Call of Duty’s Largest Map Is Now Available for Public Use for AI Development
Activision has made a surprising move by making the source data for one of the biggest maps in Call of Duty history available. The map in question is Warzone’s Caldera, which is now available on GitHub for non-commercial use.
The 4GB dataset includes over five million meshes, 28 million primitives, and over a billion point instances. This data can be used to process lighting, and also contains information about character movement paths and player behavior patterns on the map.
While Caldera is no longer available in Warzone, it remains one of the most complex and expansive maps in the entire Call of Duty franchise. This is the first time Activision has made such a significant game asset available.
The goals of this move are multifaceted – the company hopes that the map will become a valuable resource for research, support the development of artificial intelligence, and accelerate the evolution of tools for creating game content.
Activision’s decision to open up Caldera could have far-reaching implications beyond the gaming industry. Pixar’s CTO said the move “marks an important milestone for the industry” and “opens the door for groundbreaking research in environment geometry and scene construction.”
Activision emphasizes that the dataset can be used by students, educators, and professionals for training, demonstrations, and experimentation. It will also aid in AI development by providing a base for training AI models and testing content creation tools on complex geometries and environments.
Michael Vance, lead programmer at Activision, said he hopes that the innovations that come from this dataset could give development teams more freedom and flexibility to create engaging scenarios for players. What’s more, it could lead to game files that take up less space thanks to new optimization techniques.