It is the first time in the world that an avatar with a full body guides a virtual tour made from a real space scanned in 3D. It is the avatar of Maruxa Villanueva (1906-1998), the Galician actress who for many years received the people who visited Rosalía’s house. From this Friday 17th of February, you can see the people who experience the virtual tour around Rosalía de Castro’s House.
IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING THE AVATAR OF MARUXA VILLANUEVA. JORGE COSTAS MADE THIS TEST INTEGRATING THE REAL VOICE OF THE GALICIAN ACTRESS, COMING FROM A RECORDING OF SPANISH TELEVISION, WITH HER AVATAR.
At Orestes Comunica we work to turn virtual tours into experiences. In bringing the possibilities of the metaverse to public and private organisations. As a company specialised in virtual tours, we know that the challenge lies in turning tours into attractive, usable experiences, rich in content and relationship possibilities.
That is why at the beginning of 2022 we began to develop the idea of creating a new tool to optimise our digital tour of Rosalía’s house. And we came up with the idea of a guide, an avatar to guide the tour. There could be no better guide for the House: Maruxa Villanueva. A Galician avatar for the metaverse. The challenge was great: to make the avatar able to operate in the software environment of the latest generation of virtual tours based on Matterport® technology.
The creation of Maruxa Villanueva’s avatar was possible thanks to our regular collaborator Jorge Costas, debuxant and animator. Add to this the talents of the writer and also president of the Rosalía Foundation, Anxo Angueira, to build the scripts, the voice. And the wonderful voice of the journalist Amelia Hervella to give life to these words from the avatar.
And then we began to develop a complex technical process to integrate the avatar, full-bodied, animated and with voice, into the paths. There was no software available for this function. We worked with some specialists from different parts of the world. They fixed every single approach. The arrival to the project of our Israeli partners from Matter was fundamental to develop the project.
On the 2nd of Christmas 2022, Maruxa Villanueva’s avatar was presented for the first time in public at the Casa de Rosalía, in Padrón (A Coruña, Galicia). It was in an event at the front door of the OpenMuseums project. The project had not yet been completed, but Maruxa was thrilled at the House. As she always does.
On 17 February 2023, the avatar was presented at the Casa de Rosalía in an event attended by institutions such as the Directorate General of Language Policy, the Deputation of A Coruña and the City Council of Padrón. Descendants of Maruxa Villanueva also wanted to participate. Maruxa Villanueva is once again a guide for all those who want to take a tour around Rosalía’s House. In virtual mode. Another type of experience. A step forward in the metaverse.
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