I interviewed Veronica Flint at the Snap Lens Fest about the Snap Spectacles. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continue my series of looking at different announcements around Snap Spectacles, as well as the Snap ecosystem. Today's interview is with Veronica Flint, who is an independent... XR developer who has been developing a number of different immersive stories and games and working with Snap for a number of years. I first met Veronica through Kevin Cornish. She was one of the lead developers on a number of his different immersive stories. And I have continuously ran into her for a number of different years. I actually have an unpublished interview that I did with her a number of years ago. at the Immersive Design Summit, one of probably over a thousand unpublished interviews that I have in my backlog. Hope to, at some point, get all of my backlog out, but wanted to just catch up with Veronica again and just get some of her thoughts on both the Snap Spectacles, because she's had access to the previous version. She's also been an early adopter and user of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and I just want to get some of her takes on that as well, as well as some of her thoughts on the Snap Spectacles. So that's what we're covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Veronica happened on Thursday, September 19th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:24.818] Veronica Flint: Hi, I'm Veronica Flint. I work on a lot of virtual reality, augmented reality, immersive XR projects. They go from anywhere from gaming, interactive media, narrative, interactive storytelling projects. I've been working in VR since 2014, 15-ish era, since DK2 days. And I've been invited to do the Snapchat Lensathon, as well as the Snap Partners Summit. That's why I'm here today, yeah.
[00:01:53.263] Kent Bye: Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and all the disciplines you're fusing together and a little bit more about your journey into this space.
[00:02:00.405] Veronica Flint: Yeah. So I started off as an artist, basically, like a 3D artist, 3D animation, VFX, until I transitioned into self-taught development in the Unity game engine, Unreal. And I've always wanted to work in video games and then When VR started becoming a thing and more accessible to indie developers, that's when I started kind of like doing like a side transition into this medium. And yeah, since then I've been able to do a lot more of creative direction and just experimentation on the interactive gaming side, storytelling and XR. So yeah.
[00:02:40.117] Kent Bye: Nice. So maybe you could give a bit more context for how the augmented reality stuff started to come onto your radar. I know you had access to the previous version 4 of the Spectacles. You were in a video that was featuring you kind of shooting out tarot cards out of your hands. And so yeah, maybe you could just give a bit more context for how you got into the AR ecosystem here at Snap.
[00:02:57.955] Veronica Flint: Yeah, so I actually, I've been doing AR since they were doing image tracking like Vuforia here and there. I've done hackathons before, but I think I seriously got into AR when Snap invited me to do one of their programs, a residency program a few years ago, back in 2020. And so I did that and thought it was a pretty cool opportunity. I wasn't aware of the spectacles until like maybe months after their announcement, or actually it was announced the same year, I think, or was it 2021? But I was really more excited about wearable AR versus like holding a phone in AR, although that's pretty cool as well. But I really love the feeling of just having hands-free and using your hands to interact with the world and so that's where especially because it's similar to virtual reality so there's the you know both modalities have their their advantages and disadvantages and and so i like that creative liberty of just like solving what are like the best interactions or experience for each platform so
[00:03:59.781] Kent Bye: yeah and you've been an early adopter of the like hands-free ray-ban meta smart classes and so i've been enjoying watching some of your different social media feeds of taking little like it reminds me back of the day when justin tv back in 2007 was walking around with live streaming cameras and he was like broadcasting live his first person perspective and so similarly you're doing that first person perspective but taking these little clips and posting them to like social media and instagram and so Maybe you could just talk a bit about how you've been using the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
[00:04:31.572] Veronica Flint: No, I love it because it's an interesting way of having some sort of record playback from someone's point of view. I also just think it's really cool once we get to the ability to do AR and everyday, using glasses as an everyday utility. I use the Meta Ray-Bans. smart glasses, but they also work fantastic as regular glasses and sunglasses. And so I think what Meta did is pretty smart with the whole partnering with Ray-Ban. It's a brand that everyone recognizes and it's kind of like leading a trail for people to follow and see what this new technology does and then as well as like I'm excited for like having this utility of just smart glasses and AR glasses and also just like having this extension of traditional social gaming you know plugged together in the same virtual space.
[00:05:24.980] Kent Bye: Yeah, and you've also had access to the previous version of the Spectacles, the fourth generation. And then now, with the fifth generation, they just gave all the developers here at the Lens-a-thon access to it. And there was just like a 24-hour Lens-a-thon, or maybe more like 10 hours with actual development time. So yeah, maybe you could share a little bit more of your thoughts on what it was like to be able to develop for the Spectacles fifth generation.
[00:05:46.860] Veronica Flint: I mean, I've been using Lens Studio since they first released it back in 2017. So I thought it was very, very early days. But I'd say Snap is very advanced when it comes to AR features. I've been really impressed the past four or five years of just what they've been implementing. and the ease of use of the software and so like you know it's very easy very intuitive to use if you've already used the game engine it's pretty developer friendly besides like any other like recent updates or bugs there's always going to be bugs so but no it's not it's not like a whole huge barrier to like just try and experiment with something to explore what's new so that's exciting do you have any other ideas of what you want to start to make with it I do. I'm really excited about connected lenses and connected experiences in the same space, whether it's utility gaming or entertainment. Basically, like if, you know, any, just for projects that I had that's originally from either VR, traditional phone-based tablet AR, or even other mixed reality platforms with a pass-through VR camera, like I'm excited to see those come to life with wearable AR because I do believe that wearable AR AR can function both VR and AR, which is exciting. So yeah, people still love VR, but AR breaks that barrier of isolation.
[00:07:11.314] Kent Bye: Yeah, I know that they just had a 10-hour hackathon. And a number of people had a lot of big aspirations and ideas. It sounds like there was some software bugs in terms of just very early hardware and software. That's, I guess, to be expected to some extent, where the be on the bleeding edge means you end up doing a lot of QA. I'm sure over time, a lot of those things will be sorted out. But I'm wondering if you could just give some of your impressions of what it was like to start to develop for the Spectacles.
[00:07:37.699] Veronica Flint: It's really exciting considering that it's been a while since I've touched one studio. I feel like two years ago, Snap has really done a lot to invite all sorts of talented developers from all over to test out their new stuff and showcase amazing content. So Hackathon is a great opportunity. I got to catch up on what's the latest and greatest, mostly the stuff I've already been familiar with, but the interface is similar, it's all the same, not much has changed. But yeah, I feel like once you start implementing new features, I know some stuff gets slipped through the cracks. But yeah, other than that, it's been fun. It's still a very seamless integration between developing in the software and then just seeing it in the spectacles, which is pretty fast, actually.
[00:08:26.973] Kent Bye: What are your thoughts on some of the projects you've seen or some of the experiences you've been able to have on the spectacles?
[00:08:33.140] Veronica Flint: Yeah, I got to check out some of the Lens Fest creations, so that's been pretty exciting. I've been impressed with a lot of the finalist presentations. I feel like the content on this generation of the Spectacus is a lot better, and the hardware is definitely a huge improvement. Battery life is a huge improvement. And I'm sure they're going to have like a sixth generation that's going to be, or seventh, whichever, which will be a consumer base, which will be more accessible. So I love that they're giving us two years to create some exciting content. So, yeah.
[00:09:07.352] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential for special computing and what it might be able to enable?
[00:09:14.775] Veronica Flint: I mean like I love the Vision Pro as well. I just I kind of wish it wasn't as clunky and big and bulky as well. So like the dream XR device would just be like something that's in the form factor of regular pairs of glasses that can do both VR and AR because I see the potential of AR but I know the graphics of it is a little behind. It's still kind of gamey. It would be like super amazing to get like VFX Hollywood quality augmented reality experiences onto a wearable device that's super lightweight and comfortable. And like I see the future of smart AR VR glasses or XR glasses that can replace smartphones. So, yeah.
[00:09:57.377] Kent Bye: Okay, so anything else that's left inside that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:10:02.546] Veronica Flint: I would say just keep exploring, look at pretty unique, innovative XR projects from the past because sometimes things get repeated or some people missed out on the HoloLens or the first gen Magic Leap Boat. So it's good to revisit and see where they got their inspiration from and kind of like compare between the technologies of the past decade of wearable, see-through XR. So yeah, you'll see some of that in the Vision Pro. But the butterfly landing on the finger, there's a lot of repeated history of Hacksaw in the past 10 years that keeps getting repurposed in a different way. So yeah, I would say try to explore what you do, traveling around and seeing what innovative projects are out there.
[00:10:47.696] Kent Bye: Awesome. And are you a freelancer? If people want to work with you, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
[00:10:54.173] Veronica Flint: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I currently freelance and consult. So if anybody wants to connect with me, I'm on Twitter at Cordminia. You can DM me there. Yeah.
[00:11:06.041] Kent Bye: And also highly recommend following you on your social media because you're going to all the different festivals and giving a lot of your first-person perspective. So you kind of transport you into these different conferences. And I always run into you at all these different events. So, yeah, it's just really great to catch up with you again and just hear a little bit more of your thoughts on where things are at and where it's going. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast.
[00:11:25.851] Veronica Flint: Thank you very much.
[00:11:27.506] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. That's a part of my larger series of doing a deep dive into both the announcements around Snap Spectacles, as well as the AR ecosystem at Snap. What I do here at the Voices of VR podcast is fairly unique. I really like to lean into oral history, so to capture the stories of people who are on the front lines, but also to have my own experiences and to try to give a holistic picture of what's happening, not only with the company, but also the ecosystem of developers that they've been able to cultivate. And so for me, I find the most valuable information that comes from the independent artists and creators and developers who are at the front lines of pushing the edges of what this technology can do and listening to what their dreams and aspirations are for where this technology is going to go in the future. So I feel like that's a little bit different approach than what anybody else is doing. But it also takes a lot of time and energy to go to these places and to do these interviews and put it together in this type of production. So if you find value in that, then please do consider becoming a member of the Patreon. Just $5 a month will go a long way of helping me to sustain this type of coverage. And if you could give more $10 or $20 or $50 a month, that has also been a huge help for allowing me to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
