Homebrew How does AR work? It seems underused...

[romanaOne]

I got my 3DS XL used and it didn't come with any AR cards, so I just ignored the AR Games App as another piece of Nintendo wannbe-PDA junkware like the crap that came preinstalled on the DSi.

Then I downloaded the AR cards, which DO NOT have to be color printed even though Nintendo says they do. Greyscale prints work just fine to shoot dragons and have Mario sit on the couch.

Oddly, the orientation of the card did matter: I took an ipad and displayed a pdf of the ? card with the ipad vertical on a stand and the 3ds would not recognize it. However, if you set the ipad on a table, the 3ds recognizes the card image no problem. Looks kind of cool to have a big Yoshi sitting on iPad.

But is this it? Just some goofy demos? A few extra movies in Bravely Default?

It seems like the cards are just keys: App sees card, app unlocks some sort of easter egg.

Are there any games that make extensive and creative use of AR? I can imagine live action versions of hunt-and-peck type adventures or a card programming language.

 

[Fluto]

The only game that was cool and used the camera was Looksley's Line Up which was for the DSI.
I didn't answer your question but I just wanted to point out this game

 

[chemistryfreak]

Yes it is underused. Hope Nintendo updates their AR games.....

 

[nwiifletcher]

There is a game for 3ds that uses AR called Spirit Camera. It comes with a book that has AR sybols throughout it that you use to play the game. It was kinda cool.

 

[NCDyson]

because AR is a gimmick, especially QR code based AR. Location based AR isn't much better, but games like Ingress sure seem to have a decent amount of players.

 

[GazaIan]

It's pretty damn cool but underused. At the time of the 3DS release, everyone was having an AR boner and people kept up pretty well to support AR and their applications in the world itself. Several Android and iOS apps support AR, Qualcomm added AR processing as a dedicated part of it's Snapdragon processors, and Google Glass was touting AR like crazy. Naturally, the gaming industry got in on it as well, and both the 3DS and the Vita have AR apps. Unfortunately, no one ever seemed to bother to take it beyond that. It's pretty damn cool, but no one really cared.

 

[Slushie3DS]

To begin, I will answer the question asked in the title of the thread. AR, an acronym for augmented reality, is achieved by the 3DS family via a pseudo field of depth created using the dual back cameras. This field of depth allows the cameras to recognize the distance, angle, and rotation of an object, more specifically the AR card. The use of this card allows the 3DS family to display models/textures/animations on the plane created by the field of depth. The plane is also used to warp the surface into difference shapes. It is a very great innovation, and Microsoft knows this. This being the reason why Microsoft is creating augmented reality goggles for every day use.

Now, Nintendo used the AR as a gimmick, sadly. Not only a gimmick, but a very neglected one. There was whole new worlds of possibilities for games, and developers just never got around to using them. While basing a whole game off of AR would be rather silly, seeing as how some people play in dim areas, it would have been nice to see Nintendo using it more as a first party developmental stage. I was looking into how the AR worked to see if it could be overflowed like a QR code, but it seems that it can't. It practically has no use beyond those six cards, and half hour of play.