Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam | Hacker News Reader

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam

sanandreasanimalcams.com

492 pointsmjn109 comments

I just watched a tank shoot at the deer point blank to knock it down and then run over it. The deer promptly got back up and started running away.

The deer currently has a 4-star rating, and I don't know how it's going to remove those stars since it doesn't look like it's programmed to try and hide from the police. Looks like it's a fugitive for life.

EDIT: Okay the stars went away, not sure how that happened. It's been a while since I've played.

EDIT2: I think I know what happened. The deer was in the airport, and that gets you automatic police attention. As soon as the deer was chased out of the airport by the tanks, the stars went away.

It's likely the mod that is being used for the stream that just cleared it (periodically maybe, like the teleportation?)

In GTA, you'd have to die or get away from the police long enough to lose the stars, and obviously the deer did neither...

I just watched the deer teleport to a new random location, so it's definitely that.

It was probably teleported into the airport, then shot at by the police and army for a while until it was teleported out.

I've never played this game so I'm trying to imagine it based on parent comments. It is trippy and dark with sci fi elements.

Read a paper few years ago that Slow TV[^1] will become popular in the digital era. I couldn't believe it at the time. And here we are. I guess it's a logical step to fight speed of current era.

It did a sudden takeoff even in my country - Prague tram-cam is the best[^2].

[^1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television [^2]: http://slowtv.playtvak.cz/prave-ted-mazaci-tramvaj-jede-prah...

If you're interested in why this tram looks the way it does: http://technet.idnes.cz/prague-czech-republic-oiling-tram-ta...

(it's a lubricating tram)

When coding I typically have Shibuya live stream on my small monitor in HD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q36pnzcw70.

Nice mix of nostalgia (been there), wanderlust (want to go back) and just awe at watching a slice of humanity scrambling across an intersection 8 hours 'in the future' and 6,000 miles away.

There are some beautiful videos showing 9+ hour plus train journeys across the Norwegian countryside, which also make for great background visuals while coding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY1sbKvjNcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIdnzamYDmQ&feature=iv&src_v...

I really enjoy watching videos like this for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EeTfiBWZzU

It's not quite the same but I felt it's relevant.

It's interesting how the pedestrians walk on the "wrong" side. I guess you can attribute it to Japan having left-hand traffic.

I seem to recall that different areas in Japan walk on different sides of the sidewalk. So it's not a national thing but a regional thing irrespective of the road direction.

I actually noticed the same thing in Hawaii, lots of Japanese tourists

Honest question: do you have these running on a second (3rd?) monitor when coding? Or in a small window? Or where?

I don't keep "slow tv" up, but I tend to have Netflix running on my left monitor, my requirements on my right monitor and my IDE or text editor in the center. If I get too busy, then Netflix goes away. The motion to the side helps keep me from getting bored.

I prefer to have them on a screen on the other side of my desk, to give my eyes a change in focus.

Thank you so much for this.

I'll use this if and when I need to experience a lot of humanity.

Always better to do it vicariously.

Ah I have been having Withdrawals from Japan, I need to get back there. This makes me oddly happy. Thanks!

I've formed a minor obsession with the cab ride videos on Youtube. Riding along London or Dubai transit, or the driver's eye view from a Rotterdam tram, is insanely relaxing. Meditation of a sort. Thanks for linking a new tram.

Test cricket during summer holidays in Australia.

Live webcams have been around for a lot longer than a few years. Interesting thing about this one is it's focused at a game, not the real world.

This is fantastic -- I'm a huge fan of high res live streams of various places around the world (eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOu3DfLC4Os )... now I gotta check some of the other links here. :)

http://www.webcamera.pl/ is what my 58 year old mum spends 80% of computer and 50% TV time on.

Sad to say that it's better viewing than almost all free-to-air TV in Australia.

Someone should extend this to script a series of characters in various games and automate Twitch production to make a living.

Honestly, why not though? Write a sufficient enough AI, get your camera angles right, and slow down the decision tree with some dialogue, and you've essentially got a movie. Not saying it'll be grand, but it certainly won't be the worst thing produced in a given year; probably guaranteed to be the best for a given cost.

Further on that, you could probably create a batshit-insane zoo of some sort which combined a variety of animals in a fixed environment. Make it an Apple TV app/channel.

In a physical zoo experience, the animals are caged and often just hide out the day. In the batshit-insane zoo, they'd be entertaining everyone all the time without any animal welfare issues.

In can foresee a time where the majority of people (e.g., not purists or those with money to travel) are more regularly entertained by virtual animals than the real thing.

Take GTA V, add Godzilla and let the public watch what happens.

That's exactly what I said! More entertaining than any Aussie TV :)

Didnt the guy that made the "Twitch Plays Pokemon" do this? He probably made an absolute killing.

That or amazon did for sure (owns Twitch)

> Sad to say that it's better viewing than almost all free-to-air TV in Australia.

and germany.

Salty Bet does something very similar to that. When there's no major e-sports matches going on, various automated fighting game characters (including custom community submitted characters) are pitted against one another in fights, which are streamed live.

The audience places bets.

One Halloween I logged into Ultima Online, and found I had been transformed into a deer.

I could walk around and do deer stuff, but no weapons or magic or talking.

Then some hippie bastard came along and tamed me! [1]

I had to follow him all around and do what he told me to from then on, on that terrible day.

[1] http://uo2.stratics.com/skill-guides/skills-and-professions/...

> I had to follow him all around and do what he told me to from then on, on that terrible day.

I'm curious, how did that mechanic work? What stopped you from just refusing to follow orders?

I remember I could click to walk around, but then he could click to override my commands and walk me over anywhere he wanted, and make me attack other animals. Most of my other commands were neutralized! At first, I was having some fun doing deer stuff before he tamed me, but after he tamed me I was just too domesticated to have fun.

Deer honor

Godzilla!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wUdetAAlY

I've heard from industry experts that Ultima Online developers gained an entire lifetime's experience in how to create an MMO, the positive and the negative. What subsequent games would divide into different categories for safety's sake (players vs. objects vs. enemies vs. items), UO lumped together in a very general way.

This simultaneously allowed for some amazing emergent behavior (such as this deer experience) and some really regrettable incidents where an admin would be, for example, manually deleting trash someone had left lying around on a path and accidentally clicked delete on a player's avatar, removing that player "permanently" from the game (I think they were able to solve it via a full state rollback, but at the cost of other players' progress to resurrect one player).

This also created an awesome economy around "rares" where people had managed to pick up something from the backdrop, like a piece of a table or a statue. Since these were so rare they became extremely expensive with art collectors decorating their houses with them.

Sounds like fun, I don't have much to add - I just needed to say UO was the greatest game ever made.

Modification of GTA V that creates and follows a deer wandering through the fictional state of San Andreas. The deer character is autonomous and will wander and respond to it's surroundings, interacting with the existing GTA V artifical intelligence.

More information from its creator here: http://bwatanabe.com/GTA_V_WanderingDeer.html

How has nobody linked to the actual stream yet?

Here it is:

https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe

Title makes it seem like this is from GTA: San Andreas when it's actually from GTA V.

It's GTA IV, which is set in San Andreas

> San Andreas Deer Cam is a live video stream from a computer running a hacked version of Grand Theft Auto V

It's from GTA V, GTA IV was set in Liberty City

It's just odd that the title has "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" which is the exact name of an existing game but not the game being used.

Los Santos is in the state of San Andreas. I agree the title is a bit confusing through.

Some moments are art. The silence, the randomness, and the lack of purpose.

I'm legitimately looking forward to a "bird cam". If I can run it locally, I'm setting it up for Ultra-High with HighDef textures and leaving it streaming in the office. I love the GTA V cityscape.

The world in GTAV is seriously an achievement. I can say that there were points playing through it that I legitimately had to stop just to marvel at the view.

For a video game, that is pretty impressive.

This is basically why I'm really excited about VR. I had the same experience with Just Cause 2, and I think that would also be amazing with VR.

Edit: if you have a Google Cardboard-type device and a iOS or Android device to go with it, https://www.vg247.com/2015/09/24/just-cause-3-vr-app-ios-and...

Edit 2: I've also found that these Cardboard-style VR things work with the "cross view" technique: https://m.reddit.com/r/CrossView/about if you don't have anything aside from a screen but still wish to play along :)

That was achieved way before GTA V.

Even Red Dead Redemption and Just Cause 2 achieved that a few years earlier.

In case the site isnt working properly for the stream - heres the twitch channel/link - https://www.twitch.tv/bwatanabe

Seems that this deer is enjoying beach a lot.

Edit: now got caught in a glitch in some mine

Hah, that's the first (serious) glitch I've seen in about an hour of watching. It periodically respawns in a random part of the world, and looks like it had the bad luck to respawn in a mineshaft this time.

I'm actually surprised it doesn't get stuck more often in other situations. Its controller seems pretty good at avoiding it.

Too bad he can't use his antlers...

It looks like it can or is maybe learning to. Two guys were standing on the sidewalk and it just murdered one with its antlers or possibly a head-butt. It was about to go for the second but suddenly re-spawned in the airport for some reason.

Afterwards i saw it too... I wonder of those are se pre-programmed actions or he is actually learning...

I saw it clip a pedestrian with it's antlers. I don't think it was deliberate. Still, there was blood.

The animals in GTA:V do have attacks (sharks, dogs and mountain cats bite, etc). If you use a mod to play as an animal it becomes your melee attack.

Modding support in the GTA series is excellent, and has spawned a large community. It's refreshing to see as locked down games with DLC sold for extra are becoming the norm, with a few notable exceptions such as the Fallout series.

I've been having a lot of fun using a police mod where you can spawn FIB elite units that are allies. It'd be great to command an animal army as well!

What if it doesn't respawn, but instead a new deer spawns and the camera moves to follow that new deer? Eventually, the deer could multiply then overrun the world!

I didn't know there were mineshafts in GTA:V - where is it located?

> Note 3-20-16 10:00pm PST: The Deer Cam computer will likely crash in the next 5 hours, and the admin is away. If the Deer Cam is offline, it should return 3-21-16 by 3:00pm PST*

I guess wrong time now!

Its currently being shot by a tank. Cant it die?

And then the Batman vs Superman advertisement showed up. I thought that was rather fitting... :-)

Yesterday, I stopped during my run and watched 5 deer grazing in the woods. It was great to be outside and in nature.

I see deer on a fairly regular basis when commuting to and from work. They usually get spooked by the train and run away, though (I mean, I would, too, if I was a deer).

But from my office I see a fairly large field surrounded by meadows, and sometimes deer will come there to graze. Having grown up in the city, I never cease to enjoy this deeply.

(Sometimes, grey herons will walk around on the field. I have no clue what they are looking for, though. Probably mice, snails or toads, I guess.)

One of my favorite memories growing up was riding a bike down a nature path while camping and suddenly realizing a large buck was about twenty feet away bounding along keeping pace with me.

It's a nice memory to offset the sheer terror of driving down a highway at night with heavy woods on either side waiting for a deer to stupidly jump out in front of you.

Guessing they've just replaced the player skin with that of the deer. Would make sense, since a program could read the players position from memory and pick random targets or directions for it to head towards. Also makes sense why it would be shot at...

IIRC, In GTAV you can play as an animals; deer, pegion, cat, etc.

Kinda reminds me of this game No Man's Sky. It's worlds are procedurally generated by algorithms and dictated by rules. Their test suite is basically robots that fly around the world and continually check to make sure things are okay. http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/3/8140343/no-mans-sky-space-pr...

"The San Andreas Deer Cam is currently experiencing technical difficulties and will be back soon. Above is footage recorded on 2/29/16." I think we crashed it..

Pretty sure Twitch can handle the HN effect so it's probably something else.

The mod is apparently unstable and crashes periodically, so the author has to restart it now and then.

Surely they took textures of the Deer from a Zoo! The Deer is fat! There is no way to find such a fat deer in the wild nature!

Especially since it just seems to wander and never stop to eat. Surely it should be programmed to graze for a while when it sees grass or tasty foliage?

I love that the deer has figured out teleportation and the humans haven't figured out how to notice a deer.

Check out the comments, which require a Facebook account. A young marketing executive has made an innocuous comment on this somewhat elaborate joke. Suppose his/her boss thought that video games were a waste of time and saw that comment on his Facebook feed. "What are you doing watching this stupid video game recording?"

What this brings up is that the surveillance inherent in social media is different from traditional surveillance. As more-and-more websites encourage you to log into your social media account to use their website, so the degree to which other people can see what websites you are browsing. Its a gradual increase in sousveillance of one's own browsing habits for your online social network to see.

I am not criticizing anyone, but merely remarking at the growth of, for instance, Facebook beyond Facebook.com.

Edit: I just noticed the check box. It is actually optional, in this case, whether to make your comment appear on Facebook.com. Nevertheless, people's real names are appearing thereon.

Attaching a GPS device to a deer and then moving the deer in-game would be even weirder.

I was going to say; now it's stuck in the water, but it just started moving again.

Without risk of death of the main player, it's not as interesting.

I'm curious how much work this is. Was the deer an existing character in the game that they repurposed via a simple hack, or did they have to model and animate the deer, write a bunch of AI for it, etc.

There are deer in the game.

There's the option to hunt them, with a mission to explain the mechanics and rewards as well.

It's not a deer cam. It's a drone following behind the deer cam.

Maybe it's another deer behind though. You opened my mind.

There was some glitch. Now the deer is trapped in a mine shaft...

Edit: Didn't know it respawns to a new location pretty often.

Why is the Deer taking rest now. I am so bored, I really want it to start moving again. I miss the deer.

The indestructable deer was having an Akira-like engagement with tanks for a while.

It needs to learn to jump over walls and fences and things like a real deer.

Deer god.

That's who needs to come save it from the Mine right now.

The deer currently has it's head stuck in some red scaffolding.

Someone please add deep neural network for this poor deer...

I am surprise there is no mention of machine learning...

It has been moved. No longer stuck in the mine.

Helicopter chasing it now.

Could not find the information who has programmed that deer. The author or Rockstar?

is this the next step after "Twitch plays..."?

"Game plays itself; Twitch watches."

It's just stuck on a rail track :(

That's getting bookmarked!

it was roaming about underwater in some kelp for a while there

Jesus, Twitch is still using Flash? What year is it anyway?

Yeah, right? That said, you can avoid the Flash by streaming the video to a native video player with ttp://docs.livestreamer.io/

Interesting. I tried livestreamer first and got an error about it not recognizing the URL pattern, but then I just upgraded and it seems to be working

I'm seeing the HTML5 player.

What browser? I'm using chrome, and I had to use the devtools to hide the overlays so I could get it to play. Now the video is showing behind the text on the page, but at least I can see it.

I seem to get the HTML5 viewer by default in Firefox on OSX.

Chrome, OSX.

https://player.twitch.tv/?channel=bwatanabe&autoplay=true&ht...

html5=true will play html5.

But I had to disable every possible ad/tracking blocker (even Firefox native) for it to work, kind of ridiculous.

P.S. The deer crashed, so its not moving.

Getting streaming to work in HTML5 is magnitudes harder than normal video. You can't compare Twitch to other web video players. In fact, there is no official support for live streaming in HTML5.

http://stackoverflow.com/a/22001830/5917315

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