Early Access for ARKit for iOS available now on GitHub

[AnadinX]

@eryang;746111

hi，the app can run now, but i still got a black screen even i set the game mode. how you did that?
Thank you so much.

Hmm interesting, for me I loaded the ARSample map, and in its world settings I set the game mode to ARGame Mode. Run thought all the BP’s too, make sure there are nodes with red or yellow bars on the bottom.

[Porky_Grout]

In the 4.17 “official release” drop, there is not AR sample scene that I see.

I am able to activate the plugin, build for the device. I even can add an ARKitCameraActor and after adding the plist permissions it asks to activate the camera.

But still a black screen. What needs to be in the scene? There is not a AR Game mode in that release. I looked into grabbing the project from the github branch but I didn’t see the test level in there either.

[AnadinX]

Hmm not sure, I grabbed the whole ARSample folder (after building and running once from Xcode) and then opened that project in 4.17 final.

[Porky_Grout]

Anadin,

Where was the actual scene filein that ARSample uproject? I don’t see any scene.

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/tree/dev-ar-kit

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/tree/dev-ar-kit/Samples/ARSample

UPDATE: I am making progress creating it from scratch based on info from this thread. But the lack of documentation for how to use the plugin or in the code is pretty frustrating.

IOS11 ARkit?

UPDATE UPDATE:
I did figure out how to get the content. You need to run the Setup.bat on the ARKit branch for github. It will pull down the content. It is not in the repo directly that I can see. I will deconstruct how those are made so we can get some explanation of what all those components do.

[Burly]

Looks like Epic is doing some cleanup.

The dev-arkit branch has now been deleted… I was just looking at the pull request that fixed the compilation for XCode 9 Beta 3 & 4 last night, which is now closed.

I’ve been away for a couple weeks, after struggling with that damned arkit branch in my off time through July. I now see in the 4.17 release notes a small blurb about this being an experimental plugin. No other notes or documentation. Haven’t fired it up yet, but from above seems like it’s a good thing I still have a copy of that ARSample content if nothing is included in the new binary.

Is there another place where we should find info and/or get official feedback from Epic? It doesn’t seem to be in these forums.

I’m glad to see a lot of posts here from several people tackling Unreal AR. There’s been a lot of shared frustration picking away at this, and it’d be excellent if we could cobble together a “state of the current” setup guide.

[shatieshack78]

Finding the ARSample Project

@;743712

@Burly - Interesting. Sounds like we have similar Macs (and I’m testing on an iPhone 7). I tried XCode 9 Beta 2 at one point (and deleted it already), but the editor always crashed no matter what I tried with the dev-ar-kit branch.

To try out the sample in 4.17p3 I did the following:

• copy the ARSample directory from dev-ar-kit to a new location
• open the project with 4.17p3
• go to plugins in the menu: Plugins in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.3 Documentation
• search for ARKit and enable it
• your project should now have access to all the ARKit components
  Or at least those were roughly the steps.

I’m about halfway through dev on my AR project, but I have yet to test it on an actual device =/ Hopefully a fix is coming soon =]

I had cloned the branch I reached from the dev-ar-kit link but what was actually cloned was NOT the dev-ar-kit and thus I didn’t have an ARSample project to help get me started. Trying to start from a regular project doesn’t allow you to add any of the ARKit objects into the staging area. Is there any way to still get this ARSample project?

[marcomanni]

@shatieshack78;749017

Is there any way to still get this ARSample project?

Maybe someone can upload it… I need it too

[Ivey]

Hey all, glad to see so many people are diving into the ARKit integration!

We did remove the branch from GitHub for now, as 4.17 has it integrated and offers much more current support for ARKit. It’s crashing in 4.17 for a number of folks due to the use of a different version of Metal. As is the case with any shiny new tech, implementation on both sides (ARKit API and UE4) is evolving very rapidly and we anticipate a few inevitable changes from now until 4.18 as iOS 11 comes out of beta and rolls out to devices everywhere.

We’re currently working up a blog on how to get moving with the implementation that is in 4.17 and expect it to be out this next week. Thanks for hanging in there with us in these super early days!

[Burly]

[MENTION=14973] [/MENTION] –> Thank you for the update! There are many here who are eager to concentrate on the content side of UE|ARKit, and to move on past the getting-it-setup part

[Ivey]

@Burly;749113

@Chance_Ivey –> Thank you for the update! There are many here who are eager to concentrate on the content side of UE|ARKit, and to move on past the getting-it-setup part

Count me as one of you! iOS 11 Beta on device, Xcode 9 Beta 3 and the plugin enabled in 4.17 should get you deploying today BTW.

[shatieshack78]

@;749077

We’re currently working up a blog on how to get moving with the implementation that is in 4.17 and expect it to be out this next week. Thanks for hanging in there with us in these super early days!

Thanks for the update.

I am trying as hard as I can to get up and running and would love a simple step-by-step to recreate the ARSample project or any basic sample project for that matter. trying to present some spec AR tech at work this weekend.

Here is what I’ve done so far to create an AR project:

My build crashes on launch of the app (on iPhone 7Plus)
I have the Mobile starter content project. (The project with the Table and two chairs.)
I removed the standard sky sphere and replaced it with a new SM_SkySphere
I then build a new texture material using AppleARKitCameraTexture in a TextureSample Node feeding the BaseColor property of the Root Material node
I apply this material to the SM_SkySphere material property.
I Added AppleARKitCameraActor and made it a child of the PlayerStart Actor (Don’t know if this is an issue)
I deleted the atmospheric fog

Other that that i kept the Mobile starter project as is.

I changed the project settings to use Metal 1.2 renderer as well as setting the iOS target to 11.0. My phone is using the latest iOS 11 beta.
Am I missing something?

[shatieshack78]

@Lander;747833

Anadin,

Where was the actual scene filein that ARSample uproject? I don’t see any scene.

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/tree/dev-ar-kit

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/tree/dev-ar-kit/Samples/ARSample

UPDATE: I am making progress creating it from scratch based on info from this thread. But the lack of documentation for how to use the plugin or in the code is pretty frustrating.
IOS11 ARkit? - Mobile - Epic Developer Community Forums

UPDATE UPDATE:
I did figure out how to get the content. You need to run the Setup.bat on the ARKit branch for github. It will pull down the content. It is not in the repo directly that I can see. I will deconstruct how those are made so we can get some explanation of what all those components do.

If you make any more headway I would love to find out what you did to recreate the project. I have posted the steps I’ve done here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?146909-IOS11-ARkit&p=749252&viewfull=1#post749252

Still can’t figure it out.

[HEGI]

@;749077

Hey all, glad to see so many people are diving into the ARKit integration!

We did remove the branch from GitHub for now, as 4.17 has it integrated and offers much more current support for ARKit. It’s crashing in 4.17 for a number of folks due to the use of a different version of Metal. As is the case with any shiny new tech, implementation on both sides (ARKit API and UE4) is evolving very rapidly and we anticipate a few inevitable changes from now until 4.18 as iOS 11 comes out of beta and rolls out to devices everywhere.

We’re currently working up a blog on how to get moving with the implementation that is in 4.17 and expect it to be out this next week. Thanks for hanging in there with us in these super early days!

Thanks for the update. Really looking forward to play around with ARKit.

Is full binary support coming with 4.18 or 4.19 (ie. deploying from windows with bp only) ?

[Porky_Grout]

@shatieshack78;749294

If you make any more headway I would love to find out what you did to recreate the project. I have posted the steps I’ve done here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?146909-IOS11-ARkit&p=749252&viewfull=1#post749252

Still can’t figure it out.

It sounds like they will be adding a tutorial this week. But I found that the sample was complicated enough that you can’t really hope to recreate it. The camera material alone is very complicated.

So here is the content project from GitHub that worked pretty well for me. The only bug I have is the device tends to start oriented upside down though will eventually right itself as I listed in another post.

Google Drive: Sign-in

Will remove once they release a working tutorial.

[shatieshack78]

Thank you SOOOO much for this!!

[anonymous_user_7153e85d]

@Lander;749978

It sounds like they will be adding a tutorial this week. But I found that the sample was complicated enough that you can’t really hope to recreate it. The camera material alone is very complicated.

So here is the content project from GitHub that worked pretty well for me. The only bug I have is the device tends to start oriented upside down though will eventually right itself as I listed in another post.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_iV3Xhn7u4XTGU1N1BVaVdHMEk/view?usp=sharing

Will remove once they release a working tutorial.

Hi , thanks so much for posting the sample and sharing it via google drive.
I got everything to compile and remote build on a windows machine/mac mini over ssh (4.17 release) - but then I tried to deploy it to an iPhone 6S and got the error that the iOS version was too low.

I found the fix for this in this thread: IOS11 ARkit? - Mobile - Epic Developer Community Forums
After I realized that I needed also to recompile the UnrealBuildTool.exe (just open UnrealBuildTool.csproj in Visual Studio and build it) I could deploy the ipa on my iPhone through iTunes.

Now the next, hopefully last issue is that I only see a black screen and small blue flashes every now and then.
Anyone experiencing the same issue and knows how to fix this?

[liquified_nate]

@patrick.5thwall;750608

Now the next, hopefully last issue is that I only see a black screen and small blue flashes every now and then.
Anyone experiencing the same issue and knows how to fix this?

I too have been experiencing this issue. Hopefully it’s the last one I experience.

[9Oeufs]

Hello

My github and my unreal account are well connected but I cannot access to the project. Is it still online ?
Or is there another example project I can find to help me begin with ARkit ?

thanks

[sadbutrue]

@;749077

Hey all, glad to see so many people are diving into the ARKit integration!

We did remove the branch from GitHub for now, as 4.17 has it integrated and offers much more current support for ARKit. It’s crashing in 4.17 for a number of folks due to the use of a different version of Metal. As is the case with any shiny new tech, implementation on both sides (ARKit API and UE4) is evolving very rapidly and we anticipate a few inevitable changes from now until 4.18 as iOS 11 comes out of beta and rolls out to devices everywhere.

We’re currently working up a blog on how to get moving with the implementation that is in 4.17 and expect it to be out this next week. Thanks for hanging in there with us in these super early days!

@9Oeufs;750866

Hello

My github and my unreal account are well connected but I cannot access to the project. Is it still online ?
Or is there another example project I can find to help me begin with ARkit ?

thanks

We are waiting for the tutorial this week. Maybe there was some phone crashes and they removed the sample…

[Ivey]

BTW, this community-made video outlines the process pretty well. Check it out!