Enschede Lights Up
Here’s a look at the final results of Enschede Lights Up – an interactive projection project I created for Enschede Promotie. The goal was to design a building projection that’s fun and easy for kids and families to use. Visitors of Enschede Lights Up could sqan a QR code that leads them to a web app where they can customize their character and pick an instrument. Then their character would appear on the projection and would play a unique song based on what instrument other visitors picked.
For this project, I worked closely with fellow students and teachers, focusing on character creation, animation, and the promotional materials like videos and posters. Our theme, Greek Musical, was inspired by the Greek god Pan, whose statue sits on the building we projected on. I designed the characters based on the Greek muses to fit perfectly with the theme.
For Pan himself, I created his face and animations to make him come alive as part of the projection, singing alongside the muses. Everything—from the character designs and Pan’s face to their animations—was created in Procreate/Photoshop and rigged and animated in Unity. Check out the photos and videos to see the result!
Promotional video
One of the highlights of this project was a vertical “Making of Harmonia” promotional video, named after our projection, Harmonia. This was requested by our client, Enschede Promotie. I handled everything for this video—from recording to editing—using DaVinci Resolve.
For the posters, I worked with the team to design compositions that matched the web app’s colors and fonts. We experimented with different layouts until we landed on designs that felt just right.
Character creation
I took on the role of designing characters for the projection and creating animations. Together with the team we came up with multiple themes and I created character sketches for each theme such as “Cuphead” and “Cyberpunk”. After that we decided on our final theme.
Our theme, “Greek Musical,” was inspired by the statue of Pan, the Greek god of music, which is part of the building. I came up with the idea to base the characters on the Greek Muses. I sketched out different designs for how the Muses could look, and after discussions with the team, we narrowed it down to four unique characters.
Using a web app, visitors could customize these characters by mixing and matching dresses and heads, resulting in 16 possible combinations. Throughout the project, I also made technical adjustments to ensure the characters worked seamlessly within the projection system.
Character animations
To bring these characters to life, I created animations based on online reference videos and images. I rigged and animated everything in Unity, ensuring each instrument had its own unique animation. The instruments included the Aulos, Karamuza, Harp, Bouzouki, Double Bass, Dulcimer, Bendir (drum), and Toubeliki.
In addition to instrument animations, I made multiple idle animations to keep the characters dynamic. To add even more personality, I created emote animations—dance, clap, and cheer—so visitors could express themselves through their characters while waiting in queue.
Pan’s animations were equally detailed. I animated his face to make it look like he was looking around, whistling, or humming. To keep it natural and engaging, I created several versions of these animations to avoid repetition.
Gallery
