Using the map
Pixel Maps is a website. The server draws its world into map tiles as people explore and build, then serves a map that works like Google Maps, with places, addresses, reviews, photos and streetviews.
VectorPoint's map is at maps.simplefox.studio. On another server with Pixel Maps, type /vp map and click the link. The map is only up while the Minecraft server is running.
Styles
The swatch in the bottom left corner switches the map between three styles.
| Style | Shows | Looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Classic | What the ground is made of | An in-game map, with vanilla map colours, contour lines and the sea bed showing through shallow water |
| Vector | What the ground is used for | A road map, with flat fills for forest, fields, sand and water and a thin outline where they meet |
| Terrain | How high the ground is | An atlas, coloured from sea bed to snow line and lit from the north west |
3D view
The 3D button tilts the map up and lays the same tiles over the real height of the ground. More terrain loads as you move.
- Drag with the left mouse button to move over the ground, and with the right button to turn the camera.
- The mouse wheel zooms. Clicking the compass turns the view back to north.
- Places, streetview points and town names stay clickable, and clicking bare ground selects it the same way as on the flat map.
- The 3D view always uses the Classic style and restores your style when you leave.
Finding out what is somewhere
Click anywhere on the map and the card at the bottom describes the spot.
- Bare ground shows its biome, its address and its coordinates.
- A place shows its name, address and picture. Clicking the name opens the full view with photos, the description, tags, who added it, and reviews.
- A town name opens the town panel with the town's history, the places inside it and their photos. Clicking the territory in any address opens the territory panel, with its flag, languages, currency and guidelines.
The map works out addresses from location, such as High Street, Ozark, English Territory, so nobody has to type them in.
Streetviews
Drag the small figure from the bottom right corner onto the map. Streetview points light up blue while you hold it, and dropping it on one opens that panorama. Clicking the figure without dragging shows the points instead, which is how it works on a touch screen.
Inside a panorama, drag to look around. A ring follows your pointer across the ground, and a chevron inside it points to the next panorama in that direction. Click to walk there. You keep facing the same way when you arrive.
When a place has a streetview point within 24 blocks, the card uses that panorama as the place's picture.
Signing in
You can look at the map without an account. You need one to add anything.
- In game, type
/vp account. A screen opens where you choose a password of at least 8 characters. Typing it into a screen keeps it out of the server log, which records chat commands. - On the map, sign in with your Minecraft name and that password.
You can change the password on the map later. After too many wrong attempts, the map makes you wait a minute before trying again.
Server operators are operators on the map, and players on the moderator list are moderators there, with nothing more to set up.
Adding to the map
Once you are signed in, you can add a place or suggest an edit to one, upload pictures of places, and review places with a rating out of five and a comment. Each person has one review per place, and posting again replaces it.
Places and pictures from staff go up straight away. Everyone else's wait for a moderator to approve or refuse them. A moderator can also send a place back with a note about what to change, and editing that place puts it back in the queue. The bell next to your avatar shows what was decided.
Reviews do not wait for approval. Moderators remove reviews that should not be there.
You can also add places from inside the game. See Places and streetviews.