Minecraft Redditor makes astonishing working Tardis

Minecraft occupies an interesting space in popular culture. Specifically, due to its longevity and modding scene, it overlaps with nerd culture. People can mod in things from franchises they like or build intricate recreations of locations or items from franchises they enjoy.

One franchise that has existed in pop culture for decades that sees a lot of overlap with Minecraft is Doctor Who, a British show running since the 1960s.

There have been mods that have added the Tardis in, with many recreations of the object made in-game. But due to more modern Minecraft additions, like the command block, we can now see almost entirely accurate depictions of the Tardis in-game.

---

This Minecraft Redditor has made great and accurate working Tardis in vanilla game

Build and setting

Minecraft builds, especially in showcase videos, can sometimes be lessened by having the build isolated, often created on superflat worlds made up of nothing but grass blocks. But u/Nightshade_XD and their cousin did not fall into this trapping.

While the Tardis is the main centerpiece of the build, they did not skimp on the surrounding environment, and the fully realized city surrounding the Tardis helps to sell the effect and elevates the build to the next level of realism.

The attention to detail on things that most people watching the video would not notice is insane, with them going so far as to add buttons to the side of green shulker boxes to make a dumpster with handles.

The Tardis itself looks fantastic, both on the outside and inside. The exterior features the iconic blues the phonebooth is known for and even features a lantern on the top to mimic the Tardis's light.

The innards look crisp and clean, featuring a beacon surrounded by ender rods as the main focal point in the center of the room.

Check out: Minecraft's Enderman

---

How it works

The game's command blocks (Image via Minecraft)

The build works in a beautifully simple but hard-to-execute manner. According to u/Nightshade_XD, they used nothing but command blocks to achieve the effect.

This is done by using player detection cuboids that detect when users enter or exit the Tardis. Upon entering, a command block uses a clone command to build the Tardis in front, and on exit, the command block removes the Tardis' innards and rebuilds what was in that space before.

However, a few tactics make the entrance more immersive than it normally would be.

Firstly, u/Nightshade_XD uses the command blocks to apply a fraction of a second of blindness to make the reveal more atmospheric and hide most of the building process. They also use phase floats, or armor stands with falling block entities, to obstruct the entrance and add a bit of animation to the opening.

This differs from what most people in the comments thought they would have done.

A fair few comments asked why the OP did not use a teleport command to put gamers a pre-made Tardis, while others straight up said that not doing so was a mistake. However, the effect is incredibly smooth, and teleports can lack that smoothness, making the clone command method better for a smooth transition.