Time to Extinguish 2015!

Maybe 2016 will be the year I finally stop using terrible puns for blog post titles. ;)

This is my last post of 2015 and I'm sorry for the inactivity over the last week and a bit. My lovely Ivana is visiting for Christmas & New Year so I've been on a work hiatus to spend time with her and be a good host! She has begun telling me to do work though, so I take that as a sign that I should begin to do so. ;)


So here's what I've been working on, first some character sketches of a new character:

I've also modelled him and now just need to UV map & texture, so that'll be in the next update. Here's the model:

That's all for this blog post, thank you for reading and I hope that you have a wonderful new year! Thankyou so much for sticking with me over the last couple of years. <3

Lightswitch Development

I can't remember if I posted any development work of my Lightswitch characters or not, so I'll post them again just to be sure! 

The next character I've been working on (as I've already mentioned a few times in this entry ;) ) is a lightswitch! There's a great big lightswitch panel in uni (that I know I posted an image of but will post again for reference) and I was drawn to it quite a lot for inspiration. 

Here's the picture again:

I always thought that the switches looked a bit like little beds, with the occupants sleeping while they're switched off. With this inspiration I created some characters:

I didn't design as many of these as I did for my Air Vent characters because I was drawn to the character on the top right as soon as I drew him. I like the others too but this one got my attention the most! 

Here's a model I made of him before and after texturing:

I also tried a lovely website called SketchFab for the first time, which allows you to upload 3D models and create a fully rotatable turntable for them, which I'll hooopefully be able to embed, so let's give that a go...

Okay that didn't work, so here's a link instead. :'D  

Then finally, here's a comic/storyboard type thing that I made to accompany him - something to give a bit of a story:

That's all I have for Lightswitchy (for now), but I'll be sure to post updates when I have more to show. :) Thanks for reading and have a lovely day! 

4D Cinema + AR = ????

A quick blog post while the conversation is fresh in my mind!

While getting coffee with my friend Matt he brought up the subject of 4D cinema and how it uses smell and things such as wind or water to make cinema experiences more immersive.

Now what if that was combined with Augmented Reality? The player could be walking around their room and find a nice little flower monster, and the 4D side would then send out the lovely smell of flowers to accompany it. This would make the monster appear more real as the player would actually be able to smell the flowers, thus bringing AR into the real world that little bit more.

I just wanted to get this down before it went out of my brain - I'll research it a bit more once these essays are handed in. ;) Thanks Matt!

Mediated Reality... Augmented Reality... Hmmm....

I may be a bit slow with this (and by maybe I mean I most likely am), but I've just been made aware of Mediated Reality. It's like Augmented Reality, but also the opposite of it.... Here's a definition of Mediated Reality courtesy of Google:

"Computer-mediated reality refers to the ability to add to, subtract information from, or otherwise manipulate one's perception of reality through the use of a wearable computer or hand-held device such as a smartphone." (Wikipedia, 2015)

There's also a slightly confusing (but straight forward enough) website which demonstrates how it would actually work. Here's a link. 

 So what if we combined Mediated Reality and Augmented Reality to create the ultimate experience? You could use the Mediated side to remove things you don't want to see, and place the things you do want to see in their place. This would actually work perfectly with my Vent character project. Let me show you how...

Here's a picture of the regular vent on its own:

 

Now what if instead of seeing that plain vent, I wanted to remove it and see a character instead? I could replace the default and put my vent character in its place, creating something like this:

 

This is exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping to be able to create for my project. The current AR apps are great for projecting 3D models into the real world, but unfortunately they just sit on top of these things rather than serving as a replacement. If we had the ability to actually replace elements with our own, that would be amazing! Definitely something I will be looking into further...

Evolution of Nintendo's AR Cards

Since the first 3DS was released, Nintendo has been shipping each console with a pack of AR cards for use with the system. Here's a picture of the designs in case you're unaware of what they look like:

                                  

The '?' card serves as the main form of player interaction, with the ability to pick from either playing a variety of mini games or 'summoning' one of the other cards. As you can see, the other cards feature characters from some of Nintendo's most popular franchises, and scanning any of these cards brings up their respective characters. Here's an image of some of the cards in action:

                  
Considering the 3DS released in 2011, this was a pretty cool thing to pass a few minutes when you first got your system, though I personally find it to be a shame that they were just static models. You could change poses and the size of the models though, so that's pretty cool. 

Luckily for me, though, Nintendo recently released 2 new promotional apps for the 3DS - Photos with Mario and, slightly later, Photos with Animal Crossing. Here are some videos of the two:

These apps are what the original 3DS AR cards started, but with a little extra greatness added in. Now, instead of the models just standing static, they interact with the 3DS's camera - making it look like they're interacting with the player. They can demonstrate different emotions and if you wanted to you could even move them away from the AR card that spawned them (providing the card is still on screen in some way). I think it's great that Nintendo went back and made these cards a little more exciting, as it was a shame that they were so uninteractive when the 3DS first released. That being said, it's not surprising that they were able to add more interesting features to the cards now as AR has developed significantly over the 5 years since the 3DS was released.

AR Cards used in Kid Icarus: Uprising 

Another way that Nintendo have incorporated AR cards into their products is in the game Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS. This game had over 150 AR cards in total which could be collected by buying packs of the cards, or through various gaming magazines. Instead of being used like Nintendo's regular AR cards, these cards had the ability to actually interact with each other and battle. Here's a video of them in action:

The only downside is that once the cards are battling, it's more of a case of sitting watching them battle it out - the player can't resume interaction with the game until the battle is over. It would be cool if in future Nintendo could revisit this and have the cards react differently, playing different movesets depending on player inputs. 

Never the less though, this is still super cool! Seeing characters battle it out against each other in the real world is pretty amazing. :)
 

Sunset Overdrive had cool Advertising

Just stumbled across this cool video of some of the advertising used to promote the XBox One game 'Sunset Overdrive' (which is very fun by the way, you should play it). Check it out:

A bus stop was turned into an interactive transit shelter, with the side panel turned into an Augmented Reality screen displaying monsters and creatures running around the street in front. Here are some screenshots in case you can't watch the video:

The panel interacts with the real world by putting splatters and monsters 'in' the street, with monsters popping up to scare the viewer every now and again. I think this is awesome advertising, and it would be cool to see more video games take this route in their promotion strategies. Just not any really scary ones, please... ;-;

Movember Trains

(Thanks to Holly for making me aware of this!)

Did you know that some trains 'grow' moustaches for Movember? Take a look at these:

                        
                      
                                 

It instantly made me think - how cool would it be if they integrated some AR for these? You could use an app to scan the moustache (when the train is stationary of course) and it could come to life - growing depending on how far along in the month it is. It could be a cool little advertising campaign for Movember. If any of you Movember reps are reading this - I'd be happy to help out with development. ;)

I just wanted to make a little blog post about it because I thought it was great and it made me smile a lot. Also, if you have some spare pennies, my lovely tutor Josh is still raising money for Movember and it'd be great if you could donate! Here's a link. :)