Pixel Prints was the winning entry in the Hobbies and Skills category of the 2024 XRHack London. I originated the idea for Pixel Prints from my love of crafting and tech.
Having already developed several similar multiplayer apps before but never having used Meta’s presence platform, I wanted to find a simple app idea that would challenge the team but not be overly complicated. A creative toy in the hobbies and skills category made sense. I formed the team on day one of the hack (after my original team fell apart while I was on holiday) and was very lucky to find such amazing and creative team mates.
My contributions were to lay out the vision for the project, UX flow, designing assets, implementing Meta’s building blocks for interaction design, as well as trying to divide roles in a way that allowed each team member to feel ownership of a distinct part. There were some challenges but once we got into the groove we each brought our best selves to the project and delivered something amazing.
I worked alongside Javier and Rangoli on the tech side, design, 3D modelling and testing in Unity while Varuna and Setinaz worked on the presentation, branding and historical development.
Challenges were interesting here. Being a woman in tech I’ve seen how many teams operate on hacks and didn’t want to see the the roles of women delegated to the non-tech roles when we have years of experience in developing VR projects. Ensuring that we each had a chance to contribute where we wanted/were stretched and could lend expertise felt important.
Being neurodivergent myself, I struggled sometimes with sensory aspects also where people were talking loudly around me as I struggled to hear properly. Luckily the XRHack team were on hand to help out with these issues at the start. They found us a nice quiet corner in one of the smaller rooms – still close to others but with a bit less sensory input.
Inspiration
We’re passionate about crafting and wanted to bring that creativity into XR. Inspired by the ancient and therapeutic art of block printing, we created Pixel Prints —a fun, relaxing app that blends traditional crafts with cutting-edge technology. Our goal is to offer a globally accessible experience that introduces users to block printing in a simple, enjoyable way, while pushing the boundaries between the real and virtual. With Pixel Prints, you can enjoy the calming process of block printing in your room, all without the mess!
What it does
Pixel Prints lets users
- Carve a custom design into a stamp
- Print a design onto fabric or other surfaces
- Craft alongside friends.
How we built it
We built this experience in Unity using Meta Presence Platform, for interactions and passthrough, and Photon Fusion for the multiplayer aspect of the experience.
Challenges we ran into
We faced many challenges while adding the multiplayer aspect of the experience. We wanted to have a multiplayer experience as creating patterns and working together to fill a sheet with designs enhances the fun and relaxation of the block printing experience. While trying to add the multiplayer aspect, we needed to make sure the networking component of each of the shared objects would update in real-time, so that you could see what each player was designing and stamping. With issues connecting to the internet with our headsets and issues with the Meta Building Blocks overwriting some of our networking set-up, we spent a good amount of our time resolving these issues. We had tried to implement shared spatial anchors, but eventually had to drop that as it was overwriting our interactions.
Accomplishments that we’re proud of
We are very proud of all of the features that we were able to add in. Being able to carve a design, use that design as a stamp and share stamps with other players!
What we learned
We learned a lot about working with Meta Presence Platform and using multiplayer. We also got a chance to learn about how to use shaders to effective give the illusion of carving and stamping.
What’s next for Pixel Prints
We hope to add more to the Mixed Reality aspect of our app and allow users to trace their designs onto wood in real life, and export their virtual design as 3D objects that they can 3D print to create custom stamps.
We also hope to add more to the game experience by adding challenges that players can work together to complete, along with the ability to showcase designs and use them to decorate the player’s surroundings.