May the fourth bring Princess Leia closer to your reality than ever before.
Try the WebAR experience here or scan the QR Code below:
Over 45 years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Princess Leia appeared in holographic form pleading for help in the rebellion's most desperate hour. This iconic scene popularized holograms; inspiring and educating audiences everywhere about what they are, and what they could be.
As part of the team at Arcturus working on volumetric players for the web, we wanted to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Star Wars with a special #starwarsday surprise. 45 years on, and holograms have become engrained in the history of pop culture. As we reach a point where science fiction is becoming more science and less fiction, look back at the history of holograms in Creative Bloq's timely feature.
The demo is a playful homage to one of the most iconic moments in cinema: Princess Leia's holographic plea to Obi-Wan Kenobi. What makes this experience extra special is that the demo is that hologram message - the exact in-universe artifact Leia recorded for R2-D2 to deliver. A custom holographic shader sits on top of the volumetric capture to sell the movie-authentic look, flicker, scanlines and all.
To make it our own, we couldn't resist a wink at the audience. Instead of Leia's original, dramatic delivery:
"General Kenobi. Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. (...)"
…our Leia goes full Gen-Z mode:
"Ok so this is super awkward but my father told me that a super long time ago you were like a total badass in that clone war thing. He told me to ask if you could super low key help him with his beef with the empire. (...)"
…and keeps that tone all the way through to "help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" - reimagined for the meme era.
Open the experience on a mobile device with a rear-facing camera, either by scanning the QR code above or by visiting filipelopespires.github.io/MayThe4th. Allow camera access when prompted, point your device at a flat surface around you, and Princess Leia's hologram will join you in your space.
The experience is built as a WebAR app - no install required, just a modern mobile browser.
This project was originally hosted on 8th Wall's platform back in 2022. Since then, 8th Wall's hosted platform was retired and the tooling has been released as open source. With the original public deployment gone, I rebuilt and self-hosted the experience here via GitHub Pages so it can live on as part of my personal portfolio.
Created during my time at Arcturus, in collaboration with several talented artists and developers from the team.
Special thanks to Metastage for the volumetric capture and to 8th Wall for the WebAR platform that made the original experience possible.