Show HN: Zelda Breath of The Wild Street View
nassimsoftware.github.io
nassimsoftware.github.io
I clicked on Hyrule Field in Central Hyrule and I could click on an arrow (not in “map” view) to follow a path.
First, I'd figure out a method for finding all walkable terrain on the map, then figure out some sampling function to approximate taking a screenshot every "n" steps.
Then I'd write a hack to get the emulator to fly me through all these points, take the screenshots, and dump them to a directory.
Then I'd spend a long time trying to get the "click through" and "blur" navigation method through street view working.
What is interesting about street view is that; your cursor is aware of what is the "floor" and what is a "house" or "surface" with high accuracy, and places that you can navigate to on the "floor" are highlighted before tapping on them. I wonder if some depth data is captured by the camera that allows this to happen, or if it's coming purely from the images/computer vision techniques.
TLDR: Even with the basic level of complexity OP had, I bet this took him a few weekends. I would get nerd sniped by the above, for like 4 months.
[0] I assume - having never worked with game emulation
There are roads/paths in Breath of the Wild though, so it is possible to do make a more interactive version that's similar to Street View
I think projects like this should be allowed to exist and that eventually people will grow very tired of how restrictive copyright law is and demand changes, but until that happens, I hope these types of projects continue to be created and spread in violation of the law for as long as possible until the lawyers finally come after them.
It's better that we see what kinds of things we could have without oppressive copyright laws and be upset when they are taken from us than for people to refuse to start cool projects just because they are doomed to be shutdown.
I don’t know how we’re going to be able to change this. I’ve voted for parties that are the most outspoken on this issue all my life. But somehow this never makes it into any actual policy.
I’ve even on multiple occasions called my representatives as parts of grass roots lobbies against new trade agreements or laws that would set us back even further. But even when such grass roots campaigns were successful, the same proposal would just return at most a few years later and the grass roots oppositions would get tired of trying to stop them.
What else can we do?
Unironically, learn about the theory of politics and organize with others. The current political system will always act in the interest of business, it's basically an evolutionary system.
There is never going to be a financial insensitive to change how copyright law works because it makes companies a lot of money, and if one representative attempts to change the law, these companies can use that wealth to sponsor a challenger to that individual (most likely in the primaries for their next race).
It's dangerous to actively put any policy in place which goes against the interest of industry. But it isn't impossible, remember the government broke up Standard Oil, ultimately they do have the power to change laws if the political will is there.
I can't confidently say that you're wrong and that such change is impossible (I honestly don't know and have made the choice to be optimistic), but I think it's fair to say that our political system and the environment it operates in has changed dramatically since 1911. Many of the changes we've seen since then were orchestrated by industry with the specific goal of limiting the possibility or effectiveness of the government interfering in their activities. The brake up of Standard Oil, or even Ma Bell, may not be a very good indicator of what is possible today.
Basically nothing. We are living in a simulation of "rule of the people". But the system is built so that basically nothing changes for those with actual power.
Call my a disillusioned cynic but I believe democracy is the theatrical play that is being performed to make us believe we have some bit of influence.
> But even when such grass roots campaigns were successful, the same proposal would just return at most a few years later and the grass roots oppositions would get tired of trying to stop them.
If such things succeed they are an anomaly and the system over time evolves to find ways to ensure this firm of influence from the popolus will cease to exist. The current iteration you describe is crude but effective.
My idealistic heart would love for a way out that actually had a chance of success, but I just can't see it.
As for crowdfunding, the wealth distribution is such that even if the bottom 50 percent of the population in the US all united, they could be outspend by the top one percent 16 times overs. On a global scale it is even worse.
That seems like an odd argument to be making in a discussion about a cool project someone made despite it infringing copyright. Maybe copyright laws don't put people off in the way that you're claiming they do.
Or maybe there would be many more of such projects if people weren't put off from starting them in the first place by copyright laws.
Maybe, but based on the evidence we have that's just speculation. Perhaps copyright and fear of litigation isn't a common reason why people don't make things. As we see from the link this thread is about, people do make things using other people's IP.
Maybe copyright laws push people who are concerned about being sued to make original works instead of making nothing as you're asserting. That would actually be very a positive outcome, and arguably a great reason to keep copyrights. After all, there's nothing stopping people making things. The only thing they're prevented from doing is using someone else's IP.
I suspect that many of the people who are creating things which violate copyright law are simply unaware that what they are doing is against the law (they feel that they have rights which they actually don't) or they misunderstand the law (See: "No Copyright Intended" descriptions on youtube videos).
Some certainly also think that enforcement is lax enough that they won't be caught, or at least not before others have mirrored the content, or that they won't face meaningful consequences when they are caught, but I think we absolutely cannot say that the existence of copyright violations proves that the laws aren't hurting us by preventing popular original works from being made.
> The only thing they're prevented from doing is using someone else's IP.
Consider what happened with blurred lines (see https://mcpherson-llp.com/articles/crushing-creativity-the-b...) We know copyright law hurts people that aren't using anyone else's IP.
This guy has a lot to say on the problems with the idea that using other people's IP is a bad thing in the first place:
https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_laws_that_choke_cr...
See the "Copyright & distribution:" section from https://www.sitasingstheblues.com/faq.html for an example from an artist who almost wasn't able to make their work at all because of the problems. It was only extraordinary sacrifice that allowed that artist to bring her creative (and I think highly entertaining) work into the world, and that creator is convinced that a bar set that high leaves a lot of artists unable to clear the hurdle.
I agree that Nintendo deserves criticism for their aggressive enforcement of the law, but the real problem is the law that allows for it. I agree Nintendo's actions probably hurt them more than helps them, but clearly they feel otherwise. Fix the laws and it fixes the problem at its source.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SoftwareNo...
This makes no sense. The law has nothing to say about anything until whatever it is has already gotten into court.
Why don't you make your own immersive world and make a website about that? Why not make a website about another game that does not oppose fan projects?
If you sell or publish your work, and especially if people buy it from you, then it becomes part of the culture of our societies. It is right then that you lose some control, especially if you've made enough money to support you for a period long enough to make a new work/innovation -- it would be stupid of us to make IPR so strong that people who had been supported to become creators/innovators were then encouraged to stop.
Culture works in a space where shared experiences are remixed, where past cultural experiences are reworked.
We need to respect the givers of those IPR rights and respect shared culture a little more IMO.
This is of course my own personal opinion and in no way relates to my employment.
I love the Apple TV screensavers that are basically beautiful slow moving drone shots of landscapes, which you can get for Mac too [1]. There are expansion packs too you can pay for, with 3rd party videos.
And I kind of want the same thing, only of high-quality 3D rendered landscapes! For me specifically, slow flybys over Red Dead Redemption 2 landscapes, and also of real-life Microsoft Flight Simulator locations. Producing such videos would save all of the cost of real-life transportation, lodging, waiting till sunrise/sunset, flying a drone... And instead of having just 40 videos on rotation, you could have 10,000's...
I don't have the time to build it, but it's a hobby project I wish desperately that somebody would!
Sounds like with some configuration it might do just as you describe. Not a general solution though, of course.
Besides Red Dead Redemption and Zelda, I would love to see this done for Halo Infinite, Destiny 2, Fallout, Borderlands, No Man’s Sky, etc., to name just a few
Edit: Apparently every dynamic enemy on the map has a hand coded state machine https://github.com/magcius/noclip.website/blob/19f83f77c3e77...
https://github.com/magcius/noclip.website/tree/master/src/So...
Same goes for every other game.
To your knowledge, are there any special tricks to store many panorama images so you could feasibly capture entire paths continuously through the map, or even entire maps for smaller games?
Sorry I don't have any special tricks to share :/. I feel at this point it would probably be better to rip the game world from the game and artificially make it feel like a panorama when viewing and moving.
Also this would probably imply heavy use of three.js if I wanted to offer that in the browser.
And there's also BoTW 2 to look forward to. :)
It’s best with a kid who is mildly scared of the monsters.
I don't know if data costs would be a concern with something like this, but I feel like the panorama images are fairly large. At least for a mobile user. You could follow a model like Google where you load a lower res panorama initially, and only load the high-res when zooming in. I looked at the github and the panorama library is Pannellum, which looks like it has a multiresolution format to do this. I've never used it but the docs make it seem simple.
Either way love it. I can't imagine it's very expensive but I wonder how much getting on the front page of HN costs in bandwidth.
Edit: looked deeper into the github and the images are hosted on imgbb. That's definitely the cheapest way to do it haha.
Anyway, thanks for the memory and cool map :)
I get a zoomable map (that just pixelizes rather than maintaining clarity) and a few spots with a weird split box icon (can't quite tell what it is) that are clickable and you can pan around on that spot.
Good excuse to fire that game up again, though.