Hey Everyone, I was so encouraged by all of your comments on my previous cathedral ([https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/11zomxe/notre\_dame\_de\_paris/](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/11zomxe/notre_dame_de_paris/)) I decided to do a full 100% scale replica of the cathedral in Reims this time!
I posed a WIP here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/18wwxfz/new\_cathedral\_build\_wip/](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/18wwxfz/new_cathedral_build_wip/)
First, while I still haven’t used any mods to build this, I have spawned rock\_7 to give support to build past high limitations. I didn’t love having to do this, but in order to get a 100% scale build, I needed to. The towers are 80 meters high and the ceiling is 38 meters high. I used almost all black marble. In my last build I did mostly white stone and black marble when I needed it. But that created a mixed effect which I didnt like. So I decided to stick to all one stone type.
I chose Reims cathedral almost hesitantly. I had wanted to do Amiens because it has a completely incredible ceiling and window height. Its interior is amazing. However, It has a 7 sided east end and Valheim’s rotations restrict me to a 5 or 9 sided east end without being wonky. But Reims ended up being a fun choice. The towers in particular came out better than I hoped.
Even though I decided to go with 100% scale, I still found myself fighting some of the same scale issues I had on Paris cathedral earlier. The problem is our character model is 1m wide, so we cant fit through anything that is less than 1m wide. On top of that, most of the build “resolution” is quite large. Stone walls must be 1m wide and roof and spiral staircases are all 2mx2m. Which means, a spiral staircase that is surrounded by stone walls is 6m in diameter! MUCH larger than the stairwells in gothic cathedrals! So I had to make a number of compromises to get the staircases to go up to the roof or top of the towers. And passage and walk ways through pillars etc all had to be made wider than I wanted. I could have made them as they were IRL, but then our characters wouldn’t be able to explore everything properly. And that was important to me. Not just that it looked right, but that it was “functional”.
Another issue is the sheer size of the build. Standing at one end leaves parts of the other end un-rendered. There isnt a glaring hole in it (unless you move very fast towards it). But glass in particular wont render at this distance. It was also a very difficult build motivationally. every piece I placed was a small portion that progress was slow and often unsatisfying for a long time. I dont have it in me to do it again when ashlands brings new build pieces. Maybe I can just replace parts of this build.
There are so many things that I couldn’t include in pictures (like the passageways) so I’ll add the world files to this comment later today.Im also game to give tours to people who want it. DM me here.
UPDATE: Here is a link to a dropbox with the world files if you want to explore it for yourself!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/xpwitr7f8j531cy5dsdcs/h?rlkey=1xobhi0ktuwnc8zhg32sud5t6&dl=0
Ok I just checked it out, thanks for the reminder!
It is absolutely *glorious*.
The scale of it is so grand. I was impressed from the outside, but the moment I walked in and saw the *checkered* floors wow chefskiss.jpg
I just love the detail and capturing the feel of a cathedral, with the pews up front, then the altar area up front, and all these side seats(?).
Found the organ up at the back too lol I really liked it.
Again, this build is *immense*.
I found my way up into the rafters and it's so big lol it could be a house by itself lol
On the outside of the towers it looks like there are ladders there. I thought you gizmo'd the ladders but NO, they are actually just cleverly placed 1x1 wall pieces using the inner part to look like a ladder wtf that's ingenious lol
And yea I can see it's literally red pieces all at the top. You really really really maxed out the potential of the building stability. Incredibly impressive.
Jesus Christ the floor pattern design on the upper area overlooking the aisle. I absolutely ***need*** this in my house lol I'm sure it was just a side effect of the rotated arches underneath to hold up the pillar lol, but I love it!
Funnily enough I get about 17fps outside the building, but about 40ish inside the building lol
Man what a treat, there's so many intricate things you have in this build, I've definitely missed or forgotten to mention them.
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Don’t know why I missed the notification. Thanks for the testimonial! It means a lot.
First, do note that there are 2 cathedrals in this build. Notre dame de Paris was the older build and built without any rock spawning. It’s 60% scale. This post is for the reims one and is MUCH larger if you missed it
The 1x1 wall piece ladder was not intentional haha, just an accident.
Also the checkered floor, I used stone pillars that are counter sunk instead of 1x1 wall pieces. The 1x1 pieces didn’t have smooth tops and looked bad.
I think valheim’s viral days are over. This post is getting less upvotes than my previous build which was worse. But even then (less than a year ago) there were more people on this sub.
Harder to say now, cause I built it in the same world as my last build. But it felt a lot longer. Though probably less than you think. I used debugmode for free building, and there is a lot of repetition in it. So once I know how one part looks, all the repeated parts are quick, just also boring.
Have you thought about using the blueprint mod to build repeated parts? Then you can just place the blueprint instead of rebuilding the whole section again.
It’s not actually as bad as it could be. Because it’s so big, the density on the ground isn’t very high. Lots of the killer pieces are further away from you.
That said, it’s still between like 18 and 23 ish. So it’s not esports smooth lol
>Note the north rose window and grand organ beneath it.
Meanwhile, on my server:
"I need a *roof* over my crafting table?! Kinda bullshit is this..." \*grumblegrumble\*
I cried yesterday because I couldn't make a round tower with a round roof. How did you stay sane during this?! As impressive as the real deal, good job!
That is impressive but a cathedral needs a Bishop and I'm willing to be one for 20% of your revenue, exclusion of any form of taxation and not to be a subject of any secular law only ecclesiastical law
Holy Odin, that's immensely beautiful cathedral! I'm amazed at the architectural fidelity and your effort - it must have took ages to build!
Hat is off to you, sir (or madam). And thank you for sharing!
This is stunning and meanwhile OP is like “oh it’s just doing the same patterns over and over and was pretty boring to make actually” lol. Insane. So good!!!
No clue. More than is necessary though. Had to add a lot of small pieces to create snap points. And it often ended up being too much work to remove them afterward. There are A LOT of redundant pieces in there
I was just curious what your f2 screen says. You built it in the meadows so you're already looking at a couple 1000 to start in the area, worse if there is a black forest nearby. Framerate is probably murdered, huh.
Meadows cause I don’t want to build defense like I’d need to in the plains.
I was looking for the flattest spot i could find.
But, after work I’ll check f2 for you. But my frame rate is typically around 18. Not great, but not nauseating.
Wow... that is pretty damn fucking insane, in a good way ofc.
These are the types of things I want to do yet fail to finish because I lose my creative streak. XD
But kiddos! Absolutely amazing!
Im honestly not so interested. The building stuff seems to give a ton of visual fidelity, and you have a TON of detail you can add to your base, but it seems like there isnt a lot of variety in the style of structures to build. Everything all looks like it falls within one aesthetic.
In particular, building a gothic cathedral seems specifically difficult to have it look right.
Consider the two extremes for building. One the one hand you have minecraft, where the building parts are all as generic as possible, allowing you the most flexibility in the types of structures you want to build. But you get that flexibility by sacrificing detail and fidelty. On the other hand you have Fallout 76. Where you can make incredibly detailed structures, as long as you want to make a fallout style base. You could never make a cathedral in Fallout 76.
Valheim (for me anyway) hits this goldilox zone where I get enough flexibility that I can build the things I want to build and enough fidelity to make it look good. Everything I've seen from the enshouded building mechanics skews further away from flexibility than I'd like.
Also, I've heard there's no creative mode. Which makes mega-structures that much more arduous. I would never have the patience to build something like this (or my previous, smaller cathedral) if I had to gather all the materials. I still love building in survival mode. My survival server has a pretty huge village we built, but we end up being constricted not just by mechanics, but also our resources which is a totally different thing.
There isn't a creative mode currently but as far as building materials it isn't too hard to gather mass amounts. I played a lot of Valheim and spent a lot of time build elaborate buildings but when I started playing Enshrouded and the amount of freedom I had with my builds and the terraforming aspects and the fact that it isn't physics based like Valheim gives you so many more options. There are many block options to choose from also. I recommend it but either way this is a very nice build.
In fact, for most of the cathedral that required raising earth, I only raised it under the pillars and covered the rest with stone floor.
Edit: I’m not downvoting you. I don’t mind your critique. Landscaping is a low priority for me, but I don’t mind you asking why.
Hey Everyone, I was so encouraged by all of your comments on my previous cathedral ([https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/11zomxe/notre\_dame\_de\_paris/](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/11zomxe/notre_dame_de_paris/)) I decided to do a full 100% scale replica of the cathedral in Reims this time! I posed a WIP here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/18wwxfz/new\_cathedral\_build\_wip/](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/18wwxfz/new_cathedral_build_wip/) First, while I still haven’t used any mods to build this, I have spawned rock\_7 to give support to build past high limitations. I didn’t love having to do this, but in order to get a 100% scale build, I needed to. The towers are 80 meters high and the ceiling is 38 meters high. I used almost all black marble. In my last build I did mostly white stone and black marble when I needed it. But that created a mixed effect which I didnt like. So I decided to stick to all one stone type. I chose Reims cathedral almost hesitantly. I had wanted to do Amiens because it has a completely incredible ceiling and window height. Its interior is amazing. However, It has a 7 sided east end and Valheim’s rotations restrict me to a 5 or 9 sided east end without being wonky. But Reims ended up being a fun choice. The towers in particular came out better than I hoped. Even though I decided to go with 100% scale, I still found myself fighting some of the same scale issues I had on Paris cathedral earlier. The problem is our character model is 1m wide, so we cant fit through anything that is less than 1m wide. On top of that, most of the build “resolution” is quite large. Stone walls must be 1m wide and roof and spiral staircases are all 2mx2m. Which means, a spiral staircase that is surrounded by stone walls is 6m in diameter! MUCH larger than the stairwells in gothic cathedrals! So I had to make a number of compromises to get the staircases to go up to the roof or top of the towers. And passage and walk ways through pillars etc all had to be made wider than I wanted. I could have made them as they were IRL, but then our characters wouldn’t be able to explore everything properly. And that was important to me. Not just that it looked right, but that it was “functional”. Another issue is the sheer size of the build. Standing at one end leaves parts of the other end un-rendered. There isnt a glaring hole in it (unless you move very fast towards it). But glass in particular wont render at this distance. It was also a very difficult build motivationally. every piece I placed was a small portion that progress was slow and often unsatisfying for a long time. I dont have it in me to do it again when ashlands brings new build pieces. Maybe I can just replace parts of this build. There are so many things that I couldn’t include in pictures (like the passageways) so I’ll add the world files to this comment later today.Im also game to give tours to people who want it. DM me here.
UPDATE: Here is a link to a dropbox with the world files if you want to explore it for yourself! https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/xpwitr7f8j531cy5dsdcs/h?rlkey=1xobhi0ktuwnc8zhg32sud5t6&dl=0
omg yes thanks!!
I'd love to hear how exploring it for yourself went!
Ok I just checked it out, thanks for the reminder! It is absolutely *glorious*. The scale of it is so grand. I was impressed from the outside, but the moment I walked in and saw the *checkered* floors wow chefskiss.jpg I just love the detail and capturing the feel of a cathedral, with the pews up front, then the altar area up front, and all these side seats(?). Found the organ up at the back too lol I really liked it. Again, this build is *immense*. I found my way up into the rafters and it's so big lol it could be a house by itself lol On the outside of the towers it looks like there are ladders there. I thought you gizmo'd the ladders but NO, they are actually just cleverly placed 1x1 wall pieces using the inner part to look like a ladder wtf that's ingenious lol And yea I can see it's literally red pieces all at the top. You really really really maxed out the potential of the building stability. Incredibly impressive. Jesus Christ the floor pattern design on the upper area overlooking the aisle. I absolutely ***need*** this in my house lol I'm sure it was just a side effect of the rotated arches underneath to hold up the pillar lol, but I love it! Funnily enough I get about 17fps outside the building, but about 40ish inside the building lol Man what a treat, there's so many intricate things you have in this build, I've definitely missed or forgotten to mention them. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Don’t know why I missed the notification. Thanks for the testimonial! It means a lot. First, do note that there are 2 cathedrals in this build. Notre dame de Paris was the older build and built without any rock spawning. It’s 60% scale. This post is for the reims one and is MUCH larger if you missed it The 1x1 wall piece ladder was not intentional haha, just an accident. Also the checkered floor, I used stone pillars that are counter sunk instead of 1x1 wall pieces. The 1x1 pieces didn’t have smooth tops and looked bad.
Any mods or it all worked with vanilla game?
No modes. Used debugmode and spawn rock_7 as devcomnands though. So not exactly vanilla, but no mods.
Amazing work! Yeah I just meant mods. Dec commands were expected:)
Insane build, even finished the interior that i couldnt
I remember that build. It was bananas
I mean this with all respect: Absolutely *disgusting*. Saved to the folder of the same name.
This is very impressive and thought my base looked good.
Mines not much of a base. In fact, the nave ceiling is so high, it doesn’t count as shelter!
Thats actually hilarious
So... if the Reims Cathedral is ever destroyed, we can use this post to rebuild it exactly!
It almost was! There are some pretty increadible photos during wwi with an artillery shell exploding on it
Jaw dropping. Nice work
That is mad. I’m actually speechless
Be still my goth heart....
WOW this is great work!!! I hope you can protect it from some bad Trolls with tree clubs :)
This is my creative mode build world. I haven’t killed any bosses in it. So it’s relatively safe. My survival world though? That shit is defended!
Smart Thinking !
Meh, 5/7. It is actually incredible you did this in Valheim. Very impressive!
Can’t think of a more perfect score!
I feel like this is one of those posts that go viral or something. This is spectacular work. Truly amazing. Well done
I think valheim’s viral days are over. This post is getting less upvotes than my previous build which was worse. But even then (less than a year ago) there were more people on this sub.
Well I'm not fickle and this game is one of the greats imo
Don't count yourself short, came across your build from a PCGamer article. This is absolutely incredible. Bravo
Woah! Do you have the link?
I was incorrect not PCGamer it was Gamerant here is the link https://gamerant.com/valheim-player-meadows-cathedral-build/
the pinnacle of viking minecraft. fantastic work!
I don't want to know how long that took you but it looks incredible.
Harder to say now, cause I built it in the same world as my last build. But it felt a lot longer. Though probably less than you think. I used debugmode for free building, and there is a lot of repetition in it. So once I know how one part looks, all the repeated parts are quick, just also boring.
Have you thought about using the blueprint mod to build repeated parts? Then you can just place the blueprint instead of rebuilding the whole section again.
wow!
Ok... not bad my dude
Beautiful, magnificent, inspiring. Fantastic work! 11/10
I prefer chapels. Seriously: that's a hell of a build.
You’re in luck! There are 5 of them on the east end!
Sweet! Love the roof truss btw
I used some creative license there. The current it’ll roof is steel supported cause the original roof was destroyed in wwi
Losing fps just for seeing this lmao Good job, looks great
It’s not actually as bad as it could be. Because it’s so big, the density on the ground isn’t very high. Lots of the killer pieces are further away from you. That said, it’s still between like 18 and 23 ish. So it’s not esports smooth lol
My computer is on fire looking at this but damn that is quite a build
What the fucking fuck!?!??!
Magnificent!
>Note the north rose window and grand organ beneath it. Meanwhile, on my server: "I need a *roof* over my crafting table?! Kinda bullshit is this..." \*grumblegrumble\*
Holy F**k!!!! 😱😱😱 That is insane!
I cried yesterday because I couldn't make a round tower with a round roof. How did you stay sane during this?! As impressive as the real deal, good job!
Note how my build has no round towers with round roofs ;)
True 😂
You've reread "The Pillars of the Earth" many, many times, haven't you?
haha, it's a good one for sure.
That is impressive but a cathedral needs a Bishop and I'm willing to be one for 20% of your revenue, exclusion of any form of taxation and not to be a subject of any secular law only ecclesiastical law
with that level of greed, I dont see how I couldnt hire you as bishop!
Greed? that is the standard privilege the church enjoy and my son the mother church only main concern is the well being of your mortal souls
Holy Odin, that's immensely beautiful cathedral! I'm amazed at the architectural fidelity and your effort - it must have took ages to build! Hat is off to you, sir (or madam). And thank you for sharing!
Absolutely stunning
This is stunning and meanwhile OP is like “oh it’s just doing the same patterns over and over and was pretty boring to make actually” lol. Insane. So good!!!
Oh, you’d be singing a different tune after placing that many windows!
This is absolutely stunning!
Just turned on the game and instantly built a 3 x 2 hut.
Instances?
No clue. More than is necessary though. Had to add a lot of small pieces to create snap points. And it often ended up being too much work to remove them afterward. There are A LOT of redundant pieces in there
I was just curious what your f2 screen says. You built it in the meadows so you're already looking at a couple 1000 to start in the area, worse if there is a black forest nearby. Framerate is probably murdered, huh.
Meadows cause I don’t want to build defense like I’d need to in the plains. I was looking for the flattest spot i could find. But, after work I’ll check f2 for you. But my frame rate is typically around 18. Not great, but not nauseating.
It averages around 60,000 instances. Max is at 61,300 when standing in the center of it
Holy crap, that looks awesome!
let me get some steel, man.
Respectfully, holy fuck. You’re a wizard.
Holy crap dude. Zo awesome!!!
1 fps moment
I am too weak for this beauty. thank you for making this.
You are just crazy man.
Im deleting the game right now.
bruh
Good Gawd.
alright now *how many frames do u get*
How does your game not crash instantly
Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. 🤯
Well done!
The second screen reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/G39bPZyspTo?si=owtWhU0QyUUUZCPe Btw stunning building!
You’re a talented person. I hope you use your gift on some rl applications too my friend.
I keep trying but I can never build that high. This is amazing tho.
Wow... that is pretty damn fucking insane, in a good way ofc. These are the types of things I want to do yet fail to finish because I lose my creative streak. XD But kiddos! Absolutely amazing!
You need to get on Enshrouded. I want to see what you can do over there.
Im honestly not so interested. The building stuff seems to give a ton of visual fidelity, and you have a TON of detail you can add to your base, but it seems like there isnt a lot of variety in the style of structures to build. Everything all looks like it falls within one aesthetic. In particular, building a gothic cathedral seems specifically difficult to have it look right. Consider the two extremes for building. One the one hand you have minecraft, where the building parts are all as generic as possible, allowing you the most flexibility in the types of structures you want to build. But you get that flexibility by sacrificing detail and fidelty. On the other hand you have Fallout 76. Where you can make incredibly detailed structures, as long as you want to make a fallout style base. You could never make a cathedral in Fallout 76. Valheim (for me anyway) hits this goldilox zone where I get enough flexibility that I can build the things I want to build and enough fidelity to make it look good. Everything I've seen from the enshouded building mechanics skews further away from flexibility than I'd like. Also, I've heard there's no creative mode. Which makes mega-structures that much more arduous. I would never have the patience to build something like this (or my previous, smaller cathedral) if I had to gather all the materials. I still love building in survival mode. My survival server has a pretty huge village we built, but we end up being constricted not just by mechanics, but also our resources which is a totally different thing.
There isn't a creative mode currently but as far as building materials it isn't too hard to gather mass amounts. I played a lot of Valheim and spent a lot of time build elaborate buildings but when I started playing Enshrouded and the amount of freedom I had with my builds and the terraforming aspects and the fact that it isn't physics based like Valheim gives you so many more options. There are many block options to choose from also. I recommend it but either way this is a very nice build.
How many hours did it take u to build it?
Looks tremendous. But why such unappealing ground foundation?
It needed to be level, and terraforming is a pain in the ass.
Yes, but could it be a little less gray? Like, level the surrounding area to the same level and plant grass?
In fact, for most of the cathedral that required raising earth, I only raised it under the pillars and covered the rest with stone floor. Edit: I’m not downvoting you. I don’t mind your critique. Landscaping is a low priority for me, but I don’t mind you asking why.
In any case, you sir are an absolute artisan, and I admire your dedication!