apelab, a Swiss-American company, partnered with Technicolor to deliver SpatialStories earlier this year. A tool that will help optimise your virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications without coding, SpatialStories currently works for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and HoloLens, with support for Apple ARKit and Google ARCore coming soon.
SpatialStories is designed as an easy editing tool to create native VR and AR projects. With the Unity plugin, SpatialStories allows teams to create interactive experiences in a simple and accessible manner. The design and prototyping process is dramatically reduced, as can be seen in Break a Leg, apelab’s next videogame release, which was developed in only a couple of months using the toolkit.
SpatialStories allows users to select an object or a character and assign to it predetermined specifications. Everything is interdependent, enabling designers to craft a flow of actions and to quickly test interactions.
“We wanted a flexible and intuitive tool people without coding knowledge could master within a few days” says Michaël Martin, CTO and Co-Founder apelab. “It is really how we developed it. Whenever we needed a new function in Break a Leg, our game project, we created the appropriate tool. Everything was tested by non-developers, so we really worked hard to make the process as simple and smooth as possible for them. And we are improving it everyday!”
SpatialStories also allows for a gap to be bridged between team members without coding knowledge and experienced developers. The interactive interface helps creatives focus on the creative work while programmers can build their own code embedded into SpatialStories to build custom functionalities for the creative team to use.
apelab plan on adding new features to SpatialStories in the coming months. As stated above, support for ARKit and ARCore is on the way, but also AI, voice recognition and machine learning are technologies currently being researched for incorporation.
“We’re building a future where computers seamlessly fit in our lives, designing digital worlds that fit seamlessly over the physical world. SpatialStories is an important tool that will let today’s storytellers build the stories, movies and games of the future,” said Timoni West, Head of Authoring Tools at Unitylabs, who recently joined apelab’s advisory board.
Early next year, apelab will release SpatialStories Studio, a standalone software through which designers and creatives will conceive and build interactive content directly within a VR or AR environment. VRFocus will continue to keep you updated with all the latest details on SpatialStories.
via Mint VR