There’s often talk about data visualization veering into the realm of info-porn but if something looks great, it looks great. Right? Sure, we can be overwhelmed with diagrams about information that are as informative as a blank dictionary, but the most successful among them are capable of producing images of strange beauty where data becomes something visually serene. This is one of those times.Mapped out using Processing, this 3D visualization by Jim Blackhurst shows 11.3 million player “impact deaths” in the free-roaming, open world video game Just Cause 2. Each dot represents the location where a player has either hit the landscape or something else obstructing his path and shuffled off the pixelated coil. The moment of death is then plotted onto a 3D map. The result creates an ethereal lightscape where parts of the game’s terrain become visible through clustered death plots—buildings, bridges, mountains and hills—but other parts remain ghostly apparitions, as players die in accordance with the physics of the game. It’s like the Hades of Just Cause 2, where the cityscapes are built from moments of extinction, and hilltops roll into valleys of the dead. So you see, dying in a video game isn’t so pointless after all.For more detailed info see Jim Blackhurst’s blog.
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Visualizing The Beauty Of Dying... In A Video Game
Jim Blackhurst 3D maps 11.3 million players’ deaths in Just Cause 2 into a beautiful spectral lightscape.