Here’s Lookin’ At You, Pups | State of Matterless #20
Oh, hello there! Much has transpired since Matterless’s second year began a few weeks ago. We’ve made progress on the technical front while having a bit of fun with our Discord community. Step this way for the details…
Here’s Lookin’ At You, Pups
The long road to digital intersubjectivity is one of many milestones, and thanks to our new senior Unity developer Robin, we’ve surpassed a big one in a short amount of time: gaze detection! This feature lets your matterless pet detect and look at you as you approach. It’s a key advancement in achieving a sense of shared reality between you and your AR pet, where both entities acknowledge each other. The applications for gaze detection are as vast as hand detection; it starts with having your pet look at you, and also being able to recognize other objects around it… as our journey progresses, it will be a key feature in creating a sense of togetherness.
What Does a Digital Animal Sound Like?
Matterless beings are digital spirits inhabiting the bodies of animals; a combination of digital and physical. To reflect this concept in our audio design, we have been tinkering with real animal sounds and digital effects. Our goal is to achieve a signature sound that all our matterless creatures can be easily identified by. Have a listen to the most current iteration above!
Just Plane Simple
The technology that places a matterless pet (or any other 3D model) on a real-world flat surface is called plane detection. Through your device’s camera, the app scans your environment and identifies flat surfaces, like the floor, chair seats, and tabletops where your pet can spawn and move about on. We have enabled a graphic overlay to study how this plane detection process works in real-time, and how it can be tweaked. Check out the video above to see it in action!
Taking Pollution Down to Zero
Every month, Matterless donates funds from our Patreon backers to a different charity or wildlife organization. It is our little way of pushing for the aspirations embodied in the Matterless realm, where humanity and mother nature exist in a harmonious balance. Last month, with the help of our Patreon backers, we selected the Captain Planet Foundation. Inspired by the popular children’s cartoon, the foundation equips young people with the information, connections, and skills they’ll need to be problem-solvers for our planet. The current measures being used to combat climate change, habitat loss, and the myriad of other difficulties our planet faces can only get us so far; a new generation with new solutions must take up the challenge, and that is what the Captain Planet Foundation is working towards. Check out their site and donate if you can!
An Invigorating Conversation
Last week, our CCO Damir and Product Manager Jason held a 60-minute live AMA for our Patreon backers. Many burning questions from the community were addressed at great length, with insights into our design principles and updates on new features in the pipeline. Watch part 1 of the AMA above; the rest of the AMA will be posted on our YouTube channel next week.
Meme Contest
I was tinkering with the 3D model of our matterless Shiba one day, and, staring at its hilariously comical facial expression, wondered what great memes our community could come up with using a screenshot of it. With a unique “Meme Lord” Discord role up for grabs, we put everyone to the challenge, and they did not disappoint! Check out the three winning entries below!
We are powering up for the next build slowly, which is going to incorporate a lot of the tech we mentioned in the past few weeks. We are excited to keep going and bring you some of the magical stuff that has been on hold. We are solving a lot of the problems that seemed unsolvable months ago, and there is so much we still need to do. There is steady, inspiring progress in making the digital real. Join us on Discord to find out more!
— Kerwin, social media manager
