NEW RELEASE: glückauf! inside Germany's last coal mine

At the end of 2018, Germany's last Coal Mine will end its operations – marking nothing less than the end of an era. We ventured into Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr area, for a final descent more than 1200m below ground, scanning the tunnels of Prosper Haniel to preserve this piece of industrial history in volumetric & photorealistic VR for the generations to come. GET THE DLC HERE

Starting in lofty heights on the coal preparation plant, users have to find their way to the mining site, passing through the coal mixing dome and lamp storage before descending to the underground train station and from there to the info point and finally, the mining site. Slightly more linear than our previous pieces, you'll be guided on your way into the mine way by a ‘Kumpel’, a former miner, manifesting as point cloud. Glückauf! was definitely one of our most challenging production so far. Starting with the fact that none of our equipment is usually allowed in the mine due to risk of triggering mining gas explosions - usually you even have to change your undies to pure cotton ones that don't make sparks. Only after long negotiations a special permit was given under the condition that we had to be accompanied by a group of firefighters and continuous gas measurements. Add to this the huge scale above and the extreme light conditions & narrowness below ground paired with the short time windows, hot & dusty air and extreme light conditions.

Glückauf! Is produced together with German public broadcaster WDR (with whom we already collaborated for the Cologne Cathedral) and is the high end, volumetric part of an ambitious cross media VR project about Germany’s departure from coal mining. The web VR & 360 parts can be checked out here: https://glueckauf.wdr.de/ (German only).