《鱼影成灯》—顺德大良鱼灯互动体验 Original

《Shadows of Fish, Lights Aglow》
This project takes Daliang Fish Lanterns as its creative theme. Following a complete experience flow — Catching fish shadows → Experiencing craftsmanship → Creating fish lanterns → Joining the lantern cluster → Releasing lanterns onto water via AR — we developed a digital intangible cultural heritage experience integrating web interaction, gesture recognition, particle visual effects and AR water surface presentation. Designed as a lightweight web-based program, it allows users to create virtual fish lanterns directly in a browser and extend the digital lanterns into real water scenes through AR, building a full-loop experience that bridges online interaction and physical space.
Daliang Fish Lanterns are deeply intertwined with the life, festival parades and communal viewing traditions of the Lingnan water towns. Beyond exquisite lantern craftsmanship, they embody hand-making techniques, festival rituals and collective cultural experiences. Drawing on these cultural traits, we divided the overall experience into three sequential stages: fishing for shadows, crafting lanterns and releasing lanterns. Users start with faint fish shadows beneath the water, take part in the whole lantern-making process, and finally send their custom digital lanterns into the collective lantern group.
Upon entering the interactive web page, users are greeted by a scene featuring a water surface textured like traditional rice paper, with fish shadows flickering underwater. Moving hands or the mouse creates gentle ripples on the water. A pinching gesture triggers the fishing gameplay. Once a fish shadow is "caught", it serves as the foundation for lantern crafting, leading users into the craftsmanship experience.
The crafting session is the core of the project. Users complete four traditional procedures of making Daliang Fish Lanterns via distinct gestures: drafting outlines, bending bamboo frames, pasting gauze and painting details. A single-finger drag simulates outline drawing; a scissors-hand gesture represents bamboo frame weaving; clenching and then opening the palm imitates gauze covering; and the OK gesture corresponds to colouring and eye dotting. All gestures are abstracted from real craft movements, enabling users to visually and physically perceive how a faint fish shadow evolves into a complete lantern. After finishing all steps, the system generates a unique fish lantern matched to the earlier fishing session, with a prompt: Crafting completed. Your fish lantern is ready to join the lantern cluster. Users then push both hands forward to send their lantern into the digital group.
Visually, particle effects on the web power the entire lantern creation process. Fish shadows, outline lines, bamboo frames, gauze surfaces and finished colourful lanterns gradually take shape through particle aggregation, presenting a dynamic transition from the intangible to the tangible, from lines to shapes, and from frameworks to full lanterns. The particle effects deliver a light, ethereal digital aesthetic while echoing the layered production logic of traditional lantern craftsmanship. Each completed gesture transforms the lantern’s appearance, turning textual instructions into immersive, visual and interactive experiences.
The AR module extends the web-based journey. After users create and submit their lanterns online, the digital fish lanterns appear on real water surfaces. While the web page fulfils the creation process, the AR experience realizes lantern releasing and parade scenarios. On the augmented water surface, lanterns float, glow and gather together, blending with real water, tree shadows and viewers to form a mixed-reality public landscape. This design places digital fish lanterns back into their original cultural context of water towns, evoking emotional resonance linked to traditional festivals.
The project features three core innovations. First, adopting web interaction as the main entry point lowers the barrier to accessing digital experiences of intangible cultural heritage, allowing all users to join the fishing and crafting process simply via a browser. Second, traditional craft movements are reimagined as intuitive gesture controls, turning conventional making procedures into immersive physical experiences. Third, the dual-mode structure of web creation + AR release transforms digital lanterns from on-screen creations into vivid landscapes in real water environments.
Throughout the full experience, users catch fish shadows from virtual water, craft exclusive lanterns with gestures, and release them into real water scenes. Daliang Fish Lanterns are redefined as an interactive, creative and shareable digital cultural experience. The project preserves the inherent cultural bonds between traditional fish lanterns, water town lifestyles and festival parades, while diversifying the communication forms of intangible cultural heritage through web interaction and AR technology.
By delivering a lightweight and highly participatory experience, this work introduces the craftsmanship of Daliang Fish Lanterns to young audiences. Within the mixed-reality journey, fish lanterns grow from underwater shadows into digital artworks and finally return to real water surfaces — a digital parade of intangible cultural heritage that travels from screens to nature, and from individual creation to collective appreciation.