Bad Trip: a 3D voyage into one man's mind

Since November 2011, every moment of Alan Kwan's life has been logged by a 720p keychain camera mounted on his glasses with a small clip. He took the video footage and used it create an expanding database of digitalised visual memories.

And then, using a custom virtual reality software, he designed a 'virtual mindscape' where people are able to navigate and experience his memories and even his dreams using a game controller.

"The system is built using the game engine Quest 3D, and all houses are procedurally modelled," continues Kwan, a fresh graduate from the City University School of Creative Media in Hong Kong. "The virtual world is updated every night with fresh memories and dreams.

"Sometimes if I remember something from a dream I will reconstruct it in the virtual world through quick 3D modelling and animation," Kwan explains. "An example in the demo video is the scene with the tree-headed characters."

Three-hour trip

"I did a test on 1 September 2012, in which I went through all the memory clusters and dreams, and the whole trip lasted for about three hours and 20 minutes," he says. "The virtual world is updated every night with fresh memories and dreams, and therefore the 'trip' could last longer and longer."

Music on the demo video is provided by Robert Rich, while Quest 3D, 3ds Max and Esri CityEngine were used to create the visuals.

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