Hello, noob looking for wisdom and advice on VR tour building

[gordee]

Hi!

First of all hello all - yes I am a noob!

I have recently undertaken a large project involving the documenting of an old steelworks in Newport, South Wales (UK). One of my tasks is to create a virtual tour of the whole site of which there are about 150 spherical images:neutral: (I am not a photographer - more of an interaction student)

I am really excited about the project which culminates in an exhibition including the launch of the website (my tour is one aspect of this) on the 5th september!! Not long really.

Any advice from kind and experienced large scale tour builders?

The trailer for the project can be seen here http://www.ghostsinarmour.com

[Jareish]

I would subdivide the images in min. 10 categories. You don't want 1 big tour that will get people lost. Each categorie should have 15 pano's with about 5 hotspots, and 1 hotspot to go back to the starting pano. By clicking the hotspot you will load another 5 hotspots and new pano. Creating a walking path.

Categories could be accessed by either within 1 FPP with a 'pseudo' menu (images or swf) (http://www.tristanshu.com/site2008/index.php?lien=3)

This can be done with just xml and bit of photoshop, or if you are good with actionscript 3.0 and flash 9, you can embed the tour in a flash file and create a whole interactive menu with dropdowns, effects, xml loading etc

Another option is to make 10 tours for each of the categories and html frame or php include the bunch. You can either make a imagelink or be creative and create a map like http://www.madridvirtual.com/

Keep things clear, don't overdo it, give tiny bits of information instead 1 big chunck. Always have a way to get back to the starting point. Keep your folder structure simple. maybe put a number before each categorie 1_factory, 1_factoryinside 2_outside, 2_landscape, 3_haven, etc.

[gordee]

Thanks man!

Some of these ideas I had considered, its good to know I am thinking along the right lines.

Another question I forgot to ask is about image size and quality. What works for you? As I said I'm not a photographer and I know a lot of you guys are first and foremost. Any advice is always appreciated.

Thanks

[africano]

Hi, wow! Jareish, this stuff is impressive: (http://www.tristanshu.com/site2008/index.php?lien=3)
Did you do that? Something like that is exactly what I want to do on my site.
Would it be possible for you to write a bit about one goes about to achieve something like that?

[Jareish]

Hi,

no sorry I'm not the designer of that project :) But it seems he made different swfs and pasted it above the tour. Making it look like a website. But its all doable in xml.

For instance the menu to the left. Create a black jpg. make it a static spot with a opacity.

Then create 12 thumbnail images, make them spots to with a onclick to the right panorama. put it a depth higher the the black jpg.

The hotspots in the tour are animated swf's. The right part seems a swf too with text and images.

The map is a swf put in a spot thats animated through xml and the buttons to pan and tilt are custom made.

The preloader is alsoo customized and instead of being in the center its been put in the bottom right. You can find the FLA in the plugins folder. You can leave the code intactm and if you know a bit of flash, you can completely redesign it with a few clicks.