“We try not to give up”

For 7 years, an Amiens resident nicknamed Zedh74 and his three other friends have slowly rebuilt the city of Amiens on the video game Minecraft. From the cathedral to the station, through the hortillonage and the Maison de la culture, they spend hours installing the cubes with care and rigour.

Minecraft allows for real technical and visual feats. In addition to Lily’s Grand Place, we can also find the reconstruction of the city of Amiens on this online video game, thanks to Zedh74 and his three other companions, Lin, Flo and Zokoa.

“My nickname ends with 74 because I lived in Haute-Savoie for a while.explains Zedh74, who prefers not to reveal his identity. I am originally from Picardy, Amiens, hence the reconstruction of the city in Minecraft“

This venture started on March 12, 2017. Since then, more than 315 videos with around 3 hours of recording have been broadcast on his YouTube channel. A basic computer scientist, it is “a little“On a sabbatical year”Which is starting to last!“. He shares his adventure through life online on the streaming platform Twitch before reposting it on YouTube.

Zedh74 always “Played a few video games and at some point I found this game. Being young, I was a fan of Lego, brick games, assembly, so it was natural for me to play, but since it’s just cubes, it seems easier.“

Actually, Minecraft is more complicated than it looks. To build a building, you need to pay attention to detail and every cube placed has a purpose. In addition, it is necessary to have certain parameters so that the reproduction is as faithful to reality as possible.

Zedh74’s YouTube channel has accumulated nearly 1.2 million views since its creation in March 2011. A professional computer scientist has had the opportunity to work on other projects such as the reconstruction of the Titanic.With modded Minecraft, which allows you to create machines and animations”

But it is his reconstruction of the city of Amiens that is his most ambitious work. He also started with the cathedral. “In one world, I rebuilt Amiens Cathedral, going over mine objects, building scaffolding in survival mode.“. In Minecraft, there are two different modes: “Creative and existential“.creative mode allows access to “on all blocks at will, and you can also play in survival mode: mine blocks to build structures or add monsters”

National Geographic and Forest Information Institute (IGN) also made it possible to generate a city map for Minecraft. “Instead of houses, they produce cubes, volumes“Zedh74 so laid the cathedral,”We have locations and we have to rebuild everything“, he explains.

This project is a real passion for this player. That is also a question.”Character, because we try not to let go“.Zedh74 does not average the time he spends on each project.”It’s been so long, I don’t keep track of it, but it was a few hours ago!“, he smiles.

It doesn’t even have a specific program, it’s a question of all.”feeling“There is always a research phase. “We can easily find plans of old monuments with dimensions and with photos or others. This is how we reconstruct buildings, cathedrals, it’s easy“

However, for more recent buildings, “We have to do the calculations“ Because plans are not necessarily available. They still managed to reconstitute France 3 Picardy (see video above). “Today, we have many things to measure: land registers, Google Street View, Mappi, Google Earth, which allow us to think about dimensions and get a certain experience when we reconstruct.“, concluded Zedh74.