Aev

Overview

Aev puts an eroding mountain on a real table to explore time

Augmented and virtual reality are becoming more and more common, with new technology released all the time. But many of these experiences don't have you engage with the physical space around you. That's the issue we set out to address, while highlighting Gestalt principles.

We created Aev, a philosophical experience exploring time and space through a corroding mountain. Users move through its states over millions of years at their own pace, and ponder the passing of time.

My Role

I modeled the scenery and built the touch-to-control-time interactions

Jinmao and I made the 3D models that decorate the mountain across time. While the team worked in Blender, Jacquelyn and I built the interactions between the user and the mountain in Unity, using Claude to help us vibe code our prototype.

Concept

We chose an eroding mountain to show how small human time is

Our group first explored many topics, including occlusion, perspective and affordances. After presenting ideas and getting feedback, we decided to focus on time.

We struggled for weeks to pick a form for exploring time, choosing between trees, cities and a mountain. Each had strong merit, but we chose a mountain corroding over millions of years, and added a city to show how small human existence truly is.

Building

50+ mountain iterations, kept white so the city stands out

Once the mountain was set, Jana took on creating over 50 iterations of it eroding, and the rest of us added 3D models in Blender to show the passage of time.

We kept almost everything white except the city frame, so the contrast stands out. Microanimations, like the mountain's waterfall and cars driving, make each scene feel alive instead of like a still frame.

In Unity, touching the table moves time forward

We imported the model into Unity and combined it with our interactions so it could live in a real space. The mountain sits on a circular table: people walk around it and touch the table to control time as they watch.

Final Product

We motion-tracked the mountain onto a real table for the video

For our final video, we used Blender to motion track the mountain onto our table, and headset footage for perspective shots.

Reflection

I learned Unity, sharpened Blender and learned to vibe code

This project challenged me to learn new software and try new experiences. Learning to vibe code, refining my Blender skills and learning Unity left me with very useful knowledge, and it's a project I'm grateful to have worked on.