The Past and the Beyond: Recreating History and the Myth in VR

This presentation explores my senior thesis, which focuses on designing and developing a Virtual Reality (VR) game demo that lets users experience a meticulously reconstructed historically significant scene from Chinese culture. This project merges cutting-edge VR technology with rigorous historical research, aiming to create an immersive, interactive space where users can step into the past and experience a lost world firsthand. By leveraging my international cultural background and interdisciplinary knowledge, I seek to push the boundaries of how history and heritage can be preserved and experienced through digital media. The VR environment is based on extensive history, anthropology, art, and computer science research to ensure historical authenticity and cultural accuracy. Architecture, traditional clothing, music, social interactions, and daily life activities are reconstructed using primary and secondary sources such as ancient texts, archaeological discoveries, historical paintings, and academic analyses. Through this synthesis of scholarly research and technological innovation, the project aspires to provide users with an educational yet engaging experience that deepens their understanding of Chinese history. Through VR, users will not merely observe but actively engage with the environment, exploring and interacting with the space in a way that textbooks and traditional media cannot offer. For instance, they may find themselves navigating a bustling Tang Dynasty marketplace filled with merchants and street performers, stepping into a Song Dynasty scholar's study filled with scrolls and calligraphy tools, or witnessing a vibrant festival celebration with traditional performances and rituals. The interactive nature of the VR space allows for a dynamic, participatory form of historical exploration, fostering a deeper emotional and intellectual connection to the past. This project highlights VR's transformative potential as a tool for cultural preservation, education, and storytelling. Blending technology with history demonstrates how digital innovation can bridge the gap between ancient civilizations and contemporary audiences, making history more accessible, immersive, and engaging than ever before.