During the spring of 2018, my friend approached me with a unique opportunity. It was to partner with the Chali-Rosso Art Gallery in Downtown Vancouver and to make an app for their Salvador Dali exhibit. This exhibit brought two of Salvador Dali’s original sculptures and displayed them publicly around Vancouver.
About the project
To digitally recreate an inanimate sculpture and make it “come to life“ through the power of Augmented Reality (AR)
The problem and my role
I designed and published the application in Unity3D, digitally recreated the original sculpture in 3D using Maya, and generated the Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials using Substance Painter.
Prototyping & Testing
Initially, my focus was to sketch out the sculpture, take as many notes as possible, and take reference photos for 3D modelling. After that, I could start sketching out potential solutions for making an application that reveals a dancing sculpture to a user. In my sketches, you can notice early hints to potential solutions, such as outlining potential areas for where to place my tracking points. After I have finished sketching the sculpture I would then explore ways of 3D modelling the sculpture.
The final design
After a month and a half of development, I was able to publish an application to both the Google Play store and Apple iOS. The application included a virtual gallery where the user can pan the camera and explore the digital sculpture in detail, and learn interesting facts about Salvador Dali. It also included an Augmented Reality Gallery where the user can point their phone at the real sculpture and have a virtual model appear and start to dance. Additionally, it included an about section to inform the user of the exhibit and its purpose and a discovery mechanism to help incentivize the user to explore the application and find everything that it has to offer.
Main Takeaways
Overall this was a surreal experience, a fitting choice of words since I’m recreating a famous surrealism artwork, although I could have improved a couple of things. This application is begging for a UI overhaul. Unfortunately, because of the time constraint, I had to primarily focus on testing and implementing the AR component, and I had to spend time accurately recreating the sculpture. An improvement that I would make would be to redesign the main menu and to spend more time simplifying and designing the user flow and offloading process for new users.
Otherwise, I am very happy with this project! The experience to briefly step into the mind of Salvador Dali made me feel like I was his student. I noticed so many intricate and precise details, and I certainly fell in love with this sculpture. I am very excited for the future of AR and how it can create these types of unique experiences where the user can also step into the mind of an artist! I am also very proud of the public’s response to this project, having over 300 downloads and over 6,000 impressions makes me confident that there is increasing interest in AR.