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Build the Earth

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Build The Earth
buildtheearth.net logo
Build The Earth Logo
Video gameMinecraft
CreatorPippenFTS
Created21 March 2020
Scope1:1 scale recreation of the Earth
Websitebuildtheearth.net

Build The Earth (BTE) is a project dedicated to recreating the Earth in a 1:1 scale in Minecraft.[1][2] The project has attracted hundreds of thousands of users to its Discord server, and has surpassed 6,000 officially registered minecraft builders.[3]

Organization

Minecraft users can register for the project on Build The Earth's official website. They then have to be accepted by staff members. All actions are managed on the project's Discord server. [citation needed] Through teams or solo projects, builders upload their world files to the official website, which are eventually merged into the master world.[citation needed]

Bedrock Edition

At the start of the project, Build The Earth only allowed users with the Java Edition of the game to build. A system that let Bedrock users build for the project was later implemented. Users may claim individual areas, or join one of the two default Bedrock servers, which were working on Anchorage, Alaska and Riga, Latvia.[citation needed] The two Bedrock exclusive servers were abandoned in favor of a new system which allows Bedrock and Java version players to join the same server and play together. This system is now being used by most Build Team servers.

History

Beginning

On March 21, 2020, YouTuber PippenFTS released a video titled The Earth in Minecraft, 1:1 scale... for the first time, in which he talked about the map, how it was made, and called for talented Minecraft players to help build. Within a few days, the video went viral, accumulating over 11 million views by October 2020.[4] By the end of March 2020, the BTE subreddit, Twitter account, and Instagram account had been set up and were growing rapidly. A Patreon page was created on March 26, and currently accumulates over $250 a month from more than 50 patrons.[5] The Discord server, where the project was synthesized and is currently being managed in, hit 50,000 members by 29 March and 200,000 by the end of April; it currently has about 230,000 members, though the number of new members has decreased.[citation needed]

Collaborations and advertising

On Earth Day 2020, Mojang released an article featuring the project on their website.[6] On 5 July of the same year, MrBeast, a YouTuber and social media influencer, released a video where he and a group of other players re-built his hometown, Raleigh, North Carolina, in 24 hours.[7]

Resources

Mods

See also: Minecraft mod

The Build The Earth project primarily depends on the Terra 1-to-1 mod, which is in charge of generating all of the terrain, streets, building guides, etc., if available, as to ease the building process. Most of the time, dimensions of the real life won't fit into the normal limits of Minecraft. Thus, it depends on two other mods to function:

  • OpenCubicChunks, (otherwise known as CubicChunks) which essentially bypasses the 256-block height limit and the negative height limit of vanilla Minecraft.
  • CubicWorldGen, which enables the customization of terrain generation in conjunction with OpenCubicChunks.

The official mod-pack also provides a few other utility mods by default, that can prove to be useful when building:

  • JourneyMap, which allows users to see their surrounding areas from a mini-map.
  • WorldEdit, a powerful and well-known tool used for creating and modifying buildings swiftly.
  • Effortless Building, similar to WorldEdit, but with less features and a more user-friendly GUI.

It also includes two other lightweight mods, Performant and VanillaFix, which can help with certain performance improvements, though are not strictly needed.

The project has sparked the development of many 3rd party tools used to assist builders and server owners. The most notable include:

  • TerraPlusPlus (T++), a feature filled fork of Terra 1-to-1 focused on performance.
  • Terramap, an in-game map that allows users to easily teleport across the Terra 1-to-1 projection.
  • BTE-Tools, a custom tool used for generating rails, hedges, and shapes. (Currently un-maintained)
  • Sledgehammer, a proxy addon which allows server owners to create hubs which connect multiple build teams together.

PippenFTS stated that "with the CubicChunks mod breaking Minecraft's vertical limitations, we can now experience the Earth in Minecraft, just as it is, with no downscaling of any kind."[8]

Terrain generation

Terra 1-to-1 uses various API instances to generate a Minecraft world based on real-life data. These include a Mapzen Terrain Tile instance for elevation data, an ArcGIS REST API instance to generate tree cover, and an Overpass interpreter for OpenStreetMap to generate water, roads, and building outlines.[9][citation needed]

Map projection

Modified Airocean projection

The Terra 1-to-1 mod implements several map projections by default; including the transverse Mercator, sinusoidal, Equal Earth, equirectangular, and Dymaxion or Airocean projections, and a modified version of the latter, made specifically for the project, named Modified Airocean or Airocean-edit. PippenFTS released a YouTube video titled We are now ready to Build The Earth, 1:1 scale in Minecraft, in which he detailed the process undergone to create it.[10] This map projection provides an extremely low amount of distortion of both shapes and sizes on land, at the cost of heavily distorting the oceans. Unlike a typical Airocean projection, Modified Airocean is not intended to be unfolded into a 3D object like an icosahedron, and has its continents placed such that it looks somewhat similar to an equirectangular projection.

The projection used is configurable per world, though the project requires every contributing builder and build team to use the modified Airocean projection.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Prescott, Shaun (2020-03-30). "A 1:1 scale model of Earth is possible in Minecraft, with mods and your help". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  2. ^ Clayton, Natalie (2020-03-28). "Minecraft mod recreates the Earth to scale – and now it wants players to fill in the gaps". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  3. ^ "Thousands of People Are Building a 1:1 Recreation of Earth in 'Minecraft'". www.vice.com. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  4. ^ "Halifax teen working to 'Build the Earth' in Minecraft". CBC. 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2021-03-28.
  5. ^ "BuildTheEarth". Patreon. Retrieved 2020-09-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Dankis, Sofia (2020-04-22). "It's Earth Day Again!". Mojang. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
  7. ^ Federowicz, Evan (2020-07-07). "Famous YouTuber MrBeast Recreates His Hometown Of Raleigh, North Carolina In Minecraft". HappyGamer. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  8. ^ Kent, Emma (2020-03-27). "Someone's built the entire Earth in Minecraft - to scale". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  9. ^ "terra121 datasets". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
  10. ^ "We are now ready to Build The Earth, 1:1 scale in Minecraft". YouTube. PippenFTS. Retrieved 2020-09-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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