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3Davis

Open-world UC Davis campus

913buildings from open map data
6,057trees placed from lidar
390people with names, schedules and memory
150 miof streets and paths

Playable in the browser. No install, no account.

Aerial view of the Quad in 3Davis: the long lawn with its central path and trees, the Memorial Union and campus buildings behind it.

3Davis is the UC Davis campus as an open world you can play in a browser: the Quad, the Silo, Shields Library and the Arboretum, built from open map data and filled with students who have names, schedules and memories.

The idea was to enclose the campus in a virtual space, so Davis can come with you wherever you go, and to play on a map full of fun, familiar references.

Client
Independent project
Role
Designer and creative director, built with AI coding agents
Timeline
September 2026 to present
Stack
TypeScript · Three.js · Rapier physics · React
Data
OpenStreetMap · USGS lidar · USDA aerial imagery
Play 3Davis

Davis, wherever you go

A campus is a place people carry with them long after they leave it. I wanted to enclose UC Davis in a virtual space, so the Quad, the bike paths and the Silo could come along anywhere, and to turn that space into a map to play on.

The fun comes from references any Aggie recognizes: burritos at the Silo, the London double-decker buses, the Bookhead egghead in front of Shields, the horses at the equine center. 3Davis is part tribute and part sandbox, a real place where you can do things the real place would never let you.

Students walking along a path on the Quad under large shade trees, with campus buildings in the background.

Who it's for

3Davis is designed for four groups. They want different things from the same map, so the world had to work as a guide, a memory and a game at once.

NowCurrent students

Learn the campus by playing it: find a building, ride the bus, race a friend to class, meet people around the Quad.

ThenAlumni and people who moved away

Walk the Quad again from anywhere, with the places and running jokes they remember.

NextProspective students and families

Explore Davis before visiting, with real buildings, real distances and real streets.

AnyoneOpen-world players

A GTA-style sandbox where the map is a real place you can recognize.

Design principles

Real geography firstEvery building, street, lawn and tree comes from open map data, so distances and routes are true to the campus.
Familiar over genericContent is built from references Aggies recognize: the Silo, Unitrans double-deckers, the Bookhead egghead, the equine center, the Quad.
People, not propsEveryone on campus has a name, a schedule and a memory of you, and reacts to how you treat them.
Runs in a browserNo install and no account. The world has to hold 60 FPS on an ordinary laptop with an integrated GPU.

From blocks to a living campus

I directed the project as a creative director working with AI coding agents. Each agent had one job, in stages: a Look Director first, then NPC, Buildings, Streets and Vegetation agents working from one shared material library. My role was to set the direction, playtest constantly and decide what felt right.

  1. Sep 26, 2026Voxel prototype

    The structure worked but the blocky look was far too plain. The direction changed to a GTA V-style world with much more detail.

  2. Sep 27Open-world rules

    No instant vehicle switching: you walk to a bike, rent a scooter, and earn money in campus jobs at the Coffee House, Shields Library, the Bike Barn and a courier route.

  3. Sep 27Open data only

    Heights, roofs and trees come from public-domain USGS lidar and USDA aerial imagery. Google imagery is off limits by its terms of service.

  4. Sep 28Named 3Davis

    The game gets its name and its horse logo.

  5. Oct 8Real human motion

    Motion-capture walk and run cycles, realistic speeds, and a missions leaderboard.

  6. OctoberStory missions

    Save Cheeto, a chase with a campus police car, and the Aggie Derby, a horse race across campus.

  7. Oct 24 to 26Realism pass

    Realistic avatars, a physics overhaul, a mission board with GPS, the Silo Terminal and its double-deckers, and a long list of playtest fixes.

A real campus, from open data

The whole campus, about 2 by 1.2 miles, is built from open sources: OpenStreetMap for footprints and streets, USGS lidar for heights and tree canopy, and USDA aerial imagery for roofs and vegetation. No Google Maps or Street View imagery, whose terms do not allow deriving content from it.

913Buildings

OpenStreetMap footprints with heights from lidar. 58 landmarks have facades researched from public photos and official UC Davis pages.

6,057Trees

Each tree placed, sized and shaped from USGS 3DEP lidar canopy heights and USDA NAIP vegetation imagery.

446Land areas

Lawns, fields, gardens, parking lots and water, each drawn with its own material.

The Silo's round concrete tower with its metal cap and cupola rising above the barn roof.
The Silo's towerThe namesake grain silo, rebuilt so it reads from across campus, ivy and cupola included.
The full map open over the game, satellite imagery of campus with a GPS route and mission letters.
The full mapPublic-domain aerial imagery with the GPS route and mission markers on top.

References Aggies recognize

Missions and set pieces come from the campus itself. Unitrans's red double-deckers wait at the Silo Terminal with their doors cycling open and shut, and if you walk up while one is open, you can drive off with it. The Aggie Derby starts at the Vet Med equine center and races across campus to the Quad.

Two red Unitrans double-decker buses at the Silo Terminal, with the Silo's barn and cupola behind them.
Silo TerminalBoard when the door is open, then drive off with the bus.
Riders on horseback galloping across a crosswalk during the Aggie Derby.
The Aggie DerbyThree rivals, 17 checkpoints and a stamina meter for your horse.
A campus police car driving down a tree-lined campus road, seen from behind.
Save CheetoBorrow a campus police car to chase down a "vet ambulance".
Two frames: a police car hits a street lamp, then the lamp lies flat across the sidewalk.
A physical worldThin poles fold when a car hits them. Trees and buildings stop it.

A campus that remembers you

The same 390 people live on campus every session, each with a role, a personality, a look and a daily schedule of real buildings. About 124 of them are simulated around you at any moment, walking, cycling and riding scooters to their next class.

The NPCs went through four versions, each one driven by what felt wrong in the previous one.

v1Procedural figuresLow-poly bodies on one shared rig, animated with motion-capture clips from Carnegie Mellon. Readable from a distance, but up close they looked like sticks.
v2Memory and conversationEach person remembers how you treat them, with an attitude that slowly drifts back over hours and persists between sessions. Talk to anyone in English or Spanish, offline, or through Claude-backed chat that keeps a running summary of your history.
v3A societyClubs, couples, rivalries and campus events, plus an Aggie Feed that keeps evolving while you are away.
v4Realistic people36 Microsoft Rocketbox avatars retargeted onto the animation rig at runtime, with hands that grip handlebars and reins. The cast was then made college-age: the youngest-looking faces, average 21-year-old height, a casual walking pace and 30% more people on campus.

From sticks to people

The same pose, before and after. The animation rig stayed. A realistic avatar is fitted onto it every frame, so everything learned about motion carried over.

Side by side on the Quad lawn: the original procedural figure on the left and the realistic avatar on the right, in the same pose.
Six young students standing in a row on the Quad lawn, each a different realistic avatar.
A college-age castStudents use only the youngest-looking models, at the average height of a 21-year-old.
A conversation with Arjun Fischer, a fourth-year Food Science major, with quick replies and a text box.
Talk to anyoneQuick replies or free text. They remember what you told them last time.

Fixing what felt wrong

I playtested every build and wrote down what felt off, in plain words. Each note became a measurable problem: find the cause, fix it, then measure it in the running game rather than trusting a screenshot.

Playtest noteCauseFixMeasured result
“The characters look like sticks.”Procedural low-poly bodies.Realistic avatars retargeted onto the same animation rig.36 avatars, about 1 ms of CPU per frame.
“The player gets stuck on curbs.”Physics ground imprecise, so the capsule sat 27 cm inside it.An exact infinite ground plane, plus a curb step-up for walking, bikes, horses and cars.Feet rest 2 cm above the ground in every mode.
“Everything still looks buried.”Ground layers were drawn pulled toward the camera, painting over shoes and tires.A constant depth bias instead of a slope-based one.Shoes and tires fully visible, no flicker.
“The arms glitch when running.”Joint easing jumped between equivalent rotations.Ease toward the nearest equivalent pose.Arm snaps in 4 seconds of running: 245 → 0.
“Some people are floating.”One avatar model had its pelvis 0.9 m above its root.Removed it and verified every model on the ground.All 36 avatars within 4 cm of the ground.
“The horse race gets stuck.”Lamp posts and bollards on the racing line.The route clears obstacles every meter, and horses shy away from posts.The full 2.3 mi race completes with zero stalls.
“The car glitches in turns.”Ride height jumped 21 cm at every curb.Four-wheel suspension that tilts over curbs. Cars go anywhere except into buildings and water.Height changes of a few millimeters, steady in turns.

The buried-shoes bug

Everything measured as standing exactly on the ground, yet looked sunk into it. The road was being drawn a few centimeters "in front" of the camera to stop ground layers from flickering. Seen from head height, that was enough to paint over shoes and tires.

Left: fixed. Right: the original setting, same frame.

The player's feet on asphalt twice: on the left the shoes are fully visible, on the right the road covers their soles.
Three frames where the camera sits in front of tree trunks instead of behind them, keeping the player in view.
The camera now pulls in front of tree trunks, and leaves between you and the camera fade out.

An interface that gets out of the way

The HUD follows the GTA tradition: charcoal panels, one strong yellow accent and Poppins throughout. Lists use one tile component, a dark rounded card with a thick yellow bar, an icon, a bold label and pill tags, from the controls panel to the mission board.

The Missions board: tiles for Save Cheeto and The Aggie Derby with reward, respect and distance pills and GPS buttons, plus how-to-get-there steps.
Mission boardOpens right after the controls, so new players always know where to go.
The game with a GPS chip at the top reading Save Cheeto, 0.3 mi, and the route on the minimap.
GPSA yellow route on the minimap, and a chip with the distance that clears on arrival.
The Controls panel with keys grouped into Move, Ride and fly, Explore and Play, each as a tile.
ControlsGrouped by what you want to do, not by key.
Aggie navy#022851Brand
Aggie gold#FFBF00Brand
HUD yellow#FFD500Interface
Charcoal#1A1A1APanels
Walk, ride, drive, fly

Bikes, rented scooters, horses, the patrol car, a jetpack and the Unitrans double-deckers, each with its own handling.

Missions with GPS

A mission board opens after the controls. Pick one and the GPS draws the route on the minimap and the full map.

Campus jobs

Earn money at the Coffee House, Shields Library, the Bike Barn and on courier runs, with a leaderboard.

Physical world

Thin poles fold when you hit them and thick ones stop you. Cars cannot drive into water.

Talk to anyone

Press E next to someone. They answer from their schedule, their memory of you and real campus geography.

US units

Miles, feet and mph throughout, like the place it represents.

Under the hood

Three.js renders the world with ambient occlusion, bloom and ACES tone mapping. Rapier handles physics, and an automatic quality ladder keeps the frame rate up while sun shadows always stay on. Buildings, props and people are batched and instanced, so the whole campus draws in about 150 calls.

On a laptop with an integrated AMD 780M GPU, the game holds 60 to 80 FPS with more than a hundred people around you.

Where it's headed

The next step is detail that grows outward from the Quad, building by building, so the most familiar places look closest to the real ones. More missions built on campus references are planned, along with streets that feel even more lived in.

Play 3Davis
Data and asset sources
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