Abertay campus mapped out on Minecraft by masters students

A GROUP of Dundee students have recreated Abertay University using the video game Minecraft to let potential applicants see the campus during the pandemic.

Nine masters students from the School of Design and Informatics recreated the inside and outside.

It took the team around six weeks to build the replica using more than 700,000 Minecraft blocks.

It comes after Dundee art student Csian Canave recreated the V&A on the game earlier this year to relieve lockdown boredom.

The students behind the Abertay project are from the university’s MPPOP game development preparation course, run in collaboration with Chinese-based education and entertainment company Perfect World.

The first part of their degree is in Beijing, before they complete their master’s in Dundee.

The digital version of Abertay can be accessed on Minecraft Java Edition, by entering the IP address: 34.105.192.136.

The team finished their project before visiting Abertay, working from photos and videos.

Team member Baron Zhang said it was challenging.

“We had a lot of material to work from but to be honest it was quite hard.

“We gradually discovered tips and tricks in Minecraft to help us build our version of Abertay, and in the end we were happy.

“I feel like we did a good job and we all feel proud.”

Yiqun Guo, also from the team, said: “One other difficulty we faced was working remotely. We weren’t in the same place at the same time when we made the model and had to communicate using WeChat, which is a Chinese social media app.

“We used Google maps to make the outside of the building and that worked well. Using photos and videos to make the inside look good was a bit harder; they only capture certain angles.

“But it’s really cool and very exciting to know people will be using our model to explore Abertay.”