Using 3D Game Engines in Architecture?

Mentor asks: "Recently, a very promising young architect asked me to give her some ideas for a design presentation she has to do concerning a new building in Germany. Instead of making another dull non-interactive flyby-drivethrough 3dmax-movie, I suggested using the Halflife or Quake engine to precreate the whole building, and let visitors of the exhibition experience the building firsthand, being a player in it, and interacting with the building (without any actual weapons of course :)). I was wondering whether this has been done a lot already . Does anyone have any tips?" I would think that most 3D engines have evolved enough where something like this might actually be practical. Thoughts?

Comments

been there done that

[brer_rabbit]

To try my hand at making maps, I built an Action Quake map of my condo/townhouse building. Only problem is whenever I enter the living room now I duck for cover behind the sofa.

Classic

[VA Software]

The classic example of this is the Notre Dame cathedral project. It is done using the Unreal engine.