Need application programmer and/or someone with animation skills!

[B77W]

Hello everyone,

The American Airlines Virtual staff and I have envisioned a program called Amerivision, an idea that I believe is new to the virtual aviation community, and we will need some help making this become a reality.

Below is what we conceive Amerivision to be:

The idea is making an animated 3-D program built into ACARS where a pilot could "walk" through virtual terminals, maybe even interacting with other animated users and/or AI characters. The pilot walks through the terminal of the city that he is currently virtually in. For example, if a pilot lands in KDFW, he can walk through the virtual KDFW terminal, out through security, and to his virtual hotel room inside the terminal (simulating layovers), then before his/her next flight, walk back through security to his/her gate and their next flight. As the pilot walks through the terminal, he or she can walk through virtual (duty free!) stores. As you well know, pilots earn virtual salaries when they fly a certain number of hours for a VA. The pilot can spend these salaries to buy virtual souvenirs from these cities, and display them on his profile on our website as a showcase.

When it's time to board (as per schedules), the pilot can walk through a virtual jet bridge, taking him to the door of the aircraft. When he clicks the door of the aircraft, voila! ACARS opens and he's ready to begin flying.

Of course, for pilots who don't want to go through the whole animation hoopla and don't want to shop in the virtual duty-free stores, there should be a skip button to go directly to ACARS.

I realize that this idea is bordering on the insane, and may be looked at as a child's game of play pretend, but while allowing people the stress-free experience of virtual flying as is our mission, we also want those who wish to to have an opportunity to get a feel of the experience of traveling as a real pilot.

We have already set apart some of our budget for application development, so we are willing to hire developers for this program.

If you're interested in accepting the challenge, please message me with a quoted price, expected duration of development, and method of payment. We'll consider choosing a developer for the job and maybe even proceed!

As we begin a preliminary search for developers, can anybody help us rationalize this project and discuss the feasibility of a project like this? We'd also like y'all to help tweak the idea if some parts of the outline above are unnecessary.

Thanks for reading and the help!

***PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE THAT AMERIVISION WILL BE LAUNCHED! THIS IS STILL IN THE PLANNING STAGES AND IS, SO FAR, JUST AN IDEA!***

[Tom]

Out of interest, how much are you expecting to pay for this? 3D animation doesn't come particularly cheap.

[B77W]

We'd like to see whether we get a positive or negative reaction from the community, and look at the developers' opinions and quotes first before we decide how much money we're going to lay down on this project. We are also considering smartCARS, so that will be an extra expense on our budget.

We may even have to hire multiple people if we can't find anybody who can do both ACARS/website integration and 3D animation...

As I stated before, this is what we believe to be new territory for the sim world, so we're taking it one step at a time. Our launch is still half a year from now, so we're not in a headlong rush for the finish line.

[B77W]

Hi everyone,

After some discussion, we have decided to postpone this project until a later date and divert our resources to other projects that we are currently working on. We're shelving Amerivision for now, but that doesn't mean that we won't resurrect it later!

[freshJet]

It's an interesting thought, but it would be one hell of an investment if you plan on creating 3D models of every airport on the AA network.

[B77W]

Itrobb, we don't plan to simulate all - just the hubs. The rest will all use the same default design.

Though we don't plan to take this off the shelves soon, we'd still like comments and offers

[Jon]

It's not a necessity, I might use it once and then I'd be bored of it.

[B77W]

I concede that that may be true.