Mineways exports only those faces that are visible. By checking this box, all of every block's faces are output, allowing you to animate such operations as mining or explosions. This considerably increases file size and render time, so use it only if you need it. You may also want to check the Make groups objects option, as each group will then be a separate object you can manipulate. Note that the individual blocks option will change the appearance of some blocks, such as water and glass blocks, as all faces now have sides, which are visible. Normally Minecraft removes these interior sides (e.g., where two glass blocks share a face), but this option makes them visible.

of block's faces are output, allowing you to animate such operations as mining or explosions. This considerably increases file size and render time, so use it only if you need it. You may also want to check the Make groups objects option, as each group will then be a separate object you can manipulate. Note that the individual blocks option will change the appearance of some blocks, such as water and glass blocks, as all faces now have sides, which are visible. Normally Minecraft removes these interior sides (e.g., where two glass blocks share a face), but this option makes them visible. Material per family: on by default; blocks in a family (or type; see next option) have their own material. If turned off, a single material is used for all objects. When exporting individual blocks, this checkbox affects whether each block is in its own group (making it easier to edit: move, delete, etc.) or whether individual blocks are grouped by material.

Split by block type: Blocks have a family and a type. When checked, the individual types are used for grouping and materials. This option is off by default, because turning it on yields noticeably more materials, which can mean more editing for you. Each material is identified by its data value suffix, e.g., "Stone__5" is Andesite. If the data value is 0, no suffix is added (so the material named "Stone" is plain old stone, data value 0). New materials are limited to those where there's a physical difference in the material itself, not just geometric changes. For example, a cake being sliced will not give it a separate material and group. Crops are given separate materials for each growth level, and farmland for each wetness level. Redstone wire is given separate materials for its 16 levels of power, even though Mineways itself differentiates only between off and on states. Campfires, sea pickles, and respawn anchors will be given separate emission levels when this box is checked; else the maximum light level is assumed.

Confused yet? There are non-obvious interactions among the various settings. A table follows, describing the results when using this 2x3 set of blocks - two grass blocks, two stone, two diorite - as the exported volume. Recall that diorite is part of the stone family.

Export separate types Export individual blocks Material per family Split by block type Effect on objects Material library produced SELECTED unchecked SELECTED unchecked Default for rendering: Polygons are grouped by block family. Result is one Grass_Block group using the Grass_Block material applied to 8 block faces and one Stone group using the Stone material applied to 14 faces. Each block family has a separate material. Result is two materials, Grass_Block and Stone. SELECTED unchecked SELECTED SELECTED Polygons are grouped by block type. Result is one Grass_Block group using the Grass_Block material applied to 8 block faces, one Stone group using the Stone material applied to 6 faces, and one Diorite group using the Diorite material applied to 8 block faces. Each block type has a separate material. Result is three materials, Grass_Block, Stone, and Diorite. SELECTED unchecked unchecked unchecked Polygons are grouped by block family. Result is one Grass_Block group with 8 block faces and one Stone group with 14 faces. Single material. A default MC_material is created and applied to all polygons. SELECTED unchecked unchecked SELECTED Polygons are grouped by block type. Result is one Grass_Block group with 8 block faces, one Stone group with 6 faces, and one Diorite group with 8 block faces. Single material. A default MC_material is created and applied to all polygons. unchecked unchecked (grayed out) (grayed out) Default for 3D printing: No groups are created at all. Result is 22 block faces. Single material. A default MC_material is created and applied to all polygons. unchecked SELECTED SELECTED unchecked Each individual block is in its own group. Result is 6 block faces in each of six groups: block_00001, block_00002, etc. The related material family, Grass_Block or Stone, is assigned to each block in turn. Each block family has a separate material. Result is two materials, Grass_Block and Stone. unchecked SELECTED SELECTED SELECTED Each individual block is in its own group. Result is 6 block faces in each of six groups: block_00001, block_00002, etc. The related material type, Grass_Block, Stone, or Diorite, is assigned to each block in turn. Each block type has a separate material. Result is three materials, Grass_Block, Stone, and Diorite. unchecked SELECTED unchecked unchecked Individual blocks are output, but grouped by block family. Result is one Grass_Block group using the Grass_Block material applied to 12 block faces and one Stone group using the Stone material applied to 24 faces. Each block family has a separate material. Result is two materials, Grass_Block and Stone. unchecked SELECTED unchecked SELECTED Individual blocks are output, but grouped by block type. Result is one Grass_Block group using the Grass_Block material applied to 12 block faces, one Stone group using the Stone material applied to 12 faces, and one Diorite group using the Diorite material applied to 12 block faces. Each block type has a separate material. Result is three materials, Grass_Block, Stone, and Diorite.

When exporting Tiles for textures these settings have slightly different meanings, because separate materials are created depending on the tile needed, not the Minecraft block family or type. "Export individual blocks" then means that "Split by block type" has no effect, since materials are set as needed. Similarly, if neither "Export separate types" nor "Export individual blocks" is on, materials are output as needed, since there can be no "single material for all" with tiles for textures. Long and short: try various options out and see what they do.

Make groups objects: By default, the OBJ file produced has just one object, consisting of everything exported. If you want to make each group into its own separate object, which can be useful if you are trying to export individual blocks and animate them in the scene, check this box. G3D Full Material Checking this box causes a more elaborate illumination model to be output. Specifically, the parameters Ns, Ka, map_Ka, illum, and Tf are set, and map_d is not set (most modern applications will use the alpha channel set in map_Kd, so setting a separate alpha in map_d is not needed and can be detrimental). Originally this option was meant to make the (great and free) G3D previewer happy, but now G3D works about the same whether this box is checked or not. That said, some other applications may benefit from this option, so I have left it available.

Make Z the up direction instead of Y: some graphics applications consider the Y direction to be "up", some Z. If your model imports sideways into your application, check (or uncheck) this box.

Create Composite Overlay Faces For 3D printing there cannot be "floating" cutout tiles such as vines, ladders, rails, torches, and so on. These block types are overlaid atop the underlying block and a new "composite" texture is saved and used. This process must be done for 3D printing. For rendering it is an option. The advantage of leaving this option off is that the result more closely matches Minecraft itself, and that each object has its own material. It also means that all render files exported could use single set of PNG textures, since no composite textures are created. The main drawback of having this option off is that you may encounter z-fighting problems, stray shadows, or other artifacts in your renderings.

This option was on by default for rendering up to version 5.00 of Mineways (in truth, it could not be turned off); as of 5.01 this option is off by default.

Center Model Around the Origin When checked, the center of the bottom of the model is put at the origin, location (0,0,0). This helps for import into some renderers, and can improve the floating-point resolution of the data. If you want to instead have the same coordinate values as in your world, uncheck this box (you might also want to set the "Make each block" size to whatever you like). Unchecking this option is useful if you do multiple exports from the same world for rendering and want them to use the same coordinate space. Multiple exports are a way to get around the export size limits for the 32-bit version of Mineways, which is what runs on the Mac.

Use biome in center of export area: Instead of the default colors (seen on the Plains biome), use the grass, tree, and water colors computed by the biome in the export. Currently the biome at the center of the export is used for the whole export. I hope to export multiple biomes someday, but this is a complex export, as it can require many different color variants of grass and tree blocks. See the biomes display option for how to display the biomes.

Create block faces at the borders: this option is only available for rendering, to reduce polygon count. When on, the edges of the export the model are sealed off with whatever blocks were at the borders. For 3D printing this is necessary, as the model must be a solid object. For rendering these side and bottom polygons often are not needed, as the camera is usually positioned to never view these areas of the model. Turning this option off for rendering also allows better "tiling", where you export a world piece by piece and read all the pieces in (see center model, above), as it pays more attention to neighboring blocks just outside the borders. Note: the various 3D print "fill air bubbles" methods will turn off this method (it's a bug).

In the scene below, the camera is dollied out to see the borders. The model with borders off, on the right, has about 15% less polygons in it.

Tree Leaves Solid This option is only available for rendering, to reduce polygon count. Tree leaves are "cutout" textures, which means that by default each leaf block is exported, along with the trunks. In forested scenes this can make for a lot of extra polygons. By checking this box, leaves are made solid with a black background, which then allows many less polygons to be generated. For example, in the scene below, rendered with G3D , the transparent leaf model has 986k triangles, the solid leaf model just 369k triangles.

The rest of the options mostly have to do with 3D printing, which follows.

As background, view the Shapeways 3D color printing process video . Layers of material are laid down and solidified at the appropriate spots. Unsolidified "sand" is vacuumed away. You pay by volume, not by complexity. What this means to you is: avoid making enclosed spaces with tiny entrances. Unfortunately, most buildings are just that: large rooms with small doors. Your job is to make sure your model has either no openings at all, in which case the Hollow option can clear out the inside, leaving just a shell. Alternately, make escape holes yourself using snow blocks, which you then melt after all processing of your model. I'll explain these options below.

There are other potential pitfalls with 3D printing, such as thin wall problems (more here), and too many polygons (rare for a Minecraft model), to name just two. Shapeways' tutorial pages and materials pages give you a lot to chew on, Sculpteo also has a help section. The Mineways program tries to guide you past the major pitfalls, but it's always possible to generate something that's essentially unprintable: too weak, holes too small to clear out the dust, or some other problem. Browsing the tutorials there should help you understand what is possible. Options follow.

Rotate model clockwise: Can be useful for choosing a default view angle for other programs reading in the model produced. For example, the view of the model is rendered by Shapeways from the south-south-east. So if your model faces west, you might rotate it 270 degrees to have it face south and so display better on your models page.

3D printing related options: There are four major ways to scale your model.

Make the model #N cm high: you can specify how high you would like a model to be. This is also useful for rendering output, where the default is set to be reasonable for import into Blender.

Minimize size based on wall thickness: if you want to make "draft" 3D print models that are as small as safely possible, check this option. That said, if you know your model has thick walls, you could make your model smaller still by using the next option.

Make each block #N mm high: by default, the safe wall size (for a non-supporting wall) is shown here. You can make this value smaller if you are convinced that your model is thick enough to print. Mineways will issue a warning nonetheless. This option is also useful for rendering output. Note for pixel-art makers: if you export pixel art, the thickness of pixel art model is usually just one block wide. Shapeways won't print a model in colored sandstone that is less than 2 mm thick, so use the "Make each block" option and set it to 2.5 mm high.

Aim for a cost of #N: you can ask, though the wall size needed may be too small to safely print. If you get this warning on export, you'll have to decide whether the walls appear thick enough to print. This feature is imperfect: it computes a rough cost before hollowing, so that it has a sense of how small it has to make the blocks to reach the goal. Hollowing uses this size to keep the walls thick enough to print. So, sometimes the walls are thicker than needed when the model is finally exported.

Physical material: choosing a material here from among some of the Shapeways material options sets the default wall thickness and constrains the "Aim for a cost" option. It also ensures that the price is computed for that material and output in the top of the model file (or associated *.txt file, for STL output). Key tip: if you look at the export file Mineways creates for you (the .OBJ, .WRL, or for STL the .TXT file) in a text editor, at the top you'll find all sorts of useful information about the model and how you generated it.

The "White & Flexible" material has a smaller minimum wall thickness compared to "Colored Sandstone" (0.7 mm vs. 2.0 mm), so much smaller (and cheaper) models can be created in it. White & flexible is plastic and durable, colored sandstone is heavier, fairly strong, but brittle. Shapeways has a tutorial on how to paint this white plastic material, which can be fun in itself. Note that the ceramics material has a maximum wall thickness of 15 mm, something Mineways does not check; this material is also the only one where you are charged by surface area instead of volume (which Mineways does compute).

The "Custom Printer" material is used for STL export. By default, it is set to show the approximate cost of a print for 1.75 mm PLA priced at $24 for a 1 kilogram spool. The cost numbers are modifiable by using a script. See the scripting commands for "Custom printer" for how to set new cost values.

Model's units: when a model is saved, the values stored in the file are not in any particular units, like meters or inches. However, 3D printers need this scale for printing the model. Millimeters are assumed, as this is what Shapeways uses by default. For other services and printers, other units are assumed. Here's a brief rundown:

Sculpteo - choose the "Wavefront OBJ, absolute and true" file type; by default, "Z is up" is on and the units are centimeters. Textured models are fully supported, including the truly worthwhile "Export lesser blocks" feature, though read the warnings to make sure you know what problems may occur.

i.materialise - for this 3D print service, millimeters are the default units. For STL export, choose the "Binary Materialise Magics" STL file type; by default "Z is up" is off and the units are millimeters. Textured models are not currently supported, but colored models are, by exporting color to STL and choosing the multicolor material in their 3D print lab. If you want to import VRML for some reason, "Z is up" should be on and you'll have to change the export scale to millimeters.

Ponoko - this 3D print service uses centimeters, millimeters, and inches. "Z is up" should be on, to show properly in Ponoko's thumbnail view. If your model is flagged as having a problem with normals, export again and check the "Weld all shared edges" checkbox. You can use the "Export solid material colors" or "no materials" options; textures are not supported. The preview itself will not show the colors, but I have been assured the model will print with color.

RepRap - this home 3D printer appears to need models in centimeters. I'm not sure if this is more of a requirement of the related software.

By default, the model is heavily processed to clear up a number of potential 3D printing problems:

Fill air bubbles: any hollow area is filled with solid material (specifically, glass, which can sometimes be seen when doing base hollowing, below). This option can also potentially reduce the polygon count when exporting for rendering. There are two sub-options:

Seal off entrances: If a building has 1-block wide windows and doors that are not filled in, this setting will attempt to fill these in with recessed glass blocks. This option also uses snow blocks and "entrance" blocks - doors, ladders, trapdoors, torches, fence gates, daylight sensors - to help seal off rooms, even if the doors and ladders themselves are culled. See the examples below. Sealing a room has a few advantages: the interiors of rooms that cannot be seen are filled in. This lets the hollowing option do its job better, both saving material on a print and making the print stronger.

Fill in isolated tunnels: a volume being exported can have tunnels underground running through it, and can run into the sides of the volume itself. These tunnels cost time and money to print; if the tunnel is isolated (no access to the surface) then this option will seal these off and fill them in. Hollowing can then remove more material.

Example: in the first image, the inside of the building is not filled in. In the second, the "Seal off entrances" export box is checked. Since the model has window and door gaps that are only a block wide, these will be detected and the interior will be filled in, as shown on the right.

Wide door example: in the first image, the inside of this simple building is visible. In the second, the "Seal off entrances" export box is checked. The torches are then considered as blocking the entrance; since the entrance is fully sealed off, the room is filled with glass. This example is trivial, but by placing torches you can seal rooms off so that they fill up with glass, then get hollowed by the "hollow" option, described further on, thus saving on printing areas difficult or impossible to see from outside.

Another wide door example: Another way to seal off large doors or windows is to add snow blocks. Here a two-block-wide door will not automatically be sealed off by the "seal off entrances" option. By adding snow blocks and then also enabling the melt option, the building interior will be sealed off and then the snow blocks removed before output.

Connect parts sharing an edge: certain non-manifold edges (where two blocks are diagonal and share an edge) are eliminated by a welding process in which more blocks are added. This welding process normally occurs only when it joins pieces that otherwise would be separated and fall apart.

Connect corner tips: if two blocks touch at just their tips and the blocks are found to be in separate parts, they are then welded together by adding two new blocks.

Weld all shared edges: Shapeways normally allows two blocks' edges to touch, despite information to the contrary. If this behavior is unacceptable (Shapeways or some other application rejects the model), checking this box will work to remove all shared edges.

Example:

Delete floating objects: if objects hang in space, these are eliminated if they're small (less than 16 blocks in size) or are entirely tree logs and leaves. This step eliminates parts of trees hanging along the edge because of where the selection box is located. If you get a warning about there being more than one part in a model exported, crank the block number up to 1000 or more to get rid of larger chunks (once you know what those chunks are - see the debug display parts mode below). If you're sure you want just the one connected group in the scene, set this value to 999999 and only the largest object in the scene will be saved.

This option can help tidy up a model for rendering or Sketchfab, too, by deleting tree foliage poking into an exported volume. In these export modes, any adjacent blocks are joined up (for 3D printing, only blocks that fill the cell are joined together). This difference means that, for example, a roof supported by fence posts won't be considered floating when rendering, but will when using detailed 3D printing (as the fence supports would likely be too thin to hold the roof).

Example:

Hollow out bottom of model: models are typically resting on an uneven ground layer, and building interiors are typically filled in. Hollowing clears out blocks inside the model, making it less expensive and faster to print. The "super hollow" option is more aggressive, searching hollow areas found to see if more can be carved out.

This option, used in conjunction with seal off entrances, can make detailed models stronger. If the interior of a model is entirely filled in by the "fill air bubbles" process, it can then be hollowed out and the walls left thick. For example, say you want to print your cathedral model with 1 mm wide blocks. The printer you want to use needs walls at least 2 mm thick. Instead of manually adding blocks to the interior of your entire model, by using the seal off the entrances option you fill the interiors in with solid blocks. When you hollow, you set the hollow width to 2 mm, or even 3 mm, and now the exterior walls will be made a few blocks thick, automatically.

Technical note: superhollow can sometimes create little separate objects at the bottom layer unconnected to the rest of the model, pieces of tunnel not cleaned out. You'll need to also turn on the "fill in isolated tunnels" box to have these removed ("delete floating objects" should do this, but currently does not).

Example:

Melt snow blocks: The seal off entrances option automatically looks for one-block-wide entrances and windows and seals them off. If you have wider entrances, off-axis windows (such as in a dome), holes in the roof, or other features, instead of adding torches or ladders to help seal these off, you can use snow blocks to do so. The melt option then removes these snow blocks from your model just before output. See the seal off entrances option description for an example of its use.

Export lesser, detailed blocks: when 3D printing, this option is off by default; for rendering it is on. When not checked, smaller objects, such as signs, fences, and torches are removed - only nearly-block-sized or important blocks are exported. This option is on by default when exporting full color textures for rendering; turn it off to remove the "billboard" objects and other smaller geometry objects. Remember you can also turn off output of any block type by setting its alpha to zero in your own custom color scheme. I've given you the ability to shoot yourself in the foot for 3D printing; I leave it to you to turn off any block types you think are likely to break off. As such, if you use this option you should probably turn off the "Connect parts sharing an edge" and "Delete floating objects" options further down, as these are likely to not work well - only full blocks are tracked when using these features. When exporting lesser blocks it's better to add and delete blocks by hand and not have the program clean up the data. If you do want to check for floating objects, I recommend exporting full blocks first (which will perform the check properly if the option is checked), then export lesser blocks with the option off.

Checking this box for 3D printing is risky, but will allow you to export slabs, stairs, and many other smaller elements as true geometry. The table gives specifics about what is printable, under the "Lesser" column. The model produced with this option on can have some geometry that's tough for some 3D print slicers to process. The risk is that the service bureau or printer software cannot properly interpret your files. If you are printing a single-color model, use the free cloud version of netfabb to preprocess your model. Shapeways also uses netfabb to process your uploaded models, so you should have no problems with the mesh itself using their service. You may still have problems with features being too thin to reliably print. If you truly want to print some geometry that Mineways won't output for 3D printing, e.g., you want to make a large banner model, you can always export via rendering and perform cleanup yourself (such as removing billboards).

If you use another service bureau such as Sculpteo, look over your uploaded model for any missing block or texturing errors. Secret Sculpteo trick: you can see a large view of your model by using the URL http://www.sculpteo.com/en/embed/design/<xxx>, where you put the 8 character identifier for your model in place of <xxx>. For example, for this model the 8 characters in the URL are "hfM9BZw2", so use http://www.sculpteo.com/en/embed/design/hfM9BZw2 to see it large. Try these two links and compare.

Currently some thin objects, such as sign posts and single fence posts, are exported. These are likely to break off, especially at small block sizes. You might want to "shore up" thin features by placing blocks below them (such as for roofs made of stair steps) and next to them (such as for doors). Alternately, turn off export altogether by setting the alpha for the block type to 0 in a color scheme.

Below are three prints done with fences, stair and slab roofs, and other small blocks. On the left, 1 mm/block, the fences and thin pillars have sheared right off. 2 mm/block, in the middle, survived intact for the most part - not surprisingly, a free-standing door at the rear broke off. With 3 mm/block, on the right, a part of the fence broke off when the superglue was applied. More photos can be found here. (Image courtesy of Alex Boden)

Fatten lesser blocks: If you do decide to export using the "lesser" option, by default some of the more delicate blocks are made fatter so that they are less likely to break off during printing. No guarantees! The blocks fattened are: fences, fence gates, doors, free-standing sign posts (which I suspect will still snap off), pressure plates (since they sometimes get used for table tops), bells, and a number of others - see the table.

There are also two debug print options available, both shown in examples above. The "Debug: show floating parts" option does just that: the largest object is made semitransparent and smaller groups each given a unique color, so that you can see what pieces of the model are not connected. Either remove these smaller parts by kicking up the "delete floating objects" limit, or go into Minecraft itself and add blocks to attach them together. That said, separate parts are fine in a file if you know what you are doing: you could be making a chain of separate links, or could have a number of individual pieces (such as letters) you want to create in a single print run.

The "show weld blocks" option shows what blocks are added by the various "connect parts" options. If you don't like where the welds are put, you can go into your Minecraft world and edit the model yourself. Key tip: you can run Mineways and play Minecraft at the same time. So, you can edit your world in Minecraft, then reload the world into Mineways by pressing the "r" key. The selected area won't be cleared when you do so, so you can edit, reload, export, and view the model (in a separate viewer); lather, rinse, repeat. This is an efficient way to improve and view any model you're working on.

TileMaker

TileMaker is a command-line utility for making a terrainExt.png file, which is the file that Mineways uses to add textures to surfaces.I have heard you can run it through WINE or some emulator (which should work but costs money).

TileMaker works by using a few different textures from Minecraft and from a texture pack to create a new texture to feed to Mineways. Here's one way to set things up (but there's an even easier method if you use a CMD window or .bat file, explained below):

Locate TileMaker.exe and the file terrainBase.png. The terrainBase.png has the default textures for when replacement tiles in your texture pack are not found.

In this directory where TileMaker.exe is located, make a directory called "blocks". This is where you'll put the textures you want to use instead. Copy all files from your texture pack's assets\minecraft\textures\block (or "blocks," for 1.12 and earlier) to this directory.

While you're at it, copy "barrier.png" to the block folder from assets\minecraft\textures\items or wherever it's located.

Copy the "chest" folder itself at assets\minecraft\textures\entity\chest to the "blocks" folder.

Double-click TileMaker and the file terrainExt.png should be created. Cross fingers.

TileMaker.exe and terrainBase.png should be in the same directory (normally)

"blocks" directory filled with files from assets\minecraft\textures\block in the .jar and perhaps the barrier.png file from assets\minecraft\textures\items

Under the "blocks" directory have a "chest" directory with the contents of the assets\minecraft\textures\entity\chest .jar directory

You can then feed this file to Mineways using "File | Set Terrain File". If you want this new file to be the default used at startup, simply replace the terrainExt.png file that comes with Mineways. To sum up what you need and where it should be put:

A problem with double-clicking TileMaker.exe is that TileMaker will run, popping up a window briefly and then disappearing. There are often warnings and sometimes errors, which you will miss. Better is to use the CMD window. In the CMD window, go to the directory where TileMaker is located (using the "cd" command), then type "TileMaker" and see what warnings and errors you get. Any error will halt execution, at which point you'll want to fix the error and run again. You can usually use the "up arrow" key to bring up the last command you typed in, e.g., "TileMaker".

A little background might help. Minecraft itself and all resource packs have their own block image files. You'll find your Minecraft executable in a directory such as "C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.10.2". If you unzip the Minecraft jar file there, e.g., 1.10.2.jar, you'll find the tiles used in the jar directory "assets\minecraft\textures\block" (or "blocks," for 1.12 and earlier). They have names such as "anvil_base.png" and "cake_side.png". These are what Minecraft uses to display blocks, and what the TileMaker utility uses to make the terrainExt.png used by Mineways.

What TileMaker does by default is simple: it reads in the terrainBase.png file, overlays it with any tiles in the "blocks" subdirectory (replacing the originals), extracts the chests from "blocks\chest", then writes out this new image as terrainExt.png. TileMaker's main task is to resize all tiles to the largest tile found. For example, if you had a bunch of 16x16 size block tiles in the "blocks" directory, along with one large 64x64 tile, the output terrainExt.png would have all its tiles be 64x64 in size. Chests' sizes are ignored during this resizing calculation.

TileMaker does do some special processing. The "chest" subdirectory normally has three chest tiles: ender.png, normal.png, and normal_double.png, to generate chest tiles - see the _readme.txt file there. The main directory has some "guide" tiles that are not standard Minecraft tiles. These have the prefix "MW_" and are mostly self-explanatory (or search this page for more information).

If you use the command line, or put your command line in a .bat file, there are many options available for doing more elaborate operations (such as forcing a particular tile size, or using a different input directory or output file name). In the command line you use "cd" to go to the directory where the TileMaker.exe file is located, then do something along these lines:

TileMaker -d blocks_doku -o terrainExtDoku.png

The "-d directory" option tells TileMaker to use this directory instead of "blocks" for the images you want to overlay. The "-o filename" tells it to write the resulting image to the filename given. Directory and image names cannot have spaces in them.

Pro tip and example: Here's the easy way to set up and run TileMaker. First, unzip mineways*.zip itself somewhere, say "c:\temp" to make this example simpler to read. Start a CMD window and type in it:

cd C:\temp\mineways\TileMaker

This takes you to the directory where tilemaker.exe and terrainBase.png are located.

Let's use a real-world texture resource pack: CubedTextures (chosen in part because it has no AdFly marketing landmines or similar garbage). Download the zip. Extract (unzip) this zip to the destination "C:\temp\mineways\TileMaker\CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev", so that a directory "CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev" holds the pack's contents: assets, pack.mcmeta, etc. This top directory should now look like so in the File Explorer:

And the directory "CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev" looks like this:

To process this resource pack, all you need to do is type on the command line:

tilemaker -z CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev

ERROR SUMMARY: ***** ERROR: cannot find files (Windows error code # 2). No textures found in the directory 'blocks\'. The unzipped texture pack jar directory will be searched. Use the '-nt' option to specify you do not want to use a blocks directory. ***** ERROR: file 'jungle_log_top.png' has a height that is not a multiple of its width. This will cause copying errors, so TileMaker ignores it. We recommend you remove or resize this file. ***** ERROR: file 'rail_corner.png' has a width that is not a power of two. This will cause copying errors, so TileMaker ignores it. We recommend you remove or resize this file. ***** ERROR: file 'CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev\assets\minecraft\textures\entity\chest

ormal.png' has a width that is not a power of two. This will cause copying errors, so TileMaker ignores it. We recommend you remove or resize this file. ***** ERROR: file 'CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev\assets\minecraft\textures\entity\chest

ormal_double.png' has a width that is not a power of two. This will cause copying errors, so TileMaker ignores it. We recommend you remove or resize this file.

The pack will be read and the output file terrainExt.png generated. You will get a few errors, listed at the end:We'll get to the first error in a minute. The rest of the errors have to do with powers of two textures : 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, etc. Examining "jungle_log_top.png" in the "CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev" directory, you'll notice it is of size 128x129, a pixel too tall. You could correct this problem in one of a few ways: trim off the top or bottom rows, or using some program (such as Irfanview ) to resize the image to 128x128. TileMaker can't decide what the best solution is, only you can, so it generates an error. Say you trim off the bottom row (by selecting the rest of the image and using Crop, for example). Save this image to the "blocks" subdirectory below tilemaker.exe; make sure to save it as a PNG.

The "rail_corner.png" image is 215x1290, definitely not a power of two. You could resize it so that it is 256 pixels wide, giving a height of 1536. Save to the "blocks" directory.

The two chest files have similar problems. The "normal.png" file is 576x576, not a power of two. Let's resize to 512x512 and save. This time, save to the directory "blocks/chest". The "normal_double.png" is not square, but both dimensions need to be a power of two. Resize the height to 512, giving 1024x512. Again, save to the "blocks/chest" directory.

The topmost error on the list notes that no files were found in the directory "blocks". But, now you've added some, so you're all set. If no fixes were needed, you could instead use the "-nt" option when running tilemaker.exe, which says to not look in the "blocks" directory and its subdirectories.

To conclude, run again, the same way (in CMD, you can just click the up arrow to bring back the last command):

tilemaker -z CubedPack.5.0.1.4.Dev

WARNING: with a texture image size of 512 X 512, animation programs such as Blender may have problems with such large textures. Consider running again, using the '-t tileSize' option, choosing a power of two value less than this, such as '-t 256' or '-t 128'.

Running with textures in the "blocks" area means that those textures will be accessed first, as overrides for the ones in the resource pack. Finding the fixed image files, this time at the end of the run you should see no errors, but you'll see a warning:If you think about it, 512x512 is a high resolution for a single face of a block. You won't see all the detail unless you're close to it. So, this is potentially good advice. If you truly want to stay at this resolution, you likely want to use the tile export option

That's the end of our example. There are many other warnings, as resource packs often offer many textures that are not used in basic Minecraft (and so not supported in Mineways), and also often don't replace all textures needed by Minecraft. Look through these and take actions as you wish.

Here is a rundown of all TileMaker options and their uses. To get a reminder of these, type:

TileMaker -?

TileMaker [-i terrainBase.png] [-d blocks] [-o terrainExt.png] [-t tileSize] [-c chosenTile] [-nb] [-nt] [-r] [-m] [-a] [-v]

on the command line.

-i terrainBase.png - image containing the base set of terrain blocks (includes special chest tiles). Default is 'terrainBase.png'.

-d blocks - directory of block textures to overlay on top of the base. Default directory is 'blocks'.

-z zip - optional directory where a texture resource pack has been unzipped.

-o terrainExt.png - the resulting terrain image, used by Mineways. Default is terrainExt.png.

-t tileSize - force a power of 2 tile size for the resulting terrainExt.png file, e.g., 32, 128. Useful for zooming or making a 'draft quality' terrainExt.png - a low-resolution terrainExt.png makes for a much faster export. If not set, the largest tile found in the base or blocks directory is used.

-c chosenTile - for tiles with multiple versions (e.g., water, lava, portal), choose which tile to use. 0 means topmost, 1 second from top, 2 third from top, and so on; -1 bottommost, -2 next to bottom.

-nb - no base; the base texture terrainBase.png is not read. This option is good for seeing what images are in the blocks directory, as these are what get put into terrainExt.png. This terrainExt.png file is probably not usable as is, since terrainBase.png contains some special tiles, such as those for the chests.

-nt - no tile directory; don't read in any images in the "blocks" directory, only the base image is read (and probably zoomed, otherwise this option is pointless).

-r - replace (from the 'blocks' directory) only those tiles not in the base texture. This is a way of extending a base texture to new versions of Minecraft, while retaining existing blocks. For example, say you spend some time making a great terrainExt.png file you love. A new version of Minecraft comes out, adding say a wheat mill block. You put this new wheat mill block image in the blocks directory, get the latest version of Mineways/TileMaker (which hopefully would support the wheat mill), and run with "-r". This reads the blocks directory and checks the terrainBase.png at the same time. If terrainBase.png has no data for the tile's location, i.e., it's black with an alpha of 0, then the block is used to create a terrainExt.png file, otherwise the block is ignored.

-m - to report all missing tiles, ones that Mineways uses but were not in the tiles directory. This option is a way of finding if there are any images you can still add to the "blocks" directory. For example, if "nether_brick.png" is reported missing, you know that "blocks" doesn't have this image and that Mineways will use it. This merely means that the default terrainBase.png texture will be used instead.

-a - include alternate texture names when files are not found. These alternate names can be found in tiles.h, alternate names of textures sometimes found in block texture directories.

-s - output solid color. Instead of exporting the texture, export a solid color formed from the average color of the texture. This is useful if you want specific colors for block faces or for various IDs for a block type. The texture produced is more appropriate for 3D printing.

-S - output solid color with cutouts. As above, but for rendering. Note that the "grass_side_overlay" texture will still affect the side of the block, so modify this texture to avoid detailed grass block sides.

-v - verbose, explain everything going on. Default: display only warnings.

Rendering Tips

Blender

The first two steps are the same for all versions of Blender, since they involve only Mineways:

1) Open your World in Mineways, then, select the area for exporting (hold right mouse button and drag the rectangle).

2) Choose "File | Export Model for Rendering" and save the file as a Wavefront Object (.obj) to a folder of your choice. Let's call it myobject.obj or whatever you like. You could simply click "OK" in the dialog with the export settings. However, choosing the "Export tiles for textures" on the left can give better filtering results, especially for areas in the distance with large scenes, as mipmapping will be more effective. You may wish to try the "Make groups objects" option if you are exporting individual blocks for animation.

At this point the paths diverge, depending on which version of Blender you have.

You'll also want to consider using MCprep in conjunction with Mineways to improve your materials, geometry, etc. Alternative Minecraft exporters for Blender include jmc2obj , a general-purpose and full-featured exporter (which I can't figure out any more), and Mineblend , which is dated, but is tailored specifically for Minecraft to Blender import.

Blender 2.80 and newer

The location of various features in Blender 2.80 has changed considerably. Scenes appear to import more sensibly, and higher-quality renders can be viewed immediately.

3) Open Blender 2.80 (or later) and click anywhere on the screen to make the splash screen disappear. Then press the "Delete" key to remove the default cube model.

4) Import the model: select "File | Import | Wavefront (.obj)" from the menu. Put the directory name of your Mineways export file (the .obj file) on the first line and hit "Enter". You can then double-click the .obj file name itself in the listing below. Alternately, you can type the file name itself on the line below the directory name and then click the blue "Import OBJ" button to the far right. Once imported, hit the "Home" key to reposition the camera to be well outside the model.

5) Display in Look Dev mode: in the upper right of the viewport are a series of icons. Rightmost are four sphere icons. Click on the second from the right:

You should now see a textured view of your model. However, semitransparent objects, such as glass, and cutouts, such as flowers and leaves, will be solid.

6) Adjust camera: Use the mouse wheel to dolly the camera in or out. As noted before, the "Home" key can also dolly the camera out to view the whole scene. Middle mouse down and drag lets you rotate the camera. Middle mouse with the Shift key lets you pan the camera. Middle mouse with Control is another way to zoom, but why do that? Middle mouse with Alt changes to different views in a funky way - just use middle mouse to recover.

Once you like the view, click Control-Alt-"Numpad 0" to set the render camera to your view (or at least the center of it). If you move your view of the world, you can go back to this saved view by hitting "Numpad 0" again, or Control-Alt-"Numpad 0" to set the render camera again.

7) Rendering: You are now ready to do a first render of your model. Just press "F12" or select "Render | Render Image" from the menu and have a look. It probably looked pretty dark, because the default light is some local light instead of something like the sun.

Also, the back of the model might not appear, as the Clip End distance is too small. Adjust this by selecting the camera object in the Scene Collection in the upper right of the screen, select the camera icon, then click on the "End" value box and type in a new value or simply drag your mouse:

8) Lighting: Select that light in the Scene Collection in the upper right of the screen, then click the lightbulb icon near the bottom of the set of icons below. Click on the Sun setting, then I'd also crank the Strength down to 8.0 or so, as shown:

To adjust this now-a-sun light, go to the "render preview" mode by clicking the rightmost of the four sphere icons in the upper right of the viewport (see step 5 - it's the sphere next over). Now press Shift-"t" and move your mouse around in the viewport. Hey, the sun's moving. When you left-click with the mouse, you lock down the direction of the sun. It's a bit non-intuitive, and you may need to rotate the view, Shift-T, rotate again, etc. to get the angle you want. Try F12 again to render the scene.

9) Material Conversion: Those cutout and semitransparent objects look dumb. Fastest (in the long term) is to use the Prep Materials button in the free MCprep addon.

If you want to do this manually, it's a tedious process of selecting each object type in the model. Open your world and there's a list of objects. Choose a semitransparent or cutout object you want to make display properly, pick Context.Material from the vertical icons (next to last one). Under Settings in the properties page below, change its Blend Mode and Shadow Mode both to Alpha Hashed:

(You might realize that, up top, you can select multiple objects by using Shift-click. You then might think you could then change them all to the proper blend mode. You would be wrong - only the last one group selected is changed. If someone has a way of selecting and changing multiple objects at once, let me know!)

At this point, try F12 again to render. You'll probably notice that the textures are not blocky like in Minecraft, unless you've used MCPrep. To change each material manually to have a blocky look, select it and, under the Surface parameter window below, click the small "right arrow" icon to the left of "Base Color", about five lines down. Two more lines down it will say "Linear"; change this to "Closest". Scroll down considerably further to "Alpha" and click on the small right arrow again and also set to "Closest". Here's the Base Color sequence:

Another method is to use a high-resolution texture on input, which is much less work, but changing the settings to "Closest" is the precise way.

Technical note: if you use the material option "Export tiles for textures" when exporting, no separate, proper alpha map is created nor attached ("map_d" in the .mtl file). Unlike most programs, on import Blender will not consider the alpha channel in the texture as the alpha - you must explicitly assign it after importing the model. This is a bit more involved: for a tiled export you need to select a material and edit the settings as above. However, there will be no alpha channel. Bring up the Shader Editor (Shift F3), drag the texture node (brown, on the left) down a bit, and connect its Alpha output to the Principled BSDF material's Alpha input. Shift F5 gets you back to the viewport. Here's an example:

10) Render Size: You can also set several parameters of the Renderer by selecting the Camera in the Scene Collection in the upper right, then clicking on the Context.Output icon in the vertical list of icons - it's the third one down, it looks like a printer spitting out an image. In the section "Dimensions", you can set the Resolution of the image, add a border, and so on. To export Full HD, you can set the Resolution to X:1920 and Y:1080, and set 100% in the bar below these settings.

11) Optional: Split into Objects: Blender 2.8+ imports a Mineways OBJ file as a single object. If you did not use the "Make groups objects" option but want to split the object in Blender, do the following. First, switch to Edit Mode. Then hit the "p" key and with your mouse select the option "By Material." The objects will now be separated in this way. Note that this may not be what you want - likely you'll need to use the "Export individual blocks" option in Mineways to get "solid" blocks you can animate.

12) Upload pictures of your creation to the Mineways Flickr group! (Optional, but I hope you do - I like seeing what people make.)

Blender 2.79 and older

This tutorial is for Blender version 2.79 but should mostly work on older versions.

There is some additional (dated) information on Blender and Mineways in this and this thread. There are a number of other add-ons for Blender with Minecraft, e.g., these rigs, which can give you models that Mineways itself currently does not export.

3) Open Blender 2.79 (or earlier) and click anywhere on the screen to make the splash screen disappear. Then press "x" (or "Delete"), and then "Enter". This deletes the default cube on the screen.

4) Import the model: select "File | Import | Wavefront (.obj)" from the menu. Search and select for your Mineways export file (the .obj file) and click "Import OBJ" (or just double-click the file name itself). Wait a bit.

If you cannot select Wavefront from the Import dialog, you have to activate this file format first from the settings menu. Select "File | User Preferences", activate the "Addons" tab, and scroll down in the list until you find "Import-Export: Wavefront OBJ format)". Just activate the checkbox at this entry, dismiss the settings dialog and try importing again.

5) Turn on textured display: near the bottom of the viewport, above the animation timeline, is "View Select Add Object" and so on. Just to the right of "Object Mode" is a shaded white sphere. Click on it and pick "Texture". You should now see the model as textured.

6) Resizing: The model we have just imported is probably small on the screen. There are two solutions: one is to use the mouse scroll wheel to dolly in and out - this changes the camera's location. Alternatively, move the cursor to the center of the screen, hit "s", and move the mouse until you have the right size, then click the left mouse button to save the size. This second method changes the size of the model itself, which you might not want to do.

7) Rendering: You are now ready to do a first render of your model. Just press "F12" or select "Render | Render Image" from the menu and have a look.

8) Material Conversion: You may wish to make better materials for your objects. The easy routes are to either use one of two scripts provided with the Mineways distribution: CyclesMineways.py, or possibly blender_mineways.py, created by Nicky and improved by Wyatt Jameson. The third easy choice is MCprep, a Blender python script that can improve model quality of Mineways and jmc2obj exports.

CyclesMineways.py method: Cycles is a high-quality renderer for Blender. To use Cycles instead of Blender's default renderer, simply click on "Blender Render" in the middle of the top edge of the application and choose "Cycles Render". (Note: if you are using Blender 2.80, see the small fix here that is needed for CyclesMineway.py to work.) To use the CyclesMineways.py script, first download the latest version. Edit this script in a text editor. You need to add just one word, the PREFIX value listed in the CONSTANTS section, around line 45. Put whatever your save file name is. For example, if your export file is castle.obj, then change the line to this: PREFIX="castle" Save the file. At this point you then do exactly the same procedure as described for blender_mineways.py above, but loading this CyclesMineways.py script instead. Hit F12 to see the result. Note: this script is in development, so please do contribute your ideas and make it better!

Cycles is a high-quality renderer for Blender. To use Cycles instead of Blender's default renderer, simply click on "Blender Render" in the middle of the top edge of the application and choose "Cycles Render". (Note: if you are using Blender 2.80, see the small fix here that is needed for CyclesMineway.py to work.) Save the file. blender_mineways.py method: (or see videos by Nicky or Wyatt). Just to the right of the "Help" menu in the upper left, click on the "keys" icon next to the word "Default" and pick "Scripting". At the bottom of the gray window you'll see a menu "Text"; click it and select "Open Text Block". Go to the directory where "blender_mineways.py" is and select it (double-click). You should now see some text in the gray window. Click the "keys" icon again and select "Default" to close the scripting window. To apply this script, click on the "Run Script" button at the bottom right of the text window. If you want to see that the script did something, from the upper left select "Window" and "Toggle System Console". If you don't have a "Window" menu item between "Render" and "Help", you have an older version of Blender and should consider updating. This menu item pops up a console window showing what the script did. It isn't critical to see this window, but gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling that the script has worked. Hit F12 to see the result.

(or see videos by Nicky or Wyatt). manual method: If either script is not working for you or you'd rather do a lot of work by hand, what follows are the step-by-step instructions for setting each material manually. Fixing transparency: Flowers, torches, iron bars, and other blocks with cutout areas will look bad around their fringes. Look in the upper right at the Scene tree area. Select the first mesh in the list, then pick the Textures icon from the list below, then pick the "Show Material Textures" icon from the set of three icons below that: If only a Kd texture is listed, go to the next mesh in the Scene tree at the top (by clicking on it). If there is also a D texture (outlined in green above), uncheck the box for this texture. Then click on the texture just above the "D" texture, it starts with "Kd". Once selected, scroll down to the "Influence" section and open it up. Under "Diffuse:" check the "Alpha: 1.000" box to enable it. Now cutouts should display correctly when rendered (but will still look bad in the interactive scene). You will need to do this for every mesh, unless you exported just one material as I suggested at the start, in which case you're done! Fixing shadows: Now for every mesh select the Material icon (to the left of the Textures icon), and under "Shadow" at the bottom you need to click "receive transparent". Again, if you exported just one material, editing one mesh will change this material for all meshes. Conversely, for flowers and other billboards you might wish to set these to not cast shadows, or perhaps not to receive them, to avoid self-shadowing artifacts. It's tricky. Blocky textures: If you want the blocky look for textures, select the mesh, select the Texture icon, and under "Image Sampling" uncheck the "Interpolation" box. Just below the "Interpolation" box you'll see a number of filter types, "EWA" by default. Select "Box". As usual, you'll need to do this for every texture. (Hats off to Richard Remmelink for figuring this out.) You may also find that turning off MIP Map", above "Interpolation", can help avoid line artifacts between distant grass blocks. However, mipmapping is useful to avoid crawlies during animation. Water: this often looks a little weak by default, you can make it better (you'll need to have a separate material for the water). Select the water by right-clicking on it in the scene. This from Milenco Mulder:

Select the Material icon:

Transparency: Fresnel = 2, Blend = 1.25 (the default)

Optional is to select "Raytrace" and IOR = 1.33, though ray tracing appears to sometimes create artifacts

Mirror: check this checkbox, then Fresnel = 2, Blend = 1.25 (the default), Gloss = 0.96

Select the Texture icon:

Influence: Color = 0.8, alpha = 1.0 (the default), select checkbox Mirror = 0.3, select checkbox Normal = 0.05

At the bottom of the Influence section there's a list under Bump Mapping of Metho [sic], choose "Best Quality".



9) Camera: Go back to the interactive view by hitting "F11". Move your view around with the middle mouse button. You can rotate by dragging with middle-mouse, or hold down shift and you'll pan, or hold down control and you'll dolly. Once you like the view, click Control-Alt-Numpad 0 to set the camera to your view. If you always want your current view to show what is rendered, while in interactive mode select "View" (in the lower left), "Properties", and under the View area select "Lock Camera to View". If you found the right angle and perspective for your camera, you can fine tune a couple of parameters in the camera menu. This can be found by first selecting the Camera object from the list of objects in the upper right, then clicking the small film-camera (not the photo camera) symbol just below the list of objects, toward the right. When you click it, a section called "lens" should appear. You can set the "Shift" of the X and Y axis, as well as the focal length of the camera.

If you are happy with your results, you can select "Image | Save as Image" from the menu near the left bottom of the screen, or hit F3.

10) Ambient lighting: To achieve a more even lighting of your scene, select the "world" icon in the menu bar where you also found the camera and the lamp settings (i.e., just below the object list). Turn on the "Ambient Occlusion" checkbox in the parameter list below. Play with the "Factor" value in this section, I like something between 0.25-0.5. In this menu, you can also set the background of your scene in the "World" section. Pick the "Real Sky" option and set horizon and zenith colors as you wish.

11) Lighting: There is one predefined light source on the working area (which looks like a dot with two enclosing dotted circles). You'll usually have to zoom out to see it. You can right click to select it, or select the Lamp from the object list. Move it around the screen by selecting the red, green, and blue arrows and dragging. Then, select the Lamp settings in the same menu bar where you found the camera symbol. It looks like a small sun with four arrows pointing away from it in different directions. Click it, and you can find all kinds of parameters that affect the lighting of your scene. For example, try exchanging the "Point" type for "Sun", and play with the "Energy" value. You can also change the color by clicking the color field above the Energy settings. You can add Lamps from the "Add" menu in the upper left.

12) Render Size: You can also set several parameters of the Renderer by selecting the small photo camera icon in the menu bar where you also found the film camera, the lamp, and other choices. In the section "Dimensions", you can set the Resolution of the image, add a border, and so on. To export Full HD, you can set the Resolution to X:1920 and Y:1080, and set 100% in the bar below these settings.

13) Upload your creation to the Mineways Flickr group! (Optional, but extremely recommended - I like seeing what people make.)

There are other tools out there for Minecraft, such as the Boxscape rigs for characters. MCprep also has rigs, and can update models in Mineways to more elaborate meshes.

Here's a typical result, made in a few minutes:

3DS MAX

Note: 3DS MAX is free for students and teachers.

These instructions are for 3DS MAX 2012. You might also try jmc2obj instead, as it does a better job producing some geometry. The steps here should also work for cleaning up jmc2obj OBJ models.

For newbies (like me): in a Viewport, middle-mouse button changes the view: mouse-wheel to zoom, button to pan, Alt key down to rotate, Control key down to fast-pan. Shift+Q to render. Steps are as follows:

Step 1: Get your world and region selected in Mineways, then select 'Export Model for 3D Rendering'.

Step 2: Save as the file type 'OBJ'. You may wish to try the "G3D full material" option, as this gives a slightly different water color by changing the diffuse color to white.

Step 3: Adjust the export options as you wish. Nothing is required here; by default, blocks will come in at a size of 1/10th meter each. You can adjust this by changing "Make each block 100 mm high"; for example, 1000 mm is 1 meter, MAX's unit size.

Step 4: Use the upper left MAX symbol menu and select Import. Find the .obj file and select it. In the OBJ Import Options, under Normals select Faceted to get Minecraft's blocky look. Alternately, if you want to smooth water surfaces a bit, select "Auto" and leave the setting at 30 degrees. Click "Import" at the bottom.

Step 5: Go to Render Setup in the Rendering menu (or just hit "F10"). Select the Renderer tab and uncheck the "Filter Maps" checkbox under Antialiasing. This makes cutout objects look correct, as well as making the Minecraft textures have their distinctive blocky appearance.

Step 6 (optional): At this point rendering should work fine. In interactive preview mode you will see some transparency problems in the Viewport. To fix these, bring up the material editor by pressing "M" and expand the view. Scroll down in the Material/Map Browser on the left and find "+ Scene Materials". Click on the "+" to show the scene's materials. Double-click on whatever material looks bad, e.g., Stationary_Water, Glass, Leaves, Torch, Tall_Grass, Sugar_Cane, Rose, Dandelion, or other cutout object. Now click on the "checkerboard-with-light" icon along the top, which does "Show Shaded Material in Viewport". This material should now look better. Do this for each material that looks bad. Press "M" again when finished, to dismiss the material browser. If someone knows a faster way to change all materials, let me know. Note that these fixes do not affect the final render itself.

Maya

Note: Maya is free for students and teachers.

First, there is now a material converter for RenderMan. Notes from the author: "I've created a simple Python script for Maya to convert all the imported materials from the standard 'Phong' shader to Renderman's 'PxrSurface' shaders. It'll also re-use the same file reference node and clean up the duplicates and the old shaders. Bonus is that it will also turn off filtering on all the textures."

If you want to rendering within Maya, I will not give a comprehensive tutorial here; it's up to you to know the basics. The main tasks facing you when importing from Mineways is adjusting the Transparency material attribute, which Maya does not set up at all on import. The steps:

Import an OBJ from Mineways. Select each transparent or cutout object in turn, right-click and drag to choose the "Material Attributes" menu. On the right, under Common Material Attributes, click the small checkered box to the far right of the Transparency attribute. This will let you assign a texture to the alpha channel. In the "Create Render Node" dialog that appears, choose "Maya | 2D Textures" on the left, then click "File" on the right. You will now see a "File Attributes" parameter dialog. Click on the file folder icon to the far right of "Image Name" and select the grayscale image for the alpha channel, e.g., MyModel-Alpha.png. While you're here, you can change the "Filter Type" above from Quadratic to Off; this makes the alpha channel have the blocky Minecraft look. The cutout object will typically disappear; you need to reverse the sense of the channel. There's probably some easier way, but scrolling down to the "Color Balance" section and setting Alpha Gain to -1 and Alpha Offset to 1 works. To make the colored pixels blocky, again right-click on the model and select "Material Attributes...", then click the small box with an arrow to the far right of the "Color" attribute, the first thing listed under "Common Material Attributes." Change the "Filter Type" from Quadratic to Off.

There may (and probably is) a more efficient way to make these adjustments - let me know.

For instructions for older versions of Maya, check out this video from this playlist, it shows how to set transparency and texture sampling. That said, you may want to use jmc2obj, which even comes with a MEL script to perform cleanup during import (that said, I don't know if this script still works).

A problem with jmc2obj is that each material must be adjusted by hand. One option in Mineways that can speed import conversion is to uncheck the "Material per family" checkbox in the OBJ file export options. Doing so means you have to fix up only one material, though at the expense of not having a separate material per block family (that said, you can always add new materials later). That said, this option tends to mess up Maya's display, as every object will be considered semitransparent and all will be sorted from back to front by depth in the interactive viewport, causing objects to flicker in front of each other. The scene will render just fine, however.

Cinema 4D

Here is how to import a model and set the textures for Cinema 4D. The steps are from this excellent video from this forum post, which includes a number of other useful Cinema 4D animation tutorials and resource links. Here's one more useful post. The instructions have been updated for Cinema 4D R18; older versions may need additional steps, as shown.

That said, you may want to use jmc2obj, another exporter. The main downside of jmc2obj is that you have to reattach every single texture it generates by hand; Mineways uses just one texture, so the cleanup process is much faster.

Step 1: Get your world and region selected in Mineways, then select 'Export Model for 3D Rendering'.

Step 2: Save as the file type 'OBJ'. Use Absolute OBJ, not Relative, as older versions of Cinema 4D do not read relative OBJs well.

Step 3: Adjust the export optio