Elysium Project

[Darios Uclaray]

Quick question,What if I told you that I built a small stand alone room in a warehouse. Also that room has a window to see into the room and if you look through that window, you can see a deceased loved one who is not in our world anymore, standing in there, in that very room as alive as they once were.

But there is also a door next to that window and I then hand you the key..... Would you go in there? What would you do? Would you open the door?Project Elysium builds those rooms.... in virtual reality. The first, virtual sanctuary. A service where we work with clients to create 3D models of their deceased loved ones. Giving them the opportunity to see them once more in a custom made virtual environment allowing them to spend time together. A therapeutic experience aimed to help the people left behind deal with and work through their grief. Our team, myself and my partner Steve grew up together as best friends, and our dad's were also close friends. Both of our dad's have passed away and we've shared our grief through this together. This is where Project Elysium has grown from.
Steve has been in the 3D video game development industry for 9 years working various roles within AAA companies producing AAA games released across major consoles and platforms of the time. He is currently working full time as lead environment artist for another game company.We opened our own Game Development Studio,Paranormal Games in mid 2013. Up to present we have released 3 titles as a two man team working on them part time while holding full time jobs. Project Elysium's firm has three services that we aim to offer in our current model, the main service side, clients working with a consultant to build an Elysium Project of their deceased loved one. The other service is creating an Elysium Project for a living client to leave behind for their loved ones. The third is a mass market experience where we would build a specific Elysium project of say for example Elvis in one of his films and release these projects to the public for them to experience. The prototype that we are building is an experience where you take the role of a spectator. You get to see an example simulation of how the experience and interaction for a client and their deceased loved one would work.This is the best way to communicate what we are creating here as a potential service.

One of the tough parts of getting from the conference room table to the drawing table is the information gathering and getting everyone on the same page. This includes end-users, architects, building owners, engineers, designers, etc. We work to keep all parties on top of your project, saving time and keeping the process moving forward. Our staff can visualize the end product and is able to keep your project on track.

We assist in development of construction documents, limiting likely extra costs during construction. We evaluate potential contractors and the subcontractors who will work on the project. Elysium discusses with the client constructibility and pitfalls that may be encountered. We also bring in experts to fill gaps in areas of IT, green buildings, security systems, etc. to ensure the best outcome.

Our project managers keep in constant contact with contractors and vendors for the most up-to-date information concerning your project and will issue weekly and monthly progress reports including AIA payment requisitions, change order reviews, schedule evaluations, weekly meeting minutes, timeline photos, and more.

Elysium was previously carrying on the work of the Nostalrius legacy project after it got hit with a cease and desist. Some people moved over to the new project, with data and players lists being shared. Nostalirius briefly returned, but then shut down again, over fears that it was harming the chances of official legacy servers ever being made. The team also asked Elysium to stop using their data.

The folks behind Elysium agreed, though continued running and working on legacy servers, but strife among the team and accusations of embezzlement has lead to the group disbanding and shutting down the servers. A statement was posted yesterday.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog. "}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Fraser BrownSocial Links NavigationOnline EditorFraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.

New technology has a nasty habit of making promises it can't keep, but nothing should make your bullshit alarms ring louder than a hack for the cruelest, most basic rule of life: We're all going to die, and once we die we're dead for good.

Project Elysium, by contrast, is being billed as "a personalized VR Afterlife experience reuniting people with loved ones who have passed." In other words, it will make a 3D model of your dead relatives or friends, and put you in the same virtual environment with them using a Gear VR.

Project Elysium is one of 1,700 submissions vying for a $1 million prize from Mobile VR Jam 2015, a contest sponsored by Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift headset. The contest also offers a chance to impress Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and chief technology officer John Carmack, among other judges.

It's not surprising that Project Elysium is the entry that's received the most attention so far, at least from the media. Its creators, Paranormal Games' co-founders Steve Koutsouliotas and Nick Stavrou, promise to work with clients to create 3D models of their deceased loved ones in a custom-made virtual environment.

The headlines you could weave out of that pitch are hard to resist, but ultimately misrepresentative of what virtual reality can achieve. Jacquelyn Morie has 25 years of experience developing virtual reality, most recently at All These Worlds, a company she founded to create virtual worlds for clients like NASA and the US Army. She told me the headlines suggesting VR can bring people back from the dead had her shaking her head.

"These guys doing Project Elysium, I don't think they've really done their homework," Morie said. She's written extensively about a similar concept, the "ultimate selfie," a way to digitally record human identity that can outlive the original. "I'd love to work on something like that, I proposed something to DARPA as a 30-year project, so God bless these kids for thinking they can do it in six months, but it's naive."

"Think of it like talking to a photo, or going somewhere that makes you think about that person," Stavrou said. "I go to the cemetery a lot and see my dad's gravesite. It's a one way conversation. We're just taking that one way conversation and putting it in virtual reality."

I agree with Morie that Koutsouliotas and Stavrou are a little naive, perhaps intentionally, but I also believe them when they say that Project Elysium grew out of genuine, personal struggle with grief.

Koutsouliotas lost his father to a stroke in 2009. Stavrou lost his father to an aneurism two years ago. Their fathers were close friends, which is how Koutsouliotas and Stavrou know each other since they were kids. Both their fathers died unexpectedly.

"I was just visiting relatives and missing my father," Koutsouliotas said. "I was driving home and I thought, 'why can't I just create my father and spend time with him and have this second chance, in a way?'"

The experience they're trying to build by Mobile VR Jam 2015's deadline of May 11 will put users in a spectator's seat, watching Stavrou have a short interaction with his father. Koutsouliotas, who has game design background and is handling the technical side of things, is building Stavrou's 3D model using a technique called photogrammetry. He'll take photos of Stavrou and stitch them together to create the 3D model and its textures. Obviously, the same technique won't work for Stavrou's father. Koutsouliotas will have to put him together like a digital age Dr. Frankenstein, using old photos and other materials.

"Some parts you take from other people's faces," Koutsouliotas said. "At the end of the day we all have skin, but you definitely base it off the references, and other stuff you just have to make it yourself."

The Mobile VR Jam prototype is meant to give users an idea of what Paranormal Games wants to spin into a real business. Potential clients will provide reference materials Paranormal Games can use to create digital versions of their deceased loved ones, and build a custom experience.

The deceased's avatar will have minimal variability in its behavior (it will be able to maintain eye contact, for example), but overall Paranormal was clear that for now the goal is to create something predictable and heavily scripted. Maybe you'd ask to sit next to your grandfather on a bench in his favorite park, and he probably won't say anything because you don't have a recording of him saying what you want to hear.

c80f0f1006