Virtual Reality Notre-Dame

• Platform: IBM PC Compatible
• Release Date: 1999
• Genre: Simulation
• Style: Miscellaneous Sim

Game Description

Virtual Reality Notre-Dame (VRND) allows users, depicted as glowing orbs of light, to chat amongst themselves while wandering and exploring the halls, rooms, nooks and crannies of the modeled cathedral. VRND is a VR model of the historically significant Notre-Dame de Paris.

Not specifically designed for gamers per se, VRND was developed in part to show the capabilities of computer product design using only a desktop PC and a capable 3D accelerator. VRND is the next evolution in virtual reality programming, surpassing the effectiveness possible with the heretofore standard Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML).

After downloading the self-installing viewer and cathedral from the VRND website www.vrndproject.com, you will be able to explore the magnificent structure in full detail, take and save "photo-snapshots" of any view you like and learn about the heritage and historical facts surrounding the Notre-Dame de Paris. A virtual friar will be your tour guide and as mentioned earlier, the capability to chat with other visitors on the tour (it's a multi-user interface) is provided.

Directly quoting from the designer's (Digitalo Studios) dedicated website: "Imagine for a moment, that you are flying through the air. You open your eyes and find yourself within an enormous eight-hundred year-old gothic cathedral, a monument to man's ingenuity and perseverance. Napoleon, Mary Queen of Scots, how they adored this wondrous edifice."

The demo itself is the product of eight months of painstaking research. The model of Notre-Dame de Paris is 90% architecturally accurate and represents part of the effort to ensure real-time architectural reconstruction and cultural/world heritage preservation of historically significant locales. The project design team of VRND was given support by the Virtual Systems Laboratory in Gifu, Japan, Epic Games, 3dfx, Matrox, the VSMM Society and many other organizations and independent developers of virtual reality technology.

Epic's Unreal engine was used during development of VRND. According to lead designer Victor DeLeon, the reasons behind this choice were "the simple scripting language, superior visual quality, and the fact that it runs on PCs."

Roots & Influences

VRND is a unique, first-of-its-kind virtual reality tour of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. The roots of the programming stem from the standard programming language Virtual Reality Modeling Language that has spawned a huge number of VRML projects.

Production Credits