The Extended Reality Blueprint E-Book

Annie Eaton

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 287

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Follow a tried-and-tested approach to integrating augmented and virtual reality into your business The Extended Reality Blueprint focuses on design for non-gaming or gaming adjacent applications in extended reality (XR), including augmented and virtual reality. Author Annie Eaton is a leading producer of immersive content in the XR space. Many of Annie's clients come to her with the same questions, often not knowing where to begin as they seek to implement extended reality solutions into their business. This book presents the discovery and product development process through an immersive technology lens. You will walk through the XR production process and learn how to apply this technology directly within your organizations in a meaningful and effective way. Join leading businesses like Delta Air Lines, Mars Wrigley, Georgia-Pacific, and JLG Industries, and learn how top companies are leveraging XR for greater market share, engagement, and profit. * Learn about the latest applications of extended reality (XR), including augmented and virtual reality. * Discover the steps of the XR product development process, including how to find profitable uses of XR and decide on technology suites. * Assemble effective teams of XR developers, designers, artists, and other key members to bring your projects to fruition and success. * Learn from the real-world examples and lessons learned of businesses that have taken the leap into extended reality. The Extended Reality Blueprint, delivers a concrete, actionable process for brining extended reality into your organization and embracing this crucial technology to remain current.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

1 Perspective

Physical versus Digital

Accessibility

Possibilities

Interactivity

Human Connection

Avatars

Presence

Determining the Medium

2 Hardware

Augmented Reality Hardware

Virtual Reality Hardware

Audience

Deployment Method

Content

Cleanliness

Comfort

Appearance

Playspace Setup

3 Finding a Use Case

Problem Finding

Visualize in Extended Reality

Audience Identification

Return on Investment

Finalize Your Use Case

4 Reference

Visual Reference

Environmental Reference

Experiential Reference

Auditory Reference

Virtual Viability

5 Design

Environmental Descriptions and Sketches

Specialty Models and Featured Equipment

Characters and Their Features

Dialogue for Characters or Narrator

Animation for Characters and Objects

User Flow with All Outcomes

Interactive Elements and Controls Mapping

Sound Effects and Ambient Audio

Developer Directions for Transitions and Locomotion

User Interface

Scoring Matrix

6 User Experience

Visuals

Audio

Haptics

Physical Comfort

Mental Comfort

Social Comfort

Controls Tutorial

Teaching Interactivity

Guardrails

7 Production

Content

Integrations

Deployment Method

Hard Deadlines

Resources

Experimental Features

Scheduling Tools

Prioritization

Mediation

Respect

Healthy Noes

8 Environment

Art Style

Spatial Planning

3D Modeling

Optimization

Animation

Effects

Lighting

Audio

Characters

Character Models

Uncanny Valley

9 Prototype

Proof of Concept

Phase I

Interactions

Locomotion

Tutorials

Systems

Content

10 Testing

Tutorials

Interactions

Spatial Placement

User Flow

Testing Brief

Intake Form

Session Recordings

Performance

Metrics Tools

Frames per Second (FPS)

CPU versus GPU

11 Iteration

Why

How

What

Annotation

Tasking

User Experience

Content Goals

Time

Budget

12 Development

SDKs

Libraries

Assets and Packages

Visual

Interactive

Add-Ons

Metrics

Events

Heatmaps

XR-Specific Analytics

Versioning Standards

Release Notes

13 Quality

Bugs

Locks and Crashes

Technical Function

User Flow

Visual Issues

Scoring and Analytics

Project Requirements

Run-Throughs and Checks

Spot Check

Full Session

Multiplayer Test

Integrated Hardware

Steps to Replicate

Reference Footage

14 Deployment

Packaging

Version Control

Version Code

Deployment Methods

Limited Deployment

Public Deployment

Private Deployment

Communication Channels

Making Updates

Collecting Feedback

Documentation

Instructional Guides

Marketing

15 Measuring Success

Events Tracking

Platform Insights

Other Metrics

Organizational Efficiency

Safety Impact

Sales Goals

Cost Savings

Brand Impact

Content Updates

Feature Updates

Tech Debt

16 The Future

Entering XR Professionally

Speed

Patterns

Observe

Adjacent Technologies

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning

Metaverse

Hardware Forecasting

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Index

End User License Agreement

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ANNIE EATON

THE EXTENDED REALITY BLUEPRINT

DEMYSTIFYING THE AR/VR PRODUCTION PROCESS

Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN 9781394207688 (Cloth)ISBN 9781394207695 (ePub)ISBN 9781394207701 (ePDF)

Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Shabira line icon / Adobe StockAuthor Photo: Haigwood Studios

To my Futurus team past, present, and future, who teach me something new each day.

Acknowledgments

WRITING THIS BOOK has made me reflect on the past decade and what I've learned. The entrepreneurial journey is difficult, lonely, and trying, filled with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. My husband, Jake Lance, has been with me since before day one, advocating for me and supporting me like no one else could. I love you, and you mean the world to me. I'm privileged to share my life with you. Starting a business would have only been a dream if it weren't for the partnership of Peter Stolmeier, who taught me so much in the world of extended reality. Thank you for your friendship and for sharing this transformative technology with me. And Futurus could not have become the incredible brand it is today without the dedication of Amy Stout, who has become my most trusted advisor and closest friend over the years.

I want to thank my family for their unconditional support and love. I am truly blessed to have Danice and Rick Eaton as my parents. They never doubted what I could accomplish, even when it sounded crazy to the rest of the world. And to my siblings, Richard Eaton and Holly Arencibia, thank you for putting up with me all these years. You helped shape me into a strong person, and I'm inspired by both of you every day. Thank you also to Dirk Rountree, Paul Welch, Chan Grant, David Macias, Elijah Claude, Victoria Savanh, Adaobi Obi Tulton, and Venkatasubramanian Chellian for helping me make it to the finish line with my first book. To the rest of my family, friends, and peers, your support as I traverse through the entrepreneurial journey has been incredibly meaningful, and I appreciate each and every one of you. I would not have gathered even a fraction of this knowledge if it weren't for the people in my life that have been along for this ride with me.

About the Author

Annie Eaton is an immersive content producer, specializing in engaging and interactive virtual reality and augmented reality experiences. She is the founder and CEO of extended reality-focused company Futurus, which produces training and product visualization applications and provides technology consulting for various organizations and nonprofits. In addition to her current role as CEO of Futurus, she also serves as executive producer of Amebous Labs, a virtual reality–focused game studio, publishers of Loam. She stays involved in her local Atlanta technology community, managing XR Atlanta, an organization that supports thousands of extended reality enthusiasts and professionals across the city and beyond. Annie is also involved with Women in XR Atlanta, Women in Technology (WIT), and The Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR) and serves on multiple industry advisory boards.

Prior to her work in extended reality, she earned her degree in international affairs and modern languages from The Georgia Institute of Technology. She initially entered a career in marketing and communications, where she was first introduced to virtual reality technology. After being exposed to early virtual reality hardware and experiences, she made the leap to enter the field of immersive technology and forged her own path through entrepreneurship. Annie has found a way to blend her creative, communications, and technology experience to build an innovative team that tackles the latest challenges in extended reality production.

She has been recognized by various organizations for her work in tech, including Women in Technology's Woman of the Year Award, Women in IT's Rising Star Award, and Technology Association of Georgia's Young Professionals' Technologist of the Year Award. Her projects have won recognition from Fast Company in their Innovation by Design award series. Annie has vast public speaking experience, having been invited as a speaker for conferences, podcasts, educational institutions, and corporate events to share her love and knowledge of immersive technology. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her family and dogs. The Extended Reality Blueprint is her first book.

Introduction

MY EXTENDED REALITY career was formed at the intersection of hard work and happenstance. As with many of my colleagues, my interest in extended reality, or XR, came out of nowhere. It happens one random day when someone is introduced to the tech for the first time, and the next day, they're obsessed. This is my story: one day in 2013, I was introduced to the Oculus DK1 virtual reality headset (at the moment, the most successful Kickstarter of all time) by my coworker Peter, and I was instantly hooked. There weren't many resources to learn about extended reality for people like me—non-developers—other than academic journals and Reddit, polar opposites. So, with the encouragement of that same coworker, I began to read everything I could get my hands on.

This went on for months. I even got the opportunity to interview at Oculus, which took course over several months in 2014, right on the heels of their acquisition by Facebook. I can honestly say (now) that I am grateful that didn't happen. That was probably the best “no” I've ever gotten in my life because it made me want to prove them wrong. There was a place for me in the industry, and I was going to prove it. And nearly a decade later, I am confident to say I did.

Before any inkling of a company was formed, I needed to network in my local area of Atlanta, Georgia. That same coworker and I decided to start a meetup group, and it had an unexpected organic growth that proved to me that my city was ready to accept virtual reality technology. The “strategy” behind the first event wasn't much at all. Peter and I created a group called Atlanta Virtual Reality Meetup on meetup.com and posted our first event with the title “Try out some exciting demos and talk to others about virtual reality.” That's about the strangest event title I've ever heard, but it worked. In addition to sharing with friends and posting on Reddit, the venue that allowed us to set up shop sent out the event to their mailing list. We didn't realize what a powerful mailing list a gaming bar would have, but nearly 200 people showed up (triple the amount that RSVP'd), and there was barely any room to walk around—it was overcrowded. People loved it, and they wanted more.

It was in that moment I knew this opportunity was much larger than I realized. Peter and I had to figure out what to do after the success of this gathering. People were asking questions, and we needed to give them answers. We attended other local events to demonstrate the technology, and my name started to be associated with virtual reality in Atlanta. Strangers were contacting me to ask how their organizations could leverage virtual reality. I'd become the posterchild for the virtual reality community in Atlanta almost overnight. I had no intentions of starting a business when this whole journey started, but I was also not going to ignore the slew of inquiries coming my way. I did want to work in the industry after all, and maybe this was my chance. So, after a meeting with Peter and a woman who had reached out to me asking if we could provide some guidance, he and I stayed after in the coffee shop parking lot. We talked about this crazy idea of starting a business to help people find their virtual reality use cases. Prior to the release of the Oculus DK1, headsets were so expensive they were limited to industries such as military and medical. The emergence of cheaper hardware meant access for all, and we wanted to help everyone find a way to use it.

I bring all of this up to say that I didn't have a computer engineering background or years of creative agency experience prior to getting into my field. This industry is so ripe with opportunities that with an idea and the tools to bring it to life, anyone can become a creator. Yes, it was an immense amount of work to get where I am today, but it came from an inspiring moment and a vision of future possibilities.

There are so many aspects of the work that I do that I had to just figure out. The budding network of extended reality enthusiasts was a close-knit community when I started. Heck, it wasn't even called XR until there were so many digital realities that we needed a consolidated term. I asked questions when I could, but most outcomes were a result of intense Google searches and trial and error. My goal with this book is to provide a jumping-off point, a resource, an account of lessons learned, so that you can start with a leg up. This book consists of nearly a decade of findings and best practices summed up in one place, by someone who has tried all of it. And why share all this information when I'm still using it to grow my company? The technology is only as good as its adoption rate. The more people that produce effective, comfortable, and immersive content, the faster the tech will grow. There isn't a place for any of us without an audience, and there is no audience without good content. The bottleneck isn't in the hardware—it's in the software and experiences that make the hardware great.

Definitions are important, but they are also ever changing. There are three that I will use the most throughout this book: virtual reality, augmented reality, and extended reality. This is how I define them as they pertain to this book and my work:

Virtual Reality (VR)

Technology leveraged to immerse oneself in a computer-generated 3D world through use of a head-mounted display, completely occluding the view of the physical world.

Augmented Reality (AR)

A digital overlay of 2D or 3D content onto the physical world, typically experienced with a smartphone, tablet, or wearable device.

Extended Reality (XR)

A universal term inclusive of immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and spatial computing.

This book will go through my process from the inception of an idea through its deployment. But before we can go through the process, there are some barriers that need to come down with how we think of digital content to begin with. We've been taught most of our lives to think on paper or on a flat screen, and those mental habits need to be shattered. The medium of extended reality gives all of society a new way to share their knowledge, creativity, and ideas. It is extremely difficult to come up with anything original, and now we have an opportunity to do so. Growing up, my uncle would bring up his “Society of Original Thought” or SOOT as he calls it. He's talked to me about it since I was very young, and the idea is to challenge yourself to come up with original ideas. It seems nearly impossible as there have been limited opportunities for original ideas and applications due to the inundation of products, services, and content for anything and everything. But with extended reality technology, we get to drop the norms and guidelines that the physical world constrains us to. We need familiarity somewhat for adoption but do not need to limit ourselves to what we already know and what is possible in the physical world.

Once these mental barriers have been removed, we can go forward with the production process. We must start at the end deployment to choose which technology type within the realm of XR we want to leverage. Making that decision at the start of a project has significant benefits when it comes to development tasks. This book will walk through exercises to help you choose the right technology for the use case, which will save a great deal of production time if determined early.

Once that deployment method is determined and a use case is clearly defined, you're off to the races. We find that over half of the process is design, documentation, asset gathering, and planning. It seems excessive, but the clearer a vision the development and art team have, the faster they can produce something incredible. If documentation is disorganized, inconsistent, or missing pieces, there is so much more back-and-forth that takes place and wastes time. Design is the most important part of any project, and it's also viewed as the least important by many (most often by my clients). Stressing that importance and baking it into every schedule, meeting, and discussion will build good habits from the start.

By laying a strong foundation, incredible creativity will shine through. When I first started my business, I thought processes were creativity-crushing vehicles. But it was only when I started putting processes in place that I didn't have to think as hard about the mundane repetitive aspects of work and was able to think more freely. Extended reality technology has plenty to offer, but that can be overwhelming. Leveraging processes to help guide openness and opportunity will get you to a workable idea much faster. The remainder of the book focuses on getting to that end goal of a successful deployment. From user testing to iteration, finalizing interactions to quality assurance, the many components that go into delivering an exceptional experience seem endless. This book will distill that down into manageable chunks to make the seemingly impossible possible.

I have learned the hard way how difficult it can be to produce extended reality work, and I wanted to create a blueprint to help others learn from the challenges I've been through. The demand for this type of immersive content is only going to grow, so we need more producers, developers, artists, and designers. I truly believe that anyone from any background can find a place in the field of extended reality. But to make that transition, we need XR champions—enthusiasts of the technology who believe in powerful possibilities and opportunities. When you hear about immersive training simulations that are saving lives, the ability to visualize something magnificent that doesn't yet exist, or narrative experiences that allow people to walk in each other's shoes, it makes you believe in the power of extended reality. Will you join me and change the way we see the world?

1Perspective

LET'S START WITH an exercise. Hold your index finger out in front of you. Now draw a cube in the air. Think about how you drew that cube: Did you draw a flat cube with a square and diagonal lines to simulate a three-dimensional drawing on a two-dimensional plane? Or did you outstretch your arm to give your cube depth, extending into the third dimension? Chances are if you are an adult, you drew a flat cube. When I try this exercise with young children, they don't have the limitations of thinking about 3D objects as a 2D representation. They think about things how they are in the physical world. We have spent our entire lives viewing content on flat paper, a computer screen, a phone, and it's very difficult to reverse that mentality. But my hope for you is that you can train yourself to think like a child. To think in a more physical way. Because to create virtual worlds, we must drop much of what we've been taught all our lives. We need to remove the limitations that decades of schooling and society have engrained in our minds. It can be done, but it takes work to break those mental habits.

When we work in extended reality, many of the constraints that exist for other media are lifted. The laws of physics no longer exist (unless you want them to). Some of the best features of development engines such as Unity and Unreal are that they simulate physics—gravity, collision, motion, etc. However, these programs also allow you to turn physics off or adapt the experience in a way that is out of this world. Imagine a virtual reality simulation that has the gravity of the moon. Objects react in this experience as if they were on the moon when you throw them, bounce them, drop them. The only component that doesn't react in this way is your actual body (unless you're using some sort of harness to help simulate that too). While many extended reality experiences need to retain some of the earthly laws of physics, it's fun to think outside the realm of what's possible in the physical world and leverage such a powerful medium to achieve just that.

Physical versus Digital

When designing for extended reality, think in 3D. Drop the limitations of your 2D computer screen, phone, and tablet. Even if technically we will still be experiencing the content through flat screens, the way we perceive it is with depth and dimension because of the way it's being anchored or positioned in a space. So what does this mean, to have the freedom of depth and dimension? It means that we can visualize data and content in a way that is immersive. We can interact with content like we interact with objects in the physical world. But in XR, they don't even have to be objects that are bound to the physical world. We can create functional, technological magic.

You'll notice throughout this book that I do not refer to things as “real” and “fake” but rather “physical” and “digital.” This is because the line between real and fake is blurring, and definitions are changing. If someone joins a social space and attends an event on their virtual reality headset, that is still a real experience to them. They made connections, conversed with people across the world, and created a memory—nothing fake about that. Differentiating between extended reality content, or digital content, and the physical world that grounds us isn't made up of real and fake. It's all real in some way, shape, or form. It's different from what we've always known, but that doesn't make it less real.

Sometimes it's a good thing to be able to replicate the physical world. It's not all about creating a digital fantasy where there are no boundaries. Many of the best use cases come from replicating parts of the physical world and their processes. Think of educational content and practice simulations for surgeons. By recreating what's in the physical world these doctors can practice indefinitely and with unlimited resources. There isn't any waste, and there is no liability or potential loss of life with a virtual practice simulation. Simply put, you can practice until you're fully prepared. Another great reason to replicate the physical world is to grant access to culture, travel, and art, for people who don't have the ability or means to access it in person. While in many cases it's hard to compete with the real thing, extended reality can give exposure that can lead to greater understanding around the world, and it's no longer limited to mobility, ability to travel, or socioeconomic status.

Accessibility

Accessibility in the realm of extended reality still has a long way to go, and there is much to be desired, but there are some aspects of accessibility that are made possible by this technology. Leveraging positional data, or where someone is located in a space, and then being able to give detailed audio cues and information based on that positional or spatial data is a powerful way to assist those who are visually impaired. The ability for a program to intake real-time audio and generate voice-to-text displayed directly in the line of sight of an individual via their glasses is an effective way to assist someone who is hard of hearing. Taking that same technology one step further and generating real-time translations could help break global barriers in communication. The ability to lower the interactive components of an environment with the click of a button can help someone who can only experience the world in a seated position. The possibilities for accessibility in these virtual spaces and with augmented tools are going to open a wide array of opportunities, efficiencies, and quality-of-life assistance as never seen before.

Possibilities

So what is possible in XR? When I say the possibilities are endless, that may in fact be true based on the human imagination. However, while there are some capabilities that stand out as winning features, there are limitations as exist with all technology. Starting with digital environments and assets, it's possible to make a 3D space that looks like anything you can think up. By leveraging 3D modeling tools such as Blender or Maya, the creative limitations are bound to your technical modeling skills. Thinking of creating a futuristic otherworldly inhabitation? That can be done! When planning these spaces, ponder about everything you could ever want in an environment. How do you eat? How do you use transportation? What do the trash cans look like? Whether it's a fantasy world or very much rooted in the physical world, this level of detail is crucial. The same goes for single objects that may be experienced one at a time or overlaid onto the physical world. And while creative limitations are boundless, unfortunately, technological limitations exist. Environments and art assets will need to be optimized for the device on which the content is being deployed, so keep that in mind along the way, and consider where you can make compromises if necessary.

Interactivity

Interactions are another imperative factor of any extended reality experience. It's important to think about how to implement interactions in these worlds that you've created or with these digital assets you've produced. Interactions are essential and allow designers to bring what may be impossible in the physical world into a functional virtual instance. Interactions and the complexity of these interactions have a vast range, but the most common is “grab.” The act of picking up an item and placing it, moving it, throwing it, stacking it, dropping it is not only a novelty but a requirement in most extended reality experiences. While it seems the simplest, if “grab” doesn't feel right, it can ruin an experience. “Grab mechanics,” as they're called, are common across simulations in their implementation, and extended reality users have grown to expect a level of consistency across experiences, which is good for the industry and its progress. Interactions can be made using a controller or gesture/hand tracking depending on the hardware's capabilities.

Moving beyond “grab,” most other interactions will involve some sort of physical intersection of the “hand” or controller and the digital object. Think of outstretching your index finger and pushing a physical button with it. That same interaction can be translated into a digital experience using that exact implementation. And a third type of interaction would be user interface, or UI, interaction. This is less immersive, but it can feel more familiar because this is typically used to access menu screens or dialogue boxes, similar to 2D digital content. This is commonly done by using a point-and-click method, like what you'd experience with a computer mouse or even your finger on a phone screen. Interactions are a crucial consideration in any extended reality experience, so take advantage of the possibilities and give thought to implementation.

Movement and locomotion add to the opportunities that extended reality brings to its audience. Moving the user in your experience can be tricky, and detrimental if not considered with care. If you move the user without their consent, it can be nausea inducing, which is an immediate turnoff to the technology in general. On the positive side, in extended reality you're able to move in ways you couldn't in the physical world. Teleportation is one of the most common forms of locomotion. I know you're thinking, “But isn't that some ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ science fiction?” Well, in virtual reality, blipping from one area to another is as easy as the click of a button. Since walking can be difficult due to limited physical space, teleportation has been adapted to not only take you from one environment to the next but similarly to hop quickly around a single space. It's my favorite means of movement in an extended reality experience and can be quite fun once you get the hang of it. For the iron-stomached audience playing fast-paced games, a common method referred to as “smooth locomotion” is often used. When you think of smooth locomotion, think of maneuvering with a joystick in any direction that you move it. While it does provide the user with more flexibility and precise movements, this can also induce motion sickness since the visuals of the experience move quickly in the peripheral while the user remains stationary.

Branching out into more creative methods of movement, some experiences use motions that mimic swimming, swinging, and even gorilla arms to trigger locomotion. Notice one thing in common—all three of these examples are using arm movements to propel the user forward. This is due to the fact that legs and feet aren't tracked yet. In virtual reality specifically, we're limited to a headset and two controllers. There are third-party haptic devices that can be added to the setup for additional tracking, but designing for the hardware that comes in the box is important to reach the widest audience. Therefore, the developers who get creative with locomotion commonly use arm movements to locomote.

Human Connection

Digital social connection is everywhere we look (we can't get away from it, even if we try). I will proudly say that the most digitally connected I've felt to someone has been through extended