Minecraft Makeover - Changing My Avatar

 Thanks to an article in Tech Advisor I found out how to change my skin in Minecraft.

Turns out that there is a place called Skindex that has a free skin editor.  FREE! 

Another site, "How To Gurus" has a video on how to use Skindex and how to transfer it to the game.

I dyed a sheep to match my new outfit.

I had several false starts - at one point I thought I was finished and found I had put the face on the back of my head - I'm hoping to do better in the future.

Minecraft - Changing Platforms

 I just downloaded the 'Java' version of Minecraft. I had been using the Bedrock version on Switch,  but I wanted to try to get Achievements and they weren't available for Switch Minecraft without significant hoop-jumping. Things are very different.  What were 'Achievements' in Bedrock are now called 'Advancements' in Java.

I started a New World without cheats and it was a big shift. I hadn't realized how using the "keep inventory" cheat had made things easy, and it was discouraging to build up XP points and inventory and then die and lose everything. 

Added 10-30-2021. I started a new world in Java and found that I could get Advancements while using "keep inventory." On Switch, I was finally able to access the Microsoft website and get 'Achievements' there.

I'm also having to learn keyboard commands - I died the second day after accidentally hitting the Trader and having his llamas spit at me and knock me back into a hole. I'm looking for a way to make keyboard commands more usable.

I understand that some things in Java work differently from Bedrock. The computer structure is different, and Redstone gadgets may not work the same. I've seen the charts on the Wiki comparing platforms. I'm sure I'll learn about more.

Java vs Bedrock:

- In Java you can't make a plain map out of paper, you have to make a locater map (using paper and a compass)

-In Java there don't seem to be fallen trees

-In Java you don't need to make an extra wooden shovel for an oar, and the boat collapses more easily.

I plan to start a New World once I feel I have learned the controls enough to navigate without thinking. I'm still doing "Vegan Minecraft" (no killing neutral mobs except for fishing) but found some leather armor in a village and enough iron so I could make shears and get wool to make a bed.

Hideyhole in New World

Journey to the Forest Mansion

(Below - supplies for the journey)  I finally found a Village Cartographer who had a Woodland Explorer Map for sale.  I wanted to make a Map Wall of the journey, so I packed supplies to make maps as I traveled. 

I put the Woodland Explorer Map in my shield spot, and created new maps in the other hand - starting with a basic blank map that could be expanded to 4x4 size on the craft table. When the marker indicated I had 'walked off the map' I started a new map.

Woodland Explorer Map on left, 0/4 map on right.

It was a long journey. It took me fifteen Minecraft days. I passed near six villages, and a ruined portal. I had to detour several times to avoid things like a pillager tower and rugged terrain.

I crossed plains, savannas, swamps, deserts, mountains, and a bit of badlands. Every time I went through a forest I wondered if this was where I would find the Woodland Mansion, since you can only find them in the thickest woods. The map gives no indication of the distance still to travel, although the pointer does start to change direction as you get closer.

In a snowy taiga I stopped at an igloo to explore the basement where an unemployed villager and a zombie villager were in separate cells. I cured the zombie villager and freed both villagers.

I didn't run into many hostile mobs, since I slept every night.

Finally, the Woodland Explorer Map started to fill in and I saw the Mansion! 

The Woodland Explorer Map starts to fill in.

I had not really come prepared to fight the hostile mobs in the Mansion, so I built a treehouse and planted wheat and sugar cane nearby while I looked on the net for information on "Easy ways to defeat the Woodland Mansion." There weren't any,  just a lot of hard ways.

Treehouse

From the forest I got wood for ladders and from an abandoned mineshaft I got coal for torches. When I felt I had procrastinated enough, I decided it was time to attack the Mansion.

Going in through the top.

I got up on the third-floor roof and made an opening, then set up a small base in a third-floor room. Between fights with vindicators, evokers, vexes and other assorted hostile mobs, I put up as many torches as I could. 

I tried to put doors on each room.

It took a while to kill all the hostile mobs. It is fortunate that Vindicators and Evokers don't respawn after you've defeated them. 

When everything was quiet I explored. Every Mansion has a random assortment of types of rooms, although I think there is always a Conference Room  The one I found had two rooms with giant statues of cats made out of bales of wool, and many rooms with growing things. There were wheat gardens, flowers in pots, and even a room with a giant tree growing to the ceiling. 

Two rooms with giant wool cats, but no wool ducks.

I did not find any loot that was not available other places in my Minecraft world, but I valued the journey itself. I also got a half-dozen Totems of Undying from killing evokers.

A room full of oak saplings.

Getting my loot back to base presented a problem. While I could have teleported, I eventually built a nether passage from a portal near my base to a portal near the Mansion. Even with this shortcut it is a long trip. 

Totems of Undying in my Potion Room.

Journey Map Wall in my Base Basement

On the map wall the path from my base (on the bottom) shows as the colored line going to the top (the Mansion). 

Minecraft Gadgets That Even An Old Lady Can Make - For Nintendo Switch Bedrock Edition

Minecraft is a popular game that has been out for a long time, has been updated multiple times, and is on several versions on at least nine different platforms.  For this reason, when you try to make "an easy build" that you read about in an article or viewed on a video it might not work for you.

Here are some things that I was able to make on Minecraft Switch Bedrock:

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Jeb Door:

The classic door is a 2x2 block door that is hidden when closed and sits flush with the wall. When activated, it slides across to reveal a secret passageway.

I got the directions for my Jeb door at Skippy 6 Gaming.

Jeb Door - Closed (Lever is at top left - could be hidden better)

Jeb Door - Open - Showing back wall of secret chamber

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Automated Sugarcane Farm 

I got directions for the automated farm from JWhisp. I made some modifications.

This farm works by using observers to trigger pistons that push the top of the cane off, where it falls into hoppers linked to a chest. It also works for bamboo.

Old-fashioned farm on left, automated farm on right.

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Old-Fashioned Sugarcane Farm

For the old-fashioned farm I was lucky to have a flat piece of land near my base that only required a little terraforming. I dug one-block irrigation channels, covered them with slabs, and added more planks and slabs to make harvest easier. I go down each double row cutting off the cane, then backtrack and pick up any stray cane and re-plant any bare areas. 

Old-fashioned Sugarcane Farm

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Both farms have their advantages and disadvantages. 

The old-fashioned farm didn't need a lot of materials, but cane has to be manually-harvested.

The 'modern' farm works automatically, but required resources (iron and Redstone) that might not be available to beginning players.  

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Cactus Farm

From Avomance. 

Cactus can be dangerous to both mobs and players, and I've read that it can break Netherite armor. It is often used in mob traps and as barrier fences. One unusual use is as a 'trash can' for items that you do not need.

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Semi-Automatic Wheat Garden  (left)

I cannot find the original tutorial for the wheat garden on the left; however, the basic concept is covered at the Minecraft Wiki.  Flipping a switch releases a wave of water,  and the wheat and wheat seeds are swept down to hoppers and transferred to a chest.  I have not found a way to automatically replant the field. 

Bonemeal tower (Lower Right)

Another build from Avomance.  This is a simple contraption. You put compostable items in the top chest, and bone meal is collected in the chest at the bottom. 

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Grandfather Clock

This design is from Biggs87x  The tutorial shows how to use pistons to force an armor stand wearing gold boots into a glass block.  Two things to be aware of: 

1. Do not touch the bottom of the armor stand while building because it will change position and you may have an armor stand arm or leg sticking out of the clock.

2. The armor stand is an 'entity' which may despawn without warning. 

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Big Mob Grinder

This is a 'classic' build. I made one I called "Wombat". 

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Taking Advantage of a Skeleton Spawner

This one gives you XP points as well as mob drops. 

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Minecraft Disaster - Learn From My Mistakes

Before

After MCPE-21416

 There is a horrible bug in Minecraft that causes mobs and entities to despawn at random.

1. Minecraft (Bedrock codebase)
2. MCPE-21416

Mobs and Entities can despawn randomly

What is an entity? An entity is an object in Minecraft that moves or can be moved.  It includes a long list of inanimate objects like armor stands, paintings, and item frames that can be moved or dropped as an item. 'Mobs', are"mobile entities" that are AI-driven to resemble a living creature like a cat or a villager. 

I found out about this the hard way when my armor stands (and the displayed armor) disappeared.  I had previously lost pets and villagers, and blamed that on the fact that I was teleporting, but losing my displayed armor was devastating.

Reading through the JIRA these disappearances may be caused when:

• Mobs cross chunk borders between saves.
• You change your spawn location (i.e., your bed)
• You play for a long time without saving.
• You teleport or travel long distances.
• You travel to the Nether.

I had done the last four things just before the armor stands and armor disappeared.

You aren't going to see a lot of Minecraft YouTube videos about "I lost my farm in Minecraft" but you will find a lot of players asking things like "I lost my cat, what happened?" on different forums.

Apparently Mojang doesn't know how to fix the problem.

Using name tags on an entity doesn't seem to keep it from disappearing, neither does leashing it. 

Staying near base and not traveling doesn't seem to help, either.

In my case, I won't stop using Nether Portals or teleporting, but I will stop displaying good armor on armor stands and I won't waste name tags on mobs that live in my base, near my spawning points. 

Hope this helps someone.

Old Lady Made a Village

Zombie Villager at Welcome Desk

(This is from a lost Java world)

In this Minecraft world, the nearest naturally-spawned village was a good distance away.

I decided to make my own village.  I took materials from a deserted village and used them to make new buildings at a site closer to base. Then I enclosed the new village with a high wall.

I put a row of sweet berry bushes outside the wall. When sheep were being killed by brushing against the bushes I put another fence around the bushes that were around the wall.

I lit the village with torches and Redstone lamps with daylight sensors.

I didn't like the concept of "Villager Trading Halls" - they seem like slavery, so I tried to make the village as much like a naturally-generated one as I could.

I built gardens with beets, carrots, potatoes, and wheat. I also put in some melons, pumpkins, and sugar cane. I set up 'profession' blocks  in various places - lecturns for librarians, composters for farmers, and so on. 

My Little Village

When I felt the village was ready I looked for villagers. The nearest populated village was an overnight trip away, so I decided kidnapping distant villagers to bring them to my village would not be practical.

I decided to get new villagers by luring zombie villagers to a safe place where they couldn't kill me and then cure them.  One problem was that zombie villagers were part of a  crowd of skeletons, creepers, spiders, and regular zombies and I had to kill all the non-villagers first.

I had put walls in a v-shape, open at the wide end, but gates at the other end. When only the zombie villagers were left I would run into the open end with a zombie villager chasing me, go out the gates, and then run around and put a row of blocks between me and the zombie, and then douse him with weakness potion and feed him a golden apple. After he became a normal villager I would transport him to the village either using a rowboat or a mine car.

There were some mis-steps. One cured zombie got into my workroom and kept changing from one occupation to another -- Fisherman when he was near a barrel; Weapon Smith when he was near a grinder; and finally a Priest when he was near my enchanting table. The new Priest sat on top of my enchanting table for a while and wouldn't move.  He disappeared after a few days.  Another one went into my farming area while I went to get a boat, and when I came back he had become a farmer and harvested and replanted everything in my base garden.

The first two successful converts became Weaponsmiths. I threw bread and vegetables at their feet until they got romantic and had their first child, who became a Librarian.

As new villagers arrived I tried to put up one of each profession block so that they would chose different trades, but that didn't always work out.

Villagers tend to wander if you don't fence them in. At first I had doors in the wall around the village, but villagers would go outside and get lost so I changed the doors to gates. I had to do terraforming so there was no water in the village more than one block deep so they wouldn't drown and I smoothed out the land to make sure there were no places with height changes of more than one block so that they wouldn't fall off. In spite of everything I did to try to keep them safe I had a Pillager Raid.***

When I had about five villagers, stray cats started to show up. When I had ten villagers, an iron golem spawned.

The village became self-regulating after a while, with farmers sharing their harvests but my villagers tended to disappear*.  Once I came back after a long mapping expedition and found half the village population gone. After making trades with most of them  I came back the next day and found five new children had been born.

The iron golem never came back, so I made another one.

Before I lost that world  I had about 19 beds and villagers in my village. After three tries I finally had a Librarian who had a book with Mending as a trade**. A Fletcher helped me add to my arrow supply. 

Note - as of 1-6-26

*I had heard that 'naming' villagers or making trades with them will keep them from de-spawning, but that didn't seem to work.

 **I think that Librarians are more restricted in the trades they can make now.

***In the old days you didn't get the Ominous bottle, you got the Ominous curse, which would activate if you were in a village.

Mining for Ancient Debris in Minecraft

According to Sportskeeda there are five ways to get Ancient Debris: strip mine, TNT explosions, bed mining, finding Netherite scraps in Bastion Remnant chests, and by exploding end crystals.

I've tried the first three methods. Since Ancient Debris is rarer than diamonds, strip mining can be a long process. Exploding beds can be dangerous, usually starts multiple fires, and makes a smaller crater than a TNT explosion. I prefer mining Ancient Debris by using TNT.

To mine Ancient Debris with TNT you need:

TNT - you can find it in desert temples and shipwrecks, but it is easy to make from sand and gunpowder. You can find gunpowder in desert temples, dungeons, shipwrecks, and woodland mansions, but the easiest way to get it is by killing creepers and ghasts. I also get a lot of gunpowder from my larger mob grinder.

Redstone powder and levers.  Some of your dust and levers will be consumed by the explosions, so be sure to take plenty. (You can also try shooting at the TNT using fire arrows, a regular arrow won't work. ).

How I Mine Ancient Debris:

Take Redstone dust and levers, ladders and torches. Be sure to wear a piece of golden armor. 

Find a Nether biome where you can mine down to bedrock. My mine is in a crimson forest.

Mine down to levels 11 or 12.  (I did a short survey of fourteen explosions at level 11, resulting in 10 Ancient Debris blocks found at an average of level 9. Your mileage may vary.). 

Make a long tunnel from your landing point, and then make a side tunnel two-high tunnel six feet deep. Put one block down at the end and put the TNT on top of it. Make a line of Redstone dust back to a lever. Pull the lever and run away. I found running ten feet from the TNT to be a fairly safe distance. 

After the explosion is over and you have stopped up any lava sources, look for exposed blocks - Ancient Debris, Nether crystals, and other hard blocks will be exposed. 

I put double torches on the tunnel I came from, and continued in a line, making one long wide tunnel. You will collect a lot of netherrack along the way, so you could take a furnace and coal to turn the netherrack into nether bricks, and then use a crafting table to make the bricks into Nether Brick Blocks to make it easier to carry. 

Use a forge to make Ancient Debris into Netherite scrap, then combine the scrap with gold to make Netherite ingots. Use the ingots to upgrade diamond armor into Netherite armor.

My armor collection. Something to wear for every occasion.
(Leather, Iron, Gold, Diamond,
Chain Mail and Netherite. )