Saturday 15th July –
I entered day 3 of my challenge feeling really optimistic! But of course this was always going to be short lived! I began my next tutorial which was significantly more complex that the last one and I duly followed along. Indeed I followed along to the letter! Unfortunately this wasn’t good enough and sadly my Augmented reality using the ‘Patch’ editor did not work at all! Perhaps the greatest frustration was knowing that the software clearly had a problem but there was no way for me to check my work or contact anyone about it. I was well and truly stuck! However, even though I was really frustrated I had still actually learned something. Meta Spark AR has something that they refer to as a ‘Patch’ editor. The image below shows the Patch editor open and viewable in the software. It was this nodal flow that would not work for me although I still haven’t found a solution. What is great about the ‘Patch’ editor is that it works on the same principle as ‘Touch Designer’ and ‘Blender’ software. So when I came to explore it, I found that it wasn’t quite as alien to me as I had first expected.
I was determined not to be beaten, so I looked around the Meta Spark website to see if there were any other tutorials and I found one that used a similar tracking system but a slightly different approach using the ‘Patch editor. Again I followed the tutorial to the letter but this time I had 100 percent success! Please see below for the results from today’s challenge.
What Did I Learn?
Although the start of my day was really unsuccessful (please sort out your software versions Meta!), I actually went on to learn lots! Today I learned all about ‘Segmentation’ a process of applying effects only to chosen areas of the target. I also learned about ‘Occlusion’, whereby virtual objects are hidden behind other virtual objects. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in being able to demonstrate these but I’m hoping that as my knowledge grows I will be able to iron out any issues. I watched a video all about what to design and I learned all about the key areas of consideration when beginning an augmented reality project. Please see the image below for the key considerations. Finally I learned all about the ‘Patch’ editor and how it can be used to drive gestures and animations and a ton of exciting interactive features! I am completely sold on the idea of a whole hidden reality that could be surrounding us that without the necessary keys remains completely unknown.
What did I Actually Achieve?
Today was a good day even though it got off to a shaky start. I managed to create an augmented reality experience around a target image that was animated using the ‘Patch’ editor. The video above shows a shiny animated heart that rotates and this was programmed using the ‘Patch’ editor. I am actually quite pleased with the result. However, there is still so much to learn and I have many unanswered questions that I would like to explore. I am moving into day 4 feeling slightly less optimistic than yesterday because of the ‘dud’ tutorial that didn’t work. However I am still very enthusiastic because I still managed to create something which I felt was worthwhile. I also learned lots!
