Time.
01/15/2022 - 04/15/2022 (4 month)
Team.
Peijin Du, Shujie Li
Tool + Languege.
Unity
Rhino 7
C#, C++
Summary.
This project aims to use AR technology to provide our customers a refresh and immersive experience of receiving a birthday card. The project was builded with Unity engine, 3D modeling software Rhino, and C#.
My Role.
Build the Light switch feature including light estimation, image tracking, and AR scene control. Create and build the gif animation (AR animator) and tap to place feature.
Problem
How can we create a more interactive and immersive birthday card experience with AR technology?
Solution
Feature 01: Light estimation
Combine the real word interaction with the virtual object. The AR scene will change with the light on/off in your physical environment. When users turn off the light, a candle will light up on the AR model and it will start to play the background music. Users can then wish on their birthday candles.
Light on
Light off
Feature 02: Plane detection, Tap to place, Gif Animation
After users turn on the lights again, they can play virtual fireworks for themselves to celebrate in the AR scene. The system will first scan and detect all the horizontal planes, then the user can tap on the screen and place the animated fireworks at the tapped place.
Research
After watching an AR book video in which the readers can scan the book and view 3D illustrations. We are so excited to have the idea: why not create an AR greeting card, it’s meaningful and interesting? We conducted market research immediately and there are several different types of AR greeting cards now. But it’s still a novel area to explore, only a few people are working on it now. And the quality of those AR cards is not very good.
Market research - finding
Concept
Project Goal.
Create a more interactive and immersive AR greeting card experience
Light Switch.
Combine the real word interaction with the virtual object. We make use of the characteristics of AR to create better experience for users.
Firework animation.
It’s cute and fun. It allows users to interact with the AR scenes by themselves so it would be more immersive than traditional birthday card.
Prototype
Physical.
When turning off the light, the candle will show up
Tip on the screen to guide users
Users can type down their wishes and submit them [Discarded]
Feature 01 - Light estimation.
Light estimation and control model replacement
We implemented the light estimation script on Directional light [C#]
Add light estimation script into the AR origin session [Unity]
Feature 02 - Plane detection, Tap to place, Gif Animation.
We first implemented plane detection feature in Unity
When users tap on the screen, the gif animation will appear
ReplayKit we used to play our fireworks animation GIF on users phone screen. [C#]
3D Model.
Cake Model in Rhino 7
Cake Model in Unity
Cake Model in the user's App
Reflection
Think about failure as a good starting point!
We meet a lot of challenges during this project. I still can remember how many days we worked on the issues and find nothing useful to solve it. The first challenge we met was to write a C# script for the light estimation feature. None of us has experience writing C# before, but we taught ourselves with youtube videos and books. And we met challenges combining feature together. However, after overcoming all these difficulties and challenges, our problem solving ability improved a lot. We become quick learners of new things, we can now find useful resources very efficiently, and we collaborate better by sharing findings with each other.
Next Step - Usability Testing
To provide better experience to our users and increase the design value of our AR birthday card, we plan to conduct usability testing with our target users. After getting some feedbacks from our users, we can better iterate our design. There are three main part of design that need to be tested: the physical card serving as the background of the AR scenes, the experience of the light/night AR scenes, and the interaction that users have with the scens. We believe there are always room to improve our design.
You have reached the socks : )
Let's keep in touch!
