Interactive 3D: Emergency Evacuation Simulation

What do you think about flash-based education applications? Lots of such applications are used by the U.S. government or big companies for training their employees. Here are some screenshots of a similar application (Emergency training about Obstructed airway):

What can you find there? Simple flash animations, some text and maybe some sort of final tests for checking knowledge gained… Don’t you think it’s a bit errrr… boring ? Don’t you think it could be much more interesting and fun? The answer is – YES it can!

That’s why Vayersoft team has decided to develop Vayersoft Emergency Evacuation Simulation.

The idea is very simple. We used some basic learning techniques, such as:

1. Animation


2. Text


3. Voice

It is a well-known fact that the more sources of gathering information (seeing , hearing etc…) you have, the more efficient learning it will be. We do know that fact, and that’s why added more of interactivity to our simulation. That’s right, after you see the animation, after you read the text and hear what host/tutor says to you, you must repeat every action by yourself like in any computer game. Here you can find some screenshots taken from Vayersoft’s Emergency Evacuation Simulation (startscreen , main menu and application interface):

To develop our Emergency Evacuation Simulator we used Quest3D. All modeling work was done in 3Ds Max and then exported into Quest3D. We used very efficient technique of lighting called light-mapping. In fact, there are no light sources in our Quest3D scene. All lighting of the scene is done by using light-map textures. This is how it is done:

So, basically we have 2 textures – texture of light (showing how light affects surface) and diffuse texture (in this example it is the texture of wooden floor). By mixing them using Quest3D techniques we get fine lighted floor in an interactive application that is also not as “heavy” as it would be normally. So, the application runs smooth and faster.

Our Emergency Evacuation Simulation can be used in big companies that want to train their employees how to react in case of fire emergency. We only need the plans or drawings of your office, your special wishes and some comparably short time – and you have the product done and running. With the technology used during development of our Emergency Evacuation Simulator it’s very easy and fast to create similar training , educational and entertainment interactive applications.

Here is a video presentation of Vayersoft’s Emergency Evacuation Simulation:

Taras Onyskiv,
3D Artist
Quest Developer