Crytek Wants Street Map Data for Virtual Environments

[exfileme]

Crytek is backing a contest challenging developers to create software that can render environments and objects using open street data.

Crytek Wants Street Map Data for Virtual Environments : Read more

 

[Blessedman]

I want to say John Carmack was working on something similar to this, not sure what the outcome of his ventures were. I want to say he was trying to convert video footage to 3D.

 

[teh_chem]

If only Driver: San Francisco had been able to realistically portray SF. It's a neat idea to use actual location data for game maps. But I'm curious if it would really change much.

 

[fixer762]

This would be so cool. You could play GTA or maybe a 'Red Dawn' situation in your own town.

 

[bombebomb]

Would be neat to be able to "drive" roads around you before you drive them (much like street view obviously, but in a game)

 

[shin0bi272]

Do all the people and businesses in the street pictures get compensated for the use of their likeness in a product that people pay for? No? Well then expect lawsuits.

 

[4745454b]

I love this idea. GTA, L4D, CoD, etc in my own city? Just feed in the city data and away I go? Awesome. I really hope they get this to work.

 

[4745454b]

If its pure street view data you'll be able to see the signs out front and know what it is. I'm sure there is a way to block it out.

 

[none12345]

Just what we need...

One side of me says ya cool, can you image a zombie invasion in your home town, or <insert game here> in your home town etc. But the realistic side of me sees nothing but down side.

People planning their massacures in a video game then doing it for real. Or their bombings, or their ....you get the idea.

Dont we already have enough people blaming video games for things like real life shootings. This really is a whole can of worms you dont want to open.

 

[mapesdhs]

People prone to violent behaviour and 'massacres' are going to do such things
whether they play games of whatever kind or not. Real difference in the US is
the easy access to weapons combined with (I suspect) the greater degree of
potential alienation & lack of support some people feel at key points in their life,
especially when they're young (peer pressure, political correctness, dislike by
others of alternative dress styles such as goth, etc.)

When it comes to games, the only downside of basing games on real-life data
I can see is that a lot of real-life places are kinda boring, whereas created
environments can be anything one cares to imagine. I understand the cost
saving argument, but would that really lead to cheaper game prices? I highly
doubt it, though if the saved were used to improve the 3D engine and do
more debugging before launch then that'd be a positive.

Ian.

 

[Rick Feynman]

Well I know a guy in my lab who is working on 3D reconstruction using Structure from Motion generated by moving vehicles. He is using a super pixel segmentation approach for depth propagation. The technique works quite well using sparse and distant images so if presented with dense images it can generate the depth map very effectively. Next the problem goes to transforming the depth map to real world metric coordinate system. But it is a trivial task if the camera is properly calibrated. After that the dense point cloud would have to downsampled for a game environment and texture coordinates would have to be mapped.
I would go ahead and work on this if I had time off from my own phd but well. Hope someone comes up with a solution well enough. We'll see in next year's SIGGRAPH I suppose.

 

[cemerian]

we need this ,as to the point of ppl blaming video game , what stops me from planning the old fashion way by getting to know the envirioment and practice somewhere else, only idiots prepare for those things described using games, the thing we realy need is for the fucking old generation and press to understand what video games are and learn a bit of reporting and fact gathering

 

[Kieran Warren]

This would be awesome, imagine a mmo shooter game world wide where you start in your own town with a local team and branch out. The only problem would be that few buildings would be accessible or would have to be completely redesigned

 

[ibjeepr]

I had this idea back when Google maps started. 3D generated maps that could be incorporated in to just about any game type, RTS, FPS, RPG, MMO. Just pick your city, set boards and let the existing real world map generate your game world. I wish you luck Crytek

 

[razor512]

It will only be able to use size and location data and some basic detection of whether to fill the area with business related structures, or random houses. It will never be able.to use textures from streetview as they are too low res and lack the info needed to make a full 3D object.

 

[nebun]

the NSA will not allow it