Week 2 – World Sensing with AR

This week, we were given the task to create 2 End-to-End AR experiences that improve/elevate some of our daily experiences. For my first experience, I wanted to improve upon something that I have struggled with my whole life: falling asleep. Traveling around and adjusting to different time zones have made the process of falling asleep simply unbearable. So, I wanted to create and AR experience that could make that process a bit more pleasing. Plus, everyone goes on their phone before sleeping!

Initially, I decided to use a vertical anchor to be able to mimic the position the user would be in. I’d imagine the user would be laying down in bed, holding their phone above their face, meaning their phone would be facing the ceiling in a vertical fashion. However, I quickly found out that RC has a difficult time examining the world of the ceiling because there is simply no texture to the wall, no matter how long I tried moving or even if I added some LED galaxy stars I have. So, I had to demonstrate the experience standing up, facing a wall with more texture. 

Now onto the fun stuff – the item components! I focused mainly on including components that I believed would help one feel more relaxed. I added some text (“zzz”) and stars surrounding the main introductory text (“it’s sleepy time…”). The “zzz” text will float away if you tap on it, mimicking the idea that you are slowly falling into a sleepy mood. When you tap on the stars, they all pulse a few times, as if you were outside watching the stars glisten. On scene start, a chill lofi beat begins playing, immediately entrancing you into a relaxation state. On the right, I included 3D sheep models that if you tap on them, they will “float” across the screen, like counting sheep jumping across a meadow (aka. one of the most typical things people say to do if you can’t fall asleep). Thank you polybuis for the model. 

Here is the link to my screen recording.

For my second AR experience. I wanted to enhance a visit to a friend’s new apartment – specifically focusing on elevating the art experience. My inspiration from this was drawn from housewarming gatherings. Having just arrived in NYC a few weeks ago and moving into a new place, often when people come over, they ask me about the tapestries and artwork I have on my walls, and vice versa. 

I decided to use an image anchor and imported a photo of a chakra tapestry I have in my room. Yoga and spirituality is a big part of my life and I really enjoy talking about the different chakras. At first, things were a bit disorientated because the image anchor was facing a different way, so when I went into AR mode on my phone, the chakra text was facing the wrong way. So, I just rotated the original image to fit RC’s orientation.

My view on computer

My view on phone

After solving this issue, I was able to add arrows and more text explaining what the chakras mean. When the phone recognized the image, the name of the chakras immediately showed, but in order to know what they mean, you could tap on the chakras and the meaning would appear. I kept the arrows and extra text hidden at scene start, so when the user clicked on the chakras, it would suddenly “appear”.

 

Here is the link to a screen recording.

Moving forward, I would love to make the first sleepy time AR experience compatible with the ceiling so that the user could really be immersed in the experience, laying in bed. But, I am not sure if RC would be able to recognize the surface if it had no texture. I would have also loved to know how to make the trajectory of movement of the sheep be circular (like a half moon route) rather than just straight across the screen. This way, it would better mimic the motion of a sheep jumping and frolicking across a field. For the second chakra AR experience, I would have loved to include some voice overs. So rather than tapping on the chakra and having more text appear, a voice memo of a very zen person speaking about the chakra would play from the phone. Kind of like those interactive art galleries! It was a lot of fun creating these experiences. I would love to learn more about creating my own 3D models and what RC has the capacity to do. 

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