MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A decade-long passion project aims to bring the Bluff City into the Metaverse.
“I think the video game format is a great way to get people excited about Memphis,” said Corey Owens, who is creating a one-to-one scale digital recreation of the city of Memphis.
Owens is calling the project the Memphis METAS Downtown Digital Twin. He studies reference images of iconic buildings and structures, such as the Hernando de Soto Bridge and the Bass Pro Pyramid, and painstakingly reconstructs them in the Unreal video game engine.
“This passion project of mine was born out of my love for Memphis, my love for technology, my love for downtown, my love for video games, and trying to find a way to tie it all together,” he said. said.
Owens said he started the project because he wanted to see what would happen if Mud Island had Zippin Pippin, the roller coaster that once called Libertyland and the amusement park home. After he built that 3D model, he went on to build the rest of downtown Memphis around it.
The project currently allows users to walk or drive around virtual parts of the city, but is still in development.
Owens has high goals for the project's future, with the intention of opening it to the public within the next few years.
“What tends to grab people's attention is the fun of it being a video game, but I think what this is really about is helping Memphis innovate,” he said.
Owens runs a marketing agency called GROW Memphis and plans to use the virtual city to promote local businesses. They also hope to use it for educational purposes by recreating the city's past scenery.
Once completed, Owens said, the virtual city will have great potential for gaming, filmmaking, tourism, and even urban planning by allowing developers to take a closer look at how their plans fit into the city. We believe that it can also be a useful tool.
“My vision for this project is to showcase Memphis' past, present and future,” Owens said.
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