Day of the Dead VR Mural
Day of the Dead VR Mural made with Thunkable, Aframe, and GCS Cloud Run.
Every year for the past 3 years, I’ve been creating a type of art installation in Mi Bistro 300, a restaurant in San Miguel de Allende, for Day of the Dead. Each year the project has grown bigger and it’s kinda funny because I’m no artist… I’m an engineer. But I do love creating and incorporating new things in everything I do.
Sugar Skulls Tradition
In Day of the Dead, families across Mexico put an altar or like an offering to their love ones that passed away. One of the characteristic components of the altars are the sugar skulls which is basically a skull made out all sugar with colored sugar piping decorations. They are usually very bright and are meant to celebrate the lives of the deceased. Also, the sugar skulls often have the name of the deceased or in my family everyone we love (even the ones that are alive). It’s a beautiful tradition in Mexico and especially in places like Oaxaca or San Miguel de Allende.
A little piece from Mexico :)
The main concept behind the app is to get everyone making their own sugar skull. It doesn’t matter how pretty or how bright it is, all it matters that you make it your own and participate from all over the world.
To start making your sugar skull, go to the links below. You are able to choose the width and color of a brush and add some stamps. To delete, the stamps just drag it to the bottom of the screen.
That’s it!
After you’re done you can see all the sugar skulls made by the community and even see it in VR :)
Soooooo how does it work…
This app runs in @Thunkable . It uses the canvas component as well as their shiny and upgraded custom data viewer. The app has a custom stamp for this version with a (somewhat creepy) mask of the face of their beloved beaver.
I did my best… I promise.
The app doesn’t run by itself, I had to develop a custom API in Cloud Run to manage the huge images base64 uploads to Cloudinary and drum roll please… serve Aframe.
Aframe is such a cool tool, you can easily start playing with VR development using basic HTML over Glitch. It’s so easy to make VR environments that it makes is a great tool for coding classes for kids and young adults.
I wanted to make an app for the community so…. here it is. Join me and other fellow Mexicans while we celebrate day of the dead.
If you want to try it
or scan the QR with your phone’s camera.
(Oh hi medium and their 2 image option sizing available; huge and extra-huge)
If you would like a tutorial on this let me know with a comment below. I’m not sure if it’s relevant or needed enough by the community. :)
Oh by the way I’m planning a Halloween inspired post if all goes well using Thunkable + Bluetooth + Pumpkin Carving :) I will make that into a guide.
