Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Opens Maps To Bring the Real World Into Games (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the game-changer dept.

Video games may soon look a lot more like the real world. If you've enjoyed the thrill of driving through GTA V and spying out Los Angeles landmarks, then that's a sentiment you're probably going to start feeling a lot more often while you play video games. From a report: The search firm is both opening its Maps platform's real-time data and offering new software toolkits that will help developers build games based on that data. The software includes both a kit to translate map info to the Unity game engine as well as another to help make games using that location data. The combination turns buildings and other landmarks into customizable 3D objects, and lets you manipulate those objects to fit your game world. It can replace every real hotel into an adventurer's inn, for instance, or add arbitrary points of interest for the sake of checkpoints.

49 comments

  1. cubes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just a bunch of UV skinned cubes. Nothing to see here, except cubes.

    1. Re:cubes by gnick · · Score: 1

      This is the first step toward simulating my commute. If I can do that in VR and open a virtual terminal where I can browse Slashdot, I'll have the full experience of working from home!

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:cubes by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      This is the first step toward simulating my commute. If I can do that in VR and open a virtual terminal where I can browse Slashdot, I'll have the full experience of working from home!

      I wouldn't mind a 2 hour commute if I could do it from home.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. I want games with cool interchanges in them by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    I want games with cool interchanges in them when they have highways.

      Watch Dogs really got Chicago very wrong.

    Grand Theft Auto 6 needs to do it right and be on PC!

    1. Re:I want games with cool interchanges in them by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      When they did Fallout 4, which took place in Boston, they explicitly decided not to use real world topographical maps for gameplay purposes and not to be strictly constrained.

    2. Re:I want games with cool interchanges in them by mycroft16 · · Score: 1

      You are aware that GTA V is on PC, right? And wasn't just a port either, included entirely new levels of detail because the PC could support it over the console versions, right?

    3. Re: I want games with cool interchanges in them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chicago was wrong on purpose not accident. Several places do this on purpose to prevent the game from being used as a tool to plan and test major crimes.

    4. Re: I want games with cool interchanges in them by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      midtown madness was not 100% but Watch Dogs was really F*** up

  3. can it get odd roads right like palatine road? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:can it get odd roads right like palatine road? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      are you high? seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

  4. Great... by ausekilis · · Score: 2

    Now our youth have even less incentive to actually get outside and do something.

    "Hey, you wanna go check out that park downtown?"

      "Nah, I already ran through it in Super Downtown Los Angeles, Zombie Edition"

    1. Re:Great... by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "Now our youth have even less incentive to actually get outside and do something."

      Sure but they can train school shootings before doing them in real life 'reenactments'.

      Also nice to time the arrival of the police and possible escape routes.

      Heck it's a treasure trove for criminals.

  5. prep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sweet! Now I can practice my real-life bank robbery / murder spree / getaway in VR before I put it into action.

    1. Re:prep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun

  6. You know you wanna by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    https://cn.pling.com/img//hive...

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  7. Oh this will be good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's bring the real world to the GTA community. Planes will be flying into new York Towers constantly.

  8. Great for flight simulators! by caseih · · Score: 2

    There used to be a scenery generator for X-plane that would download Google Maps tiles for ground scenery. But it was always against Google's terms of service before. Now it could be done legitimately. And if they opened up the 3D building data too, that would be great for scenery generation as well. Looking forward to it! Especially in VR... brings a whole new dimension to flight simulation (pun intended, although it is pretty amazing), especially with real scenery. The only problem with today's VR systems is it's too low res to really read the instrument panels very well.

    1. Re:Great for flight simulators! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that it could easily be weaponized and used by Islamic Jihadists to train for suicide airplane missions into things like sporting events, hi-rise apartment buildings, schools, or even government targets. It could also be used by drug smugglers or illegal alien mules to map out the best routes to bring their contraband into the USA with the least exposure to law enforcement and populations that might report them. This is a horrible idea and needs to be thought out again. I'm guessing Trump will make an executive order shutting it down as soon as he is aware of it.

    2. Re:Great for flight simulators! by caseih · · Score: 1

      Just wait until trump hears that computers themselves can be weaponized, and used to spread extremist propaganda. We must stop the spread of computers and related technology ASAP. The children are depending on it. Let's also not forget cars and trucks, which are often involved in terrorist acts.

      But guns are okay. In fact more guns will just make everything more peaceful and better.

    3. Re:Great for flight simulators! by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      But guns are okay. In fact more guns will just make everything more peaceful and better.

      Indeed. Good and bad being definitive parameters, let's just pray they're in the hands of good guys who possess an innate ability to eliminate the ones in the hands of the bad guys.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    4. Re:Great for flight simulators! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only the mobile APIs are free to use, unfortunately.

    5. Re:Great for flight simulators! by Chaset · · Score: 1

      Agreed. It's the "holy grail" to have real-time Google Earth style data fed into a flight sim so that you'll see real buildings and real scenery. Tie that in with real-time weather and air traffic data (yes, that A300 really IS flying THERE right NOW), and I'm sold!

      The other angle is that it would eliminate the need to install 10+ DVDs of scenery, as long as you've got an internet connection.

      There are hacks to tie Xplane to Google Earth, but it' would be great if it's IN the game.

      --
      -- "This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."
  9. I have been on LSD (the road) by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    I have been on LSD (the road)

  10. Maybe Sim City Can Make a Comeback by danbert8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be awesome if you could import real cities into a Sim City type game and improve and expand them.

    Ahh who am I kidding? EA sucks and would ruin any chance of it being a decent game...

    --
    Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    1. Re:Maybe Sim City Can Make a Comeback by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      It would be awesome if you could import real cities into a Sim City type game and improve and expand them.

      Ahh who am I kidding? EA sucks and would ruin any chance of it being a decent game...

      Sim City isn't the best city simulation type game anyway and hasn't been for a long time. "Cities Skylines" is the most popular and best in that genre. I don't think you can import cities from Google Maps- but you can import topographies into Skylines- and have a realistic topography to build your city on. So your city could be built on the realistic topography of London, New York, Oslo, or wherever.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:Maybe Sim City Can Make a Comeback by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      FYI there are tools that allow you to import Open Street Map data into Cities Skylines. The result is far from perfect but it gives you a great starting point for replicating a city.

    3. Re:Maybe Sim City Can Make a Comeback by mjwx · · Score: 1

      It would be awesome if you could import real cities into a Sim City type game and improve and expand them.

      Ahh who am I kidding? EA sucks and would ruin any chance of it being a decent game...

      Sim City isn't the best city simulation type game anyway and hasn't been for a long time. "Cities Skylines" is the most popular and best in that genre. I don't think you can import cities from Google Maps- but you can import topographies into Skylines- and have a realistic topography to build your city on. So your city could be built on the realistic topography of London, New York, Oslo, or wherever.

      Came here to say this. Cities: Skylines is your go to city simulator these days. There are already a lot of maps based on real cities. I think there's even one of Gabe Newell's head.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  11. Virtual self driving cars. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Interpolate the street view, 3d buildings, and road data with a emulated self driving car, put it in VR and have drives around the world.

  12. GTA 6 by rraylion · · Score: 1

    so Grand Theft Auto could now be the size of the metropolitan L.A. -- or Chicago -- or Miami

    That sounds great and all as long as they don't add in real world traffic... imagin getting off work early loading up the game and getting stuck in the rush hour traffic you just avoided in real life. HA :-D

    But it might help with level setting commute times. My mom swears it takes her 5 minutes to get to my house when it's really 15... The Sims game taught me no matter how fast I think I am it usually takes me 15 - 25 minutes to get ready for work from a dead sleep and 45 minutes taking my time. I have adjusted my alarms accordingly.

    1. Re:GTA 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > That sounds great and all as long as they don't add in real world traffic... imagin getting off work early loading up the game and getting stuck in the rush hour traffic you just avoided in real life

      Densely packed highways are always fun in GTA exactly *because* of the mayhem a single grenade/rocket/whatever can cause. I say bring it on.

  13. FGFS by Trogre · · Score: 1

    FlightGear could benefit from this.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  14. GTA: Practice Run by forkfail · · Score: 1

    Coming to a store near you!

    --
    Check your premises.
  15. This could benefit Augmented Reality applications by Ranbot · · Score: 1

    One of the biggest difficulties Augmented Reality (AR) systems are trying to overcome is they have to predict every angle the user might view their world from, otherwise the AR overlay will just look wrong and won't be useful, but an updated pre-drawn 3D streetscape rendered in a game engine could help clear that hurdle. AR applications could potentially be a huge help to everyday people and workers with things like heads up navigation aids, lots of training applications, construction workers could "see" underground utility layouts in streets, assisting inspections of structures, and more. There's a lot more to potential to AR than making Pokemon Go version 2.0, but that might be fun too.

  16. Thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now they can practice the mass shootings before it happens.

  17. First, we nuke Disneyland... by CRB9000 · · Score: 1

    GTA 6 Driving through the real world where it will take you 3 hours of real time to drive out to the desert.

  18. Until when? by technosaurus · · Score: 2

    I once wrote a tool to partially automate localization of open source software using Google translate. ...Until Alphabet/Google changed their policies. Its not an isolated case either, more of their previously public apis are dead than alive and its really arbitrary (Google real estate could have been a cash cow) Google lost developer trust in this area years ago and wont gain it back without a huge public policy change. If you are going to use them, have a backup plan.

  19. ah, nostalgia by swell · · Score: 1

    Soon you can show your kids/grandkids what it was like in the days when people drove their own cars. Grand Theft Auto VIII will be feature filled with authentic noise, smog, congestion and best of all--pedestrians! The young'uns may find it hard to believe it was really like that, but you'll have proof, of a sort.

    Meanwhile I'll continue to enjoy the exciting nostalgia of Grand Theft Covered Wagon in the wild west. Giddyup!

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  20. Is this a good idea? by dave562 · · Score: 0

    Am I the only person who thinks that this is going to be used by kids wanting to make games about shooting up their schools, or even worse, terrorists planning attacks in major urban centers?

    The Army already has their own game, so it's not exactly far fetched fiction at this point.

    https://www.americasarmy.com/

    1. Re:Is this a good idea? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I was in high school, some buddies and I built a Doom level based upon the layout of our school. Ran around in multiplayer shooting the place up. Not because we wanted to practice for when we did it in real life, but just for fun. Today, we'd at least be expelled and possibly committed to a psych ward for making a 'school shooter simulator,' but this was before shitty people ruined it for everyone else.

  21. one more development shortcut by fponias · · Score: 1

    Actually coming up with maps for my games was an annoyance. Now I don't even have to bother. Grap some data from google, throws some walls up at the border and you're done! Stick it on Steam.

  22. Link to the actual source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Engadget and Verge are beyond useless. Here's Google's own page on this:

    https://developers.google.com/maps/gaming/

  23. one more development shortcut: trucks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure a lot of truck driving games use Google Maps as a base and do a pretty good job of it. Especially buildings.

  24. Oh wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the end of falling off the edge of the world in shitty steam asset flips...

  25. Blur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, now we can expect games to feature blurred license plates, and faces, including Colonel Sanders on KFC signs?