Inspiration
Last year, after the loss of a respected YouTuber, I learned the importance of cherishing memories. This project as a way to help people cope with grief and commemorate their loved ones. It is based upon the belief that people who passed away remain in this world as stars in the sky. Through visalizing memories and thoughts in a mystical way, we hope to reinforce people's good wishes, fostering a sense of connection, comfort, and positivity.
What it does
In this online platform, the user can upload basic information about a loved one to represent them with a procedurally generated star. When they select a star through either adding it or searching for it, they may leave messages that will be displayed as planets that orbit the star.
How we built it
We used Next.js and react-three-fiber to build the website, creating a dynamic and responsive platform. Leveraging the power of Next.js for server-side rendering, we ensured fast and efficient loading of the otherwise resource-heavy dynamic 3D models. The integration of react-three-fiber allowed us to craft an immersive and visually captivating starfield, adding depth and symbolism to the platform. The combination of these technologies enabled us to provide a user-friendly, interactive, and visually enchanting experience for our users.
Challenges we ran into
Our team is relatively new to the Next.js framework, and had zero experience with three.js before the hack. Starting from scratch, we managed to develop the project as we learned, significantly expanding our skillset in the process.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We originally planned on using either Firebase or MongoDB for our backend database service. However, a compatibility issue that turned out to be unfixable meant we needed to change our strategy midway. We settled on storing the data on-the-fly within React Components for this iteration. This decision, preventing us from sinking more time and effort into a convoluted issue, eventually became the key to the completion of the project.
What we learned
We gained a significant amount of knowledge and hands-on experience in Next.js and three.js. This project made us more ready than ever to leverage more new and unique web development problems.
What's next for Galaxy of Memories
We would like to continue iterating this project and add the previously unfinished backend database. After which, we will deploy Galaxy of Memories onto a publically accessible server, and plan our next steps based on user input.
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