Interstellar in VR | Unity

Year: 2022   |   Focus: Social Interaction and Exchanges in VR

Brief​

This project started with a simple goal: recreate the Tesseract scene from Interstellar in virtual reality. But it quickly became something more, a personal experiment in scale, storytelling, and spatial immersion. I wanted to experience what Cooper and Murph felt inside that 5D space and reimagine it from their point of view.

To bring it to life, I built Murph’s Room in Revit, then moved everything into Unity and used the SteamVR plug-in to script interactivity. What emerged was a surreal, walkable scene inspired by cinema, driven by design logic, and experienced entirely through VR.

Design Process

Why I Got Pulled In

Traditional CAD tools can render a space, sure. But they don’t feel like anything. I was drawn to Unity not just for its graphics, but for its interactivity: the ability to let users walk through a scene, look around, get lost, and discover. That’s the magic, especially for spaces that don’t (or can’t) exist yet.

Murph’s Room wasn’t just a set to replicate. It became a sandbox where I could play with perception, movement, and emotional pacing. I wanted to give others that same cinematic curiosity—what if you could step into a moment that lives outside of time?

Tools & Tinkering

• Modeling: Revit for the architectural layout of Murph’s Room

• Development: Unity with SteamVR plug-in for interaction

• Goal: Combine narrative + immersion + technical design for a rich spatial experience

What I’d do differently next time?

• Use OpenXR instead of SteamVR

• Finish Murph’s Room first before diving into the Tesseract

• Set high-quality reflection probes

• Clean up asset naming (future me will thank me)

What I Learned

Through this project, I started thinking differently about VR, not just as a tool for simulation, but as a canvas for speculative design. It let me explore space in ways static models never could. I also became way more confident in Unity and started sketching ideas for future VR apps, some functional, some just for fun.

Why It Matters

This kind of experimental VR work sits at the intersection of education, design, and digital storytelling. It’s also especially valuable for students with lower visuospatial confidence, letting them inhabit spaces instead of just imagining them. I see projects like this as a step toward more embodied, narrative-rich learning environments that can serve a wider range of learners.