Historic Chats - Bachelor Project (2022)

Historic Chats is a concept for a service to add an immersive interactive aspect to exhibitions in museums.
My main focus was on creating a digital recreation of a historic person. In this case: Nicolas des Pigage, a french architect from the 18th century. He built the castle Benrath in my hometown Düsseldorf.
As in a modern RPG you are able to talk to the historic person to learn more information just that this isn't a game but a source of historic information. The app is aimed at all visitors in all ages.

I created the character with the help of Character Creator, Cinema 4D and Zbrush.
The app and the scenery were created in the Unreal Engine 4. The furniture assets are quixel or polyhaven assets. The rest was created by me.

The facial animations were created with an iPad and the Live Link App from Epic games and the lovely Youtuber FragNart gave Nicolas de Pigage his voice.
I also created custom Motion capture with an Rokoko Suite but that didn’t make it in the final build and I had to rely on the "generic NPC animation set" from the Unreal Store.
The prototype is for a german museum that is why all the content is also in german. I hope to create a english version someday.

Software used: Cinema 4D, Substance Painter, ZBrush, Character Creator, Marvellous Designer, Maya, Unreal Engine 4, After Effects, Photoshop, Audition.

A concept trailer in German for the app “Historic Chats”.

Nicolas de Pigage and his accessories.

Nicolas de Pigage comes to life with the help of the live link app and an iPad.

Candyshots of the scenery at castle Benrath.