Your apple
Your Apple is a VR experience that intends to memorialize a beloved friend who left us due to depression. It is a virtual space to cherish the memory of our friendship and to remind everyone that “If you need to talk any time, we are here under the apple tree.”
Thesis presentation
Research
Depression is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think, and how you act. I read a lot of articles and talked with people who suffered from depression before and now are better, people who currently feel depressed, and a school Psychologist. I got to learn some facts about depression and what we should do when our family or friends feel depressed. Even some small things can help. Maybe they’re not eating well and you can pick up dinner. Maybe they need a morning call or text to ensure they get to work on time. Sometimes you just need to listen. Helping doesn’t have to be a huge, drastic effort. It can be as simple as picking up a phone, sharing a meal, or driving them to an appointment.
Our love for drawing united us at the age of 15, so I decided to use it as the medium to tell the story. I created VR drawing with Tilt Brush and built the project with the exported models in Unreal Engine.
Your Apple
(full ver.)
the story
Our love for drawing united us at the age of 15, and he always drew his friends as a surprising little gift
So this time I decided to draw for him and used drawing as the medium to tell the story.
I created a black bunny as his character because it used to be his nickname and also his favorite pet，
I made tons of VR drawing with Tilt Brush and built the project with the exported models in Unreal Engine.
I know that he always wanted one apple in his life so I created a dreamy island with an apple tree。
I hope this project could be a late encouragement gift to memorize him.
Black Bunny's drawing of me when I was in high school
the design
The world has 3 big stages:
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a dark tunnel to the apple tree,
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my friend’s bedroom,
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a comic letter.
The first one is a dark tunnel to the apple tree:
This is the journey that how you chase the apple, even if you’re inside a dark tunnel, there are still stunning lights accompanying you, and the journey is getting brighter, you are running faster, and you can get the shining apple as a reward when you got through it and hit to the tree. The apple will lead you to the next stage.
The second stage is Black Bunny’s bedroom:
our common friends are so supportive of my project， they contributed portrait drawings of black bunny and handwritten letters to decorate the bedroom wall。This part is interactive， you can click into the paintings and read the letter，
The letter has both Chinese and translated English versions.
The last stage is a comic letter:
In this stage, I created a VR comic as my handwritten letter to him. I recorded the letter in both English and Chinese for everyone here and our friends who are still in China.
