1. Hololens: first impressions
Bart Trzynadlowski
NYC HoloLens Developers Meetup
November 28, 2016
New York, NY

2. overview Who Am I? What Have I Done? What Have I Learned?
How I am approaching HoloLens
What Have I Done?
What Have I Learned?
Unity
HoloLens
Game design challenges in AR
Technical challenges
Game Concepts

3. Who am i? I’m Bart! http://trzy.org Twitter: @BartronPolygon
Electrical engineer turned software developer
Perhaps best known for my open source Sega Model 3 arcade platform emulator:

4. Video of Sega Model 3 emulator removed. Visit http://www. youtube
Video of Sega Model 3 emulator removed. Visit for sample footage.

5. WHO AM I? How I AM approaching hololens
My strengths
Deep programming background (C/C++, assembly language)
Knowledge of 3D graphics
Experienced in high-performance systems (low-latency trading)
My weaknesses
Zero artistic ability
Never developed a complete game from start to finish, let alone in a modern development environment

6. What have I done? In the past ~3 months: Learned Unity
Learned the very basics of 3DS Max to create simple inanimate objects and rig others’ 3D models (from
HoloLens:
Spatial perception
Occlusion/3D hole-in-wall effects

7. Video of Desert Strike for Sega Genesis removed
Video of Desert Strike for Sega Genesis removed. The Strike series served as inspiration for my helicopter demo.

8. HoloLens demo footage removed. View it at: https://youtu

9. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? UNity

10. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? UNity
Impressions:
Very conducive to rapid prototyping
Powerful engine – I feel redundant as a programmer!
Easy to begin learning (start w/ Roll-a-Ball tutorial:
Extremely extensive support community – even my ultra-specific, ultra-obscure Google “How do I …?” queries yield useful forum answers!
Overall: very impressed!

11. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? UNity
Some cons:
Lots of “magic”
Extensive use of C# getters/setters that do heavy/non-obvious work (e.g., Mesh.vertices[])
Occasional violation of the “principle of least surprise”
Best practices not obvious
You’ll see some weird, hacky stuff on the forums

12. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? HoloLens
Dev advice:
Familiarize yourself with Microsoft’s HoloToolkit package!
Learn to save your own room mesh with HoloLens web GUI and use in Unity Editor with HoloToolkit’s ObjectSurfaceObserver
#if UNITY_EDITOR  Very useful!
Room mapping best done ahead of time (e.g., Young Conker and RoboRaid)
Too slow in real-time
Analyzing the environment will be expensive and ought to be done once

13. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
No control over camera!
Hard to deliver a cinematic experience
User might not care to look where you want them to
Also a challenge in VR!
Environment totally unpredictable
Object placement, level design
Spatial meshes can be noisy
Object scale

14. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
HoloLens specific:
First-time users befuddled by gestures and often have no idea what to do
Instinctively use their hands to grasp and reach for things
Pain in the neck!
Gameplay on floors and tables is awesome but the device is front-heavy and can cause neck pain quickly
Consider having gameplay take place above eye level! (More comfy to look upwards.)

15. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
Work-in-progress: Smarter object placement

16. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
Work-in-progress: Smarter object placement

18. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
Work-in-progress: Real-time spatial mesh deformation

19. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
Work-in-progress: Real-time spatial mesh deformation

20. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
Work-in-progress: Real-time spatial mesh deformation

21. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? GAME DESIGN CHALLENGES IN AR
Work-in-progress: Real-time spatial mesh deformation

22. WHERE TO FROM HERE? Game concepts
Simulation / world-building

23. WHERE TO FROM HERE? Game concepts
Simulation / world-building

25. WHERE TO FROM HERE? Game concepts
Observation (e.g., Nintendo’s Fruit from Game & Wario collection)

26. WHERE TO FROM HERE? Game concepts
Real-time strategy (I mean, duh…) EtherWars 

27. GAME CONCEPTS
Physics puzzlers

28. THAT’S ALL, FOLKS! (Any questions?)