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Welcome

Note

Jerry's Place is a non-profit, just-for-fun project. This project and website is not affiliated with, and does not represent Castle Rock Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, Columbia TriStar or Sony Pictures Television. I thank the aforementioned parties in advance for understanding this is a fan project, for the fans!

About

I've been a fan of Seinfeld for a long time. After purchasing the Oculus rift I started imagining what my first project might be. I decided to pick a project that would gradually introduce me to Unity without being overly complex. I was not new to 3D modeling, however this would be my first project in Unity. I came up with the idea of recreating Jerry's apartment, in it's entirety for virtual reality. Television is virtual reality in some ways. We make believe that Jerry's place is actually a Manhattan studio and Monks Cafe is just down the street. We suspend the reality that his apartment is just a set in Hollywood, with tons of cameras and lighting dangling overhead. I thought it would be a novel virtual reality experience to take a place that only exists in Hollywood magic, and make it for the Oculus Rift as if it were real. Virtual Reality Virtual Reality.

Development

This project was made over the course of one month, by myself. The majority of modeling was done during first two weeks, or the "honeymoon-phase" when the project was still new and exciting. I used Blender exclusively, and all the 3D models were created for this project. I did not download external models or reuse meshes from other projects. As I mentioned earlier, the engine used for this demo is the Unity game engine, which makes developing Oculus compatible software extremely convenient.

I started by scouring the Internet for screen shots of Jerry's apartment but that didn't yield much. Eventually I resorted to screen-capping streaming episodes so I could get detailed images of the various items around the set. I tried to be faithful to the shows original props and it's era, but some things were near impossible to Google. I did a lot of research and tried to find images of the original products used in the show, and modeled around those dimensions, rather than relying solely on blurry screen shots. I found lots of good footage of the bathroom in the episode "The Barber," during the part that Newman enters Jerry's bathroom to find a hair sample. I feel like the main room and the bathroom are very well created, however I could only find one screen shot of Jerry's bedroom, at the end of "The Chicken Roaster." I used a blurry screen grab to texture the painting above his bed, and was able to recreate the bed, sheets and nightstands accurately. Unfortunately, due to the dimensions of the apartment it seems like it would be impossible to actually fit the bedroom the way the show depicts it. It came out cramped, but I'm happy with it.

If I recall correctly, there are about 11 references to various episodes hidden throughout the apartment, see if you can find them all! (Though some may be difficult to see in the rift.)

How you can help

If you find any discrepancies feel free to bring them to my attention. It would help even more if you could donate more accurate 3D models and textures, as I will probably have limited time to recreate models in the future. Currently I'm looking for a better Super Man model, and any information about the pictures and fliers seen on the refrigerator. It might be a long shot, or wishful thinking, but if someone could help me out with a license for Unity Pro, since my 6 month demo that I got with Oculus will be expiring and I won't be able to continue this project afterward.

Feel free to email me with any feedback, or help or questions!

One of the most important ways you can help is to download and re-host the project! In case my server get's hammered, it would be nice to have volunteer mirrors so when people Google they can find it!

Download for Windows (29.1 MB)
Mega • 4shared • speedyshare • filesnack • filedropper • fileswap • --> Torrent
Please consider downloading and re-hosting!


Download for Mac OSX (38.9 MB)
Mega • 4shared • speedyshare • filesnack • filedropper • fileswap • --> Torrent
Please consider downloading and re-hosting!


Downloads for Linux will be available
when I learn how to make them.