Developing Architecture on mobile?

============ NEW UPDATE =============

Our team has just done a new project for mobile using UE4.

Video Link:

============ Old Post ================

Hi everybody,

Im really interested in creating Interaction Application, especially for Architecture. I made an app on PC ( you can check in the link below)

Link to the PC app: Interactive Interior // UE4 Arch // Bazic Production - YouTube

  • and now I want to progress further. I want to make application on mobile. Now I wondering which platform I can develop on. I really want to develop on ios devices but from what I’ve research so far, I need a Mac if I want to do so (now I’m working with PCs only). Besides, I have not seen so many works that run on IOS (may be it takes more time to optimize the models and building the system on ios?).

  • I also think about Android, but I can’t find any work that relating to Architecture on Android platform.

  • There is also another way, which I don’t know whether it can work or not, that I keep developing for PCs but then I will use a microsoft surface pro for Touch features.

Can I have some advices which platform should I go with?

Thanks.

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Some examples of apps on IOS:

Look at the zen garden project for ios. On the apple store first then open it on your pc in unreal engine to see how it’s made (Epic released the scene on the marketplace). You don’t need a mac to develop for ios.
You’ll notice that you’ll have to make some serious trade-off compared to pc to get a decent quality scene to run on mobile.

Development for iOS and Android is identical in UE4. As long as you have everything set up for Apple’s provisioning system and Android’s SDKs, deploying to Android and iOS are just one click away from each other. Textures get compressed and uglier on iOS compared to Android, and the compression time takes a while. So go ahead and build a PC touchscreen game, and it is ready to be deployed to PC and both mobile platforms. You will hit quite a few hurdles along the way as you learn about the sacrifices you have to make, but it is doable.

Android is by far easier to test and rapidly deploy to whichever devices you want. Apple makes you register each device and go through a crazy download process just so you can tell your iPad that it has permission to install your own app. And just to develop for iOS costs $100 a year. As long as you only program in Blueprints, you can package iOS apps from Windows.

architecture refers to the branch of architecture which deals with buildings featuring the trio of sensors, processors and effectors, embedded as a core part of its nature and functioning. But i am unable to find the architecture on the mobile platform for Android.

Hi Leducvu,

I checked your work on youtube and looks great! i have a project in architecture do you mind sharing the code of your development?

Thanks,

N

For ios you just have to pay the $100 fee for provisioning (there are walkthroughs online to set those up). Everything else is pretty similar but it has a lot of graphics constraints. I built one and just kept downgrading the settings until it stopped crashing. To change materials I used overlap when you get close to an object to push the menu to viewport. I have also seen it done through ray casting from the camera, or a button to show an icon for every editable object. Just ad the ad touch input to all of your click controls.

Hi leducvu,

I have to agree with the guys - transferring full walk-throughs to mobile VR will require you to make significant sacrifices. The detailing of textures and polygons that a smartphone can process will not allow you to be too elaborate with customization/detailing of your design…

Thats why I prefer panorama based VR - no restrictions on the level of detailing and photorealism.

For inspiration, I suggest you check out theConstruct.co and the stuff they do. They have apps like theArchitect and theShowroom, which aim to create immersive walkthroughs on smartphones, but even those are fairly primitive, compared to nice 360 images

Hi everybody,

Thank you so much for your replies. I’ve step my first step in creating Arch Viz on mobile. As far as I experiment, building for mobile has a a lot of limitations but it’s also a great challenging task to tackle. I’ve tranfered another simple scene on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 to test the performance.

However, Im facing a rendering problem, to be exact, SSR reflection quality. As I creating reflective material, everything is fine if I play in editor, but the quality is worse when I play as a mobile device.

SSR isn’t fully supported on mobile (yet) but you can make do with fake reflection, baked diffuse for smaller package size (better than baked lightmaps on devices which support 2048 texture).

We are currently working on the same thing right now. I’ve posted up several videos and examples but haven’t gotten any feedback. We’ve been trying to get this for a year now. We have come to a different conclusion when it comes to mobile. Our beta app is called preParti and here are some examples off a Samsung s6. 06bdda194cb04effac90ff1b57619621d30580de.jpeg a0cb59dfa1fab75835225a9278b26dca7158e213.jpeg

Hi everybody,

I’m currently developing architectural interaction app on android. I’m testing on several devices to see if anything happens.

The app ran great on Samsung Tab S2 (CPU: Snapdragon 652; GPU: Adreno 510)

However, when I tested my app on Sony Xperia Z3v (CPU: Snapdragon 801; GPU: Adreno 330), this happened:

511416eb6baadae1c5c9f096abc9e97eba990625.jpeg

I’m also developing a visualisation app for android and ios right now, so if you need some help feel free to pm me.
Not sure whats happening in that last screenshot though. Are you sure that the version you are testing on both devices is the same?

I think is very promising the idea of visualization for mobile devices , im developing one too.


Im very exited with all these, I tested on a galaxy tab A 9.7 That have a Snapdragon 410 and a Sony xperia m4 with a Snapdragon 615 adreno 405 and on both works great.
These two devices are mid range, so i think the experience Will be better on lets say galaxy s7 or iPhone 7.
About your problem maybe is related with the compression, I always use etc2, even if my devices support a better one it have a better compatibility.

I’m really appreciated for all your helps. This is what i’ve got so far.

Link: Android Interactive Demo - YouTube

It looks great!!

Congratulations…

I need to subscribe on this thread I will need it later :smiley:

Thanks guys,

I’ve just updated the post about our new project using UE4 for mobile.

Awesome thread OP, mobile devices being stronger every year, it would be nice platform to deliver archviz project to client, easy to play for non-PC auditory.

**leducvu **
May I ask you about price? Taking into account mobile limitation I suppose it cant be low as much as simple PC walking game.

Hi chombor,

Thank you. And yes, you are right. It took a lot more time optimizing models and materials to achieve high quality rendering on mobile. This project costs about $ 3,500 for 4 stories residential house, plus those functions provided with the menu.

Solution not for everyone, huh

How much do you think it could be cost analogue for PC?

I just want to start doing some archviz stuff, but in my country I simple doesn’t have any competition, so charge a proper price it’s kind a problem for me =)