I really hope you are have a very Merry Christmas!
I decided to add some holographic cheer this Christmas.
To create this scene, I grabbed some free Christmas assets from the Unity Asset Store and placed them in my scene.
The HoloToolkit had a pretty big update recently with the addition of the InputManager. My latest master class over at LearnHoloLens.com looked at how the new HoloLensCamera, InputManager and the DefaultCursor prefab all work together.
Based off that information, it was pretty easy to get this going. I actually scanned in the Nativity using the Kinect V2 sensor and the 3D Scan app. If you want to hear more about that, you can check out this week’s video:
I enjoy playing games. I haven’t been able to play them in a while.
However, I have spent a little bit of time in the last month dusting off the controller to play again…
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I bought Titanfall 2 during a Black Friday sales.
I’ve completed the game and completed all the achievements, including the “…Becomes the Master” achievement. It took much less time to complete the sequel’s achievements than the original Titanfall, thankfully 🙂
The requirement of this particular achievement is to go through the gauntlet and get at least 3rd in the leaderboard. The time to beat is 33.65. This is a lot more difficult than one may think.
It took many times of trying, but I finally got it. I recorded it and am sharing tips in case you want to go for this achievement.
I’m sort of continuing my vacation from last week with this week’s video as I didn’t work on anything HoloLens specific for my blog and YouTube channel. Instead, I’ve been spending time on this December’s master class over at Learn HoloLens. If you want to be notified the next time the membership opens, go ahead and sign up on the wait list.
In the mean time, enjoy some Titanfall 2.
Let me know in the comments what games you like playing and what the hardest achievement was that you’ve completed (or not) …
I’m taking the week off, so my blog post this week is coming from Orlando, FL.
On Friday, I was able to give a HoloLens talk at the MVPDays in Orlando. It was a lot of fun.
But being on vacation with my family at Disney World is even more fun 🙂
From Magic Kingdom, to Epcot, to Hollywood Studios, to Animal Kingdom and back again I feel like our family has done and seen everything. Of course, that is impossible, but it’s been a great experience so far!
I’m curious where you went or are planning to go on vacation this year / next year. My kids are at the ‘perfect’ age to go to Disney this year so I’m glad we were fortunate enough to make it. I have no idea if we will ever come back to Disney World, but this was a good trip.
Two weeks ago I asked those who receive my email if they would rather see a music visualizer app on the Xbox One and HoloLens or the HoloWheels game on the HoloLens. So far it appears that the Visualizer is winning, so unless I get feedback going the other way I’ll work on the visualizer early next year.
However, while here at Disney, I’ve gotten a few ideas for the HoloWheels game after doing Test Trac a few times. As always, there isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. In the past, I’d just try to do everything and get frustrated with myself that I couldn’t. Now, after reading and re-reading Essentialism, I understand that I need to pick and choose what I want to do and saying ‘yes’ to something means saying ‘no’ to at least one other thing (if not a bunch of other things).
I saw a quote from Walt Disney yesterday that said,
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
I’ve been in rides like the Carrousel of Progress and O’ Canada where the technology used to achieve the effects were complicated and rather cumbersome. In line for the Carrousel of Progress you can see a video of Walt Disney talking about the attraction as it appeared in the World Fair in New York back in 1964. At the time the main actor was sitting in this contraption with what looked like a robotic shell where the model in the show would mimic what this actor was doing.
Of course, I’m sure now days it is just programmed in, but I couldn’t help to think how any of us could create something similar armed with just a $150 Kinect.
The O’ Canada show is a 360 degree video that surrounds the audience with 360 degree video. Of course, 360 degree cameras are available to the mass markets these days and the shots could all be done with drones, I believe.
Anyway, it is interesting how the “impossible” before isn’t so impossible these days. Things that were science fiction in the past, like holograms, are now a reality.
It is pretty amazing really at how fast technology is changing and being adopted.
In this week’s video I want to know where you have been on vacation or where you want to go next year? Let me know in the comments!
If you are a software developer who has an interest in holographic development, I’m inviting you to join a Xbox group called Holo Developers.
I created this video to talk about my desire to get back into gaming. But I’d like to play with folks who are interested in software development and holographic development in particular.