Kickstarting your imagination with AR

Hi everbody,

we´ve been discussing the hottest new hardware, tracking technologies or big cheese industry updates for the working life impact of AR. But today I wanted to get back to a bit smaller solution that I liked very much. Just a quick post. The approach reminds me of the roots of AR and what we can use it for – for fun!

It´s a prop-based AR visual effects in real-time tool that let´s your record fun videos easily. The staff from Special FX Master wants to kick off their idea via kickstarter and their pledge runs for two more days. About time to give them our support here! The kids in my family tried their system and were recording AR videos all day! Check out SFX Master with one of their videos:

It is a marker-based approach used on your phone or tablet. I like the ease of use and the number of fun props to use and how to apply them. The kids in my family (8 and 11) loved the app and wouldn´t give the tablet out of hand during the whole day (time for battery packs) running around through the house having fun.

Tracking is limited and sometimes fails or jitters, though. But the system makes sense for this concept: you add a piece of armor to your wrist or a poster to the wall to easily start without additional work to do. It can be easily understood by all kids (or adults) without any setup time. We can extrapolate how this could simply scale up with updated tracking using the upcoming Lenovo Phab Pro 2 with Project Tango tracking technology. But sometimes it´s also better to have a physical prop. During professional visual effects productions you will always have a physical prop dummy to hold in your hand, to interact with.

What I liked about it is the fact that anyone can jump right into creative AR without problems. The number of 50 props is good fun and I could witness tentacles, monsters and other creeps coming out of the fridge, the sewer, the bathtub. It´s a playful way to experiment with the tech and juggle around with your creative ideas quickly.

I hope they make the pledge and keep updating the system with more props (maybe open up the system to user content) and better tracking in the future!

Let´s just have fun with it and AR! Definitely we can learn from the youngest: after initial wonder they start using it without issues or tech-nagging and start building up their own worlds and ideas with it. Tech will grow on the way, but we must play around with the current state and be more creative with what we´ve got as of 2016. Go wild! :-)