The Emperor’s Tomb - A Junior Major project
WA Museum Boola Bardip - Whadjuk Noongar Country (Perth) - 2025
From Junior Major:
The tomb of Qin Shi Huang has never been opened. Ancient texts describe jade trees, golden birds and rivers of mercury, glimpses of a world buried in myth.
Step inside that mystery. Floors and walls pulse with light and sound that shift in response to movement, immersing people in a living world. The experience reimagines the Emperor’s tomb as a place shaped by imagination and legend.
Technology
Built in Unreal Engine using nDisplay, the real-time installation spans 13 wall and floor projections mapped using Nvidia Mosaic and Epson projection utilities. Depth cameras track each visitor, with point clouds composited in Pointcaster and streamed into Unreal via ZeroMQ.
Dynamic lighting, driven by Enttec Pixel Dots, responds to movement via Pointcaster and TouchDesigner and is mapped to the physical space using Enttec ELM. 10 channels of spatial audio are played back via QLab and synchronised with the visuals via OSC.
Credits
Aristo Risi, Photographer
Claire Evans, Strategic Director
Elena Matienko, Sound Artist
Evan Davies, Technical Director (Hardware)
Jarrod Lambert, Technical Coordinator
Joko Wang, Producer
Jordan East, Unreal Artist
Matt Hughes, Software Engineer
Pat Younis, Unreal Artist
René Christen, Technical Director
Shunji Davies, Project Director
Tobias Kappeler, Art Director
Tom Siddall, Creative Director
From me:
This project was an amazing test-case for scalable interactive projects using Unreal Engine and Pointcaster. My role as Unreal Artist / Developer was to manage the distributed nDisplay rendering system, working alongside Matt to begin the creation of the native unreal Engine Pointcaster plug-in, creating the interactive particle systems and animation systems, and alongside Pat, creating many of the design elements and all the other Unreal systems needed to make a project like this come to life. It was an amazing experience and really great to be working alongside such great teams at Junior Major and WAM.
