James Pero

Design

This painstakingly detailed map of GTA V is a 3D printed masterpiece

Sometimes you just have to spend hundreds of hours making a 3D model of a video game map.

People adore Grand Theft Auto V. For proof, just take a look at these memes, or the devout legion of modders that helped create them.

But as much as those aforementioned fans are a symbol of the game’s avid following, they, unfortunately, pale in comparison to this unhinged 3D printed magnum opus from designer and maker of things, Dom Riccobene.

🎥: @DomRiccobene on Twitter

As reported by Kotaku, the map, like a lot of art made throughout the past year and a half, was born out of a simple equation — time + being trapped by COVID-19 = ridiculous project.

With that time, Riccobene decided to get extremely granular with his recreation of GTA’s map, using a script to pull data in sections as he roved through the game.

GTA V, like many modern open-world games, doesn’t render the whole map all at once, so this method of data capture was necessary for covering the world in its entirety.

100 hrs

That's how long it took Riccobene just to extract the data.

Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

After the data was captured, there was the equally as herculean effort of stitching the map together with the right elevation data, layout, and not to mention the process of actually printing the individual tiles that comprise the map.

125 hrs

That's how long it took just to print the map.

Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

All told, Riccobene estimates that the project took about 400 hours of work, according to Kotaku, which on one hand is an immense amount of time to spend recreating a video game map, but on the other, is probably the most impressive feat of fan art we’ve seen in recent memory.

For more...

You can visit Riccobene’s website where there’s plenty of 3D printed art to ogle.

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