Peel Interactive has developed a cutting-edge app which creates a colouring sheet experience with a twist for children visiting restaurants. Launching this month at Alexander’s, a bar and restaurant in Skipton, North Yorkshire, the app, which can be accessed via the restaurant’s in-house iPads, will enable children aged three and above to colour in two fantasy characters and then ‘bring their drawings to life’.
This is possible by activating content that converts them into full animated, interactive 3D characters. The app also features a digital game incorporating the same characters. The app was made possible by creating 3D assets in Maya and texturing them using Substance Suite tools. The characters are brought to life using Unity and C# programming.
Matt Murphy, Peel Interactive App Developer, said: “We wanted to create an app that engages a younger audience in a fun way, using a medium they will already understand and have experience of – a colouring book – with the unique twist of bringing their creation to life.” He added, “Peel Interactive is well known for its AR digital experiences, but this is the first time we’ve taken user input and used it in our augmented world. Sanitising user input can be difficult, and even more so when the input is a child’s coloured-in sheet of paper!”
Peel Interactive has previously created an animated ‘horrible histories’ style AR installation at the Parliamentary Education Centre, which brings King Charles I and Queen Victoria back to life and adds digital interpretation to the visitor learning experience. In July the team launched ‘A Giant Adventure’ at The Alnwick Garden, an AR garden trail which enables children to seek out the giant, all his ‘giant’ belongings and his ‘giant’ woodland friends.
