The Estero route

This is a route through the cultural ecosystem of marimba music from Colombia, where any viewer can explore the Estero, meets the dwellers and listen to the music of this place.

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Inspiration

The music of marimba de chonta was named as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO, and our interest is to built experiences that allow people over the world to have contact with this vast cultural ecosystem located in Colombia. In 2020 we develop a videogame called Oí Marimbí, and we have been spreading this universe to other platforms. OiMarimbi. In places such as the Estero of River Saija, the magical sound of marimba remains in the memory of the people, now, we want to bring this rhythms to everywhere.

What it does

The Estero is a diorama experience which invites the visitors to visit the dwellers of this place, and to listen to the sounds of marimba at any crossroad.

How we built it

I built it using Adobe Aero with Google Geospatial. I found some tutorials to set the Geospatial Creator and I got the Geo Testing Prerelease Program. I made the the 3D assets in Maya and Adobe Substance, and 2D characters using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects. The music was produced by Héctor Tascón and I edited some clips in Adobe Audition. Finally, I ran some test in the location, coming back and forth to fix some details in the scene. The final step was recording the video; I went early to the location, in order to have less people walking in the scene, because Aero doesn´t have occlusion operators yet.

Challenges we ran into

At the beginning when I set the Aero and Geo Testing Prerelease Program I got not accurate placement in my first attempts. Then, I changed the location and things was better, so, I could place every asset in scene and I set the behaviors. Nevertheless, there are some limitation in Aero: Occlusions are not supported, and the assets appear always in front. You can´t set more that one marker in the scene, so; interactions are limited. Just people who have installed Aero can watch the experience, so, this limits the audience scoped.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I consider that I made an interesting scene, where the audience have images, animations and sounds to discover. Using Adobe Aero was interesting because I figured out how could be a workflow for designing AR experience in my next projects. After this learning experience, I´m going further looking for more complex SDK or frameworks for AR, and I feel I can expand the results of my next works in AR. Another important achievement: my partners had the opportunity to show the Estero diorama in a event, where they presented the videogame Oí Marimbí, because it is part of the same story universe.

What we learned

Aero is quite useful to start producing AR experiences, and understanding the pipeline production of this kind of digital work. I think Aero is a key too to develop fast demos of AR scenes, so, the team can build prototypes in few hours, and then look for resources for expanding the idea.

What's next for The Estero route

I´m looking for opportunities to apply what I learned and to develop a more complex project. I'm keen on making other dioramas with different topics from my country, and share them at any point of the globe by using geospatial resources from Google ARCore. I am planning new scenes, where the audiences can interact with AR content and discover characters and stories that bring something new to their lives.

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