Lion Dance VR Revival
StarLight Garden
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What is Lion Dance VR Revival?
This is an immersive educational platform that revitalises lion dance through Virtual Reality.
We want to Revive, Pass on, and Promote the valuable cultural heritage of lion dance through immersive VR.
We preserve tradition by reimagining how people learn, practice, and connect with cultural heritage — making lion dance accessible, gamified, and future-ready.
What content does it consist of?
VR Game
VR Exhibition
VR 180° Immersion
VR Exhibition
VR 180° Immersion
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What did I do in this project?
3D Modeling / Animation
Initial Version
I first used AI to generate character concept art, then developed these designs into fully realized 3D models.
After evaluating the AI output, I opted for manual remodeling due to the impractical topology and excessive poly count.
Final Optimized Version
I used Ready Player Me to generate 3D avatar models from photos, then customized their features in Blender. Using AI motion capture, I transformed recorded lion dance movements into skeletal animation and bound it to a character model.
This involved:
• Fixing mesh tearing by retopologizing problematic geometry
• Optimizing parent-child bone relationships in Blender’s rigging system
• Smoothing animation transitions between keyframes
• Recalibrating weight painting for natural deformations
How I made it?
180° VR Immersion
I directed and shot immersive 180° VR footage featuring traditional lion dance rituals, acrobatic performances on plum blossom stakes, and step-by-step lion head costume tutorials.
Final Thoughts
“
The most profound insight from this project came through my hands-on learning experience with the Xia Guozhang Lion Dance Troupe. The moment I lifted the heavyweight lion head, I instantly understood the fundamental difference between watching a performance and truly inheriting the art—the lion head is not merely a prop, but a vessel of cultural legacy. The bamboo strips beneath my fingertips carried generations of craftsmanship, the strain on my neck spoke to dancers’ perseverance, and the limited visibility through the lion’s mouth revealed just how much teamwork underlies "one minute on stage, ten years of practice." This immersive encounter made me realize our VR platform must transcend mere movement replication—it needs to convey the cultural weight behind "lifting the lion is easy, but upholding its heritage is hard." This epiphany drove our design refinements: preserving haptic feedback for the lion head’s heft, emphasizing drum-footwork coordination—because only by making learners feel the responsibility of being a "lion bearer" can digital preservation hold true meaning.