Hadziq Fabroyir, S.Kom., Ph.D., lecturer of the Department of Informatics of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) as leader of the team who constructed a virtual world from Minecraft game for the 121st Graduation of ITS, when showing the Minecraft construction of ITS Graduation

ITS Campus, ITS News – The 121st Graduation of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), which was held online on Sunday (2/8), stole the public’s attention. At the event, the public was immensely impressed by the graduation procession, which was displayed in an artificial world in a game of Minecraft. The success of ITS in conducting the graduation is inseparable from the expert hands of the special team behind it.

It all started with a challenge from ITS Rector, Prof. Dr. Ir. Mochamad Ashari, M.Eng., to search for and come up with online graduation ideas that should be memorable and out-of-the-box. ITS Directorate of Technology Development and Information Systems appointed ITS Informatics Engineering department lecturer, Hadziq Fabroyir, S.Kom., Ph.D., to design this unique graduation. “This was very challenging because the time we had was more or less one month only,” he expressed.

Before deciding on the Minecraft game, it had crossed Hadziq’s mind to utilize virtual reality technology (VR), which was also being developed by the ITS VR Laboratory. “However, we then decided against it (the use of VR technology, red) due to limited development time,” explained this man from Malang.

Just then, he remembered the story of an elementary school student in Japan who went viral because of holding a graduation procession through a game of Minecraft. Keeping the idea, Hadziq was determined to do the same thing and proceeded to discuss with the Minecraft fan community in the ITS Informatics Department.

This plan was also in accordance with ITS who is subscribed to Minecraft Education Edition, which allows students and lecturers to create a Minecraft account for free. “We immediately formed a Minecraft development team for ITS graduation this time,” continued this man who graduated from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

The initial progress of the construction project of Grha Sepuluh Nopember built in the game of Minecraft. The team used the Discord application to coordinate with one another

With the help of 14 students, Hadziq and the team first designed the construction of Grha Sepuluh Nopember, which served as the background of the graduation ceremony at ITS. “We deliberately formed a team with many members so that we would punctually achieve the target of the Minecraft world,” he clarified.

In the process, references on the structure of the Grha Sepuluh Nopember itself became an obstacle because it was not possible to conduct a direct survey on the location due to the pandemic situation. Working around this problem, the team assembled the building in the game of Minecraft based on pictures taken from the Internet. “When making the interior design and exterior construction, as well as in perfecting the surrounding environment, we totally referred to photos,” revealed this ITS Informatics Engineering graduate of batch 2004.

Hadziq when presenting the progress of the entrance view of the Minecraft version of the Grha Sepuluh November building, which the team worked on during the process of Minecraft construction for ITS Graduation

In addition, this man who is the Head of the Application Integration Implementation Division of ITS Directorate of Technology Development and Information Systems also added that the construction process was exclusively carried out at night and on weekends only. This is due to the time constraints of colleagues of the team who also have to focus on doing their respective practical work. As for coordination, we used short message application that is popular among gamers, namely Discord. “Alhamdullilah, this process went well and effectively,” he conveyed, grateful.

It did not stop there, issues of efficient and cost-effective server planting patterns in the process of working together also appeared. But fortunately, the issue was resolved with the help of the ZeroTier application as the right solution in constructing this large-scale virtual infrastructure.

The exterior appearance of the Minecraft version of the Grha Sepuluh Nopember, a product of the team’s keen attention to details that produced a very similar surrounding environment for the Minecraft construction of ITS Graduation

On the day of the live broadcast, the graduation procession used another application, the OBS Virtual Camera, which was transmitted from the Minecraft ITS server to send video feeds to the streaming and broadcasting team. “While the other players were connected to the server from their respective homes,” he added.

When witnessing how the 121st Graduation ceremony of ITS was spotlighted on various social media, it is hoped that this could become a source of entertainment for graduates who were forced to carry out online graduation due to the pandemic. “Because at the end of the day, colleagues certainly hope to be able to celebrate graduation, a very important moment, with their colleagues,” concluded this supervising lecturer of the Graphics, Interactions, and Games Laboratory (GIGa Lab) of the ITS Informatics Department. (rys/yok/ory)

The proceeding of the Graduation done virtually with Minecraft