Beautifying Matterless Spaces | State of Matterless #31
It’s the last Friday of August, so let’s get you updated on how things are going with the Matterless team as we head into the last third of 2022!
Beautifying Matterless Spaces
With the introduction of interactive feeding in the 0.6 build last week the team has been steadily working towards removing the barriers between you and your Inco so that you can interact with it both seamlessly and naturally. As we embark on a new sprint to 0.7 (exciting six weeks ahead), our next priority is to completely rework the user interface!
Our art team led by Charlie is meticulously working on a cleaner UI that lets your Inco occupy more of the screen while maintaining necessary functions such as displaying your QR code and switching to 2D mode.
See the backpack at the bottom right of the concept images above? It will replace the inventory button! I think you’ll agree having an actual backpack that opens is a much better approach than a generic button. This holds especially true when it comes to accessing delicious noms to feed your Inco.
The separation of the AR and 2D modes is an important part of the UI revamp. Currently, when you switch to 2D mode, you are removed from the AR experience and transported to a static menu that prioritizes utility over form. Our objective with the redesign is to make AR and 2D modes part of the same experience, rather than separate from one another. Check out the video above for a prototype of how we expect these two modes to transition fluidly!
Understanding Your Inco
In 0.7, we want our UI overhaul to be more than simply aesthetically attractive; we want it to have a significant influence on how you interact with your Inco. As a result, the mood and hunger gauges will be gone in both AR and 2D mode. Keep a watch on your Inco’s behavior to see how pleased and hungry it is! Using the Needs bars in a game like The Sims, where you are a god of synthetic people who never recognize your existence, is great. However, the Incos experience enables you to build a personal relationship with a real digital creature. Feeding and petting your companion are big aspects of nurturing that relationship, but understanding their facial expressions, body language, and vocalizations is just as important.
Development of 0.7 has just begun, so stay tuned to our socials to get updates on that, and join our Discord to chat with the team.
It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s An AR Plane!
The Matterless team is already breaking so much ground with AR pets and hovercars, so imagine my surprise when I found out we’re also working on AR planes!
It all began when, during our work on Floorcraft, our hovercar app, we wondered if we could explore other types of vehicles besides land-based ones. That’s when aircraft came into the picture, and thanks in large part to our developer Vidhvat, the results so far have been stellar. AERIAL domination, friends.
The biggest challenges behind planes are capturing the way they move and translating that into the existing Floorcraft control scheme in which the car moves to wherever the camera on your device is pointing through raycasting. Because planes can’t stop and go like vehicles, we made them bank on turning. We track their turning radius and map it to the roll axis.
In the meantime, the team is still deciding if our AR planes will be integrated with Floorcraft or be given their own app (can you say pew-pew?), but if you have an opinion on what we can do with them, we’d love to hear it on our Discord. In the meantime, stay tuned for more updates on this!
Dogs, cars, and now planes…it’s like coming home to a fancy new toy every month! Here’s to the rest of the year filled with more surprises, and I’ll see you again next week!
— Kerwin, social media manager
