Sydney Opera House Virtual Tour

Share your Work
1

The TL/DR:

Some people might remember in 2001 the Sydney Opera House created a Flash-based virtual tour. It was awesome on so many levels. You could explore the entire building by moving from place to place by clicking hotspots within each 360° view. 77 panoramas in total, all interconnected.

20250125_034909
20250125_034909642×530 167 KB

Sadly the site was updated in 2005 and the tour disappeared. Once Flash was dead, it was basically forgotten.

So I've been working to try to recreate this virtual tour in a format for today, but still preserve the feeling of the original experience.
And thanks to Hype, it now even works on phones and tablets!

"um why?"

  • to improve my coding skills.
  • Sites built with real, handmade creativity aren't gone, but more rare than ever.
  • I was bored and I needed something to do.
  • I wanted to take something made before smartphones, fast internet, and touch screens, and see if I could adapt it for today.
  • I really believe this can still exist in 2025 and inspire and delight people.
  • I love the Sydney Opera House. I'll probably never get to see it in my lifetime, so this is my way of showing support.

All that aside, this work is NOT mine. I claim no ownership to the panoramas, information, or user interfaces. Those belong to the team who made the original site. I have no intention of making this public-facing or anything like that.

I built it because I love it.

https://lovetobuildstuff.neocities.org/SOH/

There's still a lot to do, (bugs galore!) I'm about 90% done, at this point. The original tour had intro animations and rich sound effects. Those are next on the to-do list.

and yes, there's a lot that's changed since 2001, but what a great excuse to dust off the cameras and equipment and update the 360° views!

Also, please don't share this link. Obviously they (the opera house) would probably be furious with me, but part of me is really hoping I can finish this and give this bit of their digital heritage back to them. Wishful thinking, but that's me.

I would love any feedback (what works, what doesn't - and what doesn't make sense or needs better clarification)

6 Likes
2

and anyone who replied to all the nonsense questions I asked in the weeks before now - this is why, and I thank you because you are why I was able make this :heart:

2 Likes
3

Wow, that's really great!!!

One idea I always wanted to do was a rebuild of the game of Myst with Hype. Myst is pretty similar in a walking/clicking dynamic. Myst was originally build with HyperCard, so I always reasoned it'd be a pretty good match. But likewise there'd be ownership issues. Perhaps the Sydney Opera House would be thrilled that you're preserving part of their web history though!

From a feedback perspective, it is hard to give much since I'm not sure how the original behaved. But I'd say the three bits of small usability improvement from just using this would be:

  • make the pan areas more clear and perhaps don't abruptly end panning when the mouse is out of view area
  • Make the arrows come in a little sooner
  • It'd be nice if I could jump to the different level just by clicking the floor, instead of doing a floor and then a spot

But really this is minor/not necessary and I love it! So well done!!!

(I wish we could share it more widely...)

1 Like
4

@jonathan Thank you so much!!!

This might help - below is a link to the original SWF flies for the 2001 virtual tour. I've also included a standalone Mac version of Flash Player.

https://lovetobuildstuff.neocities.org/SOH/VirtualTourFlash.zip

Open plinthus.swf and it should play normally.

I'll start implementing your feedback this evening. Thank you again!!!

1 Like
5

Wow! This is insane!! What an incredibly elaborate project!! I’m deeply impressed!! I’m looking at this on my phone right now. A couple of points:

Why the double-click on the arrows? It took me a moment to figure that out.

For the panoramas, it would be nice if the panos continued/moved further when swiping.

The navigation in the lower window is, of course, too small on mobile.

2 Likes
6

Hi Kalle - Thank you so much! I'm so happy you like it!

This has been an on-and-off work in progress for the last 15 years.

I'm wondering if I need to have a message that pops up on tablet and mobile that let's users know to double-tap. I'll try to implement that tonight.

Also thank you for pointing out the menu issue - can you let me know what devices you're viewing on? I just have a Samsung, so if anyone's on iOS, I would really love to get feedback on how the experience is

7

@jonathan - I just made this update (have not debugged yet). I really like the added functionality!

It'd be nice if I could jump to the different level just by clicking the floor, instead of doing a floor and then a spot

1 Like
8

I’m using an iPhone 16 Pro Max, and everything looks great to me. The only issue is the navigation using the yellow dots at the bottom of the window. On the desktop version, it works perfectly, but on the phone, they are simply too small, making it very difficult to tap them and trigger the action.

1 Like
9

@ktewes I noticed that too. I'm experimenting with some alternatives to help with this.

Also, @jonathan you made a really good point about not being 100% sure how to interact with the arrows and balls (single tap vs. double). I put this together, hopefully it gives a clear visual message?

(I can use the StateMachine Hype extension to set a cookie - making sure that just plays once)

https://lovetobuildstuff.neocities.org/SOH/touch-ui

(the tour interface below is just a static image for the sake of the demo)

1 Like
10

Hmm I'm confused - a single click always works for me?

Well, it looks good, but I find either no one pays attention to these or people forget on a second visit.

Anyhow I tried the original and have to say I think yours is better!!! (However the sound effects are definitely a cute early 00s interaction)

1 Like
11

@jonathan I miss the early 2000's. Britney hadn't gone crazy yet and I was still a skinny twink who didn't have bags under his eyes :rofl:

I'm actually working on adding the sound effects this week. But I do think it would be wise to add a mute button.

1 Like