WrenAR | XR

In 2014, WrenAR LLC was formed to consult and contract solutions for companies looking to integrate XR into their workflow. It became a great proving ground for creating new user interfaces and interactions for XR space. Below is an archive of prototyping during this era.

Prototypes 2012-2017

Monster Shop In the Monster Shop, you get to create your own monsters and interact with them. Add eyeballs, moustaches, brains, tentacles, and then color & texture them all however you want. This is a demo showcasing advanced softbody interactions using your hands and the USens Fingo hand tracker. It is using the HTC Vive and we have developed a version using Vive controllers rather than hand gestures as well.	Full Body VR Sports Soccer, Hockey and Basketball are all sports being developed for this prototype. It includes foot controller support and full body IK avatar support as well. It allows for redirected walking, as well as hand interactions to pick up, drop-kick, juggle, dribble and lay up, unlike any other sports interactive system for VR.	Mixed Reality Exploring ways to get spectators more involved in virtual reality experiences. Also, finding new ways for players to see themselves in Virtual Reality. Notice how the player seems imbedded in the world, real-time compositing the different layers of the VR experience allow for this.

VR Avatars & Shopping This is "Wren's Quality Kicks" a virtual shoe shop in which you can pick up, examine and try on all of the apparel in the shop. Advanced avatar development here allows for scanned 3D people to be quickly rigged to a very versatile avatar with head, hand and foot movements, solid IK and realistic movements. Play Basketball, Soccer, Dance or visit Outerspace in your new Kicks!	VR Paint This is a powerful Social VR Content Creation Tool. Like Google's "Tiltbrush", artists can create 3D ribbons of paint, but also can paint variable 3D Tubes, and paint the entire terrain using Photoshop-like brushes with unlimited options. In addition to being able to clone any 3D element you create, you can update the color, texture, bump map and physical properties of every single instance. Multiplayer, VOIP, and complete Save/Load options for scenes and objects are in the works.	VR Rainbow Jellies This is a Softbody Interactive VR Experience. Tactile sensations occur when interacting with the softbodied jellyfish that change color and emit sounds when touched. This experience has been downloaded over 10,000 times and has been hosted in over a dozen countries. Several versions have been created supporting Oculus DK2, CV1, HTC Vive, Leap Motion and Bluetooth Controllers.

VR Deathrace Luna (2015) An extension of the Lunar Destiny project, WrenAR made an entire combat racing game using the lunar rovers. Many possible camera viewpoints, but works well as a 3rd person racer. This was designed for DK2 and CV1, but will likely be ported to HTC Vive soon.	VR Underwater (2015) This was the first attempt with jellyfish softbodies. An underwater environment prototype exploring physics, lighting and LEAP motion interactions complete with pirate ship, treasure and ghosts. This experience used the Oculus Rift DK2 and LEAP motion controller.	VR ISS Experience This project was done with a former student, Andrew Sherman (www.awsherman.com), who provided all of the excellent 3D models and materials for the International Space Station. Extensions of this project included: interactive real working webbrowsers you can manipulate with your fingers (LEAP Motion), detailed Earth view from the Cupola with day and night cycles and interactive zero-G liquids.
Lunar Destiny (2014-15) This is a moon colony experience for Rift. It has both 3rd and 1st person perspectives, and lets you try out many different vehicles to get around on the moon. Mining, building and keeping your colony happy are the goals.	VR Moon Legos (2014-15) This was an extension of the Lunar Destiny Project that allowed for real-time construction using your hands (LEAP Motion) or a Mouse controller to generate primitives and then snap them together, color them, adjust their materials, and then apply physical properties.	Advanced VR Interfaces (2014) This demo introduced several new interface prototypes for VR, including a VR keyboard, Orbit UI, and Float UI.
Construct AR (2013-14) This is an augmented construction site playset using markerless tracking. It is an augmented playset where you can build like an RTS & drive the construction vehicles like a simulation. WrenAR made 2 versions of this, one uses Qualcomm Vuforia and the other uses Metaio. I made the version with Vuforia in early 2013, a 2nd version using Metaio and markerless tracking was made in 2014.	AR Deskhoops (2013-14) This is a rig from 2013, it was an Oculus DK1 with a custom binocular AR rig allowing for AR recognition alongside binocular HD videostream along with converged 3D objects in a mobile Experience with no tethers and Leap Motion Support for hand gesture recognition.	FingerPaint AR (2014) This is an Android based AR project that allows you to paint in 3 dimensions on the screen of your phone using multiple fingers, pinching and drawing sculptures tied to AR targets. There are also 3D objects to create and manipulate and paint balls can have physical properties too.
AR Furniture Rearrangement This was an early prototype allowing players to rearrange furniture within an image target AR world on your Android phone or tablet. Players can pick up move and place all of the furniture in this room, real physics are applied to all elements as you drop them into place.	Pirate Paint (Glass 2014) This was a google glass project. You can propel a boat across the water by humming, and you turn by tilting you2 head. You can use 1 or 2 fingers on the touchpad to shoot paintballs at targets. This works well on Android tablets and phones too where you can blow into the mic to make the boat go.	AR/VR Cartoon Filtering (2013) This is one of many experiments in using filters to process both the video feed and the 3D scene through an Oculus DK1 headset for a customized mixed reality experiment using the famous Tuscany Demo as an example scene.

Prototypes 2012-2017

Monster Shop

Full Body VR Sports

Mixed Reality

Exploring ways to get spectators more involved in virtual reality experiences. Also, finding new ways for players to see themselves in Virtual Reality. Notice how the player seems imbedded in the world, real-time compositing the different layers of the VR experience allow for this.

VR Avatars & Shopping

VR Paint

VR Rainbow Jellies

VR Deathrace Luna (2015)

An extension of the Lunar Destiny project, WrenAR made an entire combat racing game using the lunar rovers. Many possible camera viewpoints, but works well as a 3rd person racer. This was designed for DK2 and CV1, but will likely be ported to HTC Vive soon.

VR Underwater (2015)

This was the first attempt with jellyfish softbodies. An underwater environment prototype exploring physics, lighting and LEAP motion interactions complete with pirate ship, treasure and ghosts. This experience used the Oculus Rift DK2 and LEAP motion controller.

VR ISS Experience

Lunar Destiny (2014-15)

This is a moon colony experience for Rift. It has both 3rd and 1st person perspectives, and lets you try out many different vehicles to get around on the moon. Mining, building and keeping your colony happy are the goals.

VR Moon Legos (2014-15)

This was an extension of the Lunar Destiny Project that allowed for real-time construction using your hands (LEAP Motion) or a Mouse controller to generate primitives and then snap them together, color them, adjust their materials, and then apply physical properties.

Advanced VR Interfaces (2014)

This demo introduced several new interface prototypes for VR, including a VR keyboard, Orbit UI, and Float UI.

Construct AR (2013-14)

AR Deskhoops (2013-14)

This is a rig from 2013, it was an Oculus DK1 with a custom binocular AR rig allowing for AR recognition alongside binocular HD videostream along with converged 3D objects in a mobile Experience with no tethers and Leap Motion Support for hand gesture recognition.

FingerPaint AR (2014)

This is an Android based AR project that allows you to paint in 3 dimensions on the screen of your phone using multiple fingers, pinching and drawing sculptures tied to AR targets. There are also 3D objects to create and manipulate and paint balls can have physical properties too.

AR Furniture Rearrangement

This was an early prototype allowing players to rearrange furniture within an image target AR world on your Android phone or tablet. Players can pick up move and place all of the furniture in this room, real physics are applied to all elements as you drop them into place.

Pirate Paint (Glass 2014)

This was a google glass project. You can propel a boat across the water by humming, and you turn by tilting you2 head. You can use 1 or 2 fingers on the touchpad to shoot paintballs at targets. This works well on Android tablets and phones too where you can blow into the mic to make the boat go.

AR/VR Cartoon Filtering (2013)

This is one of many experiments in using filters to process both the video feed and the 3D scene through an Oculus DK1 headset for a customized mixed reality experiment using the famous Tuscany Demo as an example scene.