The launch of Apple’s ARKit has allowed many interesting and exotic ‘proof of concept’ ideas to come to light. One such idea is an app powered by ARKit that allows you to turn your environment into a recreation of the classic 80s music video ‘Take On Me’ by A-ha.
The original music video for Take On Me was painstakingly hand-drawn to give the appearance of a comic book world. The music video – widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time – concerns a comic book creation coming to life. The rotoscoped animation one the video was carefully crafted to resemble rough pencil sketches.
The proof-of-concept software allows the user to scan their environment and apply an augmented reality (AR) filter effect to change the user’s surroundings to resemble the rough pencil sketch effect used in the music video. The app is not publicly available and is simply meant to be a demonstration of the capabilities of ARKit.
Trixi Studios, who created the app, intend for it to be a showcase of what is possible using ARKit, and how the suit of tools provided by Apple can allow even small, independent developers to produce extremely professional results by integrating AR into their products.
Other recent demonstrations of ARKit’s capabilities have come from VRobot developer Luden.io, who demonstrated a ‘god simulator’ title called AR Tribe using ARKit’s capabilities. Directive Games also teased that they were working on something powered by ARKit with the release of a video showing an AR build of mobile title The Machines seamlessly sat on top of a table.
A video demonstrating Trixi Studios ‘Take on Me’ app is available to view below.
VRFocus will continue to bring you news of new projects produced using ARKit.
There have been previously reported leaks that suggest that Apple has ambitions for augmented reality (AR) that go far beyond the recently released ARKit. A newly released patent goes further in suggesting that Apple is working on a set of AR smartglasses.
In June a report came from a Foxconn employee that suggested Apple were working on a set of AR glasses codenamed ‘Project Mirrorshades’. Other uncovered patents gave credence to this claim, including a January 2017 patent that covered ‘A wearable information system having at least one camera’.
The newly released patent, as reported by Patently Apple, refers to a device being able to overlay information on top of the real world. The parent mostly refers to the technology in relation to a smartphone, perhaps being used for navigation, or to highlight points of interest as a tourist destination. The patent describes a process for capturing images from the real world, and then contextual information would be overlaid on the screen.
The curious part is that apple specifically references use of the head-mounted display in conjunction with the patent. Though a head-mounted display cannot be operated in the same way as a touchscreen, the patent mentions a method of camera tracking that can detect the user’s finger relative to the image overlay and activate various functions based upon gesture control.
Most of the ideas laid out in the Patent application were very similar to those previously presented by Metaio, an AR-focussed startup that was bought out by Apple two years ago.
Of course, it remains to be seen if this patent design, or any of its other AR-related patents will come to fruition. VRFocus will keep you informed of any other developments.
The mantra goes: If it’s possible, someone will eventually build it. That statement rings true for everything from the weird and spastic games like Mosh Pit Simulator or hardware add-ons like the pulsating haptic skin from Omnipulse, and while I’m just not sure why ’80s Norwegian synthpop band A-ha really needed to be realized in AR, I feel so much better about the world now that I’ve seen it.
Created by Chip Sineni of Trixi Studios, the augmented reality app was built using Apple’s ARKit, a developer tool recently released by the company running on the iOS 11 beta that lets you create AR apps and games. Because of the wide-spread availability of Apple devices supporting the iOS 11 beta, the company claims millions of iPhones and iPads are already in the hands of prospective developers around the world. So it’s no wonder when weird and wild things come creeping out of the woodwork.
Reflecting what happens in A-ha’s “Take On Me” music video, a man beckons to you from the inside of a comic book, which then opens to the iconic hand-drawn world parodied in popculture ever since the music video’s release in 1984.
Like the inter-dimensional portals we’ve seen built using ARKit, the app lets you walk through to the ‘other side’ and experience the world just like in the music video.
In case you haven’t experienced the glory of ’80s synthpop first-hand:
As recently as May 2017, one of the main problems in the burgeoning virtual and augmented reality market was that the base of users was too small. For the most part, people simply did not have access to hardware that would enable them to experience immersive experiences. In June 2017, Apple completely changed the game with the introduction of ARKit, which turned millions of iPhones and iPads into augmented reality (AR) capable devices overnight. In the weeks that followed, developers around the world began producing some creative demos with ARKit.
3D drawing in AR:
AR measuring tool:
Moon Landing:
While these AR demos are legitimately impressive, at some point mobile AR’s novelty factor will disappear. When we reach this point, what happens next? How will mobile AR become a consistent part of our daily lives?
One possibility is in AR mobile gaming. Mobile gaming is a huge sector that was worth $41 Billion (USD) in 2016. In this piece, we’ll share how mobile AR has created the possibility of an entirely new type of game experience, a new type of social experience, and the constraints that companies will face as they enter this space.
A new type of gaming experience
In the history of gaming thus far, we’ve largely been confined to sitting or standing in front of 2D screens while remotely controlling characters in a virtual and isolated environment.
No more. As shown in this AR tribute to Space Invaders, with mobile AR gaming, your real environment becomes the game environment. You become the protagonist.
This new level of immersion breeds an entirely new type of gaming experience in which you must navigate and dodge real world obstacles, such as tables and chairs, to emerge victorious. What is possible in the realm of digital gaming when the real world becomes part of the gaming experience? Moreover, how will our lives change once these mobile AR games become social and enable us to connect with people in the real world?
A new type of social experience
Multiplayer gameplay has been around since the Pong and Atari-era of video games.
However, with the rise of games such as Minecraft, gameplay increasingly became social on an entirely new level. By building virtual worlds in Minecraft and sharing these spaces with friends and strangers alike, users could show off their unique creations that reflected their identities. It didn’t take long for the Minecraft phenomenon to hit early ARKit demos:
The desire to express oneself and connect to others is, and always will be, innate to humans at an individual and global scale. Experiences like Minecraft, applied to mobile AR, will add a social gaming layer on top of the real world and enable individuals to leave their unique mark on the real world for others to find and share.
This behavior was best demonstrated by the meteoric rise of Pokémon GO. Despite its subsequent collapse in usage, the explosive growth of this app proved that mass scale social AR gaming was possible to implement from a user experience perspective. That is: people were willing to get off their couches and walk around to capture AR monsters and then meet strangers for battle.
Ultimately, Pokémon GO was an encouraging example of how AR mobile games could compel people to go explore the world and interact with a social layer built on top of the real world.
Constraints for AR Gaming
It’s worth pointing out that smartphones are not the ideal form factor for an AR experience. However, since the iPhone is currently the only mass-market AR device available on the market, this is where the industry will have to focus until AR smart glasses become a widespread consumer phenomenon.
As such, AR mobile gaming will face many of the constraints that traditional 2D mobile games faced: battery life issues, short attention spans, and a reluctance to hold a smartphone for long periods of time, among others. Additional constraints specific to AR include learning, from scratch, the best practices for user experiences in an imperfect medium.
Since smartphones are an imperfect and incomplete form factor for AR experiences, mobile game creators will also be constrained by the limitations of mobile AR generally – with the most obvious issue being the tiny field of view on iPhone screens. This field of view problem can be somewhat resolved by focusing on iPads, which in turn dramatically reduces the potential addressable market while also forcing the user to hold a heavier device to experience AR games.
Moving Forward
Despite these constraints, there will be early winners in the mobile AR gaming space. Game developers who can creatively work within the boundaries of mobile AR while creating a compelling user experience will find short term success. Long term success in this space will be determined by an ability to transform a game into a sustainable global phenomenon like Minecraft, while being able to successfully adapt to the inevitable transition to AR smart glasses.
I know I can’t be the only person that loves playing tabletop games but hates the setup, cleanup, and organizational headache they often cause. I’ve loved playing Dungeons & Dragons for years, but it’s a hassle lugging my literal treasure chest full of gear and supplies around. Playing online is great, but it lacks the physicality of playing in person. With the power of AR, a lot of that could start to change soon.
The Machines is an upcoming concept from Directive Games that was made using Apple’s ARKit and Unreal Engine 4. In the video below you can see a table transform into a war-torn battlefield with units spawning at opposite ends of the map. It’s nowhere near as complex of a game as something like D&D or Warhammer 40K, but it represents a big step forward for tabletop gaming all the same.
Mechanically The Machine appears to be a relatively simple game. You spawn units, they run forward and attack enemy units, until one side destroys the other’s base. Each unit also appears to have a special ability that can be activated when it’s not cooling down. We don’t know if there are other game modes or not, but Directive Games did tell us that player-vs-player combat (PvP) will be supported.
What do you think of The Machines? You can find out more on the official website here. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!
I know I can’t be the only person that loves playing tabletop games but hates the setup, cleanup, and organizational headache they often cause. I’ve loved playing Dungeons & Dragons for years, but it’s a hassle lugging my literal treasure chest full of gear and supplies around. Playing online is great, but it lacks the physicality of playing in person. With the power of AR, a lot of that could start to change soon.
The Machines is an upcoming concept from Directive Games that was made using Apple’s ARKit and Unreal Engine 4. In the video below you can see a table transform into a war-torn battlefield with units spawning at opposite ends of the map. It’s nowhere near as complex of a game as something like D&D or Warhammer 40K, but it represents a big step forward for tabletop gaming all the same.
Mechanically The Machine appears to be a relatively simple game. You spawn units, they run forward and attack enemy units, until one side destroys the other’s base. Each unit also appears to have a special ability that can be activated when it’s not cooling down. We don’t know if there are other game modes or not, but Directive Games did tell us that player-vs-player combat (PvP) will be supported.
What do you think of The Machines? You can find out more on the official website here. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!
Since Apple launched itself into the augmented reality (AR) sphere and demonstrated its new Arkit SDK, several companies have been experimenting with what Apple’s AR capabilities are. One company, Directive Games, have produced a video teasing an AR rebuild of its existing title The Machines.
The Machines was originally released in 2016 as a PvP battle arena combined with elements of real-time strategy. Players take control of a team of specialised robots to take on an evil hive-mind that has enslaved the human race. Players can unlock different kinds of robots as they progress, build up defences for their home base, or charge forward to attack the enemy across the 3D battle field.
According to the developers, the AR rebuild displayed in the short video was built using ARKit and Unreal Engine 4 and uses ARKit’s surface detection to project the 3D rendered battlefield on to a tabletop so robot forces can march forward to attack an enemy base.
There is no word yet on if this is just a proof of concept demo or if Directive Games are indeed planning on releasing a new AR rebuild of The Machines for release on Apple’s new AR-enabled devices. As such, there is no word on a release date or price point, though if the developers are planning a release, it is not likely to appear until iOS 11 is commercially available.
Updates and further information on Directive Games and its ongoing projects can be found at the company’s website. There is an email list available for updates specifically regarding The Machines, which does seem to suggest the developers have further plans for it.
You can watch the demo video for The Machines AR below.
VRFocus will bring you further news on ARKit projects as it becomes available.
What’s that building in the distance? Where’s the nearest Starbucks? How do I get to there from here? These are questions you’d likely find answers to in your smartphone’s map application—but with Apple’s ARKit, one developer showed it could be even easier with a recently revealed project that demonstrates the practical application of turn-by-turn directions and basic landmark-based orientation displayed in augmented reality.
Created by London-based iOS developer Andrew Hart, the project was built using two Apple tools; ARKit and Core Location, the latter of which provides devs access to data from the phone’s onboard hardware including Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, magnetometer, barometer, and cellular hardware so it can be used to gather relevant positioning data. Integrated it into a map project, Hart was able to demonstrate landmark orientation and even turn-by-turn directions that appear with the click of a single button.
Hart says he’ll be publishing the project on GitHub soon, and that he’d like to make sure the experimental app is in “a solid place before opening it up.”
Apple ARKit was first revealed at the company’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and works on newer iPhone and iPads that have the ability to opt into the iOS 11 beta. While Apple is working with third-parties such as IKEA, Lego, and Niantic to build apps using ARKit, the company also released the tool for general use so enterprising developers can start building AR apps today—many of them going viral on the Internet like AR inter-dimensional portals and a project that built positional tracking for a VR headset using ARKit.
There’s no telling what Apple has up its sleeves hardware-wise, whether it’s simply a new iPhone with ARKit integrated at its core, or an AR headset that some patents would suggest is currently in the works. In the meantime though, we’ll be casting wistful stares at the iOS developers of the world to see what they come up with next.
Created by Helios Interactive, Echelon is a multi-player board game played in Hololens mixed-reality that, as an proof of concept, gives us a look into what sort of games we might be playing in the future when we’re not engaged in the many augmented reality productivity-based activities like navigating with turn-by-turn directions or skyping with a work colleague.
Using cards to spawn creatures, the game’s developers say Echelon builds on gameplay mechanics as seen in many traditional physical board games but “augments” them with mixed reality creatures and game pieces, enabling the players to experience an immersive augmented reality gaming experience.
Helios Interactive Producer Devin Fuller Knight says the project highlights “the fact that you can actually interact with another player in a HoloLens and [while] being in a HoloLens is really fun, it’s such a solo experience. The idea of actually being able to interact with another player and both being able to see the same world exist in the same [space] is really fun.”
“When I saw the HoloChess game in Star Wars,” says Helios developer Kristafer Vale, “I immediately wanted to play that game, and I had to wait until now for us to have the technology like Unity and HoloLens to be able to realize that dream.”
While HoloLens presents the user with a fairly limited field of view (as seen above), a near-field object like a game board plays to the headset’s strengths. Still costing $3000 however is a big barrier of entry for prospective AR developers, which is precisely why so many people are experimenting with Apple’s ARKit.
Apple’s ARKit has been out for developers since it was announced last month. Because of the mind-boggling number of iPhones and iPads capable of running ARKit, the new tool is already spreading its augmented reality wings across the Internet thanks to a diverse set of developers. Here we take a look at some of the coolest publicly-shared AR projects being built right now using ARKit.
Keep in mind: because ARKit essentially gives the device the ability to accurately map your surroundings, something made possible by simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), there’s no need for external equipment to run these sorts of AR experiences. Apple, with a single flip of the wrist, has however started down the path of farming AR applications for whatever device it has planned next.
10 – Robot Dancing
Ok, so a dancing robot isn’t the most innovative application we’ve seen, but being able to see a 3D figure do the boogie in your living room has its appeal, and the dynamic lighting only makes it that much cooler. Dancing to Vengaboys (the song from the Six Flags commercial), this happy little robot was created by Tomas Garcia, also known for many other cool ARKit experiments.
9 – Room Measurement
Created by Smart Picture 3D, their Measurement Cloud enables what they call “dimensioning intelligence for the interior world.” There’s no denying the utility of pulling out your smartphone to see if that IKEA dresser is going to fit in your office (of course leaving enough space for VR).
8 – Inter-dimensional Portal
Fancy a walk into another dimension? This inter-dimensional portal built by French consulting agency Nedd shows you just how extraordinary a lonely allée can be when you have the ability to see another world at a moment’s notice.
7 – Volumetric Video in AR
Using 3D animations from 4DViews, China-based developer 应高选 created this with his iPhone 6s and Unity. 4DViews is known for creating dynamic, volumetric captures for VR/AR/MR market.
6 – Portals in Play
Showing some gaming applications to the always cool portal-trick, Helsinki-based creative developer lingoded is by his own admission “searching [for] the next big thing” as he works with ARKit and Unity. Look inside the portal to find a key to unlock another door: classic gaming brought to life.
You don’t know how to dance. I don’t know how to dance. But with AR, we’ll all be dancing in perfect step with a modern take on the old-timey footstep diagrams. This little two-step number was created by Dance Reality App, and projects a moving diagram on the floor so you can learn all the right moves.
Virtual apartment walk-throughs have been in VR for a while now, but with the limited room-scale space and relatively expensive kit required to display (not excluding the difficulty of teaching someone how to move in VR for the first time), Stockholm-based firm 3D Interactive Sthlm brought their visualization technique into AR, allowing you the ease of movement you’ve been used to since you started walking.
3 – Positional Tracking for VR
Nexus Interactive Arts, an immersive media division of VFX production studio Nexus Studios, have used Apple’s ARKit working on an iPhone 7 in an experiment that creates basic inside-out positional tracking and pass-through AR for a Google Cardboard headset.
2 – Minecraft in AR
Minecraft is already available in VR, so it was only a matter of time until it came to AR too. Created by Matthew Hallberg with an iPhone and Unity 3D, he says “I love that you are able to place life size objects because the tracking with ARkit is so good.” Stay tuned to Hallberg’s channel for upcoming tutorials and a breakdown of how he created Minecraft for AR.
1 – Real-time Mixed Reality with Vive
Built in Unity by Normal VR, the mashup between the HTC Vive-driven art program and the ARKit’s ‘window’ into the virtual world is truly inspiring—almost as if it were giving us a peek into the future of mixed reality when AR/VR unite in a single hardware platform.
Constraints for AR Gaming
