Hof van Dordrecht

The Kingdom of the Netherlands started in 1572 in Dordrecht. This historical fact formed the basis for a museum exposition. The city archives organisation, DiEP, invited Paladin Studios to create an interactive 3D visualisation of the so called ‘Court of Dordrecht’. The goal was to recreate the old monastery at the site, of which the only remains are some of the foundations, and show the changes of the site over the centuries. The result is an interactive visualization which provides historical insight and the experience of “being there” in the late Middle Ages.

Design process

Great amounts of information has been gathered to create the visualization. Specialised archaeologists and history experts shared their insights, providing thousands of reference images such as drawings and photo’s of similar sites.

Based on the reference material and expert opinions, detailed 3D models of no less than seven historical periods were developed. Every floor, wall and roof was modelled by hand, and then given their own textures. Slowly the evolution of the monastery began to shape. The latest game technologies, such as HDR rendering, were used to build the user interface and dynamic lighting systems.

Quest3D Competition 2008: 1st Prize

The Monastery of Dordrecht was Paladin’s entry in the Quest3D competition of 2008, and we are proud to say that it has been awarded with the first prize. To quote the jury:

The presentation is very well crafted , with attention for detail, usability and makes very good use of HDR lighting.

The polished look and feel, the excellent use of lighting and surprisingly simple user interface made the jury decide to make this presentation this year’s best entry.

Read more about the entries of 2008 here. We want to thank Quest3D for their appreciation!

CGArchitect 2009 Awards

In addition to the Quest3D competition, The Monastery of Dordrecht has been nominated for the prestigious CGArchitect awards of 2009. Paladin was nominated for the “best overall real-time presentation”. With that fact, The Monastery of Dordrecht ended up in the top 5 of the year’s most innovative interactive 3D visualizations.