Environment Artist portfolio Google Streetview idea

Computron

I was wondering if anyone ever considered using the Google Maps StreetView API to make custom embed-able panoramic walkthroughs of their environemnts, or something similar for their portfolios? It might be interesting to go along with the usual videos and pictures.

I think it could be a cool idea, since google street view is pretty light weight, doesn't require flash and even works on most mobile smartphones and is easily embadable into a portfolio site.

Any thoughts?

Dataday

Possible but not strong enough to really sell the environment art. There are better alternatives, videos, unity, other apps that can make the environment art more impressive.

Have you seen this: http://www.unrealengine.com/flash/

Computron

Dataday wrote: »

Possible but not strong enough to really sell the environment art. There are better alternatives, videos, unity, other apps that can make the environment art more impressive.

Have you seen this: http://www.unrealengine.com/flash/

Unity and UDK's browser embadable features aren't available for free, unity is not that stable in some browsers (Don't know about UDK since that is for licensees only), they require a capable system so no netbooks or mobile devices, and unity requires a sepperate plugin. Even flash is discouraged by Polycount with the exception of Youtube or Vimeo embeds.

I think streetview might be something interesting to supplement video walkthroughs and pictures.

cptSwing

But wouldn't you be forced to do without normal maps, emissive maps, blending between textures, etc.? Then again, I don't know how capable streetview has become ;-)

Computron

Perhaps your sarcasm is lost on me, so I can't tell if your serious?

StreetView is just a collection of panoramic still photos with semi-3d arrows/paths overlayed to hyperlink them together.
There is no complex 3d rendering involved in streetview, that's why it works on even really old iPhones.

Lamont

cptSwing wrote: »

But wouldn't you be forced to do without normal maps, emissive maps, blending between textures, etc.? Then again, I don't know how capable streetview has become ;-)

I assume the renders used in the Street View would use those same effects, since it's just an image

Personally, I don't feel too sold on the idea, just need to see it pulled off first. If you are just showing a bunch of static images, why not just show a bunch of static images?

cptSwing

Nah no sarcasm, I'm just a very, very light user of Streetview ;-)

But yeah, I forgot that it's just panorama shots stitched together and thought you were looking for realtime visualization of sorts.