#vrimmersion

[bhanu-prakash-practice-2]

Blog 40: Building Realistic Lighting: Mood Over Realism

Lighting in Shambhala was never just about making things look good. It was about making players feel something in every shadow and every beam of light.

Every environment was sculpted emotionally through its lighting. The Temple of Memories glows with soft, broken light filtering through cracks, fragile and sacred. The Seven Thantras explode into dramatic contrast, storms, fires, and frozen blues pulling at the player’s senses. Shambhala City bathes in radiant, warm light, the culmination of all dreams fulfilled.

I drew techniques from movies like Thor: Love and Thunder and Kalki 2898 AD, blending the mystical with the mythical. Lighting is treated not as background detail, but as a character itself. It tells players when to hope. When to fear. When to breathe.

Mood always came first. Realism was secondary. In Shambhala, light is not just illumination. It is memory made visible.

[bhanu-prakash-practice-2]

Part 02: Portfolio, Documentation and Pitch

Blog 21: How the Vision of Shambhala Began

When I first envisioned Shambhala: The Ascension Protocol, it didn't revolve around tech or VR. Instead, it centered on the sense that somewhere buried under the world's commotion, stories still lived, eager to be unearthed. In my college days, I'd often picture cities time had erased, places that hadn't crumbled but had slipped from the world's mind. These weren't ruins, but vibrant memories waiting for someone gutsy enough to track them down again.

That marked the real start of Shambhala: not a kingdom made of stone, but one built from memories. I figured out on that I didn't just want to tell a tale. I aimed to build a world for audiences to step into where they wouldn't just see amazing things; they'd feel them in their very core. Shambhala grew into the expression of a bigger thought: What if our true lost treasures were the parts of ourselves we've forgotten?

As time passed, this question turned into a vision: to create an experience where people could live out myths, reach for forgotten dreams, and walk paths that felt personal. Shambhala isn't just about make-believe. It's about believing again, believing in journeys that are worth taking, and memories that are worth keeping. This vision has stuck with me. It became stronger. Now, with Shambhala: The Ascension Protocol, this vision starts to come to life.

Reference: ChatGPT. (2024). OpenAI ChatGPT. Available at: AI-generated images by Midjourney (accessed: 21 April 2025).