I translated the Zelda Breath of the Wild map to an ingame terrain as best I could. It still requires major work to add builds and all the other things. As well as fix any areas which were obscured by builds.

I know several people work on recreations and follow work-as-you-go principles or eyeballing things. This map is proportionally superior despite its shortcomings. Personally I would advise to build Zelda on the actual game data, as is this map.

Modifications

This is not a straight import of data, thus there are inaccuracies. These were the issues and my methods of counteracting them.

Height lines and roads

The source data has height lines. These lines contain no actual height data. The exact height of any given spot underneath a line was estimated based on the direct surrounding blocks. The same was done for roads, but this needed to be done more aggressively.

Water and lava

Water and lava contain no height data either. However their height can't be based on surrounding blocks. The water and lava was entirely removed.

Buildings and trees/forests

Buildings and trees hide a lot of surface. The small trees and thin walls are in essence no more than similar obstructions as height lines and roads. The larger builds and trees leave behind a lot of disturbed and irregular ground. Their height could not be estimated on surrounding terrain since there is to little to go by and it skewed. Areas like the islands covered with forest require editing.

Volcano

The volcano is twice as high as the surrounding terrain in the game. The source data doesn't reflect this, presumably because they wanted more detail at he lower end of the spectrum. Because of the Minecraft heightcap I haven't undone this. The volcano is therefore shallow, but it's the only area where this issue is present. The dominance in-game isn't worth replicating as the impact on the entire terrain would overshadow it.

Proportions

To match the proportions in Minecraft I was forced to cut the dimensions by halve and use a relative height stretching technique to find a balance between looking proportionally correct and being the best optimized for Minecraft. The terrain looks accurate, but the areas with a lack of terrain are as a result more skewed. Rivers aren't flat lined nor do they flow down by definition anymore. Because these blending areas are thoroughly smoothed it isn't obvious. But a careful observer can see how this was done.

Cutting the dimensions in halve has a negligible effect on the feeling of how large the map is. Minecraft movement physics work out to the advantage of the map.

Credits

Without the kind people of zeldamaps.com sharing their data I wouldn't have been able to recreate this map as accurate as it turned out. A big thanks goes out to them.

Copyright

• Don't sell it
  
• Don't claim it as your own
  
• Receiving credit if you use this would be nice
  

Download / Assistance

To me this was first and foremost a technical challenge. A proof of skill. The reason i'm sharing it is because I myself have no desire to develop the map past this point, but I realize that very few people have the technical expertise to remake the map. So I hope the map will reach those people and bring them closer to realizing their ambitions, remaking Zelda BotW.

The download contains an exported terrain, a Worldpainter file and a Skype link. It's up to you to take it from here, though I am willing to discuss any technical details about the map you might run into. Do assume this is limited to a sharing of knowledge, not to making modifications.