Madefire: Madefire Debuts 3D Motion Comics On The Magic Leap One AR Headset

Madefire has been committed to making "motion comics," or digital versions of comic books that leap off the page with animated visuals. Now, the company is announcing that it is showing off its first Motion Book experiences on Magic Leap's augmented reality glasses.The Madefire platform isn't a mere app that runs on the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, the development version of Florida-based Magic Leap's AR glasses that sells for $2,300. Rather, Madefire and Magic Leap are collaborating to try to establish a new medium.This kind of mixture of technology and entertainment doesn't come around every day. I've tried out Magic Leap's headset. It may not be very practical yet, but it has executed well on a vision of enabling magical experiences in the new medium of augmented reality. Games like Dr. Grordbort's Invaders look great on Magic Leap, but now Madefire is bringing something entirely different.Founded in 2011, Madefire has made a lot of progress with its Motion Book platform, with partnerships with both DC Comics and Marvel in digital comics. Madefire's platform is available on iOS, Android, and in virtual reality on the Oculus Rift. Among the 40,000 comics available, the Madefire platform has Blizzard's Overwatch video game comics.But on the Magic Leap platform, the new Madefire app lets you see the digital comics come to life before you in the real world. With AR, animated imagery can be overlaid on top of reality. Magic Leap is a "spatial computing platform," where digital objects can be placed in a physical space in the real world. The Madefire comics are available in the Magic Leap World! Explore stories.Above: This is what motion books look like on Magic Leap.Image Credit: MadefireFor Magic Leap, it's just one more application. But Dan Lehrich, senior production director at Magic Leap, said it is the kind of experience that you can't get anywhere else. The idea started six years ago when Rony Abovitz, CEO of Magic Leap, who spoke with Madefire cofounder Liam Sharp at the San Diego Comic-Con event. At the time, Madefire was launching on mobile devices, pushing comics into the 21st century."Rony came over and said, 'What could you do if you could publish into space,'" said Ben Wolstenholme, CEO of Madefire, in an interview with VentureBeat. "We said, 'Are you crazy?'"Lehrich joined Magic Leap two years ago at a time when the technological experiments were becoming real, and it was now time to make the projects into something tangible. Lehrich helped push the collaboration forward because he felt it was a new way of telling stories."This is the kind of thing that Rony really cares about," Lehrich said. "What made this stand out was this ability to bring another form of content creation to the device."Above: Madefire comic layered on reality.Image Credit: MadefireBefore Magic Leap, Lehrich worked on projects like the iPad version of Disney Infinity, the toy-game hybrid that saw success for a couple of years before Disney pulled the plug on it. He felt there was a natural connection between Madefire and Magic Leap because they could [...]The post Madefire Debuts 3D Motion Comics On The Magic Leap One AR Headset appeared first on UploadVR.