Minecraft Redditor builds a 3D renderer in-game using vanilla redstone

On October 22, 2022, Minecraft Redditor u/mattbatwings2 showcased their incredibly elaborate redstone machine in a post on the game's subreddit. The video accompanying the post featured a machine capable of rendering 3D images on a screen through the use of elaborate redstone mechanics. Using an immensely complex system of redstone blocks in the vanilla build of the game, mattbatwings2 created a mechanical sight to behold.

Redstone is one of Minecraft's most intriguing features, as it allows players to create machinery to suit their needs. However, some members of the community go far beyond simple contraptions and create builds that are special.

The Minecraft community has certainly seen intriguing redstone builds before, but every so often, a creator comes along and shares something truly awe-inspiring. This 3D renderer is one such example.

---

Minecraft Redditors react to u/mattbatwings2's 3D renderer

Mattbatwings2's renderer can create various geometrical shapes (Image via mattbatwings2/Reddit)

The post on the r/Minecraft subreddit featured a video in which the renderer displays its ability to create different shapes, including a cube, pyramid, dual tetrahedron, and 3D text. Suffice to say, the game's Reddit community was quite impressed with the final product. Redstone machinery builds are some of the most complex in the game, and it's difficult not to appreciate the amount of sheer time and dedication these creations take.

One Minecraft poster had a particularly intriguing realization, comparing the build to modern-day 'demoscene' art, where programming and artistic expression go hand-in-hand. Meanwhile, other posters hoped that Mattbatwings could expand on the build to render more complex images or even run an entire game in and of itself, which has been seen in other builds that possess entire operating systems.

According to Matt's Youtube video detailing the build, the machine works quite slowly, meaning he had to speed up the timelapse of the video in order to show off its rendering capacity. This is due to the fact that Minecraft's redstone pulses can only travel so quickly, which slows the renderer down to approximately a tenth of a frame per second when it creates an image onscreen. Despite this, increasing the game's tick speed would likely allow it to render at higher speeds, but Matt was determined to create the renderer with vanilla in-game settings.

Whatever the case may be, it's truly astonishing how the willpower of players can create something so impressive. It takes a significant amount of knowledge about both redstone and circuit/programming logic to make such remarkable redstone machinery in-game. In many ways, redstone engineering is the ostensible final frontier for aspiring builders and creators, as it exceeds the very parameters of Minecraft itself.

Hopefully, builders and programmers can continue to push the limits of redstone engineering as Mojang introduces new blocks to the game. Each block placed in-game has its own means of interacting (or not interacting) with redstone signals and currents, and this should only expand as the world's most beloved sandbox game continues to improve.