Words: Catherine Lewis
Ah, 3D printers are wonderful things, aren't they? It really doesn't feel like that long since the idea of owning a 3D printer was a dream only achievable through slowly gathering its parts in weekly issues of a magazine (does anyone else remember that?). But, one blessing of the modern era is these magical machines becoming much more widely available, and more importantly, in the hands of some incredibly talented people.
One such individual is Dom Riccobene, who has spent over 400 hours making an incredible, hyper-realistic, 3D printed model of GTA V's entire map. Absolutely no detail has been spared in recreating Los Santos and its surrounding area; from the peaks of Mount Chiliad, to individual skyscrapers in Downtown. As you can imagine, it hasn't been easy.
This isn't the only impressive 3D print we've seen. Check out these goofy swole Pokémon:
Using a custom script, Riccobene had to painstakingly scan all the buildings and terrain by hand, which alone took him around 100 hours. Then, after analyzing his data, he mapped his 500 million (!) coordinates to actual coordinates from the real world, allowing him to create an elevation grid to see how tall everything on the printed map should be. If trying to comprehend that is frying your brain a bit, don't worry, you're not the only one.
All in all, Riccobene had to print 24 tiles to piece together the map, some taking up to 12 hours to print. It's definitely all been worth it though; he's been documenting the process on his Instagram, and the timelapse of the map growing from the ground up is the most satisfying thing you'll see all day.
Even after all that, this talented creator is by no means done; he's now planning on doing the same thing to recreate Red Dead Redemption 2's map. Talk about being productive!
Although Riccobene isn't selling his GTA V map, his supporters on Patreon can get access to the design files to print their very own. So, if you happen to have a 3D printer handy, it's a great way to kill some time while waiting for any form of GTA VI news...
Featured Image Credit: RockstarTopics: News, Grand Theft Auto 5