BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAIBAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAIBAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAIBAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI BAI
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Immersive 3D Animation with Projection Mapping
TOOLS
- Unreal Engine 5
- Blender
- Substance Painter
- Touch Designer
- p5.js
- Unity 3D
- Davinci Resolve
YEAR
2023-2024
DURATION
4 months
Bai Bai is a 3D-animated multimedia video installation that traces the migration journey of a mystical tiger adapting to a 21st-century industrialized society. As the tiger builds a life of comfort and stability, echoes of its past remain—a reminder of enduring ties to home and the bittersweet nature of transformation. Through digital connections and memories, the tiger balances between embracing the present and longing for the familiar, reflecting the migrant experience in the digital age. This project was developed as a part of my MFA thesis exhibition.
Character Design and Animation
The tiger’s character was designed to embody an ethereal yet grounded presence, blending magical qualities with realistic features. To achieve a unique, recognizable aesthetic, I used p5.js to create a custom fur pattern based on a Perlin noise algorithm, mapping this texture onto a pre-rigged 3D asset with built-in animations. Additional, custom animations were created in Blender and then imported into Unreal Engine 5 for rendering.
Environment Design
Homeland
The tiger’s original home is inspired by the architecture and ambiance of Turkish/Ottoman baths, or hamams. The inclusion of the hamam serves as a symbolic gesture, capturing shared memories and the warmth of “home” experienced across diaspora communities.
New Industrial Landscape
The new landscape is characterized by expansive parking lots —an industrial wasteland reflecting society’s prioritization of convenience over community and environmental wellness. This environment also includes familiar, everyday settings like an office, an underground train station, and a bathroom, each evoking the rhythm and structure of contemporary life.
Projection Mapping
Gallery Installation
Projection mapping was chosen to dissolve boundaries between screen and physical space. Through the use of Touch Designer, each surface in the gallery became a potential canvas, allowing the digital environment to envelop viewers. By enveloping viewers in the digital environment, this technique enabled creative manipulations of perspective, creating immersive depth and an augmented reality.
Projection Mapping on 3D Printed Sculpture
For an open-space installation, a sculpture was 3D-printed to serve as a tangible piece of the digital narrative. Building a custom Unity 3D application, I matched the projector’s focal length and perspective with a virtual camera, ensuring precise texture mapping onto the sculpture surface.
