Six students from De Montfort University manage to rebuild London as it was before the 1666 blaze, in glorious 3D.
In 1666 a terrible blaze brought London to its knees and destroyed much of the city, but six students from De Montfort University have painstakingly recreated London’s former glory. There’s something incredibly eerie about seeing a place you know well utterly transformed by a glance into history’s looking glass, but the end result is a panorama that will astound you. The effort was part of Crytek’s Off The Map challenge, carried out in partnership with the British Library and GameCity, and Pudding Lane Productions’ London has taken first place.
“Some of these vistas would not look at all out-of-place as special effects in a Hollywood studio production,” says the British Library’s Tom Harper. “I’m really pleased that the Pudding Lane team was able to repurpose some of the maps from the British Library’s amazing map collection-a storehouse of virtual worlds-in such a considered way.” Pudding Lane took documented sources, everything from the Library’s map collection to the diaries of Samuel Pepys, and turned it into a living city.
The ‘living’ bit became extremely important to the team towards the end of the project. Pudding Lane realized that, though the maps were as accurate as could be hoped for, without props and decoration it would seem lifeless and bland. The last few months were spent making sure that didn’t happen. “Needless to say,” says the team on its blog, “we’re all still very happy with the results.”
“The Off the Map challenge will give some of the UK’s brightest talent the chance to become familiar with CryENGINE and discover the limitless potential it offers for bringing their ideas to life,” said Crytek when it announced the contest back in January. The Pudding Lane team will have its entry showcased in events around the world, including GameCity 8, 2014.
Source: Ars Technica
