Quote from Sockso on 2012/11/04, 20:41

The contest entry seems to have a few bugs, so I rewrote my contest entry down below.
Screen shots:
http://imgur.com/a/8CoWR

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Celebration Tower, by Sockso

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I built this tower as an abstract symbol of the progression of the uncovery server over the last two years, its and future hopes. Please view this tower with a light level under 50%. I spent a lot of time tweaking the light levels.

In celebration, the tower plays an few bars from the 1812 Overture, which I arranged myself, complete with cannon fire via fire-charges on the base notes. But not all base notes, because most performances of the song have the cannons fire a bit at random. It contains 107 noteblocks. I had to slow the eighth-note timing down to a delay setting of 3, because if the song was played faster (as I wished), lag made it unrecognizable. Like the rest of the building, the song plays upwards with lights, cannons and a with bit of confetti sprayed out at the top. Under the tower, a memory cell, xor switch, and a long delay array prevent multiple button presses from playing song twice simultaneously.

If you're unfamiliar with the 1812 overture by name, I'm sure you'll recognize it by sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2W1Wi2U9sQ&t=3m03s

The body of the tower consists of 4 levels culminating in an more elegant curving spiral spire of ice and iron with a lava core. A total of 16 Gothic arches; each is inscribed by fancy rectangles, all of which maintain a ratio of sqrt(3):1, with the arch curvature starting half way up. This ratio is very important in Gothic architecture. If you use a circle to inscribe a hexagon, then make a square by connecting certain points of the hexagon, you get this ratio. The diameter of the arches is then determined by the size of the original inscribing circle.

I wanted to maintain architectural stylistic consistency upwards, symbolizing the the unchanging solid base of creativity and unparalleled community that forms the base of our server. The lower levels are intentionally dark and beefy symbolizing the early builds. The exception is the gold and endstone base, which is meant to draw your eye to the diamond activation buttons.

But then, I made each level lighter in texture, color, and light level. Certain proportions become elongated, more delicate, and ornate such as the length and width of the arches and the height and slenderness of the water spouts. This symbolizes the progression of build quality over the past two years. The goal is to move your eyes upward to the spire.

The spire was particularly difficult for me, and it came out exactly as I hoped. As the most elegant piece of the tower, it represents future hopes and dreams of the server.

Thanks for two wonderful years. I hope to see you all around for the next two!

-Sockso-

11/4/12