A collaborative VR experience letting users step into the role of the sovereign to learn the history and symbolism of the British coronation ceremony, first-hand.
The UK is the only European monarchy still practising a full coronation ceremony — a ritual rich with centuries of religious and constitutional symbolism that most people never learn in detail. This project used VR to teach that history experientially: users take on the role of the sovereign in a first-person retelling of the anointing, investing, crowning, enthronement and flypast.
This was a two-person project, and I split ownership deliberately to manage a large research subject efficiently: I focused on the coronation process, steps and symbolism, while my collaborator focused on the environment, location and historical artefacts. We each proposed our own scene-by-scene storyboard grounded in established VR-design frameworks — spatial presence, self-embodiment, physical interaction and social communication — then combined the strongest parts of each into one final storyboard by discussion and vote, rather than either version winning outright.
My focus within the build was 3D modelling and texturing five of the seven crown jewels in Blender — the crown, orb, sceptres and sword of state — matched as closely as possible to the real regalia, while my collaborator led the Unity scene and interactivity build.
The prototype was built around three core VR principles: presence (a full 360° environment with gravity-anchored first-person camera), immersion (ambient sound, including the national anthem, to reinforce the tone of the ceremony), and reality (first-person footsteps and environmental audio to ground the experience physically). Interaction stayed intentionally simple — WASD and mouse navigation, touchscreen support for mobile and iPad — prioritising a working, testable prototype over unnecessary input complexity.
This is the one project in my portfolio built with a real collaborator rather than solo — dividing research and technical ownership across two people, then reconciling two independent storyboards into one, is a smaller-scale version of exactly the kind of cross-functional negotiation a product design role requires. It's also where I first got hands-on with Blender for detailed historical modelling, expanding my 3D toolkit beyond the character and prop work in my other AR/VR projects.
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