Jang Ji-Sung lost her youngest daughter Nayeon in 2016. The 7-year-old infant died of cancer just one month after being diagnosed. Her mom wanted to say goodbye to her girl in another way.
In Caracol TV, a broadcast by the South Korean channel MBC, it tells how, through virtual reality, mother and daughter met again.
The Viv Studio company took eight months to create the virtual version of the girl at seven years old, as well as the places and situations where the meeting would take place.
The documentary showed the precise moments in which a mother of a family was reunited with her deceased daughter in a virtual reality video game.
According to Aja Business Daily, the production team for the documentary spent eight months building the girl in the video game, including her real voice. The scene was intended as her birthday celebration.
The company shared an excerpt of the material, just at the moment when the mother meets the minor. Totally distressed, she cries and talks to her, even trying to hug her. The rest of the family just watches the scene.
The mother said she had decided to appear in the documentary to comfort “someone who has lost a kid like me, or who has lost a brother or father.” From the start of the broadcast until the next morning, more than 200,000 people have visited Jang’s blog to chat with her about the experience.
Apparently, designing these types of people for virtual reality titles will be a constant in the future. There are already companies looking for ways to create avatars and chatboxes with deceased people by collecting existing data and deep learning.
