Building a Truly Immersive AR Experience

Augmented reality overlays digital information on top of the physical world. By that definition, AR is as much a physical experience as it is a digital one. It is thus essential that physicality be considered when designing an AR application. If, for example, an app is intended to be used for an event, then whoever plans the layout of that event should take the application into account. A room that is extremely minimalist, for example, will be difficult to augment. Similarly, overly-simplistic markers make for poor tracking, and thus will fail as AR markers.

But it isn’t just about how well your app can track your markers or environment. Placement of physical objects will matter too. If you intend for your AR content to be pivoted on a horizontal plane, then your marker needs to rest on a horizontal surface, such as a floor, table or pedestal. Otherwise, your content would seem completely displaced from the physical world, defeating the purpose of marker or environment-based AR entirely. That being said, adding an additional table to your office/event hall/ballroom just for the sake of AR will undoubtedly take up space you might not be willing to give up. That’s why it’s important to weave your AR experience into the event itself. For example, if the location were a restaurant, the markers could be the placemats. If it were a venue where participants are expected to be on their feet most of the time (e.g. a museum), markers could be stamped onto the floor.

Once you’ve figured out a sneaky way to embed your markers into your location, there’s the matter of having people find them. Sometimes, this could be the goal of your AR app itself—discovering content by scanning everything and anything that looks like a marker. But more often than not, your app has a specific purpose, registering on specific markers. So how to go about telling people what images are markers, and what aren’t?  

An easy answer could be to make your markers look like markers. As with QR codes, no one will mistake a spatter of black pixels for anything else. But this presents a few problems. Firstly, it counters what makes a marker ‘cool’. Markers can be just about anything, meaning you can design them to complement whatever it is you’re augmenting. QR codes just about complement nothing, so going down that route is a sure way to ensure whoever’s in charge of aesthetics gets a fit.

 

One more way to get around the discoverability problem is by introducing unifying emblems or symbols which immediately inform the user that what they’re looking at is indeed a marker. Such a solution has been in use long before AR was mainstream. Marvel Comics, for example, adopted an AR symbol at the bottom of augmentable comic-book pages when they launched their Marvel Now imprint. The Brisbane Festival 2017 also used similar symbols to denote augmentable content.

Still, the best way to encourage users to discover AR content would probably be to have the app inform them directly where said content could be found. A catalogue page displaying images of available markers could be one way of achieving this. Users can browse the catalogue at their own pace while moving through a space. For a more subtle approach, a ‘hints’ feature could make the entire experience even more engaging and encourage exploration. This kind of gamification can be taken to another level by introducing virtual ‘badges’ that can be collected once an AR marker has been found and triggered.

Finally, if your event or venue spans several rooms or segments, ensure at least one AR experience is present in each. This helps ingrain the expectation in users that the AR content isn’t just a gimmick or a one-off, but rather a core part of the entire experience. When the users begin to feel that way, the use of your AR app will naturally grow more frequent and habitual.

ARETH

The planet Areth, the New Earth adopted by Kelvin Adam and his wife, Evelyn, as their home, is the setting of the Arethian Chronicles. Though the first Chronicles were recorded after the Adams' discovery of the planet, the history of the ancient realm goes back several millennia.

OLD DWELLERS

The first to walk to lands of Areth, then called Elro-viale, were a race of beings known as the Old Dwellers. Purely spiritual in nature, the Dwellers communicated through thought, and were thought to have been formed from the Creator's own essence. As such, they held the very power of creation itself, though this was limited. Known Old Dwellers are the Great Spirit Landovar, the Ancient Golem, Cal-dux the Tsunami Titan, Overlord the First Dragon and Garuda the Great.

THE ALUMARIA

One of the first children of Elro-viale, formed by the Great Spirit Landovar, were the Alumaria. Born close to the bosom of an Old Dweller, the Alumaria were gifted and adept with magical knowledge, and became the first mages. Their many exploits would result in the dimensional rifts that later allowed the dragons to pass into the planet Earth, whereupon they first encountered humankind. The Alumaria thrived for countless centuries, but grew hungry for power, abandoning their Maker and seeking to destroy the other Old Dwellers. In his anguish, the Great Spirit set a plague upon them. The plague lasted seven hundred Elro-vialen years, afterwhich the Alumaria were all but wiped out.

THE DRAGONS

Second to the Alumaria were born the Dragons, children of the First, Overlord. They were gifted with great intelligence and fiery breaths, while many of them were also attuned to the magical arts. In their earlier years of existence, the Dragons were close to their older siblings, but the Alumaria abused their magic and created dimensional portals into another realm by accident. A number of Alumaria and Dragons went through the portal, discovering a young Earth. While the Alumaria schooled humankind in the ways of magic, the Dragons left them the gift of language. Yet as the centuries passed, the humans grew afraid of the powerful Dragons, who were unlike the more man-like Alumaria, and began to hunt them down as monsters. Slain by those they had aided, the Dragons retreated back to their home realm, closing themselves off in the mountains of Articus.

Pixel Art

Pixel art done for RPG Maker XP. For most of them I used sprites from Sithjester and Naramura as my templates.

Olympian (Gideon Archimedes)

Identity: Gideon Archimedes
Year of Birth: Unknown

Occupation:
Gideon is the co-owner of a small law firm, Archimedes & Kane, which he set up alongside rich heiress Alexis Kane, his friend and financial backer. He works as a private attorney as well as a legal consultant, usually only helping poor, victimized clients for little or no money.

Powers:
As Olympian, Gideon has Level 3 superhuman strength (also known as Olympian Strength), and is known as the strongest man alive. He is the only living mortal capable of lifting the Sword of Heaven, as well as carrying the colossal weapon while air. He is also able to fly at great speeds, at one point breaking the sound barrier.

One drawback of his supersonic flying is that it takes a tremendous counter-resistance to stop his momentum, as even he himself is unable to stop once he reaches those speeds. On the ground, however, Olympian does not possess superhuman speed.

Equipment:
Olympian possesses the Sword of Heaven, a weapon forged by Hephaestus who prided himself in ‘crafting a weapon no man can lift’. Olympian is the only living mortal capable of wielding the enchanted blade. The Sword of Heaven is resistant to magic and most substances, capable of tearing through force fields and magical barriers. It stays on Mount Olympus, where even the other Neo-Olympians are unable to lift it, until Olympian summons it.

Notes:
Gideon Archimedes is an Olympian, hailing from the planet Olympia Nexus. The semi-immortal Olympians were granted special genetic gifts by way of Pandora’s Box, a mystical object which contains ‘all the powers of the Omniverse’. On his home planet, Gideon was a Warrior, blessed with superhuman strength and flight. Gideon’s father was crowned king of his region when Vision, an Olympian with the power of foresight, prophesied the destruction of the Earth under the hands of the Soul Eater, declaring that there is no hope for humanity.

While his brethren refused to risk their entire planet for the sake of a ‘lesser’ one, Gideon stole Pandora’s Box. His own father saw this as an act of treason, and exiled Gideon, naming him an outlaw. Pursued by his brother, Vladimir, he escaped to Earth via a mythical Portal Key and opened the box, releasing the Hyperblood strain and unknowingly sealing the Soul Eater. He then broke the key to the box into six different pieces and hid each piece away in separate locations.

Banished from Olympus, Gideon then remained on Earth, all the while awaiting the Soul Eater’s return. As Olympian, he possesses the supernatural strength and the ability to fly. He is also able to call forth the Sword of Heaven, which he won from Hephaestus through a bet. During his fight with Vladimir, he was shot in the right shoulder by a focused psionic blast, making it his Achilles’ heel. He wears his shoulder plate to make up for it.

Wormwood's Curse

Chapter 10

Invisible to the eyes of mere humans, the Shadow Hunter moved swiftly through the crowd of New Yorkers and night-lifers.

The neon signs overhead were making him extremely dizzy, and the crowd brought back some leftover claustrophobia from his childhood. But he had little choice. If he stayed in the crowd, the mages of the Silent Circle would think twice before attacking him.

As he rounded a corner, the night sounds of Manhattan died away. It became abruptly quiet, and the Hunter called off his invisibility spell.

He was in a deserted alleyway, and there was no sound except for a crow's cawing. A bedraggled junkie lay in a messy heap in a dank corner. The smell was intorelable.

The Hunter knelt beside the junkie, whose bearded and pock-marked face was partially hidden in shadow.

"Let me pass," whispered the Shadow Hunter.

The homeless man turned to look at him with sunken eyes. He uttered feebly, "What's the code?"

"None shall speak within the Solem Barrier," replied the Hunter.

The man's lifeless eyes seemed to roll upwards into their sockets, and the whites stood out prominently in the darkness. Then the man let out a painful, resigning yell, and from the concrete floor rose a cylindrical structure the Hunter recognised as a Lock Stone.

Like the floor, the Lock Stone was concrete. It looked extremely plain, especially in the dark, where the exotic black markings could barely be seen. A vertical slit sat on the flat concrete face.

The Shadow Hunter slipped Cerberes through the slit, as if the Lock Stone were a giant sheath. As the hilt touched the topface, the markings lit up in a brilliant blue, illuminating the alley.

The junkie was still writhing against the brick, graffitied wall as it cracked resoundingly. The crack worked its way up the wall, slowly at first, then at breakneck speed.

Suddenly, the building that formed the right wall of the alleyway imploded. The Shadow Hunter brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden burst of light. When he got used to it, he stepped towards it, through the crumbling hole.

As soon as he disappeared through the debris, the wall sealed itself back up.

There was a chair, and an old coffee table, and a blinding lamp. Behind the table sat a hunching, hooded figure.

As the Hunter removed his own hood, the figure did the same, revealing the wrinkled face of a haggard old lady. She smiled, flashing approximately six yellowed teeth.

"Cabal Strider..." sneered the woman. The Hunter could hardly take his eyes off hers: one was white and dead, while the other was green and alive with a fire he could not quite place.

He sat on the chair facing her. "Tell me, Madam Reika." He placed the files he had stolen from the High Order's HQ on the coffee table.

Without moving any other part of her body besides her mouth, Madam Reika said, "Wormwood...the accursed town."

The Hunter nodded uncertainly. "What about it?"

"The town plagued by its demonic past. The town plagued with the sin of its founders. The town plagued by a thousand days of total darkness..."

Reika rose, very slowly. Her voice grew eerily soft as she said:

"There is a village by yonder woods,
where once the abyssal demoniacs stood.
Water and wine they lacked not;
only their hearts had they forgot.
And so a curse by their fathers' mistakes:
a curse to either fulfill or break;
a curse from hell's blackened hands;
a curse that up till now still stands."

The Hunter found it hard to breathe. He stood, took the files and turned to leave, uttering his thanks to the hag.

But a skeletal hand grabbed his wrist, preventing him from leaving.

And before he knew it, Madam Reika's face was beside his. She was short, and she stood on a chair to reach him. As she spoke, the Hunter felt his blood freeze.

She said, "Hellfire wants to come back..."

And she cackled.

A Warning

Chapter 9

Now deep in the forest of Wormwood, four mages found themselves exhausted and dehydrated.

From thin air, Tobias conjured three flasks, passing them around to his fellow magicians. They drank sparringly, though they knew any one of them could just conjure more water if they ran out. Still, it was better to play safe; magic required energy, and a dehydrated mage was a dead one.

Bane handed his flask to Longfang, whom Tobias had conveniently forgotten while producing the precious water. Longfang drank, spat, and took another gulp.

"Way to go," said Tobias, the disgust in his voice emminent. "You just wasted a mouthful of water."

Panzer looked at the elf with amusement in his eyes. "I'm sorry. Once I get my Channel back, I'll repay you twofold."

Tobias lunged forward, but Alyson--who had been recuperated by Bane--held him back.

"Relax, Tobias," she said soothingly.

Gritting his teeth, the elf slackened his muscles, and Alyson took her cue to let go.

"Enough of this, Tobias," Bane ordered. "We have more important things that you can waste energy on, so save it for now."

Reluctantly, Tobias replied, "Yes, sir."

Bane turned to continue moving when something bounded past him, causing him to jump back. That something rounded about, rearing up and kicking its hooved legs. Bane, Tobias and Alyson pulled out their Channels defensively as the creature stamped on the ground.

It, or he, had sapphire eyes. A mop of long, black hair framed his squarish, bearded face. His naked torso was that of a human male, and was broad, sloping down towards his lean abs. His muscular arms were crossed proudly across his hairy chest.

Of course, that did not seem at all strange. What was strange was that this rather handsome man's upper body was attached to a tanned horse's body, hooves, tail and all. Bane knew instantly what this creature was.

He was a centaur.

"What do you want?" Bane asked, his finger tight around the trigger.

"I should be asking you that, human," rumbled the centaur.

Bane lowered his weapons, taking a step forward. The centaur watched him warily.

"He sure has a thing for trusting people today," Alyson muttered to Tobias.

The elf shrugged. "Maybe we're still in that wisp."

Then they both shushed; Bane had spoken. "My name is Justin Bane. That's Alyson Reed. The elf's called Tobias Bolt, and the rugged-looking man's Panzer Longfang."

He was being completely honest. He had to be; centaurs had a knack for recognising and disposing of liars. And there was no way he wanted to be part of a centaur's Burning Ritual, their annual sacrifice to the Forest Spirits.

The centaur seemed extremely wary of them, and when he spoke he did so with much caution in his voice. "My name is Blitzon, from the Nothern Tribe. You are in our territory."

"I'm sorry," said Bane, slowly. He wracked his brains, deciding to take a gamble. "We're looking for a group of lost children. There has been deaths recently. Have you seen or heard anything?"

"Are you accusing me of something?" demanded Blitzon, scratching the dirt with his hoof.

Bane took a step back, lowering his body. "No, I wouldn't dare. But it is important, if you know anything, that you tell me about any suspiscious happenings in this forest of late."

Blitzon was silent, and Bane knew the centaur was wondering if he could trust them. Finally, he relented, saying, "Recently, another human has been passing in and out of the Solem Barrier. She had children with her. We have tried to drive her out, but..."

And suddenly Bane understood. They had lost to a human being, and a woman at that. It was a disgrace to their tribe, and they probably grew more careful after the confrontation.

"A woman, you say?"

Nodding, Blitzon said, "A blond-haired one. Her prowess over the magical arts are extensive, to the point that she doesn't even require an external Channel, like you possess."

Bane, Alyson and Tobias gasped in unison. A mage with no Channel taking down a band of centaurs? How in the magical world was that possible?

"I warn you, human," Blitzon continued, his gaze intense, his voice low. "Do not attempt to go after this woman. For if you do, you would most surely die."

And with that, the centaur galloped off, disappearing through the foliage.

Bane turned, his eyes meeting Alyson's, then Tobias'.

"Did you guys hear that?" Bane asked, his mind numb.

Both Alyson and Tobias nodded. The former said, "Looks like Longfang is innocent, and our problems just got a lot worse."

Framed

Chapter 8

High above a towering building, at the top floor, a large man sat in a tall armchair. His dark, shaved head seemed to glimmer in the dim light of his office, and his muscles rippled beneath his coat. He looked out of his one-way window, a mirthless smile etched on his face.

The computer on his desk, which had been on screensaver mode for quite some time, lit up with a beep. The man swivelled his seat about calmly, his gaze falling upon the screen. Upon seeing its contents, he smiled, and returned to the window.

"I'll make you pay," he said, his voice a rumbling bass tone. "I'll make you pay for breaking in."

The man reached beneath his coat, retrieving a fat cigar. Placing it in his mouth, he held up his free hand.

A small tongue of fire ignited in his open palm, which he brought towards the cigar. He inhaled deeply, then blew out a puff of smoke, still smiling.

Then, as he pondered about the events that were about to take place, he broke into low, frightening laughter.

*** *** ***

The Hunter had fallen into a half-sleep in the tent he had conjured up. It was all an illusion--the luxurious bed, the soft pillow, and the warm covers--but an illusion that fooled the mind into thinking the body was living in comfort; an illusion the Hunter did not mind falling into.

Dreams came and went, foggy in the Hunter's mind. They woke him up, along with the sounds of the woods. But slowly, his eyes would flutter, and he would be asleep again. It was an annoying cycle, but one that would keep him alive.

He could not remember when was the last time he had had a sound sleep. Now, he could not afford such a pleasure: alertness was the key to his survival.

When the Hunter fell asleep, the homely illusion would be shut off--another safety mechanism of the spell, lest he completely drifted off. However, this time, it did not.

And so the Shadow Hunter fell, for the first time in years, into a deep sleep...

*** *** ***

Something woke him up. The crunch of footsteps on fallen leaves perhaps? How long had he been asleep?

Immediately, he reached for Cerberes, rendering himself invisible. He exited his illusionary tent cautiously.

A blast from nowhere, too sudden for the Hunter to respond to, brought him to his knees. He found himself bound by a thick, glowing rope. Another blast, and he felt something coiling around his neck.

Mages and wizards, many of them. They could see and target him, which meant most of them were advanced spellcasters.

No longer focused, the Hunter's invisibility spell wore off. He groped whatever was suffocating him, trying to pry it off him, but a third blast threw his hands above his head, completely immobilising him.

As his consciousness began to waver, the Hunter saw a familiar face emerging from the darkness. But the face became unclear, shrouded in a growing mist.

He was falling faster and faster into a deep abyss...but, no, he couldn't. He couldn't stop now...

"CERBERES!" he managed to choke.

The enchanted blade emitted a powerful glow, bursting forth from its sheath and spinning wildly. The light that emanated from it flew in several directions, exploding into the enemy mages and the Hunter's binds.

Free, the Shadow Hunter took a moment to breathe and regain his full consciousness. Then he sprang to his feet, grabbed hold of Cerberes, and was gone in an instant.

One of the mages who had been thrown back by Cerberes' attack cried, "He's gotten away!"

The other wizards rose to stand, brushing off the dust on their cloaks and coats. The man known as Greg said, "What now, sir?"

Jonah Elisior sighed wearily. "He's sure to lay low after this. Return to the Circle and continue tracking him."

Ten mages teleported, leaving behind ten puffs of smoke and dust.