Entering the Forbidden City

Today I walked the Forbidden City, which reputation has grown to mythic proportions. Though I did walk the streets of the actual Forbidden City in Bejing, but it's virtual representation which can be found at the Beyond Space and Time project page.

"The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the Dongcheng District, in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square metres. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Since 1924, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artefacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War." [wikipedia]

This Virtual representation of The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time is a partnership between the Palace Museum and IBM. According to the website the goal of the project is to provide the means for a world-wide audience to celebrate and explore aspects of Chinese culture and history. The Virtual Forbidden City is an immersive, 3-dimensional virtual world where you can interact with visitors from around the world and celebrate and explore aspects of Chinese culture and history.

After registering (you'll find me there as VJBURNS) and downloading the 200 MB client I could install the virtual city with a neat MSI installer and after a couple of forced software updates (which I'm not fond of) I immersed myself in the virtual city, which looks fantastic. I've always been a sucker for history (also been a member of the earliest online history communities, Ancient Sites since 1995 or so.)

From the official press release:

“The Forbidden City: Beyond Space & Time” Recreates Historical Treasure as a Fully Immersive 3D-Internet Experience

BEIJING, Oct 10, 2008 — Today, some 600 years after construction began on the 178-acre site that would become the center of unrivalled imperial power known as China’s Forbidden City, the Palace Museum and IBM will open the walled fortress — and hundreds of years of history and culture — to the world.

Three years in the making, IBM has meticulously built a virtual recreation of the architecture and artifacts of the former palace grounds, enabling online visitors to get a first-hand view into imperial China as embodied in the intricate design, history and storied culture of this newly accessible Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City: Beyond Space & Time” is a first-of-a-kind, fully immersive, three-dimensional virtual world that recreates a visceral sense of space and time of this Chinese cultural treasure — as it was centuries ago during the height of the Ming and Qing dynasties — for most anyone with access to the Internet.

Full press release here.

Well, I'm in early, the city just opened it's doors today and we're still under 2K registered users with about 300 online right now. Be prepared to take a few minutes for installing and loading, but then it looks lovely.

In particular two areas are advertised as being highly splendid on the website, being the Meridian Gate,

The Meridian Gate is the front entrance to the Forbidden City. It has five gateways, with the central gateway being reserved for the emperor.

and the Gate of Supreme Harmony

The Gate of Supreme Harmony is the largest gate inside the Forbidden City, and serves as the front entrance to the Outer Court. The gate is located on the central axis and lies just before the Inner Golden River.

More early birds on blogging the Virtual Forbidden City (coverage appearing while I'm doing this extensive download, installing and touring):

• TechCrunch - Real World got you Down
• Virtual World News - IBM and Palace Museum Open Forbidden City Virtual World

UPDATE:

• The Forbidding is becoming quite popular. Registrations see a rise of about 2,000 per hour, barely one day in public mode it's already gotten to 32,000 registered users.
  

Virtual Israel opens Borders

Today the Jewish Chronicle reported on Israel in Second Life, which has opened the doors on january 13 whereas the real Israel closes its borders. The article in the Jewish Chronicle is written for absolute n00bs, but here's a quote anyway:

"You can now visit the Holy Land without leaving home.

Rachel Fletcher logs on to an online virtual worldVisitors to the online virtual 3D world that is Second Life (SL) have long been able to attend a computerised synagogue, yeshivah, pray at the Western Wall, and wander round a Holocaust museum. But with the launch of Second Life Israel this month, the possibilities to live a virtual Jewish life have increased enormously.

Avatars — the characters users adopt when they visit SL — can now take a dip in the Dead Sea, tour the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock, get down on a Tel Aviv dancefloor, experience the brilliantly coloured
underwater observatory in Eilat, or visit Yad Vashem’s Children’s Memorial. "

It is a little cramped, but indeed Israel has immersed on one sim. As far as construction goes in Second Life, I wouldn't call it a classy build. It has some great textures, but more often than not, the textures do not really fit. Throughout the sim there are new features under construction, but lack of space causes the builders to revert to textured decorums, which is a shame I think.

I really hope this community will grow and expand its borders in Second Life and hope to see more of the ancient city of Jerusalem and other sites from the Holy Land appear.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/israel/128/128/24/

Virtual Vauxhall (Opel)

When blogging the Brasilian Fiat presence in Second Life last week I thought I'd pretty much blogged every automotive company in Second Life. There's one more: British Vauxhall (A General Motors subsidiary, but in Europe perhaps best known for the German Opel with the steering wheel on the wrong side)

The reason why I've missed them is probably because they have decided not to build an impressive island with predictable features such as a racing track. Vauxhall has created the Corsa Guide to Second Life.

The Corsa Guide is a plain scrapbook showing favorite locations in Second Life, including places such as the Blarney Stone, Bora Bora Wavelabs, Acropolis Gardens, The Lost Gardens of Apollo, and the Bubblegum Music Factory.

KZero had a nice post on this late May 2007:

SL major brands no.27 1/2: Vauxhall. British car-maker
Vauxhall has just launched their Second Life effort. Electing to focus on a single brand as opposed to the entire range, Vauxhall have chosen the Corsa. It would appear that they didn’t get the memo on the demographic profile of SL
users.

So, what are they doing? Well, strickly speaking, they are not (yet) launching an official presence inside SL, hence only the half. Instead, they are using ‘The Corsa Guide‘ as a tool to encourage residents to tag favourite places in SL and share them with other people. Apparently the top ten voted places in SL will be featured in forthcoming ‘Vauxhall Corsa Guide to Getting a (Second) Life. Nice.

Shame they didn’t think to integrate some of their real world marketing efforts into SL."

and

"Interestingly, and read into this what you will, there are no unofficial representations of Vauxhall (or Opel) car brands in SL. Interesting because of the sweetspot between virtual world marketing and automobiles and interesting
because Vauxhall didn’t seek to maximise this opportunity. C’Mon!"

Vauxhalls own pick is a little different though: Shelley Perkins, at Vauxhall Corsa, known as Shelley Soderstrom in-world, said,

"Corsa is synonymous with having a good time and now we want to help people have fun 'virtually' too. It's a new world to explore, and it can be confusing finding your way around. This initiative will help newcomers find the best places to enjoy."

There are tons of blogs that pick the sweetspots in Second Life and I personally doubt the Corsa-driver-taste is fully compatible with mine. True, the New World maybe hard to navigate but I don't see it a car-manufacturers task to provide the hotspots. Companies such as The Yellow Pages, Navman, Tom-Tom or tour operators would be more logical candidates to service an approach like this.

World of Tui

Earlier this summer Baby Burns arrived, so no time to go on holiday this summer. No complaints here though, as Baby Burns is adorable and we've been to Fuerteventura, Canary Islands in January.

In January we really relaxed, compliments to Arke Fly, which is part of the world of Tui, which has landed in Second Life as well. Tui is one of Europe's largest traveling organisations holding Dutch travel agencies Arke and Holland International, Belgian Jet Air, UK's Thomson travels and several others. In Second Life they've opened up a 4-sim base shaped in accordance to their logo.

After landing the plane it's time to check with your host at the local travel agency ;)

The basic setup is three types of holidays; classic beach holidays (island "Schöne Ferien), short city trips (island "Weltentdecker") and luxury holidays ("Tui premium" island). Or if you look at it from a different angle it's a few things for the adventurous tourist (exploring temples, cliffdiving, sunken pirate ships), a few things for the amorous tourist (lovely beach boulevards and dance areas) and a few things for lazy bastards (beach-addicts)

Maybe it's best to finish of with some of Aleister Kronos' thoughts who wrote:

"As I’ve already mentioned there are a number of things to keep you entertained. As well as the soggy sports alluded to above, you can try your hand at golf (on the tiny driving range) or visit the temple, with its vaguely pre-Columbian American imagery. There is a firework display every half hour and a thalassotherapy centre. As you might expect, there are also many meeting and dance areas, and throughout there are links to relevant pages on the TUI website. And this is only scratching the surface of the activities available.

It will interesting to see how this island complex is received. Aside from its role as a 3D advertising hoarding, I assume it is also an experiment to explore what a future 3D internet site might offer. There is much here to amuse and engage people, but right now it feels like it is missing something. The site has been open about a month, but as yet there is no sign of a schedule of events. Also, the majority (if not all) of the activities are individual, not group, pursuits. With such a large site at their disposal I think that TUI and their virtual world consultants are missing an opportunity to encourage a community. However, it is early days and the site is still finding its feet. There is a group, the “TUI Island Club”, that will be used to advise of events once a schedule has been worked out.

The whole complex has been designed and constructed by Blue Sky Media, based in Hanover. You can watch their ad for the build on YouTube. "

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/TUI%20Island/128/128/0

Holland SL

It's been a while since I blogged a new arrival from the Netherlands, but here it is. The latest addition is the New Holland island, so not to be mistaken with Our Virtual Holland.

The sim is brought to us by the official Tourism Board, and credits go to Aleister Kronos, who picked it up, shortly after he blogged the World of Tui in Second Life at the 3PointD blog.

The Second Life location is part of a new promotion campaign that was launched yesterday;

"NEW YORK, Aug. 29, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The Netherlands Board Of Tourism & Conventions announces the launch of http://us.holland.com, a fully Web2.0 based site, as well as the official launch of the world's first National Tourism Board in Second Life, www.hollandsecondlife.com."

I'm a Dutchman, so I'd be proud we're finally first in something...

But wait. Wasn't Mexico's National Tourist Board first with the Chichén Itzá?

Anyway, the US.Holland website looks slick and here's the screener from the teleport spot.

The New Holland sim is shaped like a tulip and the flower holds a small canalstreet with typically 17th centurty Dutch warehouses. Main focus in this build is on the Dutch Masters, the

classic Dutch Artists.

First two images are of the van Gogh club, and the last two of the Dutch Masters' House with paintings of other painters.

The build is neatly done by Unreal Designs Emporium, but contracted by Brink Media. It's nothing too special though, this unfortunately is still just a sideshow... The real fireworks has to come from the website, which is pretty cool.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20Holland%20/92/164/29/


More images can be found here