Project Website: https://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/artales/
Introduction
ARTales is a team project at the CMU Entertainment Technology Center dedicated to exploring storytelling through the new medium of Augmented Reality. Technology today has been intertwined with various forms of artistic expression, and the marriage of AR with the narrative form is the goal for this project. The team aims to change the approach towards storytelling by focusing on the interaction between the real, the digital, and the guest. The current AR-based technology is still in its infancy, so we hope to experiment with its features, harness its potential, and test different possibilities to expand on what a story can achieve.
The goal is to create a 6 minute story-driven immersive experience for the Magic Leap to explore how a story can be uniquely told within the AR medium.
Duration: 4 Months (Jan- May 2019)
Team Size: 4 (1 programmer + 1 artist + 1 tech art + 1 sound design)
Platform: Magic Leap
Technology: Unity3D, C#, Lumin SDK
My Role: Designer, Lead Programmer
Demo
Concept
The Story, which is written by Kate, who is a drama school student, is about the redemption. The guest would be an employee of the “Redemption Department”, where ghosts who were stuck in hell would be able to state their case about why they deserve to be redeemed, and thus be allowed to move to heaven. These choices, however, will not be easy. The aim for the charges placed upon the characters will be meant to ambiguously either good or bad. The mannerisms in which the characters state their claim also should not give the guest any indication of which choice to choose for them. The guest’s own consciousness (based on their own life’s experiences) should be the guiding force of their decision.
Ideation
After fixing the story and the characters. The next question is “what makes AR a unique tool for narrative?”. After exploring some existing narrative driven projects in AR, we figured out that the seamless connection between reality and virtual world is the key. To achieve this goal, I designed the “virtual stamp” interaction to replace the original button design when deciding if the ghost deserve to be redeemed or not.
Prototype of the stamp interaction
Technical Development
As a programmer, the most tricky tech issue I have encountered is the real world mapping. The device can only recognize plane. By calculating the plane’s orientation, we can differentiate the wall, ceiling and floor, but not the table or specific object. So we use the controller as a locator to find the table. The experience starts with the controller (stamp) on the table, and by finding the plane at an appropriate height and closest to the controller, we are able to locate the position of the table.
More details will be updated soon….