This weekend project grew from two otherwise desperate parts of my life. First, my love of Robert Jordan’s fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, and second, my Mums desire to see my travel pictures.

In the Wheel of Time, there exists the concept of the World of Dreams, or Tel’aran’riod, in which some characters can meet, and explore ‘reflections’ of the real world. This is generally used as a secret place to communicate, in a world full of spies, but it is also used to learn more about a place you haven’t actually been, something my Mum likes to do with travel pictures.

And so, since I have followed VR for a while, I considered using it as a medium to show some 360 degree pictures, a way to bring in other people, to experience reflections of a place they have yet to go.

You can find the example project here, with the open source here

A note on the style choices made in the experience. In the World of Dreams lore, a visitor is afloat in a sea of pin pricks of light, each representing the dreams of a sleeping person. A visitor can then float around the star field, and be pulled towards and into dreams, if they get too close. This is how the demonstration works, drifting towards one of the primary stars, until you are temporarily pulled into the refection.