Link to demo video (YouTube or Vimeo).
https://youtu.be/hhk3OYFdknA

Include a link to your public 8th Wall Featured Page
https://www.8thwall.com/malduffin/hope-for-haiti

Briefly describe your project key features and tech stack used.
This Hope For Haiti challenge entry tries to showcase as many of the powerful images and videos that were shared by the charity as possible, by placing them around the user in a non-intrusive way where they can move around and explore them in their own time. As a lot of people might not be aware of the physical location of Haiti, I used a combination of a 2D map and 3D globe to help the user visualise where it is on planet Earth. The project uses world tracking, as well as InWorld AI for chatting to the bird character ( based on the native bird of Haiti - the Hispaniolan Trogon ). It also uses a number of modules, including a billboard module ( for both 2d and 3D billboard effects ), and a tap to place ( with distance restrictions ) module. A-frame is used for setting up the scene, with custom components that access the underlying ThreeJS system directly for specific tasks - such as releasing texture memory for the posters showing multiple photos, and for handling multiple animations directly from a single GLB exported from Blender.

What was the inspiration for your project?
With access to a large amount of powerful videos and imagery, I wanted to fit as much of that into the project as possible for the end user to experience in a short amount of time. For showing videos, I googled for famous cinemas in Haiti and found images of an old one called the Rev Theater. I was able to quickly model the front facade of the building, and use it as the backdrop for showing the various videos. With the ability to speak and get replies from an InWorld AI character, I chose the native bird of Haiti as a great visual character to communicate with. The ability of the user to fluently ask questions about Haiti enables them to get a more personal sense of what has happened and how they can help. I used the interactive map as a great way to show more information about the island, and get more of a sense of the complexities of its history ( it’s shared border, the earthquake locations and ranges, it’s location on the spinning globe )