My submission for Vision Hack 2024.
I thought I had something—a bright idea.
The plan was to build a small app to help organize thoughts in an immersive space, with each idea represented by its scale and brightness. I created a simple light bulb mesh and began prototyping with a point light.
That’s when I hit my first wall.
A RealityKit scene can contain up to eight dynamic lights
Apple Documentation for PointLight
I don't know about you, but I have more than eight ideas, and all of them worth keeping.
I looked for alternatives. How about emissive materials?
You can set this property to values greater than 1.0.
Apple Documentation for emissiveIntensity
I gave it a try, but no matter how high I set the value—1.0, 10, 100, or even 1,000—nothing changed visually in my dark scene.
Point lights wouldn’t work, and emissive materials didn’t capture the distinction between ideas as I hoped. My idea came crashing down.
And that gave me a new idea! What if I set aside the original plan and embraced failure instead?
I kept reaching for idea after idea and they kept crashing down.
But I kept working, and I ended up here.
A Bright Idea and all the failures along the way.
Joseph, September 15, 2024
- Code by Joseph Simpson (and ChatGPT to help)
- Light Bulb Model - Joseph Simpson
- Sound Effects - Kenney Assets
- Melancholy - RealityKit with special guest Reality Composer Pro
Copyright 2024 Joseph Simpson
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