Do Mods RUIN Minecraft? | Lab Podcast S2 E22

Are we at a point now where the art form of building is getting taken away because these mods are literally doing it for you things that make you go home and this is a discussion that sort of ties into AI too you know in a whole different sphere with content creation as a

Whole hello and welcome to Minecraft lab where we explore experiment and theorize about all things Minecraft I am Miner thoughts and with me is the man that brought back the wiggle the tro I did not bring back the wiggle swarmy and Terry and Sim and the whole Community

Brought back the wiggle um and if you don’t know what I’m see you guys you’re missing nothing don’t don’t bother you guys you guys thought I was going to say something about wood but no uh it’s been a while since we’ve had the wiggle and you will have to watch the vods the

Streams find the one tro uh twitch subscribe well he’s a man to watch uh and you’ll find out all about The Wiggles s up your channel points and torture the tro yes they they definitely did that and uh hello to the my little twitch Community there and you guys are awesome

Yeah they are awesome they are awesome it’s an awesome little um CU that’s growing up around that channel so um hello but I’m sure we’re not here to talk about me wiggling my tushi minor I’m sure the listeners of Minecraft lab are not interested in that what are we

Interested in today uh building mods in Minecraft um there when I first got into Minecraft I was not a builder I’m still not a builder with the use of uh several different mods uh they’ve got out there now that I’ve discovered that uh they are a tremendous help um and I’m on the

Side of of uh their tools but there are people out there that think that they’re taken away from the creativity of being a a true Builder I guess I I don’t know I think when it comes to building mods I think they fall into two categories

You’ve got the ones that assist you and ones that do it for you you know I’ve used like Mica and I don’t see that as a building mod as such and I know there’s like some of the Hermits are dead set against like MAA there are others that

Use it and you can easily tell if someone’s using it the way their time lapses are done like it’s like a 3D printer going up you know that’s like Matic being used cuz you do it layer by layer I have no problem with with that

One I got no problem with any of the mods can we just say from the outset here and how they’re used you know like M for for a non fulltime Creator it’s something that you sort of have to use because it saves you so much time you know you design something in Creative

Then you can take a blueprint you can take it over to your server go and collect all the resources or get half the Community to get your resources for you I don’t know who would have done that and then you can build it layer by

Layer and you know it it saved you so much time as of doing it by photos and comparison because we aren’t full time you know the fulltime out there that say they are real Builders they can do that they’ve got the time to do that great but that’s your full-time job you know

You’ve got all the time in the world we work 40 50 60 70 hours a week and come home then we got to keep that going to keep up the content no problems uh world edit you know I’ve only just started playing with it and it’s been around

Since Adam was a boy it came off the ark that’s how long it’s been around for and I think most people use Builder wise will use world edit but with world edit you’ve still got to have the the knowledge you’ve still got to have the skills you it just doesn’t do a gradient

For you you know you’ve got to just set your gradient up and then you still got to use the brushes to make it look good you know it just doesn’t magically look good where I think we’re moving to though is and this is a discussion that

Sort of ties into AI too you know in a whole different sphere with content creation as a whole the mods are getting to the point now where they’re actually doing all this stuff for you and the question that and this is what Toby I wanted to talk about and I was an idea

For Toby for the podcast was are we at a point now where the art form of building is getting taken away because these mods are literally doing it for you so like Mica and world edit don’t do it for you they give you tools to allow you to

Build you know world edit gives you the tools to put things together quicker and like M gives you the tool to take the blueprint so you can recreate it into a survival setting you got newer mods now like block blender I think it is and you’ve got Axiom and what these things

Are doing are building for you they’re making gradients for you they’re making the layouts for you you’re taking something you’re taking a 3D thing and turning it into blocks that you can then take and then build is that taking away the from from being a builder like you

Know once upon a time you look at a BDubs or a scar build or something someone like that you look and go these guys are artists they are artists they are doing it purely you’re then going to put them up against someone who’s taking a 3D model of something and putting into

The block blender then taking that that model and light M light M using light maaka to take it and then and then build it they’ve done nothing creative at all so destroying the creativity and the magic of Minecraft building by how good these mods are getting

Axium in my opinion Axiom is uh better version of world edit um they there are still things missing from axm that I’d like to see but the developer of Mulberry um is constantly working on it he’s he’s working with his community and um there’s a a guy I watch on YouTube uh

That really kind of broke out and started showcasing the uh Axia mod Max Mondays I believe it is he suggested a control Z you know what you find in any editing software or photoshop or anything control Z and it undos whatever you just last did and the developer is

You know put it in uh and he’s constantly putting different things in like you said the gradients and whatnot um and I don’t know if you know this um I was talking to Max uh when during one of his streams where I was in chat and

He said that uh old BDubs popped into was it either an axm chat or the axm Discord so BDubs himself is looking at what this thing can do and why wouldn’t he going to speed up building time but is it taking away from the magic of it that that’s my

Whole I don’t think so but on a different note on a different note with with the now with the block blender I mean you have to be really good with blender to make something uh it’s a very very uh in-depth you you can do a skill

Share for blender it takes a while to learn how to do things and I’ve been messed around with the block blender mod um but I’m taking models that have already been uh generated uh just free models that you can get out of there get get from different websites and then

Putting it into block blender it generates a blocky model using the textures from Minecraft and then you can import that into light matica put it into the world change whatnot and then you know so uh yeah I can see how that that could be abused um you know someone

Taking someone else’s models and and it’s we had episodes about you know people using other people’s schematics and and then calling them their own you’ll probably see the same thing with block blender I I think that can be abuse and that can kind of take away from the creativity with the Axiom it’s

Just it’s it’s making things in my opinion uh more streamlined a whole lot less typing uh that you have to do um with commands or whatever with uh you know with world edit so I think it’s a it’s a better tool than world edit I haven’t I haven’t used axium just yet

I’ll freely say I will be now whether that makes me a hypocrite or what I don’t know and I’ll happily wear that badge on this topic the fact that I will use it is a timesaving device again like like Madar it it it’s a timesaving one

But it doesn’t change my thought is that we’re moving towards a thing where you have to wonder is it does it does it if you look at a build and you know that it’s been made by with the axom mod does it feel less special than if you had

Have seen something designed by the BDubs and the scars how they doing it now like I’ve sat I’m a member of BDubs so I’ve sat there and watched his off kry streams right and how he’s doing it and it’s by hand and he’s designing things in wool and then he converts the

Wool to different blocks and blah blah blah does it take away the magic of that if you can come along and just use this program and you paint things in and then generate right and for those you know that don’t have that um artistic flare cuz let’s face it BDubs and Scar are

Artists and and let’s put Pearl in that as well right they are artist what they do they are artists are we at a point now where someone like me with not a whole lot of building skill can come along make this magical thing not doing anything just basically pressing a few

Buttons and generate something is it fair that that build can be compared to the genuine artists you I and I guess where now we’re moving towards a conversation about like AI generated art you know is it fair that an AI artist can generate something that looks fantastic next to someone that sat there

And painted something for 40 hours it’s not argument I guess it’s how much do the tool do for you versus how much um you know is there you have to to input AI is a touchy subject I I’m really interested to see what um BDubs does

With it I I really want to get guests on the show I really I’ve been trying to get guests bdubbs if you listen to this I don’t know shoot us an email um but I know there is one person that I do do know that listens to this jurassics uh I

Know you’ve been messing around with uh Axiom we want to know all your thoughts um I want to see what you can do because um he’s one on inters he’s one of our better Builders uh so I’m interested and he’s he’s mentioned that he’s he’s messing around with axom so it’s goingon

To be interesting to see what uh these these Builders can do with this tool don’t get me wrong I think it’s a great mod and I think longer term it will be the world edit killer um I really do I think it’ll leave world edit for dead

Because world edit you as you said you got to know a lot of typing you know a lot of commands blah blah blah and axum from what I’ve seen I haven’t used but for what I’ve seen it obviously makes it easier um and more streamline and more accessible to people that aren’t

Necessarily up to speed with all that world edit stuff and I intend to use it and I think a lot of people will use it and I think it’ll be a very popular mod but it comes back to the question is is how far is too far you know are we going

To soon have a mod that will gener you using AI you say I want a castle that’s full of dragons setting over the an ocean press a button the AI will generate you a Minecraft build then you take the and it will give you the schematic you just take the schematic

Pace it in look what I I can I can almost guarantee it I mean the way that AI has uh grown within the past couple of years I can definitely see it I as we speak it people are probably already um working on something that can

That can do that and if they’re not they are now right yeah but again that that’s my whole point line of discussion and you know if you want to call me a a hypocrite for saying you’re going to use it but then you’re going to also say

That you know it’s taking it too far I’ll live with that but I think there’s a a a point there is you know you do have the artists and again it’s the a AI discussion as well you got the genuine artists out there that know how to do it

And they’ve learned their craft over many years and now you get the the young ones coming up with the mods that can do it all for them right yeah it’s but still way it’s sad in a way that that art form would be lost and I think that

As a society is something that we have a problem on our hands with AI as a whole is that we’re going to be losing art forms you know if you look back in the real world you know the um the uh buildings and stuff like that you know there’s Cathedrals standing in

Europe that we do not know how to build today we don’t know how to do it we couldn’t we couldn’t replicate it because we don’t know we don’t have the skill sets anymore on how to build those things we don’t know how they built the pyramids right we going back thousands

Upon thousands of years because us as a human beings as a species lose knowledge we lose skill sets because we make things easier so we lose skill sets and getting really here in off Minecraft but are we getting the same way here is we’re losing the ability to build things

Because these machines will do it for us but again there’s you I I don’t know I can tell I can tell that someone using the same mod a BDubs or someone that’s you know just uh using axium for the first time um I think I would be able to

Tell yes that’s BDubs um because he’s been in this game for for so long and he knows all the little he knows how to put colors together or put blocks together to create shadows and depth and and texture um that you wouldn’t think of uh because he’s been doing it for so long

And those are the things that this mod this axom doesn’t quite do yet um I had talking to Max again um max if you want to be on the show we gladly have you on the show I was talking to him about um about this mod and it’s in the real of

Possibility but uh his community is talking about uh how it’s constantly being updated constantly being uh worked on features added things like that and I I share those in the Discord I get the get the the uh announcements as the updates come out and it’s still doesn’t

Do texturing um like there are certain things that it just can’t quite do now will it in the future it’s possible but uh Max was building an iron farm perimeter and I said wouldn’t it be cool if you could it’s got an extrude to Tool

Where you can extrude uh a wall or block or and uh make it as as big as you want I said it’s just a solid block um what if you could pick which blocks you want and it will extrude in a texture or extrude in a gradient now the developers

Putting some kind of gradient tool in there now but it’s still not quite where it should be it probably will in the future but uh when I see these tools I I get excited when we first got together in season one of inms really fairly new

To M Minecraft and uh we started talking about the use of light Matic and there were some people that were strongly against it they’re like no should be these builds should be pure and you should not be using these things to build with you know and couple years

Down the road they’re using the same tools but that’s beside the point um we saw them as something to build bigger more detailed um type builds and I think with these tools you’ll just see bigger better more detailed more extravagant builds I think there’s a difference between light Matia and a building mod

Like axom because lmaa is just basically a tool to give you a blueprint that you can then replicate a build um now there are cheaty Parts in it whereas you can a you can paste a world you don’t have to yes build it you can you can paste it

And you can do easy place now I was always against easy place it just didn’t feel right to me until I went and build a 250,000 block build and then I was just like you know I’ve done two layers of this and I’m done I’m now going to be

Using easy place and it makes it so much easier smaller builds I won’t use it because it still doesn’t feel right to me beside all that you’ve still got to like matica doesn’t design for you you’ve still got to design the build You’ still got to collect the resources

And you still got to place the blocks right if you’re on a survival server You’ still got to place the blocks like you can’t just go and paste it it doesn’t you can’t if you physically can’t the server will say no it doesn’t build for you and like MAA I would never

Have got Dragon rest done in season one if it wasn’t for like MAA never have got it done and if I did it would not have been what it ended up being because it makes it so much it’s a time saving tool for us that are not full-timers and

You’re right the people that put up the biggest stink at the time about you shouldn’t be using it now we’re using it and you know it’s perfectly fine where I think the is when we getting to these tools that start actually building for you it then start for me starts raising

The question of are we taking away the magic are we being able to look at something go gez they’ve done such a great job building that to gee that AI has done a great job building that I don’t want to get to that point I don’t

Want to get to that point I want to be able to sit back and go that person’s done such a fantastic job with their artistic skill I know whether it comes to AI being able to build force in in Minecraft or not um it’s already to that

Point in other forms of art um there’s still it just like when CGI came to movies it’s your your eye catches it or your ear catches it and you just know something’s off I think with Minecraft you’re gonna know no that’s you know that AI did that that’s that’s not like you know

Something that BDubs would put out uh because I he have just a flare it’s like an artist signature um same with scar or anyone else they’ve got a flare to them you know with any good artist um you can tell well I guess we’ll Tom will tell

Why it and it depends how how how good those tools eventually get I guess oh yeah things that make you go home time will tell uh I don’t know I I get excited and like I said with the motivation podcast is finding these new tools and new ways to do things that

That gets me motivated um because I I like toying around I like tinkering around with different things um even if I do use it or don’t use it I still like you know trying it out let us know how you feel about these these mods for that

Uh people use for building I know there are people that are strongly against them that uh even like the Hermits they give them a hard time about using even simple things like light baa um but we want to know your thoughts uh send us an email uh if you’re watching

This on YouTube leave us comment make sure you leave a like And subscribe but uh we we want to know we want to get your opinions uh and send us an email at Minecraft laab podcast gmail.com find us on X at mclabor podcast or you can head to

Interms sm.com up the top you see a connect button press on the connect join us on Discord or there’s it’ll list all the ways you can connect with us but yes we want to hear what are your thoughts on this interesting topic and you can find us on any just about any podcast

Platform if you’re not watching this on YouTube so I am going to uh right now get ready for bed and I’m getting dream of TNT and then tro is going to start his day cuz he’s on the other side of the planet and go find some wood and I’m going to edit with

That this video comes out tomorrow oh boy yeah but with that no interesting talk and um yeah just recap I would love to hear some more thoughts on this one surely I can be the only one that thinks what I’m thinking so please if you’re out there me

Up we will catch you in the next podcasts and uh we’ll see you later Goodbye thank you for sticking around to the end unfortunately no little teasers this week sorry