Augmented Reality | The Leopard That Changed Its Spots
We were recently thrilled to be commissioned to develop an interactive augmented reality (AR) experience for Look Again’s “Northern Lights” exhibition at Spectra, Aberdeen’s annual festival of light.
This innovative project aimed to connect the festival’s main sites, immersing audiences in the magic of Spectra and augmented reality by use of their mobile phones, as they journeyed between locations.
Spectra’s “Northern Lights” sought to showcase the creativity of ten local artists working across various artistic platforms.
Project Capabilities
3D Animation:
Cinema 4d
Maxon Redshift
Motion Graphics:
Adobe After Effects
Augmented Reality:
Meta Spark Studio
We embraced the spirit of Spectra by breathing new life into Aberdeen’s iconic leopard sculpture. Previously a beloved landmark overlooking Union Terrace Gardens, it now found a new home situated beside Marischal College. To further enhance the experience, we reimagined the majestic leopard for an AR experience, where it would glisten with vibrant light, adding an exciting layer to the festival.
Meta Spark, a user-friendly AR platform accessible through Facebook and Instagram, was chosen due to its social media reach. However, as we delved deeper into the project, we encountered challenges with our initial design concepts.
We quickly realized that our initial design concepts would have to be cut back. The glossy light orbs being bound to a wireframe leopard were going to have to be left for full 3D renders. The culprit? File size. Thousands of spheres being rigged to our character’s animation simply wasn’t achievable. We thought about potentially baking the spheres as images, but unfortunately the quality just wasn’t good enough. The standard texture size was limited to 2 mb, and these also had to be animated, posing another hurdle.
By using one source light to light the leopard from the camera, reflections would be strong for the viewer, and give the impression of using a torch in the jungle.
The leopard was copied a number of times to give the impression of the viewer being circled by a pride instead of just one, offsetting their animations slightly, adding to the immersion.
Despite the technical hurdles, we delivered an exciting AR experience that exceeded expectations. Both the client and users were impressed with the final product. This project demonstrates our ability to develop innovative AR solutions that captivate audiences, even within technical constraints.