An Interactive Chalk Mural for Izakaya using Layar
Lumenal Code painted this interactive chalk mural for Izakaya 2012, a celebration of Japanese Pub Culture held at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland, Oregon on Friday, November 16th.
We activated the chalk mural using Layar. Scanning the seven panels of the mural brought them to life with an animated version of the story, our take on the classic monster vs. robot battles. At the beginning and end of the mural we had links to share the project on Twitter and Facebook, as well as a link to our website.
How We Did it:
Our process involved a couple days of concept sketching, where Dan and I bounced ideas back and forth and came up with the theme and layout for our mural. We also designed our two characters, the Samurai Robot and the Monster. Then we spent a day working from our sketches to create our final digital image. This image served as our base for the animations and the chalk mural.
We brought the digital illustration in After Effects and created all the animations in the days leading up to the event. The night before the event, we worked on site and projected the illustrations onto the chalkboard. We then traced the dominant shapes and did all our shading with the projectors off. It took us about ten hours on site to complete chalk up the mural.
Here are some of our concept sketches from the process:
Summary:
The event was a huge success: it sold out the day before and the reactions we got from visitors were incredible. People really enjoyed interacting with the mural and talking to us about the process and the technology. Visitors scanned the mural over 1000 times that evening, we know this because Layar provides usage stats. Overall I am very impressed by Layar and will continue to use it in projects. I have a few exciting ideas already…
Here are some images we got of guests using the Layar App to scan the mural:
Since not everyone could attend the sold out event, we also post these two large images from the mural. You can point the layar app at these images on your computer screen and activate the animations that way. Click the images to view them full-screen.
Scan these images with Layar to activate the animated content.
Here’s a video posted by Portland Beer demonstrating the interactivity:
Acknowledgements:
Dan Cohen and Gabe Shaughnessy created this mural. A special thanks to Michael Lee at Terminal Design Group for reaching out and bringing us on board for this amazing event. Scene Marketing Group put on the event, and they were awesome to work with. We want to be sure and thank the whole team at Layar, for creating such great software and then making it accessible to artists. Finally, we want to thank the Jupiter Hotel, who provided the canvas.