Drasavil, Beautiful HD Minecraft Texture Pack (64 x 64)
Realistically artistic, Drasavil is made by a, and I quote, 'real life digital art and entertainment designer', and it shows. It's a work in progress, but not in the way many Minecraft texture packs are in progress, where half the textures aren't done. (Although the mob textures haven't been touched yet.) No, by 'work in progress' the creator, Aageon, means that he's going to spend a little more time polishing up a few of the textures so you can see your face in them.
What's to love about this texture pack? Pretty much everything. It's designed for one thing: beauty. Beauty at all costs. Beauty if it means a rusty nail in your foot. Beauty if it means waking up at three am in the morning for an entire month of Sundays to tend to the needs of one small anemic rat. Beauty is the goal, and Drasavil achieves it.
Smooth is a word that comes to mind, but smooth has been overused when it comes to Minecraft texture packs. Sleek is perhaps a better word, although that still puts me in mind of a Ferrari. Perhaps that is not such a bad analogy. Perhaps Drasavil will one day be the Ferrari of Minecraft texture packs.
At 64 x 64, it is certainly high resolution, but its not in your face ridiculously high resolution that will potentially make the game unplayable. (Those of us not playing on NORAD's own computers sometimes have issues running out of memory with super hi-res HD texture packs.)
But specifics, you need specifics don't you? You crave them. Well specifically I love the cobblestone texture, which puts me in mind of a very refined RPG. It looks as if you could reach out and press your finger into the crevices of the stone, that's how well the texture is designed. Chests also have an RPG feel to them, with ornate swirling designs.
Snow is a little bit like crepe paper, but the flowers, oh the flowers are so wonderful that you'll want to pick them and put them your horrid aunt's favorite vase just to show her what a terrible crone she really is in contrast.
Obsidian is gorgeous, almost leather textured. When you're not building portals to the Nether, you'll be wanting to bind very important documents with the stuff.
Glass is well done, it has a well designed border, but leaves the centre pane well enough alone so that you can see through it with the greatest of ease. Glowstone has a similar style of border, and if you look at both of these textures for long enough, you'll start to get a gentle steampunk vibe from them.
The GUI is very simple, which is good. It's nice to see a texture pack that knows when to sprinkle pixels like fine dust and when to back off and let us work out what we're looking at in peace.
