Creative Industries and Immersive Technologies for Training, Understanding and Communication in Cultural Heritage

Creative industries, such as cinematography and videogames, have invaded everyday life, offering fun and entertainment. The progress of immersive technologies provides breathtaking experiences to the users of creative digital productions. Through virtual reality the player can interact with the elements of the virtual world in a physical way. The conversion of games into serious ones, transformed them as innovative educational tools, for training in every scientific field. Cultural Heritage is an inexhaustible source of inspiration that feeds the creative industries with ideas, scenarios, and stories Moreover, the needs for the training of Cultural Heritage professionals and scientists, offer very interesting scenarios that can be implemented by the combination of serious games and virtual reality, under the prism of Lifelong Learning. In this paper, the significant effect of three-dimensional animation, full-immersive serious games, and virtual reality for better understanding, communication, and training in Cultural Heritage is being presented. Three use cases that creative industry and immersive technologies apply on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, highlight the importance of multidisciplinary collaborations. In this context, the transformation of historical references into a meaningful three-dimensional video animation production and the design of a full-immersive serious game in VR is the first example. The emblematic Antikythera Mechanism, consists the second use case that led our research team in the creation of the innovative Virtual Museum of the ancient technological achievement. Finally, the design and the execution of Lifelong educational programmes for training in CH through creative industries and immersive technologies is the third use case.