DOCUMENTING THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER IN HOUSTON

REDEEMER EPISCOPAL      REDEEMER LUTHERAN        MISSIO DEI SCOUTING PROGRAM      FALL FESTIVAL    EASTER & CHRISTMAS COMMEMORATIVE DVDS      DISASTER VIDEO    VIRTUAL TOUR OVERVIEW     VIRTUAL TOUR FAQ  VIRTUAL TOUR GALLERY   EXPLORE VIRTUAL TOUR

REDEEMER VIRTUAL TOUR FAQ Who are you and why are you doing this?: Matthew Lyles Hornbostel, a member of the Church of he Redeemer since childhood.  Many of my formative memories were in this location and it has sentimental value to me and to hundreds of others... I'm the only 3d artist in the group though (as far as I know) and the only person qualified to preserve the memory of this historic building in this particular way.   How do you recreate a building that is no longer accessible?: I took hundreds, over 450, reference photos of every surface of the building, inside and out, a few days before it was closed off.   That includes the rectory. Every room was captured in the form of 14-megapixel stills... so that serves as visual reference and also a source for high-resolution surface textures.  The 3d models look authentic because the actual surfaces of the real objects in the church are being used on the virtual replicas. How does this compare to your similar project "Panoramic Worlds"?: This one is more tricky because I am trying to be faithful to a real place.  On (Panoramic Worlds) I get to be more creative and more stylized in my designs... but both projects use the same virtual-tour engine. Why did you opt to move away from realtime 3d/multiplayer format in favor of a simple panoramic tour?: I looked at the texture resolutions and the polygon count and realized it'd be very hard to run the level in realtime with current tech.  The stage area alone has ended up with over 75,000 polygons of mesh detail... the entire scene could easily end up with over 2-3 million in total polycount. Plus, there's so much work in porting something like this into a game engine.  You have to worry about collision meshes and a long list of other issues involved in full freedom of movement. That said, if there's enough momentum behind getting this into realtime 3d years from now I wouldn't rule it out entirely.  I have an open-source game engine in mind if that ever moves forward... one which has decent multiplayer features integrated. What did this cost?: Well, there's the domains, the panoramic tour engine, and a lot of work. Will say that I do intend to recoup some of the expenses in this and 'Panoramic Worlds' with limited ad placement at some point down the road.  That'll be mostly links to other websites/products I'm working on.  For instance, you'll be seeing some ads for GalileeGames.com (and) "Prodigal"... the iOS/Android game my dad and I are developing.  It's based on the Biblical parable. What is the release schedule for this panoramic tour?: The first segment - the sanctuary area - should be online by April 2012. Additional sections of church interior will follow, finishing with exterior & rectory.  After that there may be a few 'tour variants' which are basically the same as the standard tour but have a few subtle differences.  That is, time of day, or season... the same as the normal version mostly but with a few differences in lighting or the occasional decorative object.  For instance, a Christmas Eve version with night outside instead of day and a Christmas tree in the Parish hall, maybe a nativity set on the sanctuary stage.  Variations like that. What is the audience for this?: Primarily the few hundred people who remember Church of the Redeeemer nostalgically, but others on my web network may find it interesting too... perhaps the audience for "Panoramic Worlds" in particular.  But I don't really know. How much is involved in doing this?:  A lot of time, but not as much as you might think.  I've only actually allocated perhaps 16-18 actual hours of work on the sanctuary scene so far, with maybe another 7-8  to go... the entire church reconstruction, I suppose, might involve 150 hours of work.  That's the equivalent of 4 weeks or so.  I'm budgeting my time on this a certain way to ensure an acceptable balance of speed and quality.