At a glance

  • Monarch migration rebuilt as a Unity VR habitat
  • Documentary narration with in-scene interactive triggers
  • Scene creation and development, first interaction design

3students · one winter term

In-headset view of the VR scene: a colony of monarch butterflies lifting off conifer trees into a clouded blue sky

Fig. 01In-headset view — the overwintering colony lifting from the firs.

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Becoming the butterfly

VR Monarch Butterfly is an interactive VR documentary built during Winter Term, January 2023 — my first exploration into interaction design. With two fellow students I constructed the environment in Unity, recreating the monarchs’ annual migration: habitats, routes, and behaviors staged to be felt, not just watched.

A documentary-style narration carries the educational context, split into audio triggers placed through the grove — each passage set off by exploring, listening, and observing up close — while AI agents steer the butterflies’ flight paths.

Project Details

Project:
VR Monarch Butterfly
Client:
Undergraduate
Year:
12/2022 – 1/2023
Services:
Digital Art, Immersive Experience, Digital Education
Render from the VR piece: a monarch's open wings foregrounded at eye level, a forest meadow beyond
Fig. 02Eye level with the monarch — wings foregrounded, the grove beyond.

One winter term, one Unity scene

Explored through a headset, the piece tests how much documentary and educational weight a realistic VR environment can carry.

The Unity editor scene view: the grove with audio-source gizmos, a camera preview inset, and the AI navigation panel open
Fig. 03The scene in the Unity editor, camera rig at the meadow’s edge.
  • Audio sourcesNarration triggers placed through the grove
  • Camera previewThe player rig’s view of the meadow
  • AI navigationAgents steer the butterflies’ flight paths
Ground-level render: a monarch among wildflowers, forest light falling across the clearing
Fig. 04Ground level in the grove — a monarch rests in the meadow between flights.
Render looking up through the fir canopy into sunlight and fog
Render of the swarm scattered across open blue sky above the treeline

Fig. 05Rendering passes over the colony — fog, backlight, open sky.

Shown in a dark room

At the Winter Term showing, the headset view was projected for the room, so the audience flew wherever the player flew. Costume monarch wings on the presenter carried the butterfly out of the headset and into the room.

A dark screening room: silhouettes of the audience watching the projected headset view of the VR grove
The audience follows the projected headset view.
The presenter wearing monarch wings in front of the projected VR scene, audience in the foreground
Monarch wings on the presenter, the grove projected behind.

From documentary to instrument

The planned coda: the realistic butterflies dissolving into particle effects synced to the music — documentary becoming instrument. The strip below sketches it.

Made by three students

Program development & scene construction
Xuyuan Liu
Music production
Savino Go
Art assets
Katherine Chambers
Institution
Oberlin College
The original term-show credits poster, made under the project's working title: the specimen butterfly above the printed title 'VR Emperor Butterfly' and the team credits
Plate II— the term-show poster (under its working title, “VR Emperor Butterfly”), Winter Term, January 2023