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Minecraft is certainly one of the most talked-about games on the scene today, and one of the most played. Even if you haven’t tried it or have no idea why there seem to be so many sheep in the game, you have probably seen some of the amazing things built inside it.

Today, we bring you an incredibly accurate recreation of a video play-through of the first level of the Nintendo classic Super Mario Bros. made in Minecraft. With sheep, apparently.

▼ That old familiar screen!

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Super Mario Bros. is arguably the most famous video game of all time, and Minecraft is possibly the most popular game right now, so we suppose combining them is a natural idea. Though it turns out to be a bit more complicated than you might expect…

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Created by Niconico Douga user Madara, this isn’t actually a playable version of Super Mario Bros. but rather a play-through of the first level, animated entirely in Minecraft. It’s been viewed over 375,000 times on Niconico Douga since it appeared online around the beginning of May, and had nearly 1,000 comments, so the video is obviously stirring up a lot of attention.

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The video shows Mario running through World 1-1 at a pretty good clip, grabbing a star and making it to the end of the level with 316 left on the clock.

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The video was so awesome, in fact, that some started to wonder if it weren’t a composite of some kind. Not one to back down, Madara soon released another video explaining how this Mario play-through was made in Minecraft. The “making of” video has since racked up over 305,000 views and over 3,600 comments — it’s gotten a fair bit of attention we’d say!

Here’s a quick rundown of the how Madara created the Super Mario Bros.-in-Minecraft video.

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The video starts by explaining that, if you get really close, you can see that it’s made of wool blocks. As you can see below, the “resolution” is 256 blocks by 224 blocks.

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That turns out to be 57,344 blocks in each frame of the animation. You’ll want to remember that number, because it will be kind of important later. Madara also points out that there are a total of roughly 1,600 frames for the 52-second video.

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To give you an idea of what that means, here’s every single frame stacked together, one behind the other.

▼ It just keeps going forever…and ever…and ever…

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Next, it turns out that Madara is using the “clone” command to animate the frames. The creater also points out that no mods are used and that because of how large everything is, it has to be rendered slowly or the whole thing will crash. Apparently Madara then sped up the video in post-production.

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It also turns out that the clone command can only handle up to 30,000 blocks at a time. Which is why we told you to remember the “resolution” of each frame! This means that he has to split up each screen before using the command.

But how did Madara get the play-through into Minecraft to begin with? First, a play-through was recorded and then the video data was separated into image files, with the wool blocks set according to the image files. The Niconico Douga user explains that, while it would be possible to adjust each block by hand, an automated command was used to put each one together.

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Even though the video is less than a minute long, Madara says it took several weeks to finish. Which, based on what we know about animation, that sounds about right!

Check out the videos below!

▼ Super Mario Bros. in Minecraft

▼ Explaining how the video was made

While this is some pretty cool work, it does make us glad all we have to do to enjoy our favorite videos is press play!

Sources: Niconico Douga (Mario video, Making of), CultureLab
Images: Niconico Douga (Mario video, Making of)