Burnaby teen recreates East Vancouver in Roblox (PHOTOS)

A Burnaby teenager has spent the last decade developing his computer rendering skills in the popular computer game Roblox. These abilities led to his latest job: a recreation of East Vancouver, accurate down to the telephone wires.

Khalil, 18, is a resident of Burnaby and a student at Capilano University. In fact, he used his Roblox rendering skills to secure a place in the college’s visual effects degree program. Khalil isn’t your average Roblox player either, he’s actually a Roblox developer, someone who creates models and items that other players in the game can interact with.

“Roblox Studio is the program you use to create games,” Khalil explained in a recent Q&A with Vancouver is awesome. “I have been using this program almost daily since I was 8 years old because I have always had a passion for creating things.

One of the things Khalil loves the most is replicating real objects and places and he’s done it on massive scales. Using resources like Google Maps, Khalil’s biggest 1: 1 recreation was of a famous American city.

“Queens, New York is my most detailed project is about 6 blocks and it took me 2 months,” Khalil said. “I spent about 8 hours a day on this project.”

In terms of his best project, Khalil says the honor goes to a fully detailed Atlanta subway train.

When it comes to BC’s infrastructure, Khalil also recreated a Mark I SkyTrain car.

As to why he decided to tackle East Vancouver, it was all down to the neighborhood’s unique architecture.

“I really liked the architecture of the neighborhood. East Vancouver is very popular and there are a ton of different homes from different eras, ”Khalil explained, adding that he thought East Vancouver was an underrated part of the city.

In addition to being laborious, a single home can take several hours, the process of creating such large renderings can strain Roblox Studio’s computing capabilities. This pressure on the studio’s computing power can cause it to crash with catastrophic results. Khalil says he has lost count of how many projects he has invested months of work in to get corrupted.

Khalil is far from the only Roblox fan in Metro Vancouver. There is a big Vancouver Police Department Role Play Group on the platform, but Khalil says their map of the city of Vancouver isn’t very detailed. However, he plans to sell them his own map when it is finished.

To keep up to date with Khalil’s progress, you can check out his Twitter account @ vancity1011.