Project openhattan by snoopy :p

interesting project.. not so dissimilar to my WIP/ambition at present for a large scale drive to the race track and open world scenery combined.

 

I guess you know from first hand what a huge task it is and why it needs more than a guy to do it.

 

I shared the project with a bunch of my WoW friends Snoopy, and they seem to like the concept a lot. If the news hits the WoW forums with the amount of traffic that goes through there, we could see quite some interest popping up from atleast some folks.

 

I am looking forward to this too.

 

You could submit an article to Slashdot?

Have you tried it from a tech site angle? this is the type of thing I see on wired often

 

Indeed it depends what you opt for though, a rural English landscape surrounding a race track is a nice way to start whilst doing it alone. all them buildings, sheesh !

trees, treelines and thus forests are my friends. lol.

 

I also get positive feedback from many places, but I guess that's not enough for an article. The donations seem stuck now. I assume people don't really fancy giving money to an idea that is not guaranteed to bring them tangible rewards. People get bought consoles to play games, though. Go figure.
Thank you for sharing with your friends? We are getting new likes on the FB page and followers in twitter. I guess I need to figure out how to transform those in more likes and eventually donations.

 

ManhattanX is very far from being detailed. It would be a good refererence point for building heights and rough volume but that's it. I am not reinventing the wheel, this has been done many times before (I mean modeling real buildings by photos), just not at this scale and not released openly to the public.

 

You can try to lay out a proper plan for it and pitch it for a crowdfunding site.

 

huh?

 

Like kickstarter or similar

 

I really like the idea. Mostly because the idea of having a full open city in a game like AC done in amazing detail is a dream I think a big challenge in getting people to take the idea seriously would be to come up with other applications where a 3D model of NY could be useful outside of gaming and visualization. The idea of VR is really appealing for me, but from my experience people are hesitant about it and still prefer traditional methods. I guess if you can think of some other ways the model of the city could be useful. I can't think of any as I'm not to creative with stuff like this, but I'm sure there would be other valuable ways a model like this could be used.

 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/openhattan

@the_meco The gaming comminuty is big enough to make this happen if it wanted. At the moment it both is kinda saying no to the idea, and has no idea it exists.

 

Yeah... the gaming community literally gives millions upon millions for silly 2D platformers, it will irk me quite a bit if no support is shown for a good project such as this. But I'm quite sure once this project picks up its pace in terms of publicity, the early adopters will kick in. Have hope, dear Snoops.

 

Yes this should be possible to realise.

 

I'd say try contacting Tek Syndicate, I think they would appreciate such project.

 

Why don't you start by creating a few blocks in detail so people can see what it will be like. Sorry if you have already.

It's a mammoth task though to create the whole city, I do wish you luck.

 

Well, if it's the dream I had the other day with Liv Tyler and Mila Kunis I'll donate $10 to makes that come true

 

Most game studios don't tackle their own engine, they license someone else's. Perhaps, it might be better to license it out to game studios, etc, like that? I'm sure if it suits their needs, they'll be happy to cut their own workload. It might be the only way to hit the required funding levels, which i'm sure snoopy will agree is quite ambitious itself.

As an aside, i thought of doing a similar project for my own home town (of only 1000 people, so, small town), but after a couple weeks it became obvious it was too big a project for one person. (that, and a short attention span).

 

That's not an engine, it is a 3D model that can be used in any engine. By definition it will be licensed to anyone. Selling it to studios defeats the whole purpose of cutting the work and budget load of studios. Also it will no longer be "open-source".