BBC MicroKingdoms
Work on the Mixed Reality Magic Leap, this real-time narrative presented many interesting tech-art challenges.
As seen on the video on the left:
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The plants needed to be dynamic, interactive, and yet allow the ants to march up and down the stem in realtime.
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I wrote a cloth solution to make the plants behave naturally as you interact with them from any place, where it naturally settles back to its rest pose.
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The magnifying glass needed to have the correct focus from both your eyes in Mixed Reality. I solved this by raycasting from the magnifier's focal point to each of your eye positions, and rendering a different lens distorted image for each eye.
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Dynamic flowing maps for the ant pheromones
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Achieved a swarm of flying ants using animated "imposters" that rotate to the direction their particles are heading. This worked really well in mixed reality, as both eyes see a different image giving the illusion these were 3D ants in real space.
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Spider hairs stand on end with a "shell" shader that adjust based on distance to vibration ripple.
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Light shafts that come from the ceiling, using a shader on cones that takes in a render texture to modulate the light as it scatters through the leaves.