French publisher Ubisoft has said its happy to share its 3D data to help restore Notre Dame, as it pledges a massive cash donation.
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The near destruction of the Notre Dame cathedral looked like it was going to be yet another depressingly awful news story, in a year that is already full of them.
But in the end the buildings seemingly miraculous escape from complete disaster, and the French publics response to the incident, added a surprisingly heart-warming chapter to the buildings storied history.
Many French companies, and others from around the world, have already made donations to help with the restoration and so to now has Ubisoft, with a huge pledge of €500,000 (£433,000).
Supporting Notre Dame de Paris
As the smoke clears on the events that unfolded on Monday at the Notre Dame de Paris, we stand in solidarité with our fellow Parisians and everyone around the world moved by the devastation the fire caused. Notre Dame is an integral part of Paris, a city to which we are deeply connected. Seeing the monument in peril like this affected us all.
In light of Mondays events, we will be donating €500K to help with the restoration and reconstruction of the Cathedral. We encourage all of you who are interested to donate as well. In addition, we want to give everyone the chance to experience the majesty and beauty of Notre-Dame the best way we know how. For one week, we will be giving Assassins Creed Unity away free on PC, for anyone who wants to enjoy it. You can download it now for Uplay PC here or get it directly on the Ubisoft Store here.
When we created Assassins Creed Unity, we developed an even closer connection with this incredible city and its landmarks – one of the most notable elements of the game was the extraordinary recreation of Notre Dame.
Video games can enable us to explore places in ways we never could have otherwise imagined. We hope, with this small gesture, we can provide everyone an opportunity to appreciate our virtual homage to this monumental piece of architecture.
You can read Ubisofts full statement on their donation above, in which they also offer a free copy of PC game Assassins Creed Unity to anyone that wants to download it.
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The 2014 game is set in Revolutionary Paris and features an extremely detailed recreation of Notre Dame cathedral. So detailed, in fact, that there has been speculation that the measurements and data taken during the making of the game could be helpful during the restoration of the real building.
Thats still possible, but Ubisoft has confirmed that they havent yet been contacted by anyone official yet – although its probably still a bit early for that.
It is important to keep in mind that what we did for the game was not a scientific reconstruction but rather an artistic vision, said a spokesperson. While we wanted to be very precise with details, there are some differences in terms of scale and with some elements. That being said, we would be more than happy to lend our expertise in any way that we can to help with these efforts.
To illustrate just how much effort went into the video game recreation Ubisoft has released a short Q&A with some of the developers originally involved:
How long did it take just to create Notre Dame? (answered by level artist Caroline Miousse)
Overall, it took 14 months of production to create Notre Dame, both interior and exterior, and it took three weeks to dress its interior in accordance to the Revolution era. This period includes research, testing, asset production and, of course, the numerous adjustments and bug corrections. It ended up becoming our benchmark landmark, both for navigation and visual standards.
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How did the lead game designer manage to create it in-game? (answered by Alex Pedneault)
For a landmark the size of Notre Dame, with its scale and architectural intricacies, we could find creative ways to travel around, on it and inside it. For starters, climbing Notre Dame is a lot of fun – you need to climb up amongst the arches, gargoyles, and spires – one of my favourite things to do is to climb atop one of the twin towers just to get a view of the city. If you do want to go inside it, then we made sure you had several entrances – of course there is a main door, but it might be guarded by enemies…. If you take your time, and look for other entrances, you will find open windows, locks that you can pick, or a trap door opened by a friendly character. Once inside, it really is a massive environment – you can literally travel around the balconies of Notre Dame, and look down at the churchgoers and working clergymen. This is true for all of our landmarks – they were conceived as little sandboxes that encourage exploration.
What has been the creative process? The main challenges, etc.? (answered by level artist Caroline Miousse)
First of all, there was a great deal of research and analysis involved in the production of such a famous landmark.
Now that we rely on a 1:1 ratio for the buildings, each detail becomes more important and requires more production time. With the right research and the right references, we managed to recreate the most iconic details and set high creative standards.
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To produce this incredible cathedral, my colleague Pascal Barriault (the texture artist) and I have met a few challenges. We were constantly asking ourselves the following question: what details of the building stuck in peoples minds? What kind of images linger when we think about this architectural masterpiece? As video games creators, we have to wonder how anachronistic we can be when recreating such an iconic historical monument…
Once everything was set, we started recreating the building while adjusting our initial creative standards to ensure we were not straying off course. The first ideas that came to us were not necessarily the best ones, or the most optimal. Consequently, I needed to piece together everything separately from different modules and construct Notre Dame as a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. In the end, it was a gigantic headache. Each module had its own specific use and could be inserted in several different places. All in all, the cathedral is made of 359 modules, and that does not even include the unique objects furnishing it.
Once you start chopping up this very imposing building, you have to triple-check every single element and evaluate its potential for player navigation and how it will fit with the other modules. And then repeat the same process for each new level…
One of the main challenges was to adequately choose these creative beacons withouRead More – Source
