Wide Sky were commissioned to design and develop a tablet-based tour of the newly-renovated St Mary’s Guildhall in Coventry. The family tour is led by Asha, an engaging and expressive CG character. Driven by motion capture, she introduces each room at the Guildhall and rewards successful completion of the tour. Every room in the tour features bespoke content, ranging from interpretation of witches marks etched into the stone of the kitchen walls, to an augmented reality recreation of a banquet in the great hall.

The user interface design leans on existing guidelines developed by Imagemakers. Contrasting panels of blue and green reference the stained glass windows found throughout the building, and the diamond motif of the leading is referenced in overlays and the dividers between each panel. Bright, contrasting pink ensures that navigation is never hard to find and adds a flash of fun for younger users.

For the Asha character I developed a custom facial mocap pipeline which enabled me to easily combine different takes in Cinema 4D and sync them with audio captured on location. I created a series of modular characters in Unity with interchangable clothing and props to populate the AR scenes, all of which were rigorously checked to ensure historical accuracy.

Credits

Exhibition design - Imagemakers

Creative Director - Chris Parker

Developer - Rob Presland

Script - Deborah Mulhearn

Additional prop, clothing design and texturing - Kate Mason

Additional mocap performance - Kate Mason

Photography - Lizzie Songhurst

360 photography - Phil Giles