Unreal Engine AR Plugin Makes Your Office Desk a Gameworld

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Unreal Engine 4 has been at the forefront of virtual reality (VR) for some time now, but this new augmented reality plugin allows developers to take real world imagery and overlay virtual imagery onto it, as this new video demonstrates.

Epic’s UE4 demo’s are responsible for a large proportion of historical ‘wow’ moments in the short history of virtual reality’s evolution. They’ve followed Oculus’ hardware iterations with technical demonstrations showcasing both the power and adaptability of Unreal Engine 4 and the promise and potential of VR as a platform.

Now, a new plugin has arrived to unlock the engine’s potential in the augmented reality space. Unreal4AR is designed to allow “developers to use Unreal Engine 4’s Blueprint visual scripting system to create multi-platform Augmented Reality experiences as seamlessly and as easily as possible.” In short, it provides a way for UE4 developers to take a feed from reality and, using markers in the real world, overlay UE4 rendered objects and characters to move as if they’d popped out of your monitor.

The new plugin is built on the open source ARToolkit resource, which proclaims itself to be “The world’s most widely used tracking library for augmented reality.”

The demo itself is a neat evolution of the UE4 “Matinee Fight Scene”, where futuristic brawlers let off steam with some old fashioned fisticuffs. The original demo is below for you to compare and contrast.

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Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • Randy Phillips

    Should also be noted that artoolkit also has a release for unity… http://artoolkit.org/download-artoolkit-sdk#unity

  • user

    great. cant wait to watch pointless violence on my desk.

    for real though, when do you think will it work without the sheet of paper?

    • TC_Orygun

      We’ll invent mind blowing new technologies and use them to simulate war and murder! I think about that a lot actually. Human nature I guess. Fighting and survival have a strong draw.

  • Demongo

    This violence has been brought to you by Nescafe