Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

sf.thijs.gg

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 181 posts

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#141

Post by fjlunky »

1e1a wrote: post #140
fjlunky wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me like a weird combination; maybe the spat is trained off ripped Apple Maps data? The surface textures all look static like traditional photogrammetry (e.g. no specularity), but there are definite splat artifacts rendered. Actually, ripping the data might not be required with this approach; instead the splat could be trained with a screen recording of normal Apple Maps usage.

Interesting, it does definitely look like the ground is just a mesh. Also, it looks like apple maps has actually recently started using some sort of splatting - I wonder if their implementation is entirely splatted, or if it is this exact weird combination.

Do you have coordinates for where splatting is used in Apple Maps?

It does seem like an obvious next step towards realistic maps, could be difficult with weather conditions changing during capture. A brute force approach though could be 1000 drones to do capture simultaneously.

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#142

Post by callmemclovin »

zkmon wrote: post #47

Back in the 90's, there was a game called "Midtown Madness" by Microsft. They simulated SF and London very well. This game now takes it to another level.

Came here to say this - I have fond memories of playing Midtown Madness 2 as a kid (IIRC it came bundled with our new Windows ME family PC). I remember when I had the chance to visit SF in 2005 and I would recognize so many of the streets from playing the game. Good times.

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#143

Post by fragmede »

nuwandavek wrote: post #127
cutoff wrote: post #49

This is awesome. Would definitely download a local higher-res version if that were an option, maybe using Google Street View data? Also, if this was a live MMO, that would be fun. Not that there's really a game aspect here other than the coins when driving a vehicle, but anything to give some life to the sim SF city would be nice. Seemingly lower-hanging fruit options I'd like to see: - show street names, maybe some…

There is so much scope with maps! All we need is a realtime-ish image model to tidy up the scene. (was looking into it during a recent side project - https://sf.isopolis.city/ ). So exciting!

Wait, that was you? So good!

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#145

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

cutoff wrote: post #49

This is awesome. Would definitely download a local higher-res version if that were an option, maybe using Google Street View data? Also, if this was a live MMO, that would be fun. Not that there's really a game aspect here other than the coins when driving a vehicle, but anything to give some life to the sim SF city would be nice. Seemingly lower-hanging fruit options I'd like to see: - show street names, maybe some…

How would you do a live high-res polygonalization of the maps data with street view?

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#146

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #114
jvogt wrote: post #64

I have dreamed about a pipeline that can take elevation data, building data, maps, and streetview imagery to process a city into all the components you would need to build a proper map for one of the GTA engines, including all the other objects like trees, fire hydrants, signs, light posts, traffic lights, etc. The building textures could be recreated from the low-res streetview imagery using a pipeline to scale / re…

GTA games require a lot of effort outside of this, but the concept of mass-producing a GTA style open world game for any given environment is very compelling. Probably frightening to Rockstar themselves but such is the course of technological development.

Actually- real world maps do not make for compelling play.. they tend to produce traffic jams.

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#147

Post by dyzone »

madrox wrote: post #77
frankhorrigan wrote: post #40

I lived in SF for nearly 20 years, though I mostly spend my time in New York now. And genuinely this made me emotional. Was weird as hell walking around my back yard. Going to the spot in Dolo that I used to haunt in my 20s. My favorite tennis courts and hill bombs, walked the entire disc golf course, etc.

Happy to hear someone else say this. Similar story. I could never live in SF again but roaming around it was nostalgic in a way going back now just isn't

> I could never live in SF again

Why not?

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#148

Post by swiftcoder »

beej71 wrote: post #74
JKCalhoun wrote: post #70

'Vette was a racing game from the 90's (I think?) that covered San Francisco. "Released on 3 floppy disks", ha ha. Obviously without the rich dataset we have now. (Clicking on the following link ignores the trailing exclamation point in MacOS Safari for me.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vette ! I did a voxel (ray casting) lunar lander that used actual NASA moon data ( https://mooncraft2000.com ).

Man, I just posted this same comment. 'Vette was the first thing I thought of. Ever since playing it way back then, I wanted a better SF open world game.

Driver: San Francisco, while not to scale, felt like it captured the feeling of driving around the city

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#149

Post by lifebeyondfife »

jvogt wrote: post #64

I have dreamed about a pipeline that can take elevation data, building data, maps, and streetview imagery to process a city into all the components you would need to build a proper map for one of the GTA engines, including all the other objects like trees, fire hydrants, signs, light posts, traffic lights, etc. The building textures could be recreated from the low-res streetview imagery using a pipeline to scale / re…

I have shared this dream for 15 years https://lifebeyondfife.com/follies/real-games/

Finally got round to vibe coding something in Godot this summer for my city. It used GeoTIFFs on AWS S3 at s3://copernicus-dem-30m/ for elevation. No authentication required, each tile covers 1°×1°. Combined this with OpenStreetMap. Was enough to get started and satisfy curiosity. As you state, lots more that could be done.

Re: The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

#150

Post by DonHopkins »

wyclif wrote: post #144
DonHopkins wrote: post #33

What's the actual game? Try not to step in doo-doo?

Where's the human poop on the sidewalks? It won't be realistic until it has that.

It won't be a solid hit until you can do your civic doody on the sidewalks yourself.

There's a rich fertile tradition of "First Person Poopers", some of them quite regular, long-running, corny, or impactful.

Natural Selection 2: Combat -- Rock Paper Shotgun's literal headline: "First-Person Pooper: Swallowed Alive In NS2 Combat". You get devoured by an Onos and can fight your way through "the finale of the digestion process. All from an appalling first-person view. What great guts!" You don't poop — you ARE the poop.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/natural-selection-2-combat-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WacIMCEhVYU

>"We want players to feel not only horrified at the idea of being eaten alive but that even after being devoured, there's still a chance to destroy the beast and stay alive!" director and sound designer Thomas Loupe told RPS.

Zoo Tycoon 2 -- Eurogamer on its first-person Zookeeper Mode, where you personally clean up after the animals: "The fact it turns the game into the world's first first-person pooper-scoop-'em-up is just an added bonus."

https://www.eurogamer.net/r-zootycoon2-pc

Sploot -- first-person seagull bombing simulator. Boing Boing: "Poop on everyone as a beautiful seagull." Pro tip from the review: "if you fly in low you can almost always make a very personal deposit."

https://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/sploot-seagull-poop-game.h...

A Dump in the Dark -- fecal survival-horror FPS with five ammo classes, including Cannon Shot, Liquid Diarrhea, Rapid Fire, and Sniper Shot.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/577080/A_Dump_in_the_Dark...

Pooper Scooper -- asymmetric first-person dog-vs-human PvP: "The Dog must collect meat in order to drop slippery poops throughout each map while the Human must collect all of the poops before the time runs out."

https://store.steampowered.com/app/682370/Pooper_Scooper/

Pooper Scooper (2009, iOS, a completely different game) -- you are Zookeeper Zeke, frantically shoveling animal "products" into a waiting tractor. "No time to dally - there is poop to scoop!" Delisted from the App Store, but archived:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250812150108/https://apps.appl...

(Zeke has been the canonical zookeeper name since Taito's 1982 arcade game Zoo Keeper.)

Party Pooper -- Ludum Dare 40 entry representing the abstinence branch of the genre: "Drink as much alcohol as possible! (without pooping on yourself)"

https://padierfind.itch.io/party-pooper

Poop On 2020 Simulator -- hurl soft-body physics turds at the year 2020 while gentle piano music plays. Steam tags it "Immersive Sim".

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1433480/Poop_On_2020_Simu...

https://www.pcgamer.com/this-dollar2-game-lets-you-throw-tur...

Bird Game -- steal people's food and poop on them for points until they deploy anti-bird drones.

https://dandonnan.itch.io/bird-game

And of course Reverse Pac-Man, the mathematically pure form: traverse the maze depositing the dots instead of eating them.

So the First Person Pooper design space spans pooping, being pooped on, becoming poop, scooping poop, weaponizing poop, and heroically holding it in. A deep fast moving genre.

Post reply on HN