Introduction
Knight Rider is an augmented reality (AR) project created in the course ”Advanced graphics and interaction” at KTH. The project was developed from mid September to late October in 2017 by a team of five students.
Lessons learned
- Doing an AR game is not like doing a traditional game. The technique will limit you both in what you can do and how you do it. This especially goes for tracking of markers / fiducials which is not common to all AR libraries.
- Always aim low and improve later rather than aiming for the sky and producing nothing that is finished in its entirey. This cannot be stressed enough.
- Do graphics programming the right way and you can have waterfalls, sunsets and a hundred warriors fighting at the same time but doing it wrong, even the simplest light source becomes a burden for the processor.
- Don’t use more detailed objects than necessary as it will slow you down. The idea behind to use different meshes for different distances all make sense now!
Reactions from the audience
- Funny when things explode! More stuff, more explosions!
- Should be able to change the positions of fiducials without reattaching all of them.
Motivation
Knight Rider is all about having a fun and interactive experience in AR. Given a game board and some additional tools the user have to use these tools to make a car run from the start to the finish line. As AR is still a rather undiscovered area, we felt there was a real possibility to create something new and unique.
The graphics is simple yet advanced enough to give the users a great visual experience. With the limitations of mobile devices, graphically advanced effects where occluded to avoid bad framerate and hence a bad user experience. This makes the interaction the core element of the experience, where you have to attach different markers to the game board in order to complete the level.
Challenges and obstacles
- Scaling the augmentation to the reality.
- Creating an intuitive way to handle more than 5 markers at a given time (Vuforia limit).
- Creating good markers that are easy to scan and still visually appealing.
- Handling lost markers and the interaction between primary and secondary markers in a feasible way.