Mixed Reality AR Design

For a complete reasonings behind these designs, please reference my “Critical Mixed Reality Manifesto”

All designs shown are created by Diana Munoz.

MAKE “LIVE” BETTER

All seating sections can be ‘tuned-in to different frequencies’ to view the live moving projection tailored to their specific angle of viewing.

(below) Current standards of live-performance viewing still rely on relatively small screens.

This unforgettable visual from Blade Runner (1982) is still a breathtakingly captivating concept to this day. Taking it one step further, imagine how impactful a real-life public figure can be as a true titan, and how the nosebleeds at live performance venues could be just as valuable as the very front seats.

The technology required for reliably mapping and scaling a 3D motion-captured augmented projection to this degree already exists and works well. If anything could make AR more in demand and consequently, more accessible, I say it’d be the FOMO (fear of missing out) from witnessing something like this.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

GAMIFY

Personalized, Interactable UI

Each individual in attendance of a live event can be retained and unified with the entertainer and audience if there is a simple, interactable, gamified mixed reality augmented platform integrating everyone along the ride, and an incentivized personalization feature for each individual.

The First AR Concert

In 2019, All Of It Now, an immersive experience agency designed a rehearsed live AR experience for BTS’ performance together with FragmentNine; a new door opened for mixed AR.

TURN UP THE FX

Music & Live AR Animation

A perfect harmony

With full 2.5 D and 3D real-time mixed augmented reality animation rendering capabilities, we can bring the already breathtaking animations currently created by countless niches of world-class artists, and tactfully give them the co-immersive, interactive production resources to weave their visions into the countless niches of live-music performances.

This synesthetic dream of magical light sparkling at our fingertips as we experience music was brought into beautiful perspective by Disney’s Fantasia almost a century ago. All niches of visual entertainment industries have their contemporary cutting edge of quality, and mixed augmented reality is not just a platform to play century-old light tricks with, it can be a tool to broadcast all the already advanced standards of visual achievement in an unrestricted dimension and bravely take them even further.

Below are three curated examples of some of the most iconic innovators in the art entertainment industries that could elevate mixed augmented reality content to pique relevance. These are also testaments to the quality effectiveness of niche designer-led projects.

Everything Everywhere All At Once, an independent film directed by Daniel Kwon and Daniel Scheinert, swept major awards in 2022. Its fantastical visual concepts are all predecessors of real augmented reality absurdities to come. With a production team like this set on mixed AR experiences, there will be seismic talk.
DeeKay Motion is an Animator that deals with meta-contexts of design. Cerebral breakers of the contextual fourth wall will be vital to augmented reality experiences to follow suit with this medium that innately breaks the physical fourth wall.
Alberto Mielgo is the unsung Production Designer and Art Director responsible for disrupting the stagnating echo chamber of the art/game/entertainment industry’s standard of aesthetic for animation through his early work on Into the Spiderverse(2018). He is a huge proponent of animation made for adults, so adult animation experiences are no longer historically the same as children’s animation experiences. Defining the purposes and aesthetic hierarchies of stylized realism in mixed augmented reality will make or break mass transitions into augmented reality, and choosing creative directors with observable track records for artistic innovation will make the difference.

STORYTELL

A balloon ‘moon’ prop used during The Weeknd’s 2023 Tour.

Let me just repeat that for the ones in the back:

In 2023, the most creative visual artistic interest that designers could give the audiences of a $350 million dollar-grossing tour, was one balloon.

Nonetheless, real physical props even if minimalist or rudimentary can have a timeless charm to them.

But, to make them 10x more special, with thematically consistent Mixed Augmented enhancements, events can foster audiences through digestible and attractive reality transitions in comparable fashion to the film and television industries’ long-developmental balancing act of effective storytelling through live-action, puppetry, and CG.

From the Epic team - making the dream happen when it comes to post-process performances.

The 2023 Halftime Show performed by Rihanna included undulating platforms. Synchronized dancers created the extent of visual interest interacting with that mechanic. No further visual storytelling took place. Used in tandem with real-time mixed augmented reality, stage mechanics would give live and home audiences something of substance to watch.

Weaving together physical media and engineering and augmented reality will have far more relevant impact than tacking on augmented reality in a disparate way.

ARTISTICALLY ADVERTISE

“Makeup & Power”

Short-Form 2D AR Concepts - Procreate - Adobe Aero - onsite mixed augmented reality projection

Mixed AR designs will most effectively respect each unique audience’s maturity and taste for visual quality.

Advertising with Mixed Augmented Reality will undoubtedly be the father of AR purposes. This conceptual design video created by Keiichi Matsuda visually describes in jaw-dropping detail what the highly likely future reality of advertisement inundation will be like. This video not only the solves MR AR possibilities, but it exposes many human problems that will still be left unsolved despite aggressive technological advancement.

I believe that by carefully curating live-experiences to elevate quality standards of experience, we can naturally inspire chain reaction developments to follow suit and prevent many possible predatory practices of an MR augmented reality society.

MOVE FLY

“UNMUTE”

Safety-Aware Freedom of Mixed Augmented Projection Mapping Regardless of Viewer Speed

After exploring functionality with the Hololens 2, Adobe Aero, and the Meta Quest Pro, one will experience a common key let-down of the need for a pre-mapped, stationary environment. Not being able to have normal mixed augmented functionality when moving freely nor quickly, such as being driven in a vehicle, through non-pre-mapped spaces is debilitating to the user, and unrealistic to the changeable nature of most experiences. That said, one of the core features that users will drive demand toward and eventually spend much of their time in, once successfully developed with appropriate safety features, will be a self-contained AR HUD that is not contingent on a pre-mapped environment, but aggressively auto-mapping, fully-functional no matter the environment nor speed the user travels by.

STAY IN TOUCH + MORE CONCEPTS ARE OTW

Let’s work together

Whether you are an Immersive Reality developer, or a Mixed Reality / AR enthusiast that wants my updates and to talk ideas, I would love to chat.

Please reach out!