Support
This page is your starting point for tutorials and answers to your questions.
Tutorials
Getting Started - Discover how your first session will go.
Action - Discover how to make your ARBots move.
Orienting ARBots - Discover how to get your ARBots to face specific directions.
Sizes - Discover the different sizes your ARBots can be.
Lighting - Discover how to use the Lighting menu to light your world.
FAQ
Q: When placing a character, why does the placement square change between yellow and green?
A: The placement square is yellow when the AR system is learning something new about your surroundings; basically it is seeing new places in your room. The placement square switches to green when it hasn’t seen anything area of your room in a while.
Q: How do I select an ARBot to animate them?
A: If you just added an ARBot character, that ARBot will be selected. Any animation you select will animate that ARBot. If you want to select a different ARBot to animate, tap that ARBot’s body (as close to their torso as possible). Once you tap an a different ARBot, any animation you select will be applied to that ARBot. If you select the menu item “Action > Select all”, all ARBots are selected. Any animation you select now will be applied to all the ARBots.
Q: Why does ARBots keep asking for permission to record video?
A: This is Apple’s privacy mechanism. When recording the screen, Apple’s library (which we use) records everything, including messages alerts that might appear at the top of the screen. That could be sensitive, especially if the app ships this video to the developer’s server. (We do not see anything you record.)
Q: Why is there a countdown before taking a picture or starting to record a video?
A: ARBots waits three second to give you a moment to frame your shot to be just how you would like it.
Q: What is “FPS” in the settings screen?
A: “Frames Per Second”. Turning this on shows how fast your device is updating the screen in a small label at the top of the screen. A device typically records at 60 fps, but if your device gets too hot, Apple slows the update down to 30 fps. Eventually it could drop it down to 20 fps. Slowing down the FPS is more likely to happen when using ARBots for a long period of time or with occlusion on. Occlusion is expensive.
Q: What is “Occlusion” in the settings screen?
A: Turning on occlusion allows real world-things (like people) to hide (or occlude) the virtual content. Without occlusion turned on, the virtual content is always drawn in front of any real-world content. Most Apple devices support “people occlusion”, so when a real person walks in front of an ARBot, the real person appears to walk in front of the virtual person. Apple devices with LiDAR also allow other things (couches, walls, etc.) to occlude virtual content.
Q: Why wouldn’t I want occlusion turned on all the time?
A: Occlusion is expensive computationally. This means it will drain your battery faster, and your device may heat up quicker. If your device heats up, Apple will slow down the frame rate.
Q: What does “Use Plane Anchor” is the settings screen mean?
A: Using a Plane Anchor casts a nice shadow on the ground. This makes the virtual content (the ARBot characters) look more like they are actually in the room. Apple has several ways to add (“anchor”) virtual content to the real world. If you have an Apple device, turning on occlusion and turning off plane anchor adds a slightly more subtle shadow to the ground. Genrally, we recommend you always use Plane Anchor.
Known Issues
We wish every program was perfect, but we know there will always be bugs or other issues. Here are known issues with ARBots.
Issue: ARBot characters suddenly move from their location.
Discussion: This generally happens under two conditions: (1) when the device (your iPhone or iPad) doesn’t have a really good idea where it is in the room; and (2) switching to the “Virtual-Room” (under “Menu > Lighting”) for the first time in an AR mode.
To reduce the chance of this happening, slowly scan the room more, including walking around and looking in different directions. This gives the device a better chance to learn where it is.
Work around: Clear the ARBots (“Menu > Clear ARBots > Confirm”) and place them again.
Issue: Crash when switching screens.
Discussion: We have had a few people notify us that when switching between screens, especially quickly, the app crashes. We are currently investigating this issue. We think the app is saving state (e.g., recording locally the fact that you have made a purchase), and that hasn’t finished saving that state when the screen goes away. The purchase is still properly recorded (in all instances we are aware of).
Issue: No language localization.
Discussion: Currently all buttons and menu items are in US English. We plan to get more language localizations into the next update.
Work around: None.