We’ve collected neat examples of other things that people have made with Minecraft. Take a look and see what you think of these largerbuilds.
All of Denmark Recreated in Minecraft
The Danish Geodata Agency took on an incredibly ambitious project; they made a 1:1 scale recreation of Denmark within Minecraft. It’s a four-trillion-Brick build, and the save file for it weighs in at an entire terabyte. Phew. That’s one heck of a download.
The project was accomplish using the
agency’s own elevation model of
the region. Here are a few things
we asked them about their work!
I’ve read that you were trying to raise interest and awareness in spatial data. Could you tell me more about that?
On January 1, 2013 the Danish spatial data was bought free and became available for everybody. It opens great opportunities, but in order to use them, people need to know they are there. So we made Denmark in Minecraft, mainly to raise interest among children and teachers, but also in general--for example, among game developers, because Minecraft is a good showcase of the opportunities.
Why did you decide on Minecraft as a tool to make people more excited about this?
Very many people know Minecraft, so it was a good but different way of getting our message out. And it was fun!
Was it a difficult task to create such a massive area in the game? Even the file size for the completed work is huge!
It actually didn’t take us that long, because the spatial data that we used have such high quality.
Is there anything that you’d like to say about your project and its reception?
We are still grateful that so many people got excited about this and decided to share our work. We got much more attention than expected, and we are so proud of our Denmark in Minecraft. It really was great fun to work on this project!
Minecart Interstate
SirCrest, on YouTube, put out a video of his Minecart Interstate in the early days of the game. This brought attention to the game and to some of the cool things that everyone could work on. We tracked him down to ask a few questions! Take a look at his work in 1440P to really get a smile.
How much time have you put into Minecart Interstate (each one, or all in total)?
For the original V3.0 video (which at the time was just the third video of the same track, which had been extended), I think I told most viewers I spent about 24-26 hours on the build itself. This was spread over perhaps two to three months. And I would be playing the game at the time, not solely placing blocks. The video aspect, I couldn’t even tell you. it’s been nearly five years since I released that video.
As for the V3.0 remake, likely over 100 hours. Even though the track was technically already made, there was a significant amount of work for updating the map file for use in the then-latest version of Minecraft. Loading it in Alpha, then Beta for it to convert, then Release for it to convert again. I had to rotate the entire track in some mapping tools so that the sun and moon were in the correct position compared to the original video. Then, due to certain mods not being updated in years and with how certain mechanics with the engine had changed, I had to use those same mapping tools to replace parts of the track to keep the same speed, and thus the same timing in the video. I’m boiling it down, but this process took a week or two to do.
The recording, editing, and processing of the resulting video took another 30-40 hours, chief of which was just waiting for the video to render at various stages. In order to create the very clean, high-fidelity visuals, you need to be a very patient person, or own a tablet to watch stuff on.
Was the construction more a matter of time or planning? Inspiration or perspiration?
Construction was purely time; for a portion of the track the resources were manually gathered, believe it or not. I had a huge hole I dug in the first few hours of owning the game in July of 2010, I had Chests full of Cobblestone, and I ended up using most of that for the track. You can see this hole in some of my follow-up videos in 2010 where I talk about the project. To finish the track, though, I had to start using some inventory editor tools. This was before the days of MCedit or mods for giving items. You had to use a save file editor, close the game, find the inventory for that item, type in the amount of blocks, save it, and reload the game and keep building. Very tedious, but to the best of my knowledge I didn’t have an alternative.
Do you scan through the areas well ahead of time to judge if everything is going to be scenic, or just start tunneling to see what comes up?
I am still adamant that Alpha had the best world generation. Yes, you only had really one biome; however, that one biome was so well-generated. At the time I used the phrase “highly realistic, but low-resolution.” So because of that, I didn’t plan anything for V3; I just kept building, because, to be honest, I knew it would look interesting and would move well past the view.
For V4, I did use a flycam to scout out the track a few times to see where I’d have problems. But eventually I landed on generation that I liked.
Do you have any suggestions for other large builders out there? Any tips for doing crazy stuff?
Research your tools. There may be something out there which can automatically do what you want to do manually. While I often enjoy the brute-force methods in some of my video projects, that is not always the smartest route. And frankly, I use these video projects as an excuse to try out these methods of video creation. Don’t be afraid to sit down and browse forums or do some Internet searches for a few hours before starting on a project; you may find some information to inspire a change, or you might find someone did something similar and you can learn from their experience. And that applies to anything in life.
Any closing comments?
Only thing I think I’d close with is that, as silly as it sounds, the V3.0 Interstate video changed my life. That video got me interviews with websites and some TV networks like this. I got thousands upon thousands of emails and comments and messages talking about that video. It jump-started my “real” YouTube career, as well as all the experience in editing and video production that I have now. If that video didn’t go viral, video editing and production would still just be a weird hobby I have, rather than my career and passion.