The Way

Programmer, Art Designer -- Xuwen Dong

An individual project

Supervisor: Jung Hyun Moon

December, 2022. NYU Shanghai, Shanghai


Visit The Way

Instruction: Hold the mouse to look and move forward. You should move forward along the road to the end. You can also try aswd to explore the space freely.

The Way is an interactive experience as well as a visual performance. The project creates a conceptual space with minimalist aesthetics that invite the audience to make their own interpretation. The project uses the fundamental element of the cube to present contrast and a process of transformations. It plays with the concepts of start - end, order - chaos, few - many, alone - together… which then could be interpreted as a metaphor for life and many things.

The flow of the experience also follows the three-act structure of storytelling. It starts with a peaceful environment, gradually moves to an unstable place, confronts dangers, and finally gets an answer or reaches the destination. To better present the project as a story, the background music was carefully chosen to match the visual style and atmosphere. I found some interesting parts in the music to match the animation of the visual but the visual was not designed for the music at first hand.


Inspiration

The transformation of the building walls from the video game Control is very impressive. The simple geometry and the dark cold material create a sharp, industrial and futuristic style of environment while the animation of the bricks give people a weird feeling of the building being alive and conscious. I think it is very interesting to explore and experiment with similar visual design in Three.js.

Technical

  • p5.js
  • Three.js

    • View Source Code

    Technically, I learned lots of creative coding knowledge from the project such as using some math and physics formulas to create some interesting visual effects. I utilized Class in javascript to build the project efficiently. I also learned to use lights and materials in 3d environments. Artistically, I experimented with minimalism and try to tell a symbolic and abstract story. I also researched similar styles and structures to find inspiration for my design.