A dedicated Minecraft player recently recreated the entirety of Hawaii using government data sources. Minecraft, which released as a paid public alpha in 2009, has maintained impressive popularity more than a decade after release. The game's variety of modes allow for extremely large and sophisticated in-game constructions, letting players express their imaginations freely.
As the game grows older and receives additional content updates, Minecraft's dedicated and devoted fanbase continues to complete larger and more impressive constructions. Some extremely impressive builds take years to finish, but the blood, sweat and tears that go into them is immediately evident. Some players recreate real-world locations like Manhattan or Los Angeles, while others choose to construct fictional locations such as Cyberpunk 2077's Night City or Game of Thrones' Westeros. Meanwhile, some Minecraft builds are smaller in scope while still being artistically impressive, such as one player's amazing mural created using only a single bucket of water.
One prominent Minecraft player and creator, Frank Cesco, recently used the game to create a 1:45 scale model of Hawaii in a fully playable build. The Hawaiian Islands were recreated using data from various government sources such as NASA and a 2o15 carbon assessment of the islands. Cesco's extremely impressive build was created using the programs QGIS and WorldPainter and features realistic land cover and high resolution elevation and bathymetry. The map is available for download for interested Minecraft players, allowing anyone to explore the breathtakingly large and accurate Hawaiian Islands.
While playing Minecraft the old-fashioned way is great, many players have gone the extra mile and created programs to make building easier. Reddit user u/Minecraft_Unofficial recently unveiled a Minecraft MS Paint program which can turn paintings into three-dimensional structures. The program can be used to either paint in MS Paint and then import the art into Minecraft, or simply paint from within the game itself before turning the painting into 3D. The program is very smart but not particularly complicated, meaning that, like Frank Cesco's recreation of Hawaii, it can be used by a wide variety of players.
Minecraft players never cease to amaze with the scale, detail and creativity of their in-game creations. From large cityscapes to innovative computer programs, there is a lot that can be created using the game's fairly simple set of tools. Frank Cesco's 1:45 scale version of the Hawaiian Islands allows the land's vast beauty to be shared with people all across the world, making this an especially notable Minecraft build.
Source: Frank Cesco, fra 267