Components of (XR) Magic

Over Coffee® | Stories and Resources from the Intersection of Art and Science | Exploring How to Make STEAM Work For You

Over Coffee® is on hiatus this week, due to our attendance at the VRARA Global Summit Online. In honor of the summit, here's a special-edition rebroadcast of one of our favorite episodes of 2021, starring Antonia Forster of Unity Technologies. "I would say that the most important learning I've had, is not specific to XR," says Unity Technologies Senior Advocate and XR Technical Specialist for Industry Antonia Forster. And that creative lesson is, in fact, a crucial one. It's also applicable to everyone. That makes it very much like XR--extended reality--itself. Learning to create virtual and augmented-reality experiences may sound intimidating. However, Antonia as says, "XR is for all of us". Creating immersive experiences goes far beyond, simply, making games. Education, entertainment and medicine, as well as retail, are all areas which are using immersive technology to teach, explain and engage. So, how do you get started? Well, Antonia gives a number of workshops and presentations in her professional role. She herself learned from online workshops, and she does NOT have a tech background. Currently, she's using these skills to create some seriously cool, fun experiences. In case you're unfamiliar with Unity Technologies, they're the leading platform for creating interactive content. And our personal experience, is that they are fantastic! They offer a number of free resources and live workshops, beginner level and up. During our conversation, Antonia shared her own learning journey, talked about the applications she's seeing for AR and VR, and offered a look inside an exciting project she's currently creating. On this edition of Over Coffee®, we cover: The science background which led Antonia to her current career (surprisingly, it’s not computer science!); Free and inexpensive resources available for anyone who’d like to learn to build games and applications in VR and AR; A new development that’s making XR more accessible; A very cool app project that can get you started, creating augmented reality; A newly open-source VR application in which artists will enjoy creating; How one artist developed an AR application to make a social statement; An exciting LIDAR-related capability which can enable you to put your surroundings into a virtual world!; Learning insights that apply to working with any technology!; And, a virtual project on which Antonia is currently working, which tends to wow everyone–and has some exciting potential for performers.