July 29, 2019 – Magic Leap Studios has announced the launch of ‘Undersea’, a room-scale Spatial Computing experience for the Magic Leap One.
Undersea lets users observe underwater life in a dynamically generated coral reef biome. Distinct vistas and creatures, presented in a photo-real art style, provide an opportunity to feel a sense of presence and connection between creatures and the environment, according to Magic Leap.
Undersea started from a demo created by Magic Leap Studios where a single fish interacted with a user’s hand and then lead them to a human-sized spherical aquarium containing a coral reef and many varieties of fish. Though that initial demo was fairly static, it gave the team at Magic Leap a glimpse at a new way to showcase the potential of spatial computing.
Built using Unreal Engine 4 and Vulkan 3.1 mobile on Magic Leap One, Magic Leap states that Undersea is part of an ongoing series of curated experiences that allow internal developers to advance their understanding of creative, technical, and production challenges while delivering user experiences and sharing those insights with the broader creator community. Magic Leap Studios first consumer project, Create, was focused on providing an inviting entry point to the platform while showing off the core features of Spatial Computing.
“‘Undersea’ brings a room to life with breathtaking underwater landscapes in an interactive reef experience, and allows us to focus on pushing the boundaries of graphic fidelity within Spatial Computing,” said Dan Lehrich, VP of Production at Magic Leap. “With each Magic Leap Studios project on Magic Leap One, we expand the ever-evolving potential of immersive experiences. The opportunity to work at the bleeding edge of what’s possible and pioneer on a brand-new platform is what motivates us, and we hope to inspire other creatives to push the boundaries and explore alongside us.”
Magic Leap will premiere Undersea at SIGGRAPH 2019 at the Los Angeles Convention Center this week, where conference participants with an Experiences registration or higher will have the opportunity to try out the experience in the Immersive Pavilion, from 28 July–1 August.
Video credit: Magic Leap/YouTube
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.