The video below is an update on progress so far (June 2016) in the form of an evening stroll around virtual Avebury to music. I have begun work on a visitor centre/orientation area as I’ve got a couple of conference presentations this month about the project and avatars will be visiting during those presentations. The orientation area is still under construction, as indeed is the rest of the simulation! But I’m making good progress – I’ve started on false horizons (I’ll be fixing the irritating line at the top of the transparent skies on the horizon boards very soon) and have made the first stone. Just a couple of hundred more to go! I’m laying vegetation inside the henge and placing trees and and wild areas outside it, as in this imagined past the inside of the henge is free of trees. I’m creating some paths inside the henge and leaving the avenues with a trodden appearance, but of course this may not have been so. The henge and/or the avenues may have been restricted places.

I’ll make the next post on the blog a more detailed description of the technologies I’m using to create the simulation, both for my use as a record, and if anyone is interested!

P.S. I’ve had a go at making a stereoscopic version of this video for use with Google Cardboard and similar 3D viewers. The video quality is not that great on either the 2D or stereo versions of this video, so I think I need to go back to Camtasia and fiddle with the quality and format settings for capture and export. But, despite that, this is a proof of concept for turning 2D machinima to stereo (not true 3D) video. Works quite well! Thanks for my wonderfully talented son for doing the techy stuff in Adobe After Effects 🙂 Video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAUryz1LuI8 – just go to You Tube and search for ‘Avebury virtual walkthrough’ on your smart phone, set it playing and put into your Google Cardboard or similar viewer.