Identity design

Motion graphics

AR marker controlled puzzle

The output!

A little technical rundown

Good performance was at the fore of all minds on the project. How many polygons were too many? Which 3D engine would be quickest? What minimum specs were (un)reasonable? And at what point does tomorrow’s noon deadline become more attainable by going home and sleeping? By hook and crook, we struck the right balance, but not before a few bouts of panic.

In the pursuit of faster marker detection, we started with an Alchemy-compiled version of the FLARToolKit. Alchemy is an Adobe Labs technology that allows C and C++ source code to compile to ActionScript bytecode and be executed in the Flash Player. The advantage that those lower-level languages have over high-level AS3 is great scope for optimised CPU instructions and memory management. But! -using SWCs that other developers have created is akin to buying a car on eBay without seeing any pictures. This particular vehicle was as fast as promised, but leaked oil [memory] at an alarming rate, and would insta-crash on wet tarmac [Google Chrome]. We tried what we could from outside the black box of that precompiled code to resolve the problems, but it became apparent that we’d need to switch over to the more dependable, slower AS3 version, and seek our performance gains elsewhere.

Beyond the FLAR  difficulties were the need to manage dinosaur textures with some sophistication. Trying out the construction game, you’ll see that individual bone segments are alpha-ed down and up independently of the rest of the model. Papervision3D supports this sort of control while the Collada model is rendered with vector fills for textures, but setting a DisplayObject3D’s alpha property with bitmap textures present will quietly do nothing.

Our workaround involved the exposed BitmapData of each texture, and the application of ColorTransforms on a per frame basis. And since such transformations are lossy and non-reversible, a custom tweening function was needed to clone the original pixels at each time step, before reapplying the ColorTransform with an incremented alpha offset. (Intel Celerons, go home.) Where this approach made acute pain for Justin, our 3D modeller, was in the need to break apart the model’s textures into individual materials, for every segment that we wanted to fade in and out. Not knowing the final set of editable bones, we were left with over a hundred separate texture files to manage. And that’s why we’re all sleeping so well these days.

The people that made it possible

A big thanks to the team that worked so hard on this. We have:

Adam Vernon – Lead Flash Development

George Crabtree – Flash Development

Ben Webb – Lead Designer

Justin Dowling – 3D awesomeness

Antoine Kougblenou – Testing / javascripting

Dan Course – Calming words in the eye of the storm

Ben Templeton – Project lead and Creative Direction

Our client contact at the BBC, who has been fantastic, showing incredible support, patience and ambition.

The project will launch at the Big Bang Science Fair in early March and presents users with a familiar problem – re-assemble the mixed up parts to form the whole. This time the twist is that the puzzle takes a 3D dimensional form and interaction occurs with an AR marker via the webcam. The best bit? Dinosaurs are involved. Dan is very excited.

What better way to start a research project than with a real-life puzzle and a cup of coffee. Play Nicely laid down the gauntlet by assembling their dino-kit first, though we’re not entirely sure how anatomically correct their version is. Justin, in full 3D himself, will mastermind the modeling and Mr Adam Vernon will be developing the Flash interface.

We’ll be using a mixture of the FLARToolkit and papervision, though the current debate is how to get the smoothest effect for live 3D and a model that has over 3,000 polygons. We’ve even discussed creating a series of PNGs for increased verisimilitude at the expense of full 360 interactivity. Tests will be posted for comment if anyone out there is interested in our progress.

Over at Play Nicely, the boys are making leaps and bounds with their Total Immersion AR projects, but for this brief it was essential no 3rd party software was required beyond the usual Flash Player, which currently stands at 94% penetration throughout Europe…

Our concept and prototype for the next level in locative rating systems really caught the attention and I found myself getting excited all over again. Two buttons, one red one green. Or one smiley one sad. Or one tick, one cross. And all you do is rate how you’re feeling at that time in that place. The iPhone fairy then takes over, sends the rating and GPS data to our servers and we create a happy heat map of the world…

In other news, touchscreens have taken over the world. Every shop front worth its salt within a square mile of Oxford Circus now has some form of large, interactive touchscreen wizardry for passing pedestrians. The battle is on for the hearts and minds, fingertips and hard-earned dollar of the casual window shopper. You Tube and 4OD have also teamed up in Carnaby St for a truly widescreen touch-off.

The exciting news is that Thought Den and Joanie Lemercier have been plotting some similar schemes over the last few months and our first prototype will be demoed at the TD offices in the new year. Watch this 3D space…