Virtutec’s Underground Rockfall VR Experience
A high-fidelity underground standalone VR experience for Virtutec, deployable at any client meeting with no operator required.
CLIENT CONTEXT
Virtutec knows mining. Getting a boardroom to feel that was a different problem.
Virtutec specialises in VR-based training and simulation for the mining sector. They understand the underground environment in detail, and they know how to use immersive technology to train people who work in it. What they didn’t have was a way to bring that world to a boardroom, something that could show a prospective client or investor what Virtutec actually does, not just tell them.
Their existing approach relied on conversations and demonstrations using off-the-shelf video and proposal content. It worked well enough, but it wasn’t theirs. There was no Virtutec-branded experience that a potential client could step into and feel the weight of what the company offers.
The gap between understanding what VR can do and believing it can work for you is not closed by explanation. It’s closed by experience.
Virtutec had seen firsthand how VR lands with people who’ve never experienced it. The reaction when a headset goes on for the first time is immediate and visceral, and it’s difficult to manufacture any other way. They wanted a version of that moment they could own, one that was specific to their world and pointed directly at what they do.
THE CHALLENGE
Building a high-fidelity environment, for standalone deployment, on a tight timeline.
This wasn’t a complex integration project. It was a deceptively focused problem: create an experience so visceral and self-contained that anyone, regardless of their familiarity with VR, could put on a headset and immediately understand what Virtutec does. Three constraints shaped every decision made.
Delivering all of this on a tight timeline meant asset creation, environment build, logic development, and audio integration all had to run in parallel. The planning done upfront was what made that possible.
REALM’S APPROACH
Realm’s lead had worked underground. The creative direction followed from that.
The brief wasn’t to build a product showcase. It was to manufacture a feeling, specifically the physical shock of being underground when something goes wrong, and then the immediate relief of being shown the technology that prevents it. Realm’s lead on the project had direct experience working underground, which meant the creative direction came from the inside, not from research.
The experience is structured in two acts. The first is the rockfall sequence. The second is the showroom.
The Rockfall Sequence
The user is placed underground alone, in a high-fidelity mine environment. The space is detailed, with large machinery visible nearby. Sound design plays an equally important role: the audio of the underground environment is precise and immersive. The user has time to look around, take in the environment, and settle into the experience before anything happens.
Then, a small pebble drops from the ceiling with a dust particle effect, a visual cue designed to prompt the user to look up. If they don’t, a larger rock follows. When they look up, a boulder falls directly toward them, accompanied by a deafening, realistic sound that triggers an immediate physical fright response. The sequence is entirely gaze-triggered. No controller input is required. No external prompting is needed. The environment does the work.
No operator. No instructions. No exceptions.
The decision to remove all UI interaction and external controls was not a simplification, it was the core design principle. Virtutec’s team can hand someone a headset in a meeting room and walk away. The experience handles everything from there. When the headset comes off and goes back on, it resets automatically and starts from scratch.
The Showroom
After the rockfall, the experience transitions to a branded showroom where users can pick up 3D models of Virtutec’s equipment. Video overlays play contextual content around each model. Audio cues guide users through the space without any written instruction or external coaching.
THE OUTCOME
Virtutec now has a pitch no slide deck can replicate.
The experience has been demonstrated to prospective clients and investors. The response has been consistent: the rockfall sequence achieves the physical fright reaction it was designed to produce. Every first-time user has reacted. That response is not incidental, it is the product. It is what makes Virtutec’s pitch memorable in a way that a conversation or a slide deck cannot be.
What the experience achieves
- A fully self-contained VR marketing tool that Virtutec can deploy at any client meeting without a trained operator
- A high-fidelity underground environment that reflects the credibility of Virtutec’s domain expertise
- A branded showroom that communicates Virtutec’s project portfolio through 3D models and video content
- A foundation for a planned VR hub, a multiplayer environment with multiple rooms, that this experience will eventually plug into as one of several client-facing zones
WHAT THIS TELLS YOU ABOUT HOW WE WORK
Virtutec needed prospects to feel something before the conversation started.
Virtutec came to Realm with a clear commercial instinct: prospects need to feel what we do, not just hear about it. Realm’s role was to take that instinct and make it buildable, on a fixed budget, to a quality standard that would hold up in front of the clients Virtutec most wanted to impress.
The decision to remove all operator dependency wasn’t a cost-saving measure. It was a strategic one. A sales tool that requires a trained person to operate it is a tool with friction. A tool you can hand to someone in a meeting and walk away from is a tool that scales.
