PocketScape: A 2000's Love Letter
Project Summary
PocketScape is an augmented reality nostalgia dreamscape that fits right into your pocket! Created in Lens Studio and hosted on SnapChat, Pocket-Scape is a 360 degree AR filter that gives you a taste of 2000’s nostalgia. Explore an era bygone and reconnect with your inner child as you walk around a 2000’s themed bedroom.
Based on my own fond childhood memories of staying up late during summer vacation to play video games, Pocket-Scape serves as a love letter to 2000’s media and technology!
Scan the code to give it a try!
- Skills: Lens Studio, Maya, Photoshop, After Effects
- Date: September 2020 - June 2023
Conception
PocketScape was initially conceived as a final project for my 3D through AR class. Given that it was one of the last projects that I would work on while completing my undergraduate degree, the fast approaching end to the semester made me really nostalgic for my childhood days where summer vacation would be spent staying up late and playing video games.
While I cant turn back the clock, I realized I could try to recreate that feeling by constructing a dream bedroom that I would’ve loved to have back in the mid 2000’s. I wanted this to be a 2000’s time capsule filled to the brim with major pieces of my own childhood.
Inspiration
A large source of visual inspiration was my own modern day bedroom! As an avid collector, I find that my room serves as a great representation of who I am today as I have figurines and posters littered throughout. I wanted to carry this cluttered, yet lived-in, cozy feeling with my AR filter.
Maya Model v1
The first version of the maya room showed the basic layout of the room and some of the major pieces of technology that I wanted to include to represent the 2000’s. However, it featured some poorly optimized models that ultimately made the overall room too heavy to be imported into Lens Studio, meaning that I would need to remove or remodel different pieces.
Additionally, I experimented with how to best implement the lighting effect in the room by including 3D models of led light fixtures and baking the lights directly in Maya. While this gave me a good baseline as to how I wanted the lights to appear, it also caused the room file size to be too large.
Maya Model v2
In the second version, I removed some of the larger models and replaced them with simple shapes and textures. For example, I swapped out the the TV model with a square covered in a CRT looking texture. I also added textures that really gave the room detail. However, at this point I still had planned on including light effects within Lens Studio. In doing so, the room would still be to large to import.
Maya Model v3: Final Version
The final model fully showcases my dream 2000’s bedroom! At a comfortable 6.4 MB’s the room is able to feature plenty of 2000’s time pieces due to the increased reliance on animated textures and coloring to achieve the lighting and set effects without overloading Lens Studio.
This additional space allowed me to add a fourth wall within the room to create a 360 degree effect for the user. With real world tracking enabled within Lens Studio, the user can activate the filter in any space they are in and can walk around the real world and the PocketScape dimension simultaneously. In order to add to the child-like effect, the model is scaled larger within Lens Studio so that the user appears smaller than their environment/furniture.
Textures
Results
The final model was then published to Snapchat and can be accessed by scanning the virtual Snapcode and switching to your outer camera! Explore your now transformed room as you step back into the 2000’s!
The filter also features the song Aquatic Ambiance by composer Scizzle as its a viral track often used on social media when gen-z users want to invoke dreamy nostalgic feelings in reference their 2000’s childhoods.
Reflection
This project really allowed me to expand the scope of my AR development abilities and truly felt like a culmination of everything I had learned in the course. While it involved a lot of trial and error and more optimization than I initally planned, it ultimately taught me alot about the limitations of AR on social media and how to push myself creatively to get around them.
It was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience that really allowed me to connect with my inner child and reflect on how much things have changed within these past 10 years. I hope to potentially turn this into a series of bedrooms based around different periods of time!