Lasers and Lighthouses | State of Matterless #57

Here at Matterless, game development meets the future of augmented reality. We explore the latest innovations in AR gaming and the endless possibilities it brings to the table… or floor.

Floored by blasters

Are you ready?

You can sense the excitement on our team server every time we talk about the vertical slice of the game we are making, a smaller but feature complete racing-shooting game called Floorcraft: Blasters! The devs led by Andreas, and the art crew are in full synchronicity about this one — a smaller yet powerful showcase of most (but not all :D) of our tech: instant calibration to jump into a shared AR session, fast and accurate SLAM usage for a seamless experience of hovercars zooming around and blasting at each other with big freaking lasers strapped onto their hoods, and an anime-inspired art style courtesy of our art director, Merlin.

The whole thing is just DRIPPING with juice; here are some variations of the laser sounds made by Dusko:

And Batu has been working on some VFX for some of the many power-ups we are creating for FC: Arena (in the first phase, we will have around seven power-ups… and that’s just the ones that are done already).

ZOOOOM!

The Tech of Lighthouses

Scan into a Floorcraft: Arena AR session via a static Lighthouse

On the technical side, we’ve been exploring ways to add more flare to the experience of placing AR objects in space. After scanning a QR code (we call them lighthouses because they point the way) in the video above, you can see the following:

1. A session of Floorcraft started
2. The Floorcraft session jumps over to a Domain through a lighthouse
3. Another phone starts the app asynchronously
4. That phone joins the Domain and Session through the lighthouse
5. Both devices see the same matterless objects precisely positioned in the same place

This will allow us to create sessions in AR that multiple participants can join by scanning a static QR code in a pre-set physical location. That means games in public spaces can be played with anyone with a compatible mobile device bringing their own set of matterless toys to the mix. Exciting times are ahead, people, and you’ve read it here first.

Our community members saw it first and discussed it on our Discord. Care to join?

I’ll show you one last thing today — the ability to place custom 2D assets onto the horizontal and vertical places recognized by the native visual SLAM algorithm made by Andy:

Logging into an AR session with pre-set assets on planes

We are planning big things with this feature, but for now, let's keep it between us, okay?

Don’t miss out on the latest updates and sneak peeks of our AR games! Follow us on social media and join the Matterless community today! LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube are where you can find us.

— Damir, CCO