Hilliard Davidson High School... in Minecraft, on a 1:1(ish) scale! If you're reading this, you probably know me irl and go to Davidson... so I don't think this place needs too much introduction. If you don't know this place, it's just my high school. It's probably cooler to explore if you actually know the place, but if not you're still welcome to take a look around, I guess....... I've got more to say about this project down below if you'd like to read, but first, here are the downloads and some pictures.
If you're playing on mobile, the Bedrock version is the one you want. Tap the options and then "Open in" to import the world.
To play the RTX version, you need to have Minecraft Windows 10 Edition and a graphics card capable of ray tracing.
Snowy world
In this map, there's a separate snowy version of the world!! To access it, use either the /function snowy or /function thaw commands to go back and forth between them!!
Pictures!
Minecraft to real life comparison! Looking at it like this, I'm almost a little too impressed with this project... though I'll try not to pat myself on the back too hard, lol
Even more pictures!!
I also made Weaver too... but just the outside
Old map pics
This map is actually built in the same world as an similar older project of mine. In 2014-2015 I made Tharp, my sixth grade building, in Minecraft... and I actually posted it here. When I decided to build Davidson, it was so close that I just decided to make it as sort of an extension of that old project. You can go down Davidson Road in this world to find all of the stuff I built around 2015!! The distance is to-scale, so it's like, a kilometer away...... The old part of the map isn't nearly as good, because I had less to work with in an older version of the game, had a really strange way of measuring distances, and just wasn't as good at building stuff... Anyway, none of that is the focus of this map, but I decided to include it anyway just for the heck of it. Here's some pics!!
Hilliard Tharp!!!
The Britton Farms pond!!!
Hilliard Norwich...! ..uh, this one doesn't really count... it's just Tharp rotated by 135 degrees with shorter wings... and it's barely close to finished.... and I didn't even ever go to that school.......
RTX pics
I made a version of this world compatible with the RTX feature in the Windows 10 version!!! I know not that many people will be able to even use it, but it took relatively little effort to make, since it's really just the Bedrock world with a tweaked RTX pack. I don't even have an RTX card myself..... I used a friend's laptop to test this world... I built this pack off of Kelly's RTX, making custom normal/material maps for all this world's custom textures. By the way, this world has custom textures. Anyway, it looks pretty cool, so here are some pics!!!!!
About the project
This is a recreation of Hilliard Davidson and some of the surrounding area in Minecraft on a 1:1 scale. (1 block = 1 meter)
The outside is pretty accurate as far as scale goes, but the inside isn't as close. The smaller a room is, the more likely it is to be smaller than it is irl. Walls can only be so thin in Minecraft..... Anyway, it's about as accurate as anyone will care for it to be. I didn't recreate absolutely everything in this area and every room in the school, but I did most of the major rooms, and a few classrooms too. Just about everything noteworthy. This is the kind of project where I'm sure I could always find something else to add, but I think this is about as 'done' as I'm willing to get it, so I'm calling it done. If I ever change anything I might put an updated version up on here.
Here's some info about the creation of this map. You don't have to read of course, but I thought some people might find it interesting...
So.... I started this project this last August, but I'd had the idea for years before that. I made Tharp when I went there around 2015, and made some other surrounding things after that, but I never got around to making Weaver (my middle school) when I was there, even though I wanted to...
The first thing I did for the Davidson part of the world was take a bunch of big google earth screenshots of the area I wanted to build, stitch them together into one giant map, and rotate/scale it so that I could draw on a grid of square meters. I used that grid to trace in just about anything that could be traced from a top-down view: roads, sidewalks, ponds, building outlines, etc. I actually created the base map in September 2019, but didn't even start tracing until almost a year later, the next August.....
On the left is what the final map looked like in GIMP, with all layers on. I used bright colors for most layers rather so they'd stick out and be easy to distinguish. On the right is what the first layer looked like when importing it into Spritecraft. Once the first layer was in, I started building everything else on top of it. Later, I used more layers to mark where fences, light posts, and trees were, and then to trace the inside maps.
Here's an early screenshot of the map... All that's of Davidson itself so far is just an outline on the ground. Other than roads, sidewalks, ponds, and fences, there isn't much else yet. This screenshot is from October 14th.
Here's the map after everything BUT the school itself was like 95% done, but when the school was just an outline of the first floor. The blue blocks mark doors. This screenshot is from December 14th. I'm skipping over a lot, of course, mostly because I'm not trying to write a novel here, but also because I didn't document the creation of this map super well...... not that I should have...............
Here's the school after the first floor was mostly done, and the second floor was outlined. Not much else to say here...... January 22nd.
And, just because it looks weird, here's the second floor with all the lights in before I added the rest of the ceiling. You think this is how they built the real Davidson? February 3rd.
After the roof was put on, the school was basically done from the outside, so the rest of the development can't be shown as concisely through pics like these...... The progress of this entire project was very on-and-off, and probably the longest I didn't touch it was for almost the entire month of March just because I got busy with other stuff. That's about all I can say about this project's development before it starts to get too specific to be interesting........ Anyway... thanks for reading this, I had a lot of fun making this map and I hope it's interesting to explore!!
Thanks for checking this project out!! Also- to anyone interested, feel free to do whatever you want with this world. If you want to continue it, change it in any way, redistribute it or whatever, go ahead. I'd just like if you credit me appropriately!!
Tools used
WorldEdit - In-game world editor... literally could not have done this without
GIMP - Tracing real maps, and making custom textures/map items
Spritecraft - Converting traced maps to schematics
Amulet - Minecraft world editor, successor to MCEdit. Only used it for biome editing in my 2023 bedrock edition fixes, since I didn't have a way to edit biomes in bedrock edition back in 2021, or at least wasn't aware of one.
Edit 8-30-2021: I updated the java version of the map to 1.17 to include the light blocks previously exclusive to bedrock edition. Glad they finally added them, cause that was nagging me. This is probably the last time I ever touch this project. It's been fun!
Edit 11-12-2023: Well, I'm back, lol... I come back to this world every now and then just for fun, and recently I noticed that the snowy world in the bedrock version got all messed up with some new update.... it bothered me enough to go back and fix it, though I also ended up changing/fixing a few other things while I was back anyway. For the zero people who care, here's a list of changes:
- Fixed the snowy world generating new snow that overrode the way I had it before. Before I had the streets plowed, but now it was replaced with the same patchy snow everywhere. Turns out changing the biome from snowy plains to snowy taiga mountains does the trick, somehow. I discovered that through pure trial and error, lol
- Made the snow on top of sidewalks one layer shorter than the rest of the snow. Back when originally making this map, I had a hard time deciding whether or not the sidewalks should be shoveled of snow, so this is a nice inbetween, it kinda makes it look like it was shoveled kind of recently but got snowed over again. I actually wanted to do this back then, but was too lazy to figure out how to do it
- Made the leaves and grass whiter in the snowy world. In bedrock edition, leaves turn white when it snows! But only if doWeatherCycle is on. Which I don't want, because that makes snow accumulate, and there's certain things I didn't want snow on. But! If you get it to the amount of leaves-snowiness you want and then turn doWeatherCycle off, it stays wherever it was! But only until you exit the world.... Again, I wanted to do this originally but never got around to figuring it out. Revisiting it now, I just decided to change the biome-plant gradient thing to make cold biomes have whiter grass/leaves. Can't believe I didn't figure that one out back then, lol...
- Fixed the pond swamp biome. Only one pond, but that didn't convert correctly from the original java map the first time around. Back then I had no way of editing biomes in bedrock edition, so that was satisfying to finally fix, lol
Oh, and it's still on 1.16, even though almost everybody who plays on bedrock edition is just playing the newest version, lol. I guess the bedrock and java versions of this map are a little more different now, since I'm not adding the snowy leaves and sidewalk snow thing to the java version, but oh well... I tried to keep them as similar as possible, but I don't feel like changing the java version out of laziness, and the bedrock version is kind of the "definitive" version in my eyes if I had to pick anyway, despite that one being the "port" and the java version being the "original" lol... Anyway if you're reading this, you're one of the zero people who cared about this changelog. Thanks!
Edit Edit 11-16-2023: Okay FINE I caved and went and made all the same changes to the java version too, just for parity between the versions. Initially, the java version just had one layer of snow like normal, but the tool I used to convert it to bedrock made all the snow 2 high there. This is probably just because they neglected to factor in that the snow in java counts from 1 and the snow in bedrock counts from 0 like a nerd. But anyway I changed the snow to be identical in java as it is in bedrock now, with 2 layers of snow everywhere by default, 1 layer on paths, and none on streets. I also changed the foliage biome-color map texture, but for some reason specifically spruce and birch leaves have hard-coded colors in java, you can't make them biome-dependent like normal. But I copied in the birch and evergreen colormaps anyway in case they add support for that down the line, idk. Also, I finally realized a reason to update the map's version: I updated the java map to 1.19 because of the snowAcculumationHeight gamerule, which lets me have it be snowing without snow layers actually accumulating, like I've been able to do in bedrock by just turning off doWeatherCycle. So now it can actually snow in the java version, yay!! I usually tried to keep this map in as low a version possible unless I had a good reason to bump it up, but this time there was, so I did. If for whatever reason you want the older map, here it is. It's not the original 1.16 one, but it's the 1.17 version that I used to add in light blocks. I think it's funny that the bedrock version is the one I haven't needed to move versions on, it's still 1.16 lol, and like I said above, bedrock is the edition of the game that almost nobody plays old versions of. Anyway, I've stopped caring about conciseness at this point, I'm just gonna leave this giant block of text here. The bedrock and java versions are now closer to each other than they've ever been before, and probably as close as I can get them given the current edition differences. I know this is a lot of effort for minor changes that nobody will care about, but I care, and it was fun to go back to this project for a little bit just to fix up some things, so I don't think it was wasted effort. Okay, leaving it to rest again for real this time, lol
Why am I fixing things on a high school personal project I haven't touched in over two years when I'm already halfway through college? I'm not sure lol... I'll say again that this is probably the last time I touch this project, though if another update messes something up that bothers me enough to come back and fix it again, I probably eventually will lol
Hilliard Davidson High School... in Minecraft, on a 1:1(ish) scale! If you're reading this, you probably know me irl and go to Davidson... so I don't think this place needs too much introduction. If you don't know this place, it's just my high school. It's probably cooler to explore if you actually know the place, but if not you're still welcome to take a look around, I guess....... I've got more to say about this project down below if you'd like to read, but first, here are the downloads and some pictures.
Hilliard Davidson (Java 1.19+)
Hilliard Davidson (Bedrock 1.16+)
Hilliard Davidson (Bedrock RTX 1.16+)
If you're playing on mobile, the Bedrock version is the one you want. Tap the options and then "Open in" to import the world.
To play the RTX version, you need to have Minecraft Windows 10 Edition and a graphics card capable of ray tracing.
Snowy world
In this map, there's a separate snowy version of the world!! To access it, use either the /function snowy or /function thaw commands to go back and forth between them!!
Pictures!
Minecraft to real life comparison! Looking at it like this, I'm almost a little too impressed with this project... though I'll try not to pat myself on the back too hard, lol
Even more pictures!!
I also made Weaver too... but just the outside
Old map pics
This map is actually built in the same world as an similar older project of mine. In 2014-2015 I made Tharp, my sixth grade building, in Minecraft... and I actually posted it here. When I decided to build Davidson, it was so close that I just decided to make it as sort of an extension of that old project. You can go down Davidson Road in this world to find all of the stuff I built around 2015!! The distance is to-scale, so it's like, a kilometer away...... The old part of the map isn't nearly as good, because I had less to work with in an older version of the game, had a really strange way of measuring distances, and just wasn't as good at building stuff... Anyway, none of that is the focus of this map, but I decided to include it anyway just for the heck of it. Here's some pics!!
Hilliard Tharp!!!
The Britton Farms pond!!!
Hilliard Norwich...! ..uh, this one doesn't really count... it's just Tharp rotated by 135 degrees with shorter wings... and it's barely close to finished.... and I didn't even ever go to that school.......
RTX pics
I made a version of this world compatible with the RTX feature in the Windows 10 version!!! I know not that many people will be able to even use it, but it took relatively little effort to make, since it's really just the Bedrock world with a tweaked RTX pack. I don't even have an RTX card myself..... I used a friend's laptop to test this world... I built this pack off of Kelly's RTX, making custom normal/material maps for all this world's custom textures. By the way, this world has custom textures. Anyway, it looks pretty cool, so here are some pics!!!!!
About the project
This is a recreation of Hilliard Davidson and some of the surrounding area in Minecraft on a 1:1 scale. (1 block = 1 meter)
The outside is pretty accurate as far as scale goes, but the inside isn't as close. The smaller a room is, the more likely it is to be smaller than it is irl. Walls can only be so thin in Minecraft..... Anyway, it's about as accurate as anyone will care for it to be. I didn't recreate absolutely everything in this area and every room in the school, but I did most of the major rooms, and a few classrooms too. Just about everything noteworthy. This is the kind of project where I'm sure I could always find something else to add, but I think this is about as 'done' as I'm willing to get it, so I'm calling it done. If I ever change anything I might put an updated version up on here.
Here's some info about the creation of this map. You don't have to read of course, but I thought some people might find it interesting...
So.... I started this project this last August, but I'd had the idea for years before that. I made Tharp when I went there around 2015, and made some other surrounding things after that, but I never got around to making Weaver (my middle school) when I was there, even though I wanted to...
The first thing I did for the Davidson part of the world was take a bunch of big google earth screenshots of the area I wanted to build, stitch them together into one giant map, and rotate/scale it so that I could draw on a grid of square meters. I used that grid to trace in just about anything that could be traced from a top-down view: roads, sidewalks, ponds, building outlines, etc. I actually created the base map in September 2019, but didn't even start tracing until almost a year later, the next August.....
On the left is what the final map looked like in GIMP, with all layers on. I used bright colors for most layers rather so they'd stick out and be easy to distinguish. On the right is what the first layer looked like when importing it into Spritecraft. Once the first layer was in, I started building everything else on top of it. Later, I used more layers to mark where fences, light posts, and trees were, and then to trace the inside maps.
Here's an early screenshot of the map... All that's of Davidson itself so far is just an outline on the ground. Other than roads, sidewalks, ponds, and fences, there isn't much else yet. This screenshot is from October 14th.
Here's the map after everything BUT the school itself was like 95% done, but when the school was just an outline of the first floor. The blue blocks mark doors. This screenshot is from December 14th. I'm skipping over a lot, of course, mostly because I'm not trying to write a novel here, but also because I didn't document the creation of this map super well...... not that I should have...............
Here's the school after the first floor was mostly done, and the second floor was outlined. Not much else to say here...... January 22nd.
And, just because it looks weird, here's the second floor with all the lights in before I added the rest of the ceiling. You think this is how they built the real Davidson? February 3rd.
After the roof was put on, the school was basically done from the outside, so the rest of the development can't be shown as concisely through pics like these...... The progress of this entire project was very on-and-off, and probably the longest I didn't touch it was for almost the entire month of March just because I got busy with other stuff. That's about all I can say about this project's development before it starts to get too specific to be interesting........ Anyway... thanks for reading this, I had a lot of fun making this map and I hope it's interesting to explore!!
Thanks for checking this project out!! Also- to anyone interested, feel free to do whatever you want with this world. If you want to continue it, change it in any way, redistribute it or whatever, go ahead. I'd just like if you credit me appropriately!!
Tools used
Edit 8-30-2021: I updated the java version of the map to 1.17 to include the light blocks previously exclusive to bedrock edition. Glad they finally added them, cause that was nagging me. This is probably the last time I ever touch this project. It's been fun!
Edit 11-12-2023: Well, I'm back, lol... I come back to this world every now and then just for fun, and recently I noticed that the snowy world in the bedrock version got all messed up with some new update.... it bothered me enough to go back and fix it, though I also ended up changing/fixing a few other things while I was back anyway. For the zero people who care, here's a list of changes:
- Fixed the snowy world generating new snow that overrode the way I had it before. Before I had the streets plowed, but now it was replaced with the same patchy snow everywhere. Turns out changing the biome from snowy plains to snowy taiga mountains does the trick, somehow. I discovered that through pure trial and error, lol
- Made the snow on top of sidewalks one layer shorter than the rest of the snow. Back when originally making this map, I had a hard time deciding whether or not the sidewalks should be shoveled of snow, so this is a nice inbetween, it kinda makes it look like it was shoveled kind of recently but got snowed over again. I actually wanted to do this back then, but was too lazy to figure out how to do it
- Made the leaves and grass whiter in the snowy world. In bedrock edition, leaves turn white when it snows! But only if doWeatherCycle is on. Which I don't want, because that makes snow accumulate, and there's certain things I didn't want snow on. But! If you get it to the amount of leaves-snowiness you want and then turn doWeatherCycle off, it stays wherever it was! But only until you exit the world.... Again, I wanted to do this originally but never got around to figuring it out. Revisiting it now, I just decided to change the biome-plant gradient thing to make cold biomes have whiter grass/leaves. Can't believe I didn't figure that one out back then, lol...
- Fixed the pond swamp biome. Only one pond, but that didn't convert correctly from the original java map the first time around. Back then I had no way of editing biomes in bedrock edition, so that was satisfying to finally fix, lol
Oh, and it's still on 1.16, even though almost everybody who plays on bedrock edition is just playing the newest version, lol. I guess the bedrock and java versions of this map are a little more different now, since I'm not adding the snowy leaves and sidewalk snow thing to the java version, but oh well... I tried to keep them as similar as possible, but I don't feel like changing the java version out of laziness, and the bedrock version is kind of the "definitive" version in my eyes if I had to pick anyway, despite that one being the "port" and the java version being the "original" lol... Anyway if you're reading this, you're one of the zero people who cared about this changelog. Thanks!
Edit Edit 11-16-2023: Okay FINE I caved and went and made all the same changes to the java version too, just for parity between the versions. Initially, the java version just had one layer of snow like normal, but the tool I used to convert it to bedrock made all the snow 2 high there. This is probably just because they neglected to factor in that the snow in java counts from 1 and the snow in bedrock counts from 0 like a nerd. But anyway I changed the snow to be identical in java as it is in bedrock now, with 2 layers of snow everywhere by default, 1 layer on paths, and none on streets. I also changed the foliage biome-color map texture, but for some reason specifically spruce and birch leaves have hard-coded colors in java, you can't make them biome-dependent like normal. But I copied in the birch and evergreen colormaps anyway in case they add support for that down the line, idk. Also, I finally realized a reason to update the map's version: I updated the java map to 1.19 because of the snowAcculumationHeight gamerule, which lets me have it be snowing without snow layers actually accumulating, like I've been able to do in bedrock by just turning off doWeatherCycle. So now it can actually snow in the java version, yay!! I usually tried to keep this map in as low a version possible unless I had a good reason to bump it up, but this time there was, so I did. If for whatever reason you want the older map, here it is. It's not the original 1.16 one, but it's the 1.17 version that I used to add in light blocks. I think it's funny that the bedrock version is the one I haven't needed to move versions on, it's still 1.16 lol, and like I said above, bedrock is the edition of the game that almost nobody plays old versions of. Anyway, I've stopped caring about conciseness at this point, I'm just gonna leave this giant block of text here. The bedrock and java versions are now closer to each other than they've ever been before, and probably as close as I can get them given the current edition differences. I know this is a lot of effort for minor changes that nobody will care about, but I care, and it was fun to go back to this project for a little bit just to fix up some things, so I don't think it was wasted effort. Okay, leaving it to rest again for real this time, lol
Why am I fixing things on a high school personal project I haven't touched in over two years when I'm already halfway through college? I'm not sure lol... I'll say again that this is probably the last time I touch this project, though if another update messes something up that bothers me enough to come back and fix it again, I probably eventually will lol