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Game Technology Supports Digital Cultural Conservation and Creates a Millimetre-level High-resolution “Digital Great Wall”

On June 11, the 17th Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, under the guidance of National Cultural Heritage Administration, a virtual tour of the Great Wall is launched in Beijing and Shenzhen by China Foundation For Cultural Heritage Conservation and Tencent Charitable Foundation.This event reveals the charitable outcome of the virtual tour of the Great Wall campaign officially.

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cloud tour great wall mini program

For the very first time, the world witnessed Cloud gaming technology used to support the protection of human cultural heritage. Digital models with more than 1 billion polygons were created to restore the original look of the Great Wall. Upon the day this applet went online, CCTV News and the People’s Daily both gave their compliments. Now, this multiple interactive experience in AAA game quality with cinematic pictures is available on Wechat applet.

 

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cloud tour great wall mini program

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People’s Daily liked “Digital Great Wall”T

The virtual tour of the Great Wall represents an achievement in the campaign for social charity. It is launched in joint effort by the China Foundation For Cultural Heritage Conservation and the Tencent Charitable Foundation, together with the School of Architecture in Tianjin University and the Great Wall Research Station, along with many other professional and social institutions.

Users can access to the digital Great Wall via the Wechat applet, which is based on gaming technology. They can “go across” from the Xifeng Mouth to the West Panjia Mouth section and “climb” and “repair” the Great Wall online. This project is an example that highlights how cutting-edge digital technology can be used to help cultural conservation.

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“Digital Great Wall” vs “The Great Wall” gifA

   

As the head of the “Digital Great Wall” R&D team, the Vice President of Tencent Interactive Entertainment, Xiao-chun Cui, revealed that the concept of the “digital Great Wall” had been put forward for years, but most products were limited to simple image,panoramic and 3D model displays. These digital products could hardly provide handy and appealing digital experience or involve the public actively. However, the recent development of science and technology inspires us with new ideas and solutions for digital cultural conservation. Through the “Digital Great Wall”, users can be in the super-realistic scenes, and even acquire the knowledge about the Great Wall via interactive designs regarding archaeology, cleaning, masonry, joints, brick wall picking and supporting reinforcement structures.

 

 

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In order to build a realistic environment and high-quality experience, the “Digital Great Wall” uses a lot of innovative technologies: restoring high-resolution through photo scanning that has measured of Xifeng Mouth by millimetre, rendered more than 50,000 pieces of materials, and finally generated more than 1 billion pieces of super realistic digital models. 

Furthermore, in addition to processing the over 1 billion pieces of the Great Wall assets that were scanned, Tencent’s self-owned PCG generation technology has “planted” more than 200,000 trees in the surrounding mountains. Users can now view the full scale of the natural biome within merely “one take.”

 

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The real-time rendering and dynamic lighting technology allows users to move around freely and see the light dappling, while trees sway and dance. They can also witness the scenery changes from dawn until nightfall. Plus, the “Digital Great Wall” uses the game operation and bonus systems, so that users can enjoy themselves in the scene by operating the double wheels and hearing the sound FX of footsteps. 

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“Digital Great Wall” Day and night switch

 The ultimate key is the Cloud gaming technology. It’s difficult to present such an enormous quantity of digital assets to the public merely with the current local storage and rendering capacity on most platforms. Therefore, the development team decided to take advantage of their exclusive Cloud gaming transmission flow control algorithm. They eventually created the AAA visual experience and interaction on all platforms, including smart phones.

Through a long-term plan, the “Digital Great Wall” is going to be applied in multiple museums alongside the Great Wall. Tourists will have the chance to experience the advanced technology and immersive vision. Besides, when using the Wechat applet of the virtual tour of the Great Wall, people can participate in Q&A and other interactions to learn information and cultural stories behind the Great Wall itself. The applet also encourages users to support cultural heritage protection projects with “little red flowers”. Eventually, the online participation is transferred to authentic off-line contribution, and more people can join in Chinese cultural heritage protection.

Sheer team in Chengdu has been extremely fortunate to play a part in the digital Great Wall project and provided supportive effort to the national heritage protection.

 

 


Post time: Jun-29-2022