2016 AR Christmas Card

Every year I use what I have learned to make a Christmas card. Last year I made a low-poly card using Blender. This year I decided to combine that knowledge with the AR (Augmented Reality) library I once used in a Game Jam, along with some simple Unity animation and particle effects.

This AR library is called Vuforia, which is made by Qualcomm and later acquired by PTC. It's pretty robust and easy to use, and also supports Unity. Best of all, it's free for non-commercial use. I'll keep the technical details in my website.

In short, all you need is to install the Android app, then point your camera to the image in the cover page or the first screenshot (that one with a lot of snowflakes). You can print it out or just show it on a screen. If all things work you'll see something cool (the last screenshot is only a glimpse of an earlier version). Otherwise, point your camera elsewhere so the image is completely out of view, then point it back to the image (this will hopefully trigger the image recognition).

Since Apple does not allow 3rd party app installation, and I don't have an Apple Developer account, this app will not be available for my iPhone/iPod/iPad friends :( You can watch a video instead:

As for my Android friends, simply install the app by opening the apk file on your device.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy and have a Merry Christmas!