The Metro Tunnel Project and the Department of Education and Training (Victoria) have teamed up to create a virtual version of Melbourne inside of popular video game Minecraft. The project allows students, and Minecraft users worldwide to explore not just the city, but also the construction taking place throughout Melbourne, digging in a virtual construction site in the CBD and uncovering artefacts which give insight into the history of Melbourne. This serves as a great learning tool for students across Victoria. We were tasked with creating multiple videos to help promote the game and the project. This included a promotional video to be used to promote the project to the public across online media platforms, and also to teachers in schools, a mission briefing aimed at students to introduce them to the game, and an instructional walkthrough for teachers to familiarise themselves with the game.

For the promo, we filmed an archaeologist on location explaining the project as well as footage of teachers and students in the classroom using the game. We then captured cinematic and engaging views of the city from within the game itself, and incorporated all of this with dynamic motion graphics and 3D animated titles to create an engaging promo.

The mission briefing incorporated footage of Paul talking to camera, spliced with in-game footage, dynamic titles and on-site footage from the dig sites as well. The served as a great introductory video.

For the teacher's instructional video, we used footage captured from the game with the game developer's voiceover giving a walkthrough of the game. We modelled and animated a custom 3D character to regularly pop into frame alongside animated speech bubbles throughout the video to accompany the voiceover and further enforce/explain elements of the game in more detail. We pulled elements from the game itself to incorporate these into the character's speech bubbles and created and animated all of this in a style that matched the game's aesthetic.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Education James Merlino

“Mini Melbourne in Minecraft is a fantastic resource that will enable Victorian government school students to learn more about Melbourne and its past.”

“Innovations such as this engage young people in problem solving and STEM subjects, inspiring them to work on city-shaping projects.”

Quotes attributable to Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan

“Mini Melbourne is a Minecraft world-first, teaching students about the biggest public transport project in Victoria’s history.”

“Young Victorians will gain a new appreciation for the Metro Tunnel, which will deliver more trains more often.”

Some behind the scenes happy snaps.