To experience If All the Animals Came Inside, download the app and the images on my itch.io page.
About this project
If All the Animals Came Inside is an augmented reality story experience based upon the children’s book by Eric Pinder. The story follows a young boy as he imagines what would happen if the animals all came inside one day, the preposterousness of it, and the great chaos that would ensue. The If All the Animals Came Inside app is a companion to the story book, and lets children explore the possibilities of wild animals coming inside their own house!
The Making Of
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Story & App
My project is based on the story “If All the Animals Came Inside” written by Eric Pinder. The story follows a young boy and his family as he imagines what would happen if the animals all came inside one day, the preposterousness of it, and the great chaos that would ensue. My project highlights four scenes from the book, and provides additional commentary on each one after they have been visited once. |
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Location-based narrative
If All the Animals Came Inside classifies as a location-based narrative. There has been much academic research into this topic for a few decades now, aiming to understand the importance of location in a story. In this case, my app is an immersive story that uses a real location as its setting. The story by Eric Pinder provides the perfect opportunity to explore the narrative within a new and immersive setting. Having the story be in the child’s (or your) own home allows the animals to appear in context-relevant scenarios to match the descriptions in the book. |
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Technology
I built my project for Android in Unity using the AR Foundation library for the AR tracking. The AR foundation library provides my app with a robust, real-time tracking system. The tracking is a combination of AR Foundation’s tracking system, and my own manual tracking that I use to check where user’s are in the experience, and in determining what will happen next. Tracking The main form of tracking in my app is 2D image tracking in the form of printed image anchors. The printed images allow the experience to be portable and replicable for many people in many different environments. The images were designed to reflect where they should each be placed to make the experience easier to setup. Under the hood, the tracking system also tracks many other points in 3D space, building a virtual 3D environment based on tracked points in real life. |
Image courtesy of Unity Technologies.
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Rigs + Animations
The models were purchased from user omabuarts on CGTrader, but I completed the rigs for all the animals and the animations on the animals myself. All the animals are rigged with leg, torso, and tail movements, as well as ears and full face rigs.
Future steps
This app is complete to the degree that I had planned, but provides an interesting starting point for further exploration. For example, this app features two interactions for each animal, but could easily be expanded to include more. Each time a user returns to an animal, they could be doing something different, or more and more of the story could be revealed.
Further, the opportunity for non-linear stories arises. Perhaps different parts of the story could be revealed depending on which animals have been viewed first.
These steps are interesting possibilities to consider, and could be completed in a project of larger scope.
This app is complete to the degree that I had planned, but provides an interesting starting point for further exploration. For example, this app features two interactions for each animal, but could easily be expanded to include more. Each time a user returns to an animal, they could be doing something different, or more and more of the story could be revealed.
Further, the opportunity for non-linear stories arises. Perhaps different parts of the story could be revealed depending on which animals have been viewed first.
These steps are interesting possibilities to consider, and could be completed in a project of larger scope.
