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I am new to DBPro, but I am an experienced C++ programmer. I know nothing about how to create maps, textures,sound, etc...
Anyway, I am thinking of creating a geography game for my kids where they can navigate through the U.S.A. (rest of the world later). I would like to be able to zoom in and out like from state view, to the city, etc...
Where do I start? The tutorials show how to put a jpeg to the screen, but that does not seem smart enough. What should I use for my "intelligent" picture of the US? Then I can zoom into each state, and then cities in the state. What tool should I use to create it?
BTW: is there already a 3rd party map that I can purchase?

thanx

Well that is a somewhat complicated project to start out on, especialy if it is your first venture into graphics. If you want a seemless zoom feature, I think that would be nearly impossible (or at least insanely hard to do). Your best bet would probably be to get a good detailed map of the US (I'm sure you can find one on yahoo) and then 50 more maps of different states. Make the map "clickable" where clicking on a different state loads up its map and displays it. That would be fairly straightforward.

You could also go the route of finding a VERY highly detailed map and texturing a plain with it. Then move the camera in when they choose to zoom and away when the choose to zoom out. It would get kind of blury far away but might be enough to do the job.

You can achieve a lot with a road atlas, a scanner, and some patience. Yes, that's a lot of work and a ton of image data. But, you're not making Pong either.
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TAZ