A sensitive experience:
Mook-e is an interactive installation that allows you to discover a parallel universe. Through a story based on the lives of mysterious creatures, you will enter a world that you have never imagined...
The basic idea is to have you move within an enclosed field in order to discover a community which – although you never suspected its existence – has always lived alongside you.
Immersing you in a poetic, mysterious, futuristic atmosphere in which magic and fantasy mix, Mook-e provides you a new, sensory experience, arousing your curiosity and your love of discovery!
The Mook-e installation totally immerses you by using Augmented Reality, an extraordinary technology based on a new concept: Virtual Touch. Why only watch passively when you can be actor in the story? Your experience is augmented by adding the sensation of touch to that of sight.
The installation immerges you in an ordinary room which hide secrets...
Hardware + Software:
Like shows or amusement parks, this experience takes place in a single location. To complete this adventure successfully, the following items are required:
- a pair of glasses including one HD camera and two LCD screens.
- a PC with D’Fusion®:
- - D’Fusion MLT for the tracking.
- - D’Fusion AR for the rendering.
- a screen to display the experience to people outside the installation.
We chose to use a pair of glasses to give the user a subjective view, hence a more immersive one.
What the user sees is transmitted to the PC which processes the video flow, detects markers, adds 3D models and sends the result back to the LCD screens of the glasses and to the external screen.
Unlike other Augmented Reality projects, Mook-e is unique in that it creates physical sensations. You have the opportunity to hold in your hand an actual textured ball which, through the glasses, comes to life and talks to you!
A major discovery:
In 1992, the spaceship Skytouch took off for the moon. On board, a French-American team with the official mission of analyzing the make-up of the surface of the moon. Via satellite, the astronauts discovered an unusually bright rock.
Without knowing it, the spaceship Skyrock brought back the most stunning discovery of all time. Back on Earth, IRMP scientists (Institut de Recherche des Mondes Parallèles), in collaboration with French researchers from Gobelins, undertook a closer study of this strange stone.
In 1995, while observing under microscope a particle of the rock, the professor Arlington discovered that another world existed, inhabited by miniscule beings. The discovery rocked the scientific community but was kept secret from the media and the masses.
If the discovery was accurate, the truth was something totally different. The scientists realized very quickly that certain molecules of the rock opened a window onto a universe parallel to our own.
Deciding to subject certain properties of the molecules to a revolutionary technology, the French researcher Jouquet and his team succeded, on May 16, 2002, in developing glasses capable of observing this parallel universe.
In 2003, a government decree forbade the use and media coverage of these glasses. The repercussions of such a discovery challenging all our assumptions, government officials preferred to kill the project. The scientists working on the glasses were silenced, some disappeared, others ended up in asylums.
By 2005, all trace of the project had disappeared, the idea of a parallel
universe had become but a rumor.
On June 2, 2009, the project was restarted and on the 30th of the same month, trials were undertaken by civilians.
Professor Joucquet’s Glasses:
Mook-e?:
The Mook-e is a small, round, hairy creature that lives in tribes. Each tribe is distinct from the others in its habitat, customs, dwellings. Despite their differences, they live in harmony under the rule of King Mokytan-e.
His personality and behavior:
He is joyful, friendly, nice, cute and most of the time, clumsy. The Mook-e doesn’t like solitude, he prefers living in a group. Hiding is one of his most frequent activities. He hides for two reasons: he enjoys playing games and he needs to flee from the curse that can attack the tribe at any time.
His movements:
The way he moves around is rather unique. Tribe members roll and leap over each other and crash into one another, leaving them with some little bumps!
A little bit fashion-victim:
This little, round, hairy creature loves originality. He is fond of eccentric hairstyles, tattoos and tribal dyes.
Three key protagonists:
A Mook-e like no other:
Tim-e’s story isn’t an ordinary one. Long ago, this young Mook-e had to face the curse that had been besieging his tribe for many months.
From out of nowhere appeared a gigantic malevolent creature with an imposing belly. Its gaping mouth continuously swept the ground with powerful suction, swallowing its victims whole.
One day, Tim-e didn’t heed the advice of the tribal elders. He didn’t hide when the curse entered the room. It was only when he heard the creature’s deafening roar that he realized his mistake.
Frightened, Tim-e clung to the ground. The curse sucked even harder…before giving up. Tim-e was saved but lost his entire coat in the battle. It was the price of his disobedience.
The Curse:
This monster has terrified the Obowo tribe for many years. It wakes up every day when it gets close to the Electricit-e Goddess. It swallows everything in its path without hesitation, sucking up its prey with its gaping mouth, digesting them its imposing belly.
The Electricit-e Goddess:
The Obowo tribe pays homage to the Electricit-e Goddess every week, imploring her not to wake up the terrifying curse that forces them to live in the hills. Prayers and tribute are offered in order to quell her anger.
Script:
Entering the room, the user sees many little creatures all over the furniture,
chatting amongst themselves. Immediately, all the creatures but one hide, scared. Frightened at first, this creature named Tim-e starts talking to the user, asking him who he is, and then, requests that he come closer.
The user is asked to take Tim-e in his hand and this creature begins talking about his family, his home and world in which he lives. He then asks the user to look at the paintings hanging on the walls and to crouch under a table to see portraits of other Mook-e and look at their homes.
A song begins playing, inviting the user to search for its source: a group of Mook-e praying to their goddess Electricite. Tim-e tells the story of the curse that plagued them in ancient times: a giant monster
who terrified the Mook-e tribe. The only illustration of the monster has been lost for many years, and Tim-e asks the user’s help in retrieving its fragments.
After searching for the fragments scattered all over the room, Tim-e wants the user to reassemble them to see what the monster looks like. Suddenly, a loud roar erupts. The ancient illustration was bewitched.
The broken spell awakens the monster, who materializes at the site of the drawing, terrifying the Mook-e tribe which runs for its life.
Tim-e asks the user to put him down and tells him to flee the room.
Augmented Reality:
The technology called Augmented Reality integrates 3D objects into live video. The video is digitally processed and “augmented” with the 3D components. In other words, this digital processing mixes real and virtual worlds together in real time.
DFusion :
Our constraints:
In our interactive installation, the user must move and interact with his environment. Faced with these constraints, we needed a sturdy system, able to support markers in various conditions (folded, bent out of shape, partially obscured).
Our choices:
Total Immersion provided us with the software D’Fusion® which allowed us to create an Augmented Reality project. Total Immersion is a software solutions provider with a proprietary technology developed
in 1999.
Unlike open source technology, D’Fusion® tracking does not require markers such as specific black and white shapes, and allows for robust tracking of 2D and 3D objects. D’Fusion® tracking detects points of interest on the marker that are obscured due to the marker’s being folded or bent out of shape.
Total Immersion solutions merge virtual and real worlds. Shown below are the items typically required : a video camera, a display, and a standard PC hosting Total Immersion software.
Some advice:
Working with D’Fusion® requires the use of strong contrasts. To enhance contrast:
- Avoid reflections, control lighting and use matte finished materials.
- Use pictures containing single or non-repeated patterns so that the software does not mix up them.
Augmented Boards:
The making-of:
- Claire Simoës-Grangeia - Developer
- Rudy Duong - Graphist
- Emilie Huot - Developer
- Michael Ortali - Developer
- Keyvan Nourian - Graphist
The result of a profusion of inventive ideas, Mook-e was created as a school project at the École des Gobelins in Paris. Our objective is to see it grow in an appropriate environment.
Our initial objectives:
- to promote the project at competitions and shows.
- to enhance technical performance of the installation, in order to improve user experience. For example, switching to D’Fusion® 2.0 could allow us to optimize development time (new programming language - LUA - and new graphic interface), improve security and mobility (implementation in more devices and more robust tracking).
- to enhance sound immersion by developing an entire sound spatialization system, with holophonic sound.
- to work in collaboration with Total Immersion in order to develop the possibilities offered by augmented reality.
Our long-term objectives:
- to make augmented reality accessible to a larger audience.
- to refine the Virtual Touch concept in order to apply it to other projects.
- to go beyond the entertainment function by using the Virtual Touch concept as a therapy. For example, immersing people with psychological problems in an alternative reality in order to reconcile them with actual reality or giving hospitalized children an opportunity to escape into an imaginary world that is still rooted in reality.
- to direct our careers towards the experimental fields of interaction design and interactive installations.
For their help:
- Marie-France ZUMOFEN
- Total Immersion
- Mary M SYLVIA
- Julien FERRY
- Joan BELEC
For their support:
- Our school
- Our families
- Our classmates