This is not a NOAA product nor Affiliated with NOAA.
My older brother works for the City of Anchorage waste water utility, he has joined the outreach and education task force with NOAA on the Beluga Whale recovery. I was asked to make a video of a whale doing some stuff. Well I went a little farther and created a game out of it in 2 weeks and it was presented to the sub-committee and they were blown away at the potential.
SaveBettyBeluga was what my brother said to call it. It is about a whale dealing with all the pressures of nature and human influences such as noise, fishing, pollution, and food sources.
I am not a game developer by trade and only worked with the engine for a couple of years hence my UE4 name.
I am not making any money for my efforts. I don’t think NOAA will fund because of ethics and rules, along with budgets a year out. There may be a chance to get private corporate funding to pay for your assets but I am unsure at this time.
I have spent some of my own funds to buy a Beluga, a cargo ship, the landscape, and some of Unreal’s assets like the cargo plane that are provided for free.
I would like to get some models like prey species made Eulachon, Cod, Ships, even get a new Beluga with more animations created. There was mention of a Orca to be added as a predator, and possibly a lot more. These can be resold as I would only ask for the use rights.
The plan is to have this at NOAA events at public places which is coming up in September also possibly at Wildlife Centers in Alaska. They are discussing how to fund the computers for solo players and I mentioned that it is possible to have multiplayer in a local network with 5 of them.
The quality isn’t massively important as the message that NOAA wants to get across it is free work so far.
ok this got really long winded quickly thank you for your time and I am open to all request to join in the work.
Martin Plaskett
mdcplas@gmail.com