This hadn't even occurred to me until just now when I tried it, but I think it has a lot of potential.

I bought an HTC Vive the other day, and I've been playing around with it trying to get everything working properly. I was browsing through some downloadable environments in Steam VR, and one in particular caught my interest. RED-FROG's Lost Places: Metal Foundry
https://steamcommu...540991&searchtext=

I was blown away. It really is almost like being there. At one point I nearly fell over trying to peek over a half-wall.

Description from the page:
"A Metal Foundry ruin, closed since 1993 (or earlier).
This living death is completely desolate. Full of graffiti, garbage, damage. You can even find syringes in a "special room"...

This is a very large project and workshop file. It may require some time to download depending on your connection.

To generate the 3D models and textures, 1236 photos were taken on June 30th and July 1st 2017.
It consists of 4 detailed rooms which are seamlessly connected and a stairway, one of the rooms is a large hall.

The entire place is going to be demolished and steamrolled in the near future, the owner finally sold it.
So this is basically the last chance to see it, captured in VR.

I have more parts from different rooms on different floor levels which I may expand on this one or I have to release them seperately.
I'm not sure if this scene is already pushing the limits of mid range graphics cards. Unfortunately I cannot test it but I'd like to know if it works for you.
Please tell me if you have trouble, especially on 4GB VRAM cards!

Enjoy and please don't forget to like!"

I'd love to learn how to make these. Imagine being able to walk around in places that have been demolished! Has anyone had experience with things like this?

That's a cool concept, you know if anyone's interested my phone lets me take 360° shots so I could post a few next time I go exploring. It's probably as simple as downloading the images on your phone and opening them with the Google Photos app.

It would be kind of cool to buy a 360° camera and film for YouTube VR but I don't have a job, so probably can't afford one of those cameras haha

I've used online maps' street view feature to have a virtual walk through abandoned neighbourhoods, and you can look in virtually every direction but there are only points you can move between, rather than being totally immersive. It is very cool and I can imagine the technology will improve in the foreseeable future.

Next time I'm in a place I'll try to pick an interesting center point and stitch together a 360 degree panorama. I wouldn't even know where to start as far as an actual 3D environment like the one in the link, but it seems like an immense amount of effort.

Posted by ryan5685 That's a cool concept, you know if anyone's interested my phone lets me take 360° shots so I could post a few next time I go exploring. It's probably as simple as downloading the images on your phone and opening them with the Google Photos app.

I'd love to see that. I wonder if there's a way to take a bunch and stitch them together, so it can be used kind of like Streetview.

Wont it be one hell of a day when we can take virtual tours of our favorite no longer standing locations? That's an interesting future for urbex, I'm excited.

Posted by Stam Wont it be one hell of a day when we can take virtual tours of our favorite no longer standing locations? That's an interesting future for urbex, I'm excited.

For real, I can't imagine finding an awesome location, checking the google maps and seeing that it's been destroyed, and then seeing a virtual tour right there in the UEDB

I made a short video to give an idea of what it's like. Just skip to about 1:20.

Posted by DescentOnARope I made a short video to give an idea of what it's like. Just skip to about 1:20.

Was not disappointed, we need more of this

A whole new level of armchair exploring lol
i like it tho, the test vid looked so good

100% serious, is anyone interested in starting a website for this? Call it the lazy explorer. I don't have the capital to take videos myself but I can take photos. It would be a really simple website to throw together, we could make it compatible with Cardboard, Daydream, Gear, Oculus, and Vive. I don't know if there's a market for it or if the tech is there yet but what do you think?

Keep in mind, you'd have to have either a permitted explore, or be really dedicated to produce something like the location in the video. I'm not sure how it's all compiled together exactly, but the author says it took 1200+ photos over two days for just that handful of rooms.

Something more like Google Streetview might be more doable. It's still a lot of work, but you could stitch some 360 panoramas with a DSLR (it needs to be very high resolution) and string them together so you can move between set points. It wouldn't be 3D though.

This isn't exactly the same, but I'd like to recommend a game called Infra. It's basically about exploring abandoned buildings and taking pictures of how badly everything is falling apart. http://store.steam.../app/251110/INFRA/

Posted by ryan5685 Call it the lazy explorer.

Somewhere in a cyberpunk future this is a bar with illegal VR urbex going on in the basement.