Project 1: You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover

Group Members: Mark Chen, Frank Buttafuoco, Justin Donayre

How to download:

Download the project from GitHub: https://github.com/mchen200/CS428Project1

1.Click Download from the GitHub page to download the zip file

2.Extract the files from the zip folder

3.Make sure that 2019.2 version of Unity is installed

4.Browse Assets -> Scenes -> Select the MainScene

5. Display the pictures, "CoverPage.jpg" and "BackCover.jpg" from the zip folder onto your phone, tablet, or have it printed out, and use the camera device from your computer to view the AR project by aiming the camera towards the images of "CoverPage.jpg" or "BackCover.jpg"

Assets/Source Code

Unique Models

Sounds

1. Sword Slashing Sound Effects

Author: Poligons Sounds

Unity Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/music/casual-kingdom-world-sounds-free-136406

2-3. 44.1 General Library(Free Sample Pack) Footsteps and bird noises sound effects)

Author: InspectorJ Sound Effects

Unity Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/sound-fx/44-1-general-library-free-sample-pack-145

Final Thoughts

AR has improved throughout the years and is now even able to be used on smartphones to play games, retrieve information, or even manipulation of one’s face. In our case, we are able to augment the cover pages of a book and show a ‘trailer’ or preview for a book.

With the use of AR, people would be able to see illustrated parts of the books, helping the author engage readers to their book. The back cover would no longer be needed to have summaries. Instead, the front cover would be the eye catcher for the reader, showing them a scene from the book and giving a brief summary of what it is about. Being able to learn more about the book without having to flip through it or turning it around could encourage people who were only mildly interested, to invest their time and money on it. If the book was adapted into a movie, then the author could have a link to the movie trailer or have a video player in the augmentation for the AR user to have to option to play the movie trailer. Movie trailers are expensive, planned out by a team, and more eye appealing than reading words in a book which could show off the book better than a cover page. The book could also have an interactive AR scene. Clicking on different parts of the cover could display information about the various characters and give a brief summary.

The book could also use an AR button that would recommend different books by the same author. Instead of having to search up the author and find different books, the user could click the AR button and search up another book from the author. The AR button could even show small scenes from the books they selected. After showing off the other products, the book could then end by showing the reader locations of where they can purchase the other books.

However, there are also some downsides to using AR as a trailer for books. The models would need to be of high quality and if there are too many high quality models, then the scene might crash or lag the user’s AR device. Another issue could be how much battery life and how much battery it drains from your AR device. If it takes a large amount of power from your AR device then most people would decide not to use the augmentation and save battery life. Price can also be an issue. High end models can be expensive. If you need a scene from the book that might also use animations, then the price might be way more expensive then having a stagnant image for the book.

All in all, we believe that AR would be very effective in showing off a trailer of the book. However, the cost and limitations that AR has may prevent it from being effective. The idea of using AR will eventually be caught by technology and ideas of using AR for book trailers will actually be attainable and one day will be used in your local bookstores.

Project Videos

Front Cover - https://youtu.be/lXmTOvWR0OA

Back Cover - https://youtu.be/5rp8Zz18QM8