$3 million virtual tour of the Forbidden City

October 12, 2008 8:38 PM

A $3million dollar, 3-year project by IBM to create a virtual tour of China's Forbidden City was released Friday. It is a large download, but there is support for Mac, Linux and Windows. Unlike most virtual tourist projects, this one seems to foreground actual human beings, and not just artifacts (architecture, art). It is based on gaming software but with an emphasis on historical authenticity and "a sense of decorum", meaning "you can't run and you can't fly," in the Forbidden City.
posted by stbalbach (35 comments total)

I give it 24 hours before someone cracks the data and releases a modified version with weapons.
posted by Class Goat at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2008 [6 favorites]

A little Chinese boy in a fur hat with a scarlet top keeps running through my beautiful mutilcolored banners.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:54 PM on October 12, 2008

Needs more dongcopters.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:54 PM on October 12, 2008 [5 favorites]

Well, this is great and all (love that you can play weiqi, if only I wasn't so crap at it), but does it have Roger Moore doing a commentary?
posted by Abiezer at 9:34 PM on October 12, 2008

Woah, you can play weiqi (Go)?! I'm so there!

But man, a quarter gig download?! They can't do better than that?! I have a pretty serious connection and it's taking me 10 minutes or so.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:06 PM on October 12, 2008

Has anyone found the Starbucks?
posted by specialfriend at 10:09 PM on October 12, 2008

Did they include the Starbuck's?
posted by taschenrechner at 10:13 PM on October 12, 2008

The Starbucks isn't there any more, or at least wasn't when I was there in June of last year.
posted by flaterik at 10:23 PM on October 12, 2008

Well, this is great and all (love that you can play weiqi, if only I wasn't so crap at it), but does it have Roger Moore doing a commentary?

I think they don't have the Roger Moore audio tour anymore. I remember visiting the Forbidden City in '99 and getting the English audio tour with the narration by Roger Moore. It was hammier than an Italian hoagie, with lines like, "Close your eyes and imagine yourself as an emperor standing along the parapice in front of the Gate of Heavenly Virtue, thousands of eunuchs prostrate below you, the call of their tightly wound sheepskin drums reverberating through the chambers." It was by far the most awesome thing I had ever heard.

Unfortunately when I returned last year, they replaced that audio tour with one read by a Chinese person with a competent American English accent but completely lacking in character.
posted by alidarbac at 10:28 PM on October 12, 2008 [3 favorites]

Is there a section where a woman comes up to you and says "Hello, I am a student from a University in Xian - we are having an exhibition of Chinese paintings and drawings - would you like to come and see our exhibition?" and you follow her into a building where you somehow end up buying paintings of blossoms and birds that you didn't even know you needed?
posted by awfurby at 10:30 PM on October 12, 2008 [4 favorites]

I live about a kilometre north of the place but haven't been for years, aldibarc. I make do with the cheapskate's view from the hill in Jingshan Park. Remember it being a bit of a rat in a maze experience last time I did visit.
posted by Abiezer at 10:45 PM on October 12, 2008

Damn, no more Starbucks? I guess someone listened to the shrieking in horror of the thousands of foreigners hoping to see something unspoiled by China's unbridled consumption of western goods.
posted by taschenrechner at 11:03 PM on October 12, 2008

It's pretty interesting but a bit boring for me after about 10-15 mins playing around with it. I thought the most interesting part was when you clicked on the map it shows you a black line of everywhere you have gone, I guess its so you don't miss anything.
posted by lilkeith07 at 11:21 PM on October 12, 2008

I think it's seriously cool. I'd love to see more of this kind of thing - a really detailed virtual ancient Rome, virtual ancient Egypt, virtual Aztec and Mayan cities. It's the way people will learn history in the near future. It's what Second Life could have become if people weren't so obsessed with creating virtual shops and orgy rooms.

But anyway... has anyone found an opium den in this thing?
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:37 PM on October 12, 2008

I tried to greet someone and they ran away, just like in real life!
posted by -t at 11:39 PM on October 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

At one point Mao flirted with the idea of simply knocking down the Forbidden City, just like he did the entire city wall.

But now running is apparently disrespectful. Progress!
posted by 1adam12 at 11:56 PM on October 12, 2008

It's what Second Life could have become if people weren't so obsessed with creating virtual shops and orgy rooms.

So Phase 1 is 'create a nobler race of man?'
posted by rokusan at 12:04 AM on October 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I geeted someone and they thanked me for the highly lucrative Iraqi oil contract.
posted by Mr_Zero at 12:11 AM on October 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

the beginning of the matrix
posted by ramboslambos at 12:25 AM on October 13, 2008

needs wasd & mouse look/strafe.
posted by juv3nal at 1:54 AM on October 13, 2008

> I give it 24 hours before someone cracks the data and releases a modified version with weapons.
> posted by Class Goat at 11:51 PM on October 12 [5 favorites +] [!]

Damn right. I want my BFG!
posted by jfuller at 3:10 AM on October 13, 2008

I wish I could experience this. Alas, it is forbidden.
posted by Mister_A at 5:07 AM on October 13, 2008

I'd love to see more of this kind of thing - a really detailed virtual ancient Rome, virtual ancient Egypt, virtual Aztec and Mayan cities.

I second that. Mod tools for the different FPS games are available and fairly user friendly, so it could be a good project for someone obsessive...
posted by Harald74 at 6:23 AM on October 13, 2008

It's what Second Life could have become...

I was talking to someone about how sad Second Life is and he described it as being nothing more than a virtual Craigslist but with more perverts.

On topic, I don't think Second Life would have been a worthwhile tool for historical modeling and exploration. Something done in the Hammer engine would blow that out of the water...does exploring ancient cities really need to involve social networking?
posted by Ziggy Zaga at 7:30 AM on October 13, 2008

Since someone else has already brought up Second Life, this may be yet another piece in the puzzle of IBM's involvement with Second Life. They are very involved in the developments surrounding the Open Grid/Open Sim efforts.

There are more virtual worlds to be imagined and realized ...
posted by aldus_manutius at 7:40 AM on October 13, 2008

An online friend of mine is the project manager for this. I've been following his blog posts about it for a long time.

He worked on a similar sort of project about Ancient Egypt as well, though it's not quite as based on Second Life as the Forbidden City.

Presently he's involved in a very different sort of project assisting small businesses in Western Africa.

John is an amazing guy and I hope to be like him when I grow up.
posted by briank at 8:02 AM on October 13, 2008

The site seems to be borked. Are there download mirrors?
posted by R_Nebblesworth at 8:05 AM on October 13, 2008

This reminds me a little too much of those CD-ROMs that were all the rage in the mid-90s.
posted by zsazsa at 8:50 AM on October 13, 2008

Briank, funny, I also made a FPP about EternalEgypt back in 2004.
posted by stbalbach at 9:15 AM on October 13, 2008

a really detailed virtual ancient Rome, virtual ancient Egypt, virtual Aztec and Mayan cities.

I keep seeing movies where they have obviously built some clearly researched and really elaborate maps of places like the Colosseum, or 1930s New York, or whatever, and I keep hoping that once the film is over and done, that the effects team would release the maps for others to play with and expand on.

Though, it's probably better for my productivity that they don't do that sort of thing.
posted by quin at 10:13 AM on October 13, 2008

Kind of disappointing- it runs like molasses on my AMD Turion 64, and when I try walking forward I make it about six feet before I get jerked back five.
posted by dunkadunc at 11:01 AM on October 13, 2008

meaning "you can't run and you can't fly," in the Forbidden City.
Darn! Some people know kungfu, you know. And what are the lovely tile roofs for if not to sprint lightly over?
posted by monocot at 3:06 PM on October 13, 2008

Very cool. I'll be sure to waste some time there.
posted by scottymac at 3:13 PM on October 13, 2008

I tried it, and I don't like it. Underwhelming performance on a good machine. No fullscreen? ... Reminds me of this Versailles 1685 "game" from 1997, only that Versailles looked better.
posted by yoHighness at 5:45 PM on October 13, 2008

They had such a great opportunity to make this look good, why did they have to make it look like such utter crap? I'm sure the thing is accurately modeled, but the lack of modern rendering touches really makes it fall flat. Or, more precisely, it looks flat. Just cause you don't strafe-jump around with a gatling gun doesn't mean you have to make it both run and look like ass. Crysis runs better on my machine than this does.

I tried playing with the prefs.cs to have it full-screen and maybe utilize light bloom, and it seems that this thing seems to ignore that file. Full-screen, some dynamic LOD, a bit of haze, environment mapping, and some dynamic lighting would go a long way towards making this look good. Also anti-aliasing.

Right now it reminds me of VRML.
posted by agress at 8:18 PM on October 13, 2008