Entrepreneur Showcase XR Team
Communication through experience
XR | 3D | Interactive Media | Social Media | Marketing
Client: School Project for UW-MKE
Role: Designer | 3D Artist | Developer
Responsibilities: Team leadership | 3D modeling | AR development | Interactive media | User testing | Social media experience | Technical optimization
Authorship: Me, Ruby Wilson, & Skylar Zamzow
Year: 2021
Overview
I was the leader of a team that was tasked with creating interactive elements for marketing and for people that came during the showcase. The assets entail a 3D render made in Blender, an AR.js experience, and an auditory playlist for sculpting the environment. We were the first XR team in the DVC II Design Entrepreneur Showcase. Our team explored how emerging XR technologies could extend an exhibition beyond the physical gallery and create new forms of audience interaction. The Face Filter is inactive and are shown for archival purposes due to Meta’s discontinuation of Spark AR.
Problem
How can an XR experience be used to make a showcase more interactive, accessible, and engaging for both in-person visitors and online audiences?
Process
The AR experience began with Ruby's SVG assets from the showcase's visual identity. I translated these 2D assets into a 3D form in Blender, then optimized the resulting model for browser-based AR and a static image for the marketing team to use. Due to AR.js imposing file size and processing limitations, the model went through 23 iterations before reaching a usable balance between visual quality and performance. I ultimately converted the optimized OBJ into GLB for browser-based deployment. The team then developed the physical QR-code poster to display at the showcase.
I programmed an Instagram AR filter that generated our SVGs in response to the prompt “WHAT MKE OBJECT R U?”. The filter became one of the showcase's primary points of audience interaction, extending the exhibition beyond the physical event and into social media.
Listening Together was a collaborative sonic landscape designed to accompany the XR showcase. We used Spotify to construct a playlist organized into spatial and experiential flows. We treated sound as another layer of the augmented environment to be played at the showcase.
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