Unreal Engine 4 has been at the forefront of virtual reality (VR) for some time now, but this new augmented reality plugin allows developers to take real world imagery and overlay virtual imagery onto it, as this new video demonstrates.
Epic’s UE4 demo’s are responsible for a large proportion of historical ‘wow’ moments in the short history of virtual reality’s evolution. They’ve followed Oculus’ hardware iterations with technical demonstrations showcasing both the power and adaptability of Unreal Engine 4 and the promise and potential of VR as a platform.
Now, a new plugin has arrived to unlock the engine’s potential in the augmented reality space. Unreal4AR is designed to allow “developers to use Unreal Engine 4’s Blueprint visual scripting system to create multi-platform Augmented Reality experiences as seamlessly and as easily as possible.” In short, it provides a way for UE4 developers to take a feed from reality and, using markers in the real world, overlay UE4 rendered objects and characters to move as if they’d popped out of your monitor.
The new plugin is built on the open source ARToolkit resource, which proclaims itself to be “The world’s most widely used tracking library for augmented reality.”
The demo itself is a neat evolution of the UE4 “Matinee Fight Scene”, where futuristic brawlers let off steam with some old fashioned fisticuffs. The original demo is below for you to compare and contrast.