Interactive, realistic version of New York City

I know it sounds impossible, but I want to see what is possible. I already have a new website dedicated to the project, and I have a very simple alpha version up.



The intent is to be as realistic as possible, while having a pedestrian and car view. I am looking for experienced coders and designers. The project will be open source, so any contributions must also be open source. As the project is in its very early stages, there is plenty of room for suggestions and changes.



Let me know if you're interested in helping out.

Not impossible, just ambitious :slight_smile: Got a link to the website? And will you be using jME3?



So, did you check out some other similar jME projects already? I can think at least Skape and Betaville would be worth a look.

Cool!  Betaville is already working in the same locale as you!  Are you local to NYC?


WumpaFruit said:

I know it sounds impossible, but I want to see what is possible. I already have a new website dedicated to the project, and I have a very simple alpha version up.


Not impossible, but its tough.  Especially making it look convincing.  While our project is more a community tool for urban planning and design for 'average' people, we struggled a bit with the look and feel.  Part of the problem being that Google has done such a good job at looking mediocre with Google Earth that trying to live up to a level of realism immediately garners people saying "Oh so its an open source Google Earth?"  I think if you want to generate interest in your project its going to be important to distance yourself from the competition and make sure that your killer feature is something that Earth either doesn't do or doesn't do well.  For us, our big deal is that people can insert any model they want in the world without Google as gatekeeper.  We won't get much traffic for people trying to find the nearest Starbucks but there's plenty of interest among people who want to turn their local abandoned lot into a park for their kids.  Just remember that its not impossible (and that even almighty Google's ideas have usually been done by someone before but they made it accessible by understanding what people needed from the product)

WumpaFruit said:

The intent is to be as realistic as possible, while having a pedestrian and car view. I am looking for experienced coders and designers. The project will be open source, so any contributions must also be open source. As the project is in its very early stages, there is plenty of room for suggestions and changes.

Let me know if you're interested in helping out.


If you look around the free announcements forum here you'll sometimes see jME folks looking to start virtual world types of projects but there's also GameDev.net, the new StackOverflow site for games, etc. Never get tired of talking up your idea and getting it in people's heads :)

Oh, and did I mention that Betaville likes developers?
erlend_sh said:

Not impossible, just ambitious :) Got a link to the website? And will you be using jME3?

So, did you check out some other similar jME projects already? I can think at least Skape and Betaville would be worth a look.


Here's the link to the website: http://www.playnyc3d.com. The project will use JME3.

Thanks for the links. I will check them out.

sbook said:

Cool!  Betaville is already working in the same locale as you!  Are you local to NYC?

WumpaFruit said:

I know it sounds impossible, but I want to see what is possible. I already have a new website dedicated to the project, and I have a very simple alpha version up.


Not impossible, but its tough.  Especially making it look convincing.  While our project is more a community tool for urban planning and design for 'average' people, we struggled a bit with the look and feel.  Part of the problem being that Google has done such a good job at looking mediocre with Google Earth that trying to live up to a level of realism immediately garners people saying "Oh so its an open source Google Earth?"  I think if you want to generate interest in your project its going to be important to distance yourself from the competition and make sure that your killer feature is something that Earth either doesn't do or doesn't do well.  For us, our big deal is that people can insert any model they want in the world without Google as gatekeeper.  We won't get much traffic for people trying to find the nearest Starbucks but there's plenty of interest among people who want to turn their local abandoned lot into a park for their kids.  Just remember that its not impossible (and that even almighty Google's ideas have usually been done by someone before but they made it accessible by understanding what people needed from the product)

WumpaFruit said:

The intent is to be as realistic as possible, while having a pedestrian and car view. I am looking for experienced coders and designers. The project will be open source, so any contributions must also be open source. As the project is in its very early stages, there is plenty of room for suggestions and changes.

Let me know if you're interested in helping out.


If you look around the free announcements forum here you'll sometimes see jME folks looking to start virtual world types of projects but there's also GameDev.net, the new StackOverflow site for games, etc. Never get tired of talking up your idea and getting it in people's heads :)

Oh, and did I mention that Betaville likes developers?


I will check those links out. I know it's ambitious but the emphasis is on geographical realism, and hopefully good models will be submitted along the way.